Terlu Perna broke the law because she was lonely.
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Terlu Perna broke the law because she was lonely. She cast a spell and created a magically sentient spider plant. As punishment, she was turned into a wooden statue and tucked away into an alcove in the North Reading Room of the Great Library of Alyssium.
This should have been the end of her story… Yet one day, Terlu wakes in the cold of winter on a nearly-deserted island full of hundreds of magical greenhouses. She’s starving and freezing, and the only other human on the island is a grumpy gardener. To her surprise, he offers Terlu a place to sleep, clean clothes, and freshly baked honey cakes—at least until she’s ready to sail home.
But Terlu doesn’t want to return home, and as she grows closer with the unwittingly charming gardener, Yarrow, she learns that the magic that sustains the greenhouses is failing—causing the death of everything within them. Terlu knows she must help, even if that means breaking the law again.
This time, though, she isn’t alone. Assisted by Yarrow and a sentient rose, Terlu must unravel the secrets of a long-dead sorcerer if she wants to save the island—and have a fresh chance at happiness and love.
Chapter Three
“Do you have a name?” Terlu asked the winged cat.
He didn’t answer, of course. She wasn’t surprised. She’d never heard of a talking winged cat. She’d read a travelogue once about a distant island that was rumored to have a breed of talking lizards. The explorer had claimed they were prophetic, but he’d also devoted an entire chapter to the glories of a type of hallucinogenic mushroom so his other claims were considered suspect.
“Is there someone around here who feeds you?” she asked. “You don’t seem feral.”
The cat was contorting himself so that she could pet beneath his wings. In her experience, strays were never this friendly… unless he’d been raised with humans and then abandoned? If so, that would explain why he was so desperate for cuddles.
“I know how you feel,” she told him. “That’s me too.”
That was the whole reason she’d cast the spell that destroyed her life in the first place: she’d been lonely. It was that simple. And that pathetic, she thought. She had believed that a position at the library would mean helping researchers find obscure bits of knowledge, educating curious patrons, and sharing her favorite books with like-minded colleagues. She’d specifically requested and interviewed for a public-facing position only. By the time she’d finished her training, though, the imperial laws regarding magic had tightened even more, restricting the vast majority of the volumes in the Great Library. Only the most elite sorcerers were to be granted access to the spellbooks and related materials, and Terlu wasn’t senior enough to be assigned to those luminaries. With apologies from the beleaguered librarian in charge of the second floor, Terlu had been reassigned to the stacks, where she was lucky if she saw another soul once a week, and then only briefly. The library, as a rule, did not attract social beings.
Terlu was good at many things: she’d excelled at all her classes and proven herself to be a very organized and efficient researcher— her professors had universally recommended her for the librarian position when she’d asked for references. She spoke nine living languages and could read six extinct ones, including the complex and highly nuanced First Language, plus she was fluent in several dialects used by the exclusively seafaring clans of the outer sea. She could also bake an excellent blueberry pie (thanks to a cookbook she’d found in the library), play an eight-string guitar (at least a few primary chords), and sketch a reasonable facsimile of whatever she was looking at.
But she was not good at being alone.
She liked to talk, she liked to listen, and she wasn’t interested in listening to herself talk. She was the kind of person who could walk into a shop and know everyone’s stories, from the customers to the stockers to their cousins twice-removed, by the time she walked out with a tub of butter and a half-dozen eggs. This was not a useful skill, however, in the empty and quiet library stacks, and it wasn’t useful inside an abandoned greenhouse either.
I’m not alone here. There’s the cat.
“How about we look around and see if we can find anyone?” Terlu asked the cat. “And maybe see if they have something to eat?”
Now that she was warm and mostly dry, she noticed she was hungry. In fact, “hungry” felt like a massive understatement. Her stomach was writhing as if it wanted to punch all her other organs. Scooping the cat in her arms, Terlu stood.
The cat promptly squirmed out of her arms, fluffed his wings, and then climbed up onto her shoulder. She tensed, hunching her back, unsure of what he was doing and how he could possibly balance there. He flopped around her neck so that his front paws draped over her left shoulder and his hind paws draped over her right.
She laughed as she straightened, her new furry scarf snug around her neck. “Aren’t cats supposed to be aloof?” She loved that he wasn’t.
He yawned in her ear.
