A knock on the glass made them look over.
“No fraternizing with the faculty,” Dae called, her voice mock stern. “This is a school.”
Laughing, Eunny made a rude gesture at her friend before pulling Ollas back for another kiss.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Three days after the showdown in the greenhouse, Ollas found himself walking through the complex, once more bound for Trunk. The message board at the head of the complex was nearly bare, with only an informational poster about the various greenhouse hours stuck to a bottom corner. Soon enough, it would be covered with announcements for the fast-approaching Winterfest activities, and after that would come a fresh round of club openings and events and maybe a random call for housing in the spring term.
Cloak drawn about him to ward off the blessedly dry but cold air, Ollas slowed his step, taking in the neat, worn pathways tracing through the complex, the weathered paneling of the greenhouses, and the patina of age that turned the wooden frames a dark shade that was still warm and inviting. Quiet filled the air. Not silence, but gentle shifts and creaks brought on by rippling breeze. The Grove felt cozy and familiar and like home. Even though he’d only been back full time for one term, the place had always been with him.
Would it stay? He’d be leaving again, and not in the way of upper-level studies where returning was relatively easy. He’d be gone, if not for good then at least for a while. Not so easy to stumble back to the Grove when homesickness struck if he was beyond the Valley’s borders.
Eyes still roving over the board, he began to move on and nearly bumped into another person coming up the path. “Ah— Oh, sorry, sir—er, Saren.”
Rai gave him a bemused look. “Ollas.” He gestured with one hand. “Walk with me a moment.”
“Of course,” Ollas mumbled, falling into step beside him as Rai continued along the path.
Rai was wearing his teaching robes even though classes weren’t in session, some dirt smudging the sleeves. In one hand he held a cutting from the Trunk’s protector vine, secure in a glass vial filled with blue-tinted water. Strange for Ollas to be nervous now considering that they’d spent the last three months as colleagues. But then, being colleagues with a Master grovetender had always been a disconcerting notion for him.
“You’ve been busy,” Rai said. “How are you holding up?”
“I, um, well, I think?”
“You think,” Rai repeated.
“As well as can be expected. The school’s been very… accommodating.”
An understatement, and maybe even something of a dodge. Ollas wasn’t in any trouble, formal or otherwise. When Ollas had offered to resign, seeing as he’d piqued the wrath of one of Graelynd’s most powerful ruling bodies, the dean wouldn’t hear of it. After giving his account of the events to Rai and the dean, he’d expected to be questioned by the school board, the Restorers, maybe even shipped down to Graelynd for gods-all-knew whatever reason to be grilled by Coalition folk or one of the Councils. Instead, the dean had told him to pack his bags and keep his head down for a while for everything to blow over. A sabbatical. It was laughable, considering he’d only been teaching for one term, but Ollas had taken the out, thanked the school, and negotiated seeing through his professional duties for his Initiate One class and the elective.
There was still much posturing going on with the Coalition, whispers of treasonous acts going on behind closed doors. He’d barely had a quiet moment with Eunny since they’d left the greenhouse, as she’d been involved not only in her own debriefings but also several long meetings that included her aunt. Whatever consequences were to be handed down to Bioon, he didn’t know. But he’d faced down the notorious Coalition and come out unscathed.
Better than unscathed, because he had Eunny. She—they—had the seeds, and a fresh round of hope. His head was still spinning from the many turns of events.
“It’s my understanding that you’re being looked after by our good friends in Rhell,” Rai said.
“I’ve had an offer to oversee a course at a school in Rhell,” Ollas replied, staring straight ahead so he couldn’t know his mentor’s reaction. “Courtesy of the Sor’vahl family, no doubt, though the earth Magister in charge didn’t mention them.”
“Which subjects?”
“Arcane amendments and regenerative soil work.”
The professor stopped at a crossroads in the path, opting for a bench instead of choosing a direction. “Sounds right in your wheelhouse.”
Ollas sat next to him. “I’ve been very lucky. I feel kind of bad about it,” he admitted, sheepish. “Undeserving.”
Rai indicated the vine cutting in his hand. “A guardian wouldn’t wake for nothing.”
Ollas ran his fingertip along a single leaf. “Coincidence?”
“Greenhouses have been vandalized in the past. Disgruntled students. Tourists.” Rai shrugged. “We once lost decades of work on a grain hybrid that had great promise for drought resistance, which we’d hoped to send south. An accidental fire destroyed everything in the antechamber. The guardians didn’t intervene then.”
“What makes them choose?”
“The quality of the need. The querent’s intention. One can’t say with certainty what the threshold is, but you met it.” Rai smiled. “Miss Lee found a record in the archives that suggests the mother plant was a gift from Gyo the Earthen to Sylveren the Child when the Court began to leave the mortal realm. The motives of children aren’t always?—”
The wind kicked up, bringing with it a brief shower of icy rain.
