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I hadn’t been down this corridor before, but it had the same luxurious rugs over wooden floors that were in the rest of the castle.
The paintings on the walls were different though. Instead of the dark drawings and strange sculptures, everything here was nature related.
I felt just a little bit of my anxiety drift away as I took in the paintings of lush landscapes in thick oils, and the photographs of leaves and plants.
“Come in, come in,” the professor called to us from a doorway at the end of the hall.
Light poured out from behind her, and I could see she was standing in the threshold of an enormous solarium. The fragrance of flowers and damp soil drifted out to great us as we approached.
“Professor Waita, this is Bella,” Cori said. “She’s new.”
“Ah,” Professor Waita said, turning to me.
She was a large and sturdy woman with warm brown skin, her hair pulled back tightly in a gray and brown bun. It was hard to determine her age, a trend I was noticing among the staff here, but her dark eyes were bright with interest.
“You’re the girl with the vines and branches,” she said, looking me up and down as if vines and branches were going to come sprouting out of me at any minute.
“I’m very new to all this,” I told her.
“Well, I’ve got three days with you, girl, let’s make the best of it,” she said with a frown.
Ugh. Everyone knew. Literally everyone.
She swept her arm out to indicate that I should enter.
“Sit anywhere,” she said.
“See you later,” Cori said.
“See you,” I muttered, heading into the solarium.
There were tables and stools, but the tables were basically just huge flower boxes, filled with dark, rich dirt.
I picked out a stool in the corner and hoped no one would stare.
But they did, of course.
Two tall, pale women at the front of the room kept turning back to gaze at me and then giggle to each other again.
“Today we’ll be forcing blossoms,” Professor Waita called out in a deep contralto. “We don’t have time for nonsense, so cut it out, Miller and Quincy.”
The two in front straightened up immediately.
The professor began passing out tiny pots, each with a tender green shoot reaching out of the soil.
“My advanced students would be doing this from a seedling,” Professor Waita trumpeted. “But you’re getting a leg up. The goal is to force this plant to ripen, bud and bloom. Anyone want to hazard a guess as to how we would go about doing that?”
“A forcing charm,” one of the students called out.
“That much is obvious,” Professor Waita chuckled. “Raise your hand next time. Anyone care to give me some details?”
The pale girls in the front raised their hands and she pointed to the shorter one.
“A communion with the plant,” the girl said.
“Nice, Miller,” Professor Waita allowed. “Anything to add, Quincy?”
“We can’t really force it,” the taller girl said. “We have to encourage it.”