“Any suggestions for which way to go?” Several paths split from the white spiral stove and its toasty blue bench, disappearing into the greenery as they curved out of sight. One led back to the door she’d come through, but any of the others could lead to help and (hopefully) an explanation. Perhaps there was a grand house associated with this greenhouse. Or even a village. She wouldn’t know until she looked, and she had zero interest in sitting around, waiting for someone to come looking for her, especially after her experience with nearly freezing outside in the snowy woods. “How about left?”
As if in answer, he swatted her face with his tail. She decided that was a yes.
She started down the gravel path between wide-leaf plants. Orange-and-blue flowers grew on either side of her, their petals shaped like bird wings. Other plants leaned above the path as it curved and wound between their stalks. After a few twists, though, the walkway ended in a circle with an empty bird cage in the center, its door wide open. Ornate with jeweled flourishes, it looked large enough to hold a peacock. “Your former lunch?” she asked the cat.
Terlu heard a flutter above her, and she looked up. Perched in the rafters was a bird with flowers growing out of its feathers. Roses cascaded from its tail, a lilac sprig sprouted from its head, and bluebells coated its wings.
“Not lunch,” Terlu said, “for either of us.”
The flower bird opened its mouth and sang a trill like a soprano’s aria. Even more remarkable, with the song came the delicate scent of a just-bloomed flower.
“Beautiful,” she said.
The winged cat swatted her cheek with his tail, as if offended she was admiring another creature. She grinned and reached up to pet his chin.
Returning to the white stove, Terlu tried another direction, and her second-choice path meandered for longer through the thick greenery before ending in a glass door rimmed with fancy ironwork. “See, I knew it had to lead somewhere.”
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 plant beds, 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 linguistics extensively, 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. “There is someone 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 he soared, 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.
She knew what he was seeing when he looked at her: a short, plump, pastel-colored woman who was pretty in the same kind of harmless way that bunnies are pretty. She had a wide smile, big purple eyes, and round cheeks, plus chipmunk-brown curls that bounced around her face. She did not look like the kind of person who ever popped up somewhere uninvited or did anything unexpected, which always seemed to mean people were extra shocked when she did exactly that.
“I’m sorry,” Terlu repeated. “It’s just—I thought this place was abandoned, and I didn’t know if I was going to find anyone ever. And I didn’t know what I was going to do if I couldn’t find anyone. Except for the cat. Who is very nice. And soft.” She was babbling, she realized. She closed her mouth and attempted a friendly smile.
“Who are you?” he asked.
I really shouldn’t have hugged him. That was not okay behavior. Should she apologize more? She desperately wanted to touch him again, to reassure herself that this wasn’t a dream. “I’m Terlu Perna, Fourth Librarian of the Second—” Formerly Fourth Librarian…
“How did you get here?”
She pointed the way she’d come. “Through a door, which I was very lucky to find. It’s cold outside, and I wasn’t prepared for—”
His expression lightened. “Oh! It’s you! It worked!”
She blinked at him. It’s you, he said. But Terlu had never met him before and had no idea who he was or how he’d know who she was. “I’m sorry?”
He was smiling at her, and it was dizzying to be smiled at after everything that had happened and all the shouting and accusations from before she’d been changed—the last sorcerers she’d met had been less than friendly. There had been a lot of scowling from the balconies in the courtroom. But this sorcerer looked happy to see her. He also looked remarkably handsome, even more handsome the longer she looked at him. He had gorgeous gold-and-black hair— jet-black streaked with gold that matched the golden sheen of his skin—and eyes that were as green as the cat’s wings. He hadn’t shaved recently, and his speckled-gold almost-beard looked soft enough to pet.
“Do I know you?” she asked. “Do you know me?”
Still smiling, he pointed his finger at her. “You’re the statue.” He had short fingernails with soil stuck under them. She’d never seen a sorcerer with dirt under his nails, but he had to be one if he’d cast the spell that restored her. Unless he wasn’t the one who had cast it? She hadn’t found anyone else. It had to be him. “You woke up.”
“Yes, I did,” Terlu said. Was she not supposed to? Maybe it had been a mistake and that’s why she’d woken alone and in the cold.
He marveled at her. “I didn’t think it was going to work.”
