Regardless, there was nothing useful in the late sorcerer’s bedroom.
Taking the green-leather-bound notebook with her, she returned downstairs. “Looks like he kept all his work downstairs.” She dropped the notebook onto the table and then shed her coat and scarf. The workroom was already warmer now that the fire was lit. “This was the only item up there, and it’s too recent to be useful.”
“Not surprised to hear it,” Lotti said. “He worked here. Slept there. But it was still a good idea to check.”
“Only thing upstairs is the remnant of his memory,” Yarrow said. “Unless the bats came back. I had to clear out an infestation of bats the first winter after Laiken died. Relocated them to the island caves. You didn’t see bats, did you?”
“No bats. Just dust and a lot of creepy shadows.”
Defensively, Yarrow said, “Cleaning abandoned buildings hasn’t been my priority.”
“It wasn’t a criticism,” she said quickly. “You’ve done amazing, especially on your own, with all the greenhouses and your own cottage and no one else to—”
Lotti slapped the table with her leaves impatiently. “Yes, yes, he’s great, but my friends are comatose. Can we get back to that? You know, before you lose your nerve and I have to face the fact that the man who was like a father to me is gone—long gone—and my siblings and friends are, like, one step up from inanimate objects.”
“Sorry. Yes, of course.”I won’t lose my nerve. I’m doing this.Terlu began to riffle through the brittle papers. Hundreds of loose papers were strewn over the table, coated with a layer of dust. “The first step is to figure out the organizing principle behind all his notes.”
Hopping up onto the top of a thick dust-laden book, Lotti gave a flowery snort. “Laiken was a brilliant man. A revolutionary mind,bursting with creativity. He was capable of leaps that other sorcerers could only dream of. But he was not organized. He was constantly losing his socks…” Trailing off, she let out a little sob. “Ah, Laiken.”
“How do you constantly lose socks?” Terlu asked, her voice light, wishing she could hug the little rose. “Don’t you just keep them on your feet?”
“He had itchy toes,” Lotti said.
By the stove, Yarrow grunted. “That’s more than I wanted to know.”
“It was probably a fungus,” Lotti said.
“Much more than I wanted to know.”
Lifting a paper up to the lantern light, Terlu frowned at the words. “This isn’t…” She turned the paper sideways and then upside down. “Huh. That’s… odd.”
Concerned, Yarrow asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t read it,” she admitted.
“Let me see,” the rose said. “Ah, it’s in the First Language. You found a spell!”
Terlu took the paper back and scowled at it again. “It’s not. I can read the First Language, and this…” It was extremely unusual for her to encounter a language she couldn’t read even slightly. Fascinating, really. She should at least be able to sort out the root of the words, if not their precise meaning, but the etymology of these phrases eluded her, as if they weren’t even…
“You can read First Language?” Lotti asked, awed.
“Yes, fluently. And this isn’t it. How old was Laiken?” Terlu asked. Perhaps he’d written in an extinct language? One that shared some of its linguistic markers with the First Language? She didn’t know every extinct language, though she’d encountered many of them in her studies. When the Crescent Islands united under its first emperor, there had been a concerted effort to standardize the language of the islands—a practical convenience that, in its often brutal enforcement, had led to the terrible loss of many beautiful languages and dialects. She mourned the lost languages.
“He never said,” Yarrow replied, joining them at the worktable. “He was ancient, though. Lived well beyond an ordinary lifespan. How can I help?”
“Are you good with languages?” Terlu asked.
“Not at all. But I can clean the table.” He began neatening the worktable, starting by carrying anything made of glass or ceramic—beakers, tubes, jars, pots, cups, mugs, plates, saucers, bowls—over to the wide sink on the side. He filled the sink with soapy water and dunked them in. She watched him for an instant, then returned to studying the sorcerer’s texts.
Lotti scooted herself forward so that she was directly in front of Terlu. “I want to help! I demand you let me help!” Her petals were rolled up like little fists.
“Sure,” Terlu said absently. She continued to stare at the vaguely familiar yet not-quite-right words. Putting it down, she picked up another sheet of paper, and this one was written in standard island speech. Same handwriting. It was a list of supplies for the greenhouse. “We need to identify which papers are important and which are day-to-day minutiae. I am thinking that the less important texts are going to be in standard Crescent Island speech and the spells will be in the First Language. We can make a third pile for the unknown language and figure out its significance later.” She skimmed the next page. A recipe for potato soup, using twelve varieties of potatoes and fistfuls of roasted garlic. “Lotti, how about you do the first sort, and then pass the interesting ones to me?” She picked up the paper in the unknown language again. It bothered her that she didn’t recognize it as any of the languages she’d studied. The pattern of words was familiar, but the letters… They shouldn’t be combined in that way. Belatedly, she realized that Lotti hadn’t budged. “Sorry. You don’t have to, if you don’t want to. Would you rather do something else?” She hadn’t meant to boss the plant around.
“You… you want me to…”
Terlu glanced at Yarrow. She didn’t know what she’d said to upset the little rose.
“You trust me to…” Lotti sniffled. “I didn’t think you’d say yes. He never let me help, no matter how badly I wanted to. Said I was too little, that I was to look pretty and not…” The rose appeared to be crying, even though she had no eyes and no tear ducts. Water pooled on the tips of her purple petals. “I’d always ask, and he’d always say no.”
