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Lacroix grimaced. “I don’t listen to the babbling of running mouths around here. I can’t hear for shit, anyway, remember?”
He grinned at me wickedly, and I returned his smile weakly, certain that he had heard about me just fine. At least he wasn’t looking at me any worse than usual. Lacroix could always be depended on to treat me with the exact same surly attitude as always.
“Did you come to work or sit around moping?” the old fae asked, scooping his drink back up again and taking a long swig, forsaking any pretenses around me.
I leaned forward, slightly excited. “Do you have a job for me?”
“I always have a job for you,” he replied, rising to his feet. “Just got in a stock of runeshades. They need a good washing.”
Frowning, I cocked my head. “Peppers?”
An enigmatic smile touched his aging lips. “They’re not just peppers, my dear. They’re cleansing. I thought you knew everything. How are you going to replace me if you don’t know your plants?”
Confused, I also stood and followed Lacroix toward the back of the massive greenhouse, the two of us walking silently for almost five minutes before he led me to a remote section that I’d never seen.
“In there,” he gestured. “In that case.”
“You just want me to wash them?” I asked slowly, eying the half-opened box. “And then what?”
“You should know what to do,” Lacroix informed me. “If you’re as good as you say you are.”
“I never said I was good…” I started to protest, but Lacroix was gone, leaving me in the subsection alone with the runeshade peppers.
Slowly, I approached the box as if I expected something to jump out at me, but it was only a wooden crate filled with blue bell peppers, filled with multi-colored spicy seeds. I hadn’t seen them in years, the peppers native to Steelshire, not Silverhold. There wasn’t even a root for planting.
What was Lacroix doing with so many runeshade peppers?
A prickle of anxiety rushed through me as I handled the first one, the weight of it surprising me. A rush of energy surged through me, and I dropped it back in the box. I didn’t remember them being so electric—or weighted.
“Careful. You’ll bruise them,” a familiar voice warned me.
I spun around as Endora sashayed toward me, a sour expression on her face.
“They’re heavy,” I mumbled, feeling foolish that I found vegetables so burdensome.
“That’s because they’re filled with seeds—cleansing seeds.”
I frowned, wondering what I was missing when my supervisor had just said almost the same thing to me verbatim. I felt like I was getting a hidden message that I didn’t understand. “Lacroix wants me to wash them.”
“Then wash them,” Endora told me.
She stared at me, and I again picked up one of the peppers, wishing she’d stop scrutinizing me. I wanted to ask her what she wanted, but managed to hold my tongue.
“The faeries in Steelshire swear by these things,” Endora informed me, drawing nearer as I headed toward the sink. “They eat the seeds every day.”
I cast her a glance over my shoulder as I turned on the faucet to begin the task of washing the peppers. “Why?”
“Because they have magical properties.”
I snorted. “Doesn’t everything? This is food.”
Endora smiled thinly. “I’m surprised at you,” she said. “Being the botanist that you are. Don’t you think that some plants have magical properties?”
“Peppers?” I insisted. “Some mosses and plants, sure, but not peppers.”
I scrubbed the blue skin of the first pepper and reached for the next, ignoring the closeness of Endora’s stare to my face. She seemed to be right up against me.
What was this? Some kind of test? Did Zen talk to her about me?
