She opened the latch and went inside… into another equally large greenhouse.
This second greenhouse was so thick with humidity that the glass walls dripped with moisture. Sweat pooled in Terlu’s armpits, and she was grateful her tunic was thin. The air felt heavy, and it was an effort to fill her lungs.
She looked up and squinted at the top of the greenhouse. Cradled beneath its glass peak was an orb that looked to be made of molten gold. An imitation sun, it swam with every shade of yellow, from pale lemon to deep amber. Circling it were dragonflies with sparkling diamond-like bodies and golden wings. They danced together in pairs and trios in a musicless promenade.
Beneath the false sun and its insect dancers, the plants in this room smelled like stew, in particular one with cabbages that had been allowed to simmer for too many hours. She wrinkled her nose, and the cat sneezed. He shifted, tickling her neck with his feathers, as he sat upright on her left shoulder.
“Yeah, I think it stinks too,” she said to him.
The flowers, though, were extraordinary: six-foot scarlet blooms shaped like trumpets, sprays of yellow heart-shaped blossoms, and deep purple flowers with thorns as long as her arm. Most grew directly in beds of soil, but a few cascaded from pots. Oblivious to the heat, more diamond dragonflies flitted between them, each exquisite, twinkling as they flew, drawn to the lurid blossoms.
Holding her sleeve over her nose, Terlu hurried through the swampy greenhouse. Moss and vines choked every inch of the plantbeds, and she heard water dripping and trickling all around her. The gravel was soggy beneath her feet, and frequently she had to hop over puddles. But the path was straight and soon she and the cat reached the door on the opposite side, framed by two more scarlet trumpet flowers. She opened it and plunged through.
Greenhouse number three was full of ferns. It smelled like a summer forest and was far cooler than the prior room, with fans that rotated overhead instead of a miniature sun. Even the colors were more restful: soft, almost furry green in every direction. “Much better,” Terlu said, and the no-longer-overheated winged cat flopped bonelessly around her neck as if in full agreement.
She walked farther in along a path made of gray and blue slate of various shades. Like in the prior rooms, it split into multiple branches that were swallowed by greenery. On the side of every path were more and more ferns. She’d never imagined the world held this many different varieties of ferns: fluffy fronds and pointy fronds and red ones and yellow-spotted ones and… Goodness, it was an excessive number of ferns.
Terlu tried calling out again, just in case. “Hello? Is anyone here?”
She didn’t expect an answer, and she didn’t get one.
The silence pressed in on her, and she felt herself gulping for air.You’re okay,she told herself.You’ll find someone.Reaching up, Terlu stroked the cat’s neck. There had to be someone here, at least to feed the cat.
She kept to the widest route, hoping it would lead to the exit. Above her, two fans whooshed softly, drowning out the soft patter of the falling snow.
Sure enough, Terlu found the next door, framed in the same delicate ironwork as the others. “How many greenhouses are there?” she asked as she opened it. She was proud that her voice only shook a little, even if it didn’t fill the cavernous room. She spoke louder. “And do these count as multiple greenhouses, or is it a single greenhouse with multiple rooms? If so, are they greenrooms? No, that doesn’t sound right. Greenhouses within a greenhouse.” She’d studied linguisticsextensively, but none of the texts she’d read had answered this specific question. Language was rife with oddities. It was one of the things she loved about the discipline.
A single smaller room, the next greenhouse was filled with shelf after shelf of pots. Inside, it was the perfect temperature. It reminded her of the first day of spring in Alyssium, when people filled their window boxes with seedlings and aired their freshly washed sheets out on their balconies. She walked farther in while the winged cat purred on her neck. The vast majority of pots only held soil, but a few had a green shoot punching through like a tiny fist raised in victory. Next to one was a trowel.
Stopping, Terlu stared at the trowel. Her knees felt watery, and her lips curved into a smile. “Thereissomeone here.”
A gardener.
Someone had been tending to these pots, planting new seedlings or bulbs or whatever was in the soil. These plants weren’t overgrown and neglected; they were new growth, clear of weeds and debris. “Hello? Hello!” She rushed through the rows of pots into the next greenhouse—and walked directly into the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen.
It was a room full of roses.
Everywhere she looked, roses climbed out of pots and over trellises, up the windows and into the cupola, every shade imaginable: pink, yellow, white, champagne, sky blue, purple, fuchsia, coral, dusty pink, salmon pink, deep red, an even deeper red so dark it was almost black… And the scent! It was intoxicating. Terlu breathed it in. It was such a rich, luscious scent that it made her feel as if she were floating on clouds at sunset.
The cat sneezed.
“Don’t be like that,” she said. “It’s nice.”
He stretched his wings and flew up toward the rose-coated rafters. Her shoulders felt instantly colder without him, and she wished he’d come back. Eyes up toward the ceiling, Terlu followed the cat as hesoared, emerald feathers extended, across the greenhouse. She was so intent on watching the cat that she nearly missed seeing the man.
On his knees next to a rosebush with an overabundance of pale pink buds, a gardener was pruning dead sprigs. His back was to her, and he had one basket next to him filled with twigs and a bag that was filled with clippers, trowels, and other tools.
“Oh!” she cried. “Hello, hello!”
Startled, he dropped his clippers as he jumped to his feet. The clippers clattered onto the slate as he swiftly turned to face her.
Without thinking about whether she should or not, whether it was appropriate or not, whether it was welcome or not, Terlu threw herself forward and hugged him. She wrapped her arms around him, pinning his arms to his sides, and she squeezed, her cheek pressed to his chest. It had been so very long since she’d touched anyone. Clinging to him, connecting with him, made her feel like she was really, truly here and whole again. “I’m alive, and you’re real!”
A second later, she realized she was hugging someone she’d never met and who might not want to be hugged, and she sprang backward—and the moment of connection was over. “Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have— I’m so terribly sorry. I won’t do that again.”
He looked shocked, as if she’d dumped a bucket of water on his head.
He also looked very handsome, even though there was a smear of dirt on his gold-hued cheek that she very much wanted to wipe off. She resisted the urge, though, since he was looking at her with so much confusion and alarm in his face that she thought he might flee if she tried.
