“You have plans for tonight?” Terlu asked.
“Zucchini, squash, and tomato sliced thin, seasoned with thyme, salt, and pepper. I already have dough on the second rise so we can bake a loaf to have on the side.”
“If you already prepped all that, why even consider joining the others?” Terlu asked.
He shrugged. “I thought you might want to.”
“Not if the dough is already on a second rise.” She liked spending lots of time with lots of people, especially ones who enjoyed each other as obviously as Yarrow’s family did, but a fresh loaf of Yarrow’s bread? And an evening alone with Yarrow? She’d never say no to that. “I attempted another variation of the spell today.”
“Oh?”
She told him about what she’d tried and what had happened, as well as her ideas for what to attempt next. He listened as they both went inside and shed their coats. Crossing to the kitchen counter, he began slicing the vegetables and arranging them in a skillet. She built up the fire and put a kettle for tea over the flames.
Seated at the table near Yarrow, she added notes to her notebook—she’d begun her own journal to match Laiken’s, though hers wasn’t in code. She was aiming for a clear and organized record of everything she’d discovered about the greenhouse spells, which was rather more than her lack of progress with the bubble spell showed.
Terlu had successfully extracted several of his spells: the sunflower maze, for example, as well as the singing plants. She was confident she knew the spell for creating more sentient plants, which shehad promised herself she’d use if and only if the other plants asked her to. But the trickiest spell of all remained the convoluted spell that he’d used to create the greenhouses. It was woven from multiple other spells. Granted, she was making strides in understanding how the threads were interconnected, but it could require a lifetime of study before she could recreate what Laiken had done to enchant the greenhouses. At the very least, though, she was going to leave clear notes for whomever continued her work after her. In the meantime, she’d also discovered a spell that would let her swim with the sea turtle without needing quite so much oxygen.
There was so much to learn and so much to do. And so much to eat and feel and think and be! It still left her breathless sometimes to think how close she came to missing all of this, to never even taking a full breath again, much less having a full life.
Yarrow shaped the loaves and loaded them into the brick oven to bake while he cooked the vegetables on the skillet. The scent of herbs and cooked tomatoes filled the cottage, and Terlu breathed it in. “Smells incredible,” she said.
“It’s an experiment,” he said. “See what you think.”
“I like your experiments. They’re much tastier than mine.” Setting the table, Terlu poured water for each of them and added icicles as stirring sticks. She dropped a fresh mint leaf in each glass.
When the vegetables were done, he served them onto two plates. He spooned the rest into a serving dish and placed the skillet in the sink to soak.
“Go on, eat.”
She picked up a forkful, blew on it to cool it, and then put it in her mouth. Flavors exploded over her tongue, and every herb filled every bit of her. “It tastes like summer.”
“That’s what I’d hoped.”
While she ate another bite, he checked on the loaves. Taking them out, he thumped the bottom. Satisfied, he set them aside to cool while he returned to dinner.
They alternated between talking and not talking. When a loaf hadcooled enough, he sliced it and served it with his dragon-approved honey butter.
“You should make this for the Winter Feast,” Terlu said.
“I’ve been working on another specialty for that.”
“Oh?”
“You’ll have to wait for dessert. I’ve been experimenting with that too.”
She grinned. “That sounds interesting.”
When they finished and cleaned from dinner, he brought out a plate from the icebox. It was underneath a napkin embroidered with pink and purple flowers—a gift from his father who had brought it from Alyssium. Birch had learned to embroider while he was recovering from the illness that had sent him there, a weakness in his heart that only specialist doctors were able to cure. The flowers were lopsided, but it was still pretty.
Yarrow set it in the center of the table and then, with a flourish, he lifted the napkin.
“You do like drama—” she began, and then stopped and stared.
They were chocolate-covered orange slices, each slice perfect and plump as a jewel, with smooth-as-silk chocolate encasing half of them. She felt a lump in her throat. She hadn’t known he’d been listening when she talked about oranges weeks ago. He’d barely liked her then. In fact, she was certain he hadn’t.
All of a sudden, it felt like her family was here with her, even though they hadn’t yet written back to the letter she’d sent—it had been picked up by a passing sailor weeks ago, but no boat had returned with a response. Still, here was a bit of home.
Terlu blinked quickly.