Terlu felt herself begin to blush, knowing her lavender cheeks were deepening to a vivid magenta, which made her blush harder. She’d never been looked at like this before. He was staring at her as if she were a wish he’d been granted—gazing at her with his deep-as-the-sea, beautiful green eyes. “You were the one who restored me? Thank you so much. I… Thank you. Really, I am so very grateful.” She’d feel even more grateful if he’d point her toward a snack. Or better yet, a very large meal with at least half a loaf of bread. Would it be rude to ask for food so soon after he’d restored her life? She wasn’t certain about the etiquette of these kinds of situations. Some sorcerers were known to be fussy. “I thought the transformation was going to be permanent. I didn’t expect to ever be human again. To breathe, to smell, to talk—you have no idea how great it feels to be able to fill my lungs again after so long!” She cut herself off before she waxed on too long about the joy of having lungs and a heart and a nose. Just having skin again was glorious.
He walked in a circle around her, as if checking to see if any of her was still wood.
“How… ” Terlu swallowed hard. She needed to ask how long it had been, what today’s date was, but she couldn’t make the question come out of her throat. She wasn’t ready to hear the answer. She knew, deep in her bones, that she wasn’t going to like it. Instead, she asked, “Why did you save me?”
“Because you’re a sorcerer.”
“I’m not a sorcerer,” she said. “You are.”
His smile faded. “I’m not a sorcerer.”
“But you restored me. That requires a spell. You have to be a sorcerer.” It was illegal for anyone else to work magic. If her trial and punishment had made anything clear, it was that. It didn’t matter the kind of spell, the intent of the caster, or the results; the emperor refused to allow anyone who didn’t have the proper training to attempt any spellwork whatsoever.
“I was sent the spell, along with the statue. You, I mean. You were the statue, weren’t you? You aren’t trying to trick me?” He was scowling now, his eyebrows low and his forehead crinkled. His eyes were still beautifully green despite the scowl, and she told herself firmly that she shouldn’t be noticing that, especially while he was accusing her of trickery.
What sort of trick could she possibly—never mind. It didn’t matter. She had far too many more questions to ask. “Yes, I was the statue,” Terlu said, “but who sent me to you? Who are you? And where is this? It’s not Alyssium. I would’ve heard if there were such an extensive greenhouse anywhere in the capital. Which island is this, and why am I here?” He wasn’t looking at her as if she were the sun and moon anymore, and she missed that. Actually, he looked a bit like a wild bear when he scowled. A handsome golden bear still, but not a happy one. She added, “If you don’t mind me asking.”
“You’re supposed to be a sorcerer,” the gardener said.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not.”
“Then what are you?”
“I’m a librarian.”
“Oh.”
He stared at her, and she stared at him. I’m usually much better at this sort of thing, she thought. She’d mangled this conversation from the beginning. I shouldn’t have hugged him. Taking a breath, she marshaled her thoughts to begin again. She’d start over, introduce herself, ask her questions one at a time, and then—
With a humph-like grunt, the handsome golden bearlike gardener picked up his basket and his bag of tools. “You should rest. Whoever you are and whyever you’re here, you went through a lot. Rest and eat.”
That did sound like a good idea, and she had been through a lot, but—
“My cottage is just outside the greenhouse. You can stay there until you, um, leave.” As if that resolved everything, he began to walk away.
“Wait, where are you going?” Terlu asked. I’m supposed to leave? Leave and go where? Why was he walking away from her?
“I… ahh… I have to think…” He picked up his pace. “I just… I have to go. I have work to do?”
If she weren’t fully aware that she was the least intimidating person ever to exist in the Crescent Islands Empire, she would have thought he was fleeing her. That’s not possible. He was dismissing her because she wasn’t a sorcerer and therefore not worth his time. Once again, like home, like the library, she was somewhere she wasn’t wanted and didn’t belong. Except this was worse, because she didn’t know how she’d gotten here.
“Please,” she called after him. “I still don’t understand why I’m here or who sent me here or where here is or anything.”
“Neither do I,” the gardener said over his shoulder. He then turned a corner, leaving her staring at only roses.
Chapter Four
The cat meowed from the ceiling and jolted Terlu out of her shock. She hurried after the gardener. “Wait, please! I don’t understand—” She rounded the corner and saw the path split five ways, each vanishing beneath a canopy of roses.
Had he really just… left? Who did that?
Sure, he’d said she could rest in his cottage, which was lovely of him, but she didn’t know where it was. Or who he was.
