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Don’t embarrass me in my time of need,I begged it. I knew plants didn’t understand my thoughts, but sometimes they did feel my intensity—and occasionally it seemed like they were able to be flattered.
There is someone here as beautiful as you are,I told it, and felt it perk up.She is ripe and luscious and she wants to share your sweetness with her child.The tendril responded to that, budding a firm green tip, which expanded and resolved into a perfect tiny strawberry. It was a small plant, so I knew it didn’t have much more to give.
I promise your gift to me will not be forgotten,I told it as I plucked it, then offered it over to her on my palm.
She appeared more pleased than I felt. “You couldn’t do that when I left, Val—all you could do was make the reeds bend toward you.”
“One strawberry won’t even make a jam, much less feed an army,” I said, looking down. “So it’s not much to show for four years of effort.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” she said, picking it up and popping it into her mouth whole, little leaves and all. She chewed it once, her eyes widened, and she gasped. “Oh my gosh,” she said, holding up a polite hand to talk around. “It’s amazing. This is the best strawberry I’ve ever tasted.”
I felt a flush run up my spine, turning me as red as my creation, even underneath my darker skin. “Thank you.”
“It’s so good,” she said, with emphasis.
“That’s because it’s yours,” I said, then realized how strange that sounded. “I mean—when I was making it—I thought of you.”
“That’s how you think of me? Sweet and juicy?” Her lively eyes flickered with amusement. “Edible?” she pressed.
I stared at her for a moment, replaying everything that’d happened since she’d gotten off the carriage: her hug, her kiss, her holding my hand, and now her clearly flirting with me here. I wanted to welcome it but I didn’t dare—I might have been naïve, but I wasn’t foolish, and until she told me otherwise, she was taken besides.
“More like confusing,” I said, correcting her stiffly, then saw her look of disappointment. “Forgive me,” I went on, and then offered her a still-gallant, but-not-quite-as-personal-elbow to take for her safety, as we continued home.
Xelrim the Twisted’sabode was set far back in the crotch of a river that he’d once twisted away from its banks—we’d weathered several floods there, but he’d always been able to use his magic to turn back the tides. That was where his skill lay, in twisting. He used the reeds on the river’s bank to create all sorts of imaginative objects, bags and baskets, hats and mats, weaving them with his powers without seemingly a second thought, and these things he sold to the traders in nearby towns. I had no idea what the price of his magic was, and I knew he wouldn’t tell me, so I never asked.
But I’d seen him calm a storm once by twisting the clouds in the sky the opposite direction, and I’d witnessed him twist a man who’d dared to touch Shayla’s arm up like it was a curl of bark being stripped from a sapling, breaking it in so many places there was no way it’d ever set right, so his gift was not a casual one, nor were his occasional threats of violence against me.
Shayla was his great-great-grandniece, and he’d lived here for generations of her family—when she was younger both her parents had died, so he’d taken her under his wing.
He was excited to see her, in his own elderly way, and he was surprisingly gentle with the child, which we all took turns holding once our hands were clean under Shayla’s watchful eyes, until she was convinced both of us could do it properly.
“I’ve held more children than the years you’ve been alive,” Xelrim muttered as she corrected him.
“Yes, but this is the first time you’ve heldmine,” she said, grinning at her very distant relative.
He harumphed. “Well, I’ve cleaned out your old room for you. I expect you’ll be tired after your travels—”
Shayla audibly inhaled. “A room of my own? I can’t believe the luxury.”
I expected her to be teasing, but I saw she wasn’t, and wanted to know more of what’d befallen her during all our years apart.
“Yes—we’ll go and nap now. Thank you so much,” she said, hugging Xelrim with her free arm, before giving me a wave and taking Frenel up the stairs.
“I could—” I began, making up a reason to go after her, before Xelrim cut me off, looming in my path.
“Go. Study,” he said, and it was not a suggestion.
I spentthe rest of my afternoon in Xelrim’s barn, where all of my attempted experiments were in progress as I tried to figure out my powers. I did have a green thumb, so to speak, without my magic, and we were in a temperate clime, so I was able to keep all sorts of things alive there without much effort. I had pots of assorted vegetables and solo specimens of different crops, fruits, and flowers, because I still had no idea how my magic truly worked. Was it based on the plant? Or time of year? Or only on plants that only had blue blooms at midnight? Using magic was oftentimes ridiculous, and just because some mage had once deemed me “great” did not actually make it so. By now, I had learned that there was no curse quite so heavy as being told that you have promise, many times over.
When I returned that evening though, Shayla and Frenel joined us at our table, and things felt natural. It was almost as if nothing had ever changed. Xelrim was able to answer all her questions about the townspeople, she was happy, and I was...discontent.
Plus, I noticed Xelrim didn’t ask her a thing—I realized she must have written to him, for him to know when her carriage was coming, and judging by her belongings, I didn’t think she’d have been able to pay for it herself, so he must’ve also booked her way. If he had, though, why hadn’t he just portaled himself to retrieve her? Had he forced her to travel the long way just to trick me?
I helped to clear the table, mimicking happiness until she and her baby went off to bed, then I confronted him. “Did you know where she was this whole time?”
His hoary eyebrows raised and lowered. “Yes,” he intoned.
“And you didn’t tell me?”
