Carefully shutting the greenhouse door, she crossed her arms, keeping her hands well clear of the plants. “We should?—”
Ollas wasn’t listening. Head cocked toward the plants, he made an intrigued sound at the back of his throat. He stepped to the edge of the narrow path, using his cane for leverage so he could stiffly crouch down. Uncaring of the light rain falling, he lifted his arm, one hand outstretched toward the nearest damned plant.
“Nev, don’t!” Eunny started forward, the feeling of being drawn next to him in conflict with an instinctive need to drag him away.
Ollas’s head swiveled around, his hazel eyes widening with surprise. “You can feel it, too?”
Shit. Eunny pulled her hands back, stuffing them into her cloak’s pockets instead of dragging Ollas away. Or worse—giving in to the irrational pull urging her to step into the grassy patch.
“I… No. Feel what?” she said in a rush.
Ollas had already turned back to survey the plants. “I found these as seeds during the rescue. In the camp.” Wariness crossed his face as he glanced at her, then back at the plants. He reached out and ran his fingers along one of the long, strappy leaves. “It— It’s like they’re calling to us.”
“That’s ridiculous, Ollas,” Eunny said with more force than she’d intended. “I’d need magic for that, and I don’t have it anymore, remember?”
He shrugged, the harsh edge in her voice apparently going unnoticed. “Maybe they’re imbued. I planted these years ago and they never… Maybe it’s the conditions changing. I need to check…” He blinked, as if realizing he was muttering nonsense to himself. A sheepish grin spread across his face. “Sorry. Got carried away.”
“Come on, plant boy. You’re going to get your bandages wet.” Eunny offered him her hand, mindful to keep herself safely on the path.
Ollas groaned softly as he righted himself, stretching out his knee. He staggered a step, and Eunny tightened her grip to steady him. “Thanks,” he said, a hint of pink rising in his cheeks.
Eunny smiled up into his face, a breezy comment on the tip of her tongue. When had he gotten so tall? Enough that she had to raise her chin, anyway. Maybe he always had been, and they’d just never been so close. Close to the point where Eunny could see that he had a dusting of freckles across his nose and cheeks. Strange. They’d known each other for literal decades by now, had been in close proximity before, even if not often. Yet, she’d never noticed he possessed freckles.
In a vague sense, Eunny knew she was staring. But so was he, eyes wide and unblinking as they met hers. He blushed deeper this time, seemed in a quandary over whether to drop her hand or gently let go. He settled for handing it back to her, movements stilted but somehow endearing. It drew a sputter from her, a half-choked laugh that she tried and failed to hold back.
Ollas ducked his head, shoulders rounding toward his ears. He’d grown into those, too—the shoulders and the ears. The former had a nice bit of muscle now instead of being all youthful boniness. The ears, eh, they’d always kind of stuck out, and not even his dark curls could hide that. But on Adult Ollas, they lent a bit of charm.
Charm? Gods all break her. Eunny was certain she’d never once thought of Ollas Nevin as charming in her entire life. Yet, somehow, she was thinking charitable thoughts about him. And… if she was honest with herself, those kinds of thoughts had been increasing of late. Which wasn’t such a bad thing, was it? He wasn’t exactly running screaming in the other direction, so there surely wasn’t any harm in testing the proverbial waters.
He’s good for you, Eunji.
Her mother’s approval was enough to snap Eunny back to her senses. She would not have those kinds of thoughts about Ollas. Flattering ones. The kind that viewed him in any other light than platonic. She liked him as a friend. Anything more was undeserved. More than she could ever ask. Bad enough to be the Healer Who Hurts—she couldn’t be with the one she’d damaged. That wasn’t why she was here.
How responsible of you, Bioon had said. A subtle dig at Eunny’s supposed sense of duty and the selfishness that had taken its place. Eunny wasn’t about to try and change it. Had spent the last six years ridding herself of those kinds of attachments, save for a precious few that she trusted to be safe. Auntie Yerina, Dae, Zhenya, maybe even Gransen, that little shit. People she could safely care about because they put no expectations on her aside from friendship. Those relationships had no hidden asks, no demands for more than Eunny could comfortably give.
Ollas straddled a line between friendship and something else. Something alluring, and all the more dangerous for it. So sweet and unassuming, he should’ve been easy for Eunny to banish. She’d never given Kid Ollas a second thought. But now? Ollas had grown, and she was liking the adult version more than she ought. An attraction that needed to be smushed. She wasn’t sticking around here for long; their arrangement was only good until Ollas was fully back on his feet. Even healing at a normal, unassisted-by-magic rate, it wouldn’t take more than a few weeks.
“We should probably, you know…” Eunny jerked her head in the direction of the Grove.
“Yea. I think I should give my leg a break, too,” Ollas mumbled, shifting his grip on his cane.
As they left Trunk behind, Eunny chattered about nothing, wrangling the shameless part of her that wanted to luxuriate in the memory of Ollas pressed against her in the carriage, the appeal of his freckles, just…everything about him, really. She gathered the feeling up and threw it in a mental cage through sheer force of will.
Maybe her mother was right and Ollas could be good for Eunny, but she’d never let herself find out. She was just here to help him keep his job, and then she’d be gone. Back to her repair café. The life that she…liked, mostly. Had chosen for herself. She’d go back, as planned, and that was that.
Chapter Nine
Do you ever miss it? Graelynd. Your life there?
Eunny’s life in Graelynd had revolved around her mother’s Coalition work, even as she’d scratched and fought for every scrap of distance between them she could get. Hard to escape Bioon’s long shadow, though, even when Eunny’s apothecary practice seemingly had no connection to her. But the politicking of Central District was bad enough, and that would’ve been without having Bioon as a mother. The nature of Eunny’s small-time apothecary work back then was always at odds with the lifestyle and interests of Central folk. She might have felt a few regretful, nostalgic pangs for the idea of it, working with herbs and finding the best ways to help an individual’s little hurts, but the reality of her old life held nothing of note. And with regard to her life now, right now, Eunny hadn’t seen it coming.
A week passed, one blurring into two and then three. The days took on a steady rhythm of mornings spent helping Ollas to his Initiate One class—Introduction to Arcane Agroecology, which Eunny usually sat in on—or the elective, depending on the day. Most afternoons went to greenhouse work. Since Ollas didn’t need her for his office hours, Eunny usually lazed around the apartment and caught up on her reading. She’d meant to use the time to do some research on better repair techniques for when she had to return to Song’s Scrap and the mountain of overdue work. What had survived the collapse, anyway.
Except it was hard to drum up enthusiasm for such an endeavor. Which was how she found herself asking more about the elective and the horticulture side of it. Ollas suggested an herbalism textbook, and what started out as idle curiosity grew into something more dedicated while Ollas was away at his office hours. It was just to make her more efficient while she helped out, Eunny told herself. Nothing professional, nothing like apothecary work. Strictly gardening know-how. This interest she felt in reading a textbook of all things, it was just… nostalgia. Apothecary work was something she’d thought would be her life. Completely normal to feel a feeling when revisiting it.
The apartment door opened, pulling Eunny from her jumble of thoughts as Gransen arrived home from class.
“Coming back to the dark side?” he said, sliding into a seat across from her at the kitchen table.