“Come back, please! I don’t even know your name.” She picked a path at random and started down it. A few yards in, she decided he couldn’t have gone this way—there were too many roses that criss-crossed the walkway for him to have used it. She pivoted and hurried back to the junction. “You can work while we talk. Or I can help you work. I know how to make myself useful. Favorite family story: Once, there was a storm coming, and no one had given me a job to do, so I decided to move every single chicken into the house. I was three years old, determined to help, and the chickens were feisty, but I got them all in before the wind hit. My parents retold that every time it stormed—they said it was the funniest sight: three-year-old me waddling determinedly with my arms full of fussy poultry. Hey, you can’t just bring someone back to life and then walk away!”
Except that was exactly what he’d done. He’d fled, as if he were the criminal and she an imperial investigator. She hurried down the second path, which ended in an arbor overflowing with copious amounts of roses. A cascade of snowy white roses spilled over dark green leaves, stunningly beautiful but unhelpful.
I lost him. She wanted to weep, which wasn’t like her at all. She was more of a put-a-smile-on-and-blunder-ahead kind of person than a weeper, at least under usual circumstances. But she hadn’t been under “usual circumstances” for a while, and right now she was hungry, achy, and bone-deep tired. She wished she were back in the library, even as quiet and empty as it was, by one of the great fireplaces with a mug of hot chocolate in her hands. “Get it together, Terlu,” she said out loud. “At least you know there’s someone here.”
It wasn’t much consolation since he’d practically run from her, but she was still better off than she’d been before she knew there was someone else on this island, wasn’t she?
The silence was beginning to sound loud. She thought of the storage room, and she hugged her arms, reassured to touch flesh and not polished wood. I’m not there anymore. I’m alive again. And I’m not alone.
Returning to the heart of the rose room, Terlu looked up at the rafters. “Kitty? Want to come with me?” She spotted a bit of gray fur and a flash of green feathers, but he didn’t fly down. Of course she didn’t expect the winged cat to come when she called—as friendly as he was, he was still a cat. It was nice that he hadn’t abandoned her entirely. “What do you think I should do?”
He didn’t answer, but it didn’t matter because she’d already decided to walk down a third path. If it failed, she’d try the fourth and then the fifth. Rest and food could wait. I’m not giving up. I’ll find him, and he will answer my questions.
Hopefully.
In addition to the roses on the trellis above her, this path also had miniature rosebushes tucked along both sides that boasted blossoms with tiny overlapping petals in pale pink. Fallen petals were strewn over the slate stones as if the garden were a bridal bower.
Thankfully, this path ended in a door. As she opened it, the cat swooped low over her head to fly through above her. Following him, she stepped into an array of flowers more varied than she could have imagined. While the first and second greenhouses had been saturated in green and the rose room had been filled with delicate and elegant pastels and jewel tones, this one looked as if it had been drenched by a rainbow.
“Wow,” she said, gawking at all of it.
Lilies bloomed in a thousand different shades of yellow, red, orange, and white, with stripes and polka dots. Bell-like flowers in pink and blue clustered on bushes. Fat firework-like clumps of brilliant white flowers exploded on another.
Between them flew butterflies like no butterfly she’d ever seen— their wings changed color with each flap: red to blue to yellow to black to silver to purple. She marveled at the ripple of rainbow as they floated from blossom to blossom.
“Hello?” she called, more out of politeness than any belief the gardener would answer.
She walked through and wondered: What was this place? Where did all these plants come from? And the flower bird, the dancing dragonflies, and the color-changing butterflies? Why were these extraordinary greenhouses here? Leaning over, Terlu inhaled the scent of a cluster of purple flowers on a bush. Lilac? She’d never seen a lilac with such large blooms, but it smelled like lilac, heady and sweet.
“Rrr-eow.”
The cat flew past her, his feathers brushing her cheek.
“Oh? Do you know where he went?” Terlu asked.
Whether he did or not, following the winged cat seemed like a much better idea than wandering aimlessly, hoping to stumble across a man who’d made it very clear he was done talking with her. She kept the cat in sight as she wound through the glorious flower beds.
