“Hard to make an excuse when he can haul his own dirt.”
“I’m not talking about objectivity.” Dae’s tone became too innocent as she asked, “Does he want you to stay?”
Eunny stopped in the middle of the road. “Meaning?”
Dae tugged her back to walking. “You know, he always had a bit of a crush on you. Who wouldn’t? I think half the town was in awe of you when you started coming up here to visit.”
“Ollas doesn’t— He’s not— We’re friends.”
“And friendship is a beautiful thing. But I’ll note that you don’t seem entirely opposed to the idea.”
“Still getting over the shock,” Eunny grumped. “Aren’t you nosy today?”
“As if you weren’t ten times worse when I first started up with Ezzyn.”
“It’s not the same! I think the enthusiastically consensual hopping into bed made it clear you two were sharing the same brain. It was the eyeballs that were lacking.”
Dae laughed, giving Eunny a playful shove. “You’re terrible.” She peered at Eunny, a wheedling note in her voice as she said, “Are you really telling me there’s been nothing? No spark?”
“Not…” The memory of shirtless Ollas answering his door rose up in Eunny’s head. Of nicely defined shoulders, light skin dusted with freckles. Gods, his freckles. How easy it was to make him flush. Then there was the pleased, possessive warmth that was always trying to spread through her belly. “Not that I can?—”
“There is! You do have a spark.”
Eunny remembered waking up and being covered by his blanket. She’d felt a pang of regret at waking up alone. She remembered all of it with a level of detail that meant something, and her willful ignorance was running out.
“Why do you look less than happy about this?” Dae asked. “I know he’s not your usual type, but?—”
“I don’t have a type. And it’s not a spark, it’s just nerves and pent-up, you know”—Eunny gestured at nothing—“whatever.”
Dae raised her eyebrows. “Sure, but if it was just some pent-up whatever, you could’ve hopped a boat to Renstown and had that friend of yours take care of it.”
“Can’t. He and the harbormaster’s son finally committed.” Eunny shrugged.
“Okay, fine, then you could’ve picked someone else. My point is, you didn’t.”
“Maybe my bag of flings is just empty.”
“Sylvan is small, but it’s not that small. And you’ve got the school, ships coming in regularly at the port. If you just needed to blow off steam, you could’ve. You didn’t,” Dae said. “Doesn’t that tell you something?”
“I’ll let you know,” Eunny muttered.
“You do that.”
They spent the next hour at the greenhouse, Eunny leading Dae on a tour of the elective’s hybridization attempts and then back to the secret propagation attempt in Trunk. That Dae didn’t feel anything beyond the ordinary with the plants, no pull or hint of arcane energy, left Eunny disquieted, though she tried not to show it. If the resonance wasn’t attuned solely to magic, then what? Maybe she could drag in one of the Initiate One students with an affinity for light magic and see if they reacted.
“Are they for restoration work?” Dae asked.
“We’re not sure,” Eunny replied. Seeing Ezzyn walking up the path, deep in conversation with the greenhouse complex manager, she stuck the pot onto its shelf and ushered Dae back into the greenhouse’s main room. “At this point, they’re practically weeds.”
Eunny glanced back at the secret pots. Her negligent slip-up with her magic hadn’t changed the plant, but the intangible pull remained. It waited, a steady hum in the back of her mind, wanting more.
Before she could change her mind, she went back into the antechamber and snatched up the pot to send home with Dae. She and Ollas could always pot up a replacement—it wasn’t like they were going to run out when they had an entire bed full of the things. Maybe the mages in Rhell would have more success. Or maybe Ollas was on to something and the plants were somehow attuned to him—and Eunny.
Only one way to find out.
Chapter Thirteen
Being able to tromp around Sylveren’s grounds without pain was the new height of luxury for Ollas. He wasn’t fully recovered, but now his aches were the familiar kind of soreness. A dull pain that told him he hadn’t worked those muscles in a while. It was the kind of feeling that said he was getting stronger. Which he hoped was true; hauling in a single sack of grow mix from Trunk to where the elective’s work was housed in the Adept levels’ main greenhouse, Sapling, had left him a sweaty mess. His curls were plastered to his temples, loose shirt clinging in places and probably adorned with stains to match.
