Page 19 of The Trick of It

They climbed the hill past the kennels and stables, and around the path that led to the greenhouse. To her surprise, she saw that a second greenhouse had been erected, a smaller one, with two little coal stoves on the outside, apparently piping warmth into the interior.

“That’s new,” she said, pointing, just as Ruby Little and Errol Cagney emerged from the new structure, laughing together and in step.

“No, it isn’t,” Rhys said, looking at his foster siblings instead of the building. “They’ve always been like that.”

“No, I mean …” she said, trailing off with a wincing pause as both Starling wards caught sight of her.

Errol, the Irish lad who’d lived in the stables for as long as Seph could remember, blinked several times, like he was trying to clear away a hallucination, while Ruby immediately grinned and called, “Foul play?!”

“Probably,” Rhys called back, stomping up the remainder of the stone steps to meet them. “Oh, you’re both well warm. I ought to sleep in there with the vanilla flowers.”

“You’ll mess up the temperature and kill them all,” Errol replied flatly. “Miss Boswell. Tráthnóna maith.”

“Good evening to you too, Mr. Cagney,” she said with a little smile. “‘Vanilla flowers’?”

“Indeed, indeed,” Ruby put in, crossing her arms. “For my perfumes. Though Errol here just added a bunch of new things from the Americas that I suspect will take up real estate.”

“Oh?” she said. “What things?”

Errol suddenly brightened, his blue eyes widening as he looked from Ruby to Seph and back again. “Oh, Miss Boswell, you must come back once they finish waking up,” he said quickly. “You’ll be wanting samples for your shop. The Carolinas grow something extraordinary. It is a plant with a mouth.”

“‘A mouth’?” she repeated.

“‘A mouth’?!” Rhys echoed, sounding disgusted.

Errol nodded excitedly. “They eat insects! Flies and mosquitoes and the like! I’m not supposed to be growing them in winter, but I couldn’t wait.”

“That sounds …” Seph said, tilting her head to the side as she tried to picture it.

“Repulsive?” Ruby suggested.

“Like a trick,” Rhys provided, smirking at her as he watched her expression change into something like agreement. “We’ll both want to see that, if it ever happens, Errol.”

“Excellent,” the other man said. “I’m always trying to get people interested. Shall we go inside? It’s freezing.”

Seph was frowning, trying to picture a toothy plant with a grin and a tongue. “You bought them as seeds?” she asked. “How long will it take?”

“Not seeds,” Errol said to her, conspiratorial and energetic. “Dormant rhizomes, stored horizontally and kept cold on transport. They don’t look like much now, but soon they’ll stir, given the heat in the hothouse. Have you ever seen a hothouse, Miss Boswell? Ours is new.”

“All right,” said Rhys, frowning. “She’s not here for a lecture.”

“No?” Ruby said, taking Rhys’s arm and leaning against him. “Why is she here, oh, brother mine?”

“He’s not your brother,” Errol snapped with a little frown.

“You’re not,” Ruby corrected, squeezing Rhys, who grinned like a smug little boy, closer. “But Rhys is. Just ask him.”

“It’s true,” Rhys put in. “And you’re all the poorer for it, Cagney.”

Errol mumbled something under his breath, but Seph could not quite make it out. She suspected she knew exactly why he didn’t want to be Ruby Little’s brother, though.

It had been an open suspicion since they had all been very young, even if Errol and Ruby themselves were none the wiser.

“We’ve grown the most spectacular turnip,” Ruby was saying behind them. “Errol is going to carve it up for All Hallows’.”

“You are?” Seph said, surprised yet again. “Stingy Jack? Did the baroness allow such heresy here?”

“Willa loved heresy,” Ruby said, which got her shushed by both of the men.