She noticed there were no weeds in any of the beds, despite the riot of colorful growth. The ones with lilies had only lilies, and the lilac bushes were rooted in weed-free soil. A wheelbarrow by the side of the path was piled high with plant debris. These were clearly not abandoned greenhouses, as she’d first thought. A butterfly landed on a lily and closed its wings. Colors shimmered over it in waves, red to purple, chased by blue then green, green then gold. There could be more than one gardener. She’d already walked through more enormous greenhouses in this complex than could possibly be cared for by a single person, and there seemed to be no end in sight. She liked the idea of finding a different, friendlier gardener.
Walking faster, Terlu followed the winged cat to another door and opened it—to be greeted with a whoosh of winter wind and a swirl of snow. She shut the door. “Not that way.”
Landing on the ground, the cat pawed at the door. “Rrr-eow.”
“You don’t want to go outside. It’s cold.”
There wasn’t anything out there but snow and trees… was there? The gardener had said his cottage was outside the greenhouse, nearby. Could that be what the cat wanted? Or did he just want to chase birds?
The cat rubbed against her ankles and then headbutted the door. Terlu noticed there was a hook near the door with a heavy beige coat hanging on it, as well as a thick red scarf.
“What’s outside?” Terlu asked the cat.
He meowed again.
She took the coat off the hook and wrapped herself in it, then added the scarf for good measure. It was soft wool, and it smelled faintly of pine and cloves and nutmeg. The far-too-large coat swallowed her, which she didn’t mind since it would keep her warm. “All right, but if you just want to chase sparrows, then I’m coming right back in.”
Ready this time, she opened the door and stepped out into the snow. It had piled up as high as her ankles and drifted even higher against the side of the greenhouse, and it was still falling, now in fat flakes that clumped together, dotting the sleeves of the coat and the ends of the scarf. Flapping his wings, the cat flew out of the greenhouse toward the forest.
“Wait for me,” she told him.
Testing the handle to make sure the door wouldn’t lock behind her, Terlu closed it and then waded into the snow. After all the flowers, the wintery air tasted like fresh mint, clean and sharp on her tongue.
Ahead were the pine trees, their branches painted with snow, and between them—was that a cottage? It was! With the winged cat flying beside her, she headed for it. She saw a curl of smoke rising up from the chimney and smelled woodsmoke, tangy in the air. Snow coated the cottage’s roof, and icicles had dripped down in front of the windows. It looked like it was laced with sugar.
Closer, she saw it had gray shingles, green shutters, and a green door, the same colors as the winged cat. Snow-filled window boxes were in front of the two windows on either side of the door, and the walkway had been cleared at some point—the snow was half the depth as elsewhere. Someone must have swept it aside before the latest batch of snow. The gardener? Was this his cottage? He’d said it was just outside the greenhouse, but how could she be certain she’d chosen the correct door to exit the vast structure? Surely there were other inhabitants in other cottages on the island as well.
Well, I did say I wanted to find a different gardener.
The cat glided to the front door and landed on the stoop. He pawed at the door, and Terlu joined him, knocking with her chilled fist. She shoved her hands back into the coat pockets as soon as she’d knocked, waiting for whoever lived in the cottage to answer the door.
When no one came, she knocked again and then peered through the window. She could only see a bit of inside, given the position of a cabinet, but she saw the corner of a wood table and a fireplace beyond it. Within the hearth, amber flames danced merrily.
He had said she could rest in his cottage, so she wouldn’t really be breaking and entering if she went inside, right? Unless, again, it wasn’t his cottage.
Terlu tried the doorknob, and it twisted easily. Pushing the door open a few inches, she called out, “Hello? Anyone home? May I come in, please?”
Propelling himself with his wings, the cat darted past her ankles inside the cracked-open door. She supposed this must be where her new furry friend lived. Not a stray. She was a little disappointed. She’d started to, privately of course, think of the gray-furred, green-winged cat as her cat.
She stepped in and closed the door behind her. Inside, it was toasty warm. And tiny. And perfect. Dripping snow on the front mat, she looked around and loved every inch of it. Beneath a window on her right was a bed piled invitingly high with pillows and blankets. A narrow desk with neatly stacked papers and envelopes sat beside it. On her left was the kitchen with a sink and cabinets, all very neat and clean with plates and bowls stacked beside cups. Opposite the front door was the fireplace, with a hefty cushioned chair that looked perfect for curling up with a book, and in the center of the room was a table with a bouquet of lilacs in a pitcher. A little wooden door near the sink most likely led to the washroom. Dried herbs and flowers hung from the rafters, and it all smelled like—
“Soup.” She breathed the word like a benediction.
