“If we’re not orientating now,” she said, “then I’ll head back to town and let Auntie Yerina know my plans. I’ll come up tonight.”
“Okay.” A faint blush still shone through the stubble on Ollas’s cheeks, but he met her smile with his own. “I’ll find you later, then.” He waved, then went back into the office.
Making her way back outside, Eunny’s grin widened. A confused sort of amusement built until she laughed outright. At herself, at Ollas’s response. It felt like progress, and she felt more than satisfied. Pleased.
She shook her head at her silliness. They were well on their way to rekindling the friendship, that was all. It would make being back at Sylveren a lot more enjoyable, that was for sure, but the little flurry she was feeling about Ollas? Nothing. Happiness at being real friends again. Just like it had been before. Good times. Which was all she wanted.
Her glow of delight flickered as she exited the tree. Almost against her will, she looked toward the greenhouse complex spread out around the Grove. Her gaze lingered on the furthest building. At this distance, the overgrown patch with its grassy clumps was barely visible, but her mind filled in the details.
“All right. First order of business then, buy gloves,” she muttered. Thick ones, the kind that could grab a kettle off the stove without feeling a thing, because gods all break, she was keeping this job.
As she set off on the path back to town, the beginnings of a twitch tugged at the corner of her eye.
Chapter Six
Ignoring the pain in his leg, and his arm, and his side—his whole body, really—Ollas climbed the last few steps to the Grove’s residential branch. He paused at the end of the hallway to catch his breath, gingerly kneading at his quaking thigh. Perhaps stealing down to the greenhouse complex hadn’t been a great idea. He shrugged off his bag, grimacing as the motion pulled at his injured shoulder. He kept his fingers twined around the long strap so he wouldn’t have to bend to retrieve it later. Chances were he’d end up collapsing on the floor and the sound would draw attention. If Eunny was around then she’d investigate, find out he’d been trying not to, as she put it, “let me earn my keep, Nev.”
Which he was guilty of. But it had seemed silly to ask her to accompany him when he’d meant to just look over the materials Rai had brought in for the second trial. It wasn’t meant to be a greenhouse tour. Ollas hadn’t meant to linger. Eyes only. He hadn’t unpacked the crates or anything! But Zhenya had come in while he was poking around, and she’d had some notes on potential first exercises for the elective, and his ten-minute trip had turned into almost two hours.
He’d never realized how uncomfortable the stools in the greenhouse were. The stabbing pain in his leg and side ensured he wouldn’t soon forget.
Groaning, Ollas dragged himself the rest of the way to his door. He opened it as quietly as he could, peeking around the edge to scan the open living area. Empty. He sighed, tension draining away as he limped to his makeshift bed and eased himself down. He started to lift his bag up alongside, but the battered canvas, weighed down with soil samples and a book he wanted to review, ended up on the floor. He’d unpack it later. Maybe manage a quick nap before getting ready for the elective’s first meeting that afternoon.
His eyes fluttered closed… and snapped open as the scrape of a key in the lock reached him.
Shit. Whichever of his roommates was on the other side, neither would be happy with his morning excursions. Despite his griping, Gransen treated Ollas like he was made of glass apt to shatter at the slightest provocation. And Eunny… Ollas didn’t know what to do when it came to her. He probably should’ve asked her to accompany him earlier, but asking for help, for her help—the problem was twofold. His pride didn’t want her to see him as something pitiable, and how could she not when she was waiting on him hand and foot? He was a walking reminder of yet another disaster that had befallen them.
A history that his cock didn’t have nearly so many qualms about as his brain did, because it was still so delighted in her nearness that it threatened to embarrass him at any given moment.
And to what end? She’d said she wanted to help because she felt bad; a friend’s guiltiness, nothing more. The night she’d shown up at his apartment, that momentary surprise when she’d seen him undressed, it had been just that—surprise. He was foolishly hopeful to think her easygoing nature could be anything else.
The door opened, and Eunny walked in.
“Hi,” she said, already starting toward the connecting door to her quarters. She paused halfway there, taking in Ollas’s disheveled appearance. “Where have you been?”
Ollas tried to haul himself more upright. “Nowhere. Just out for a?—”
“You were out doing gardeny, greenhousey things, weren’t you?” She pointed a mockingly accusatory finger at him, advancing a step with each word. “Without me.”
“No,” he protested, the word drawn out and weak and wholly unconvincing even to his own ears.
His good arm, weary from its morning activity and fatigued from having to do double duty, gave out. He lurched to the side, banging his injured limb against the shelving unit next to his bed. The wound pulled, a line of fire arcing along the barely healed flesh.
Ollas hissed in pain as he righted himself, clapping a hand over the sting pulsing outward from his arm. A trickle of wetness spread beneath his fingers. Probably not-so-healed, then. Great. Earthen fucking break him.
Eunny started forward, his name coming out as a startled cry.
He tried to wave her away. “I’m fine. I’m fine, really.”
“Yea, the blood really sells it.” She knelt beside the shelving unit and plucked up the bottle of healing salve the menders had sent him home with. She cast about for clean lint. “Please don’t tell me you’ve been re-using that.” She glowered at his bandage and its medley of colorful stains.
“Didn’t want to waste the clean spots.” Ollas tried to take the salve from her. “Eunny, you don’t?—”
“The Healing Hut has tons of the stuff,” she said, referring to the House of Syvrine’s healing ward by its more casual moniker. She unearthed a fresh roll of clean fabric and brandished it at him. “You look like shit. What were you doing earlier, trying to run?”
Ollas shrank back, shielding his arm from her. “Eunny, don’t— It’s…I can do it myself.”
She rolled her eyes, hands lowering, but she didn’t move away. “It’s manual work, Ollas. I won’t try to use my evil, dirty magic that I don’t even have anymore on you.”
