Chapter One
It’s just one tree.The thought should have calmed me, but I was squeezing my fingers into my palms through my knit gloves.We can plant another one in its place.
I walked along Wildflower Trail with Callan Rhodes, tree affinity botanist, founder’s descendant, and one of two lead members of the Root and Vine Society, the secret club at Evergreen Academy that I’d joined. For the society’s first mission a week ago, some of us had traveled to the tree conservatory in Washington State and recovered a centuries-old quill.
We had taken the quill because we thought it could point us in the direction of theVanished Compendium, a book of Floracantus that hasn’t been seen for at least one hundred years. While we were successful in recovering the quill, something was blocking its locating features. Instead of acting like a compass that pointed to the book, the quill spun erratically in a circle any time we tried to use it.
And that brought us to our current plan—killing Frank, the oldest tree in Weed, California.
My eyes went straight to Callan’s hand, which held the poison that could take down such a majestic oak. I let out a sharp exhalation and stumbled over a loose branch on the trail.
Callan slowed and turned to me, his thick eyelashes sweeping as he scanned my face. “Are you okay, Briar?”
We were almost at Frank. I could just make out the large tree and the letterbox attached to him in the dark. My stomach rolled.
I shook my head. “I’m feeling a little sick.”
“The tissue necrotizer we’ve developed is painless. It will spread through the veins of the tree and destroy any cells—and associated magical spells that it holds—without the tree ever feeling anything.” Callan’s voice was gentle.
I knew he was trying to console me, but it wasn’t working. I ran through the reason we were here in my head, looking away from the poison. Callan had realized that Frank, the oldest tree in town, was the source of the blocking spell on the quill that should point us to theVanished Compendium.
He’d felt magic around the tree on Halloween, then a painting in Professor East’s office of a tree that looked just like Frank had tipped him off even further. According to Evergreen Academy records, the painting had been installed roughly one hundred years ago, the same time that theVanished Compendiumwas rumored to have last been seen.
“Are you sure you felt the blocking spell when you examined Frank yesterday?” I asked, wanting another confirmation that harming Frank wouldn’t be for nothing.
Callan nodded solemnly. “The blocking spell is attached toFrank. I ran through several methods to remove it, but the spell wouldn’t budge.”
If Callan was right, and I was sure he was, a magical botanist had attached a blocking spell to Frank’s cells to keep theVanished Compendiumhidden. Which meant that as long as Frank lived, the blocking spell embedded in the oak’s DNA would interfere with the quill’s locating features.
I chewed my lower lip. It was perhaps the worst dilemma I had been in since learning I was a magical botanist. The Board of Regents had been making changes at Evergreen Academy, the magical college Callan and I attended, and we needed to shift the balance of power back in our favor.
Finding the long-lostVanished Compendiumwas the clearest way to do that, and we were closer than any botanist had been in a long time. To get us over this last hurdle to finding the book, we needed to remove the blocking spell that was running from Frank to the quill. There was no other way. Tears filled my eyes.
“Do you want me to do it without you?” Callan offered, breaking into my thoughts with a gentle voice. He stepped closer and took one of my gloved hands firmly in his. A raindrop landed on my cheek. “If it makes any difference, I don’t feel good about this either. For tree affinities, poisoning a great oak doesn’t feel right. But botanists also know to look at the bigger picture when it comes to how we interact with and use plants as resources.”
I nodded. Logically, I knew all of that. Finding theVanished Compendiummight be the only way to save Evergreen Academy from a takeover by the Board of Regents. It could be the key toputting power back in the hands of all magical botanists, not just the founders’ descendants.
Despite knowing that, I could barely think of Frank without dread filling me. If we were going to poison the tree, I needed to take responsibility and be part of it. “Let’s just get it over with,” I said then gently dropped Callan’s hand and approached the giant oak tree.
“Will we see anything… happen after we administer the poison?” I asked, reaching out to rest a hand on Frank’s bark.
“It will spread through the cells, and the tree will begin to show signs of distress within a few days. I imagine someone will report it to the local foresters, but there won’t be anything they can do. By the end of this week, the tree will have deteriorated to the point that it will need to be removed for the safety of those walking along the trail.”
I noticed Callan was carefully referring to Frank as “the tree” and “it,” likely trying to depersonalize the experience for me. But I had grown up with Frank. I was the local, and I had more of a connection to the tree than Callan, despite his more developed tree affinity.
“And when Frank dies, what will happen to all the cuttings of him around town?” I thought of our annual fall tradition, where people throughout the town of Weed came to the Wildflower Trail and were given cuttings of Frank to plant in their yards. According to Callan’s theory, each cutting amplified the blocking spell’s effect, and the tradition of giving new cuttings to the residents of Weed every Halloween was a clever way to keep the blockingFloracantus fresh.But who put the Floracantus on the quill to begin with?
“I can’t be sure, but since they’re just serving as boosters, Ithink they’ll stay alive, and the blocking spell in them will dissipate when the one in Frank is gone,” Callan replied.
I swallowed, buying time. Rain continued to fall in infrequent droplets, seeming to imitate my uncertain mood.
“Are you ready?” Callan asked quietly. We had put up signs about a mudslide on either end of the trail, and it was rare for people to be in the area at night, but we still needed to hurry in case we were disturbed.
I nodded, and Callan knelt by the base of the tree. With a tenderness that he rarely displayed in public, he placed a hand on the bark and murmured something, and I got the impression he was apologizing for what he was about to do.
He uncorked the vial of poison.
Blood rushed to my head, and my fists knotted once more.