It wasn’t just the dried herbs she was smelling; it was the rich, heavy aroma of cooked… whatever was cooking over the fire. She didn’t care what kind it was. It was glorious, beautiful soup! She started toward it before it occurred to her that it was rude to help herself when she didn’t even know if this was in fact the gardener’s home.
The judge who had condemned her wouldn’t look kindly on her if her very first act after being restored was to trespass and steal.
On the other hand, the judge wasn’t here, and the soup was.
It had to belong to the gardener, she told herself, didn’t it?
She dithered by the door for another moment, while the winged cat curled up on the comfy chair and spread his feathers out to dry in the heat of the warm fire.
Hunger won, as well as the amazing smell of the soup.
I’ll only have a little.
After taking off the borrowed coat and scarf and hanging them on a hook by the door, she retrieved a bowl from the kitchen cabinet, crossed to the fire, and ladled herself two scoops of cut-up vegetables and broth. She didn’t hesitate when she sat at the table—she immediately put a spoonful in her mouth.
At the Great Library of Alyssium, all the librarians’ meals were prepared by unseen cooks in a kitchen on a level devoid of books. Several of their cooks were high-caliber chefs, with a pedigree that included many noble houses and often even the imperial palace. They were expected to provide meals for the sorcerers who consulted the library, and so for that reason, they often turned out perfectly roasted meats, delicately spiced pastries, and mouthwatering desserts with custards that looked like they were made of molten gold. Terlu had often ordered just desserts for her meals, especially near the end, when she felt she needed more and more comfort food. Once, she’d gotten an exquisite puff pastry swan, a leftover from an imperial party that had been held in one of the grander rooms of the library. Her fondness for sweets was part of why a lover had once described her as “pleasantly huggable,” a description she was perfectly fine with if it meant she’d gotten to eat pastry swans. She’d also had some amazing meals on her home island of Eano: a coconut curry made by one of her aunts that had been known to reduce grown men and women to tears, a duck roasted over a fire pit after marinating in a special secret sauce, and dragonfruit jelly on a hot, buttery donut…
But Terlu thought she had never tasted anything as good as this soup.
Did he make this?
It had herbs she had no name for, but they made her feel as if she were being hugged. It was warm and nutty, and the vegetables— which she also couldn’t identify—were sometimes sweet and sometimes tart and always perfect. The broth warmed her throat, straight down to her stomach, and she felt its warmth spread to the rest of her.
It was impossible to think about anything else while she ate, and so she just ate and tasted the sweet and the spicy and the nutty and the warm, while the winged cat purred louder and louder by the crackling fire.
After making sure there was plenty still in the pot for the gardener, she had a second bowl, and then finally, for the first time since becoming human again, felt like herself. She smiled at the cat, at the cottage, and at the empty soup bowl. And she began to think again.
Clearly, this was the gardener’s cottage, and just as clearly, he planned to return soon—he’d left his soup to cook, so even if he hadn’t been expecting to be feeding her, at the very least he intended to come back for his dinner once he was done with his work. If she just waited here, then he’d come home, and she’d be able to have the conversation that she’d wanted to have in the greenhouse. He’d answer her questions, and she’d figure out why she was here, whether it was intended as a gift or a punishment, and what she was supposed to do next.
While she waited, she cleaned and dried her bowl and spoon, as well as the little puddles of water she’d left when she’d tramped in snow from the outside. That took only a few minutes. After that, she looked out the window at the snow, which was now falling lightly, and the greenhouse. She hadn’t noticed earlier, but during her meal, the sun had set, and the outside was settling into soft shadows. He’ll be home soon.
When “soon” didn’t come soon enough, she picked up a book that was on his desk, The Care of Orchids by Evena Therro, and sat on the foot of his bed to read. The winged cat had claimed the only chair that wasn’t wood, and the pillows were so downy—they felt the way fresh-fallen snow looked like it should feel.
Opening the book, she began to read.
She didn’t intend to fall asleep, but with the falling light outside, the gentle whisper of snow on the window, the warmth of the fire, and the softness of the pillows… she was lost by the end of the third chapter.
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The Enchanted Greenhouse
Excerpted from The Enchanted Greenhouse, copyright © 2025 by Sarah Beth Durst.
