The ash turned back into a bloom, vibrant and full of life. No hint of the destruction I’d caused. She didn’t strain, she didn’t sing, she simply willed it to happen, and it did.
The room began to spin, and hot tears threatened to spill over onto my cheeks. Helda was right. I’d spent my life struggling for weeks to do what she did in mere moments. I loved being Town Gardener with everything in me, but maybe that wasn’t enough in the end. Maybe this town deserved someone better than me.
“Miss Ninnus, pardon me,” Hesper said, pulling the flowerpot to her. She sniffed the bloom, wrinkled her nose, then shoved it away. “Beauty magic makes things look good. And that’s about it. That flower smells of death. And cloying lilac soap.”
Helda gulped beside me. Too-sweet lilac was her signature scent.
“Pardon me.” She copied Hesper’s easy tone. “My magic is—”
“For show,” Hesper finished. “Gardening, though I admittedly can’t even keep a weed alive, requires more than flashy spurts of vapid magic.” Her voice took on an edge I’d not heard before. “I don’t know what you’re angling at, but I suggest you leave this booth before you cause any more flowers to wilt.”
Sure enough, Helda’s flower began to curl in at the edges, but Hesper wasn’t looking at the flower, she was looking at me.
“What are you going to do? Kill me?” Helda laughed.
“No one’s dying here.” Hesper smiled a predator’s grin. “Today.” Heat settled in my stomach, a strange sensation that I decided to blame on the stew.
“Did someone saydie?” Ludwig Gudling appeared besideHelda, scaring me so badly I yelped. Everyone feasting at Remi’s fell silent, looking toward the chaos in the back corner. Ludwig looked on with his watery smile and cloudy eyes.
“Ludwig, I can’t really deal with this right now,” I said, but then he grasped me by my dress, tugging me close to him. “What are you—”
“The end awaits you at Dwindle,” he said urgently, spittle collecting on the corners of his paper-thin lips. “The end, you will meet your doom, you will—”
Before he could say another word, Hesper leapt across the table, pivoting between Helda and me, and clobbered Ludwig to the ground. Every patron in Remi’s looked in horror at the sight. Helda and I screamed.
“Why did you do that?” I shot up.
“You are feeling crowded, are you not?” she asked.
“What does that have to do anything?” My voice went shrill.
“Just answer the question!”
“Okay! Yes!”
“No harm done then,” she said, shaking her knuckles as if ridding herself of the blow.
“But, Ludwig, he’s—”
“Completely fine. He shouldn’t have touched you. Andyou—” She eyed Helda. “Get out. Leave Clara alone. And please, for the love of Haven’s Halls, change your perfume. As for everyone else,” Hesper addressed the café, “if you want me to wake the old man back up and have him tell you stories during your lunch, say aye.”
The room stayed silent for a moment, then all at once, people resumed their conversations as if nothing had happened.
“The Town Gardener position needs filling.” Helda triedand failed to re-up her earlier point. With one look from Hesper, though, she scurried out the door just as Rosie came bursting in, almost buzzing with excitement.
No, no, no. I can’t see her. Not now.
“Clara!” she shouted across the patrons. Remi may never forgive me for the multiple loud scenes caused today.
“I can’t really talk right now.” I made to leave, Hesper right behind me. “Sorry, we’ll catch up soon!” Rosie looked momentarily hurt, but then she grabbed my hand and pulled me right back out the door.
“I have your new Town Gardener!” She set off in a run.
“Rosie, wait!” She paid me no mind and kept dragging me along with her, Hesper in hot pursuit.
Well, I couldn’t avoid her now.
After five minutes of sprinting, my stamina was waning. Rosie had let go of my hand and sped down the last hilled street of Moss, the steepest hill in town, finally slowing her pace after the crest. I ran down to meet her and tripped over an upturned cobblestone, my body flying through the air.
