The Enchanted Greenhouse(33)

“How can I help?” Terlu asked.

Without turning around, he said, “You can pet the cat.”

She grinned. That hardly counted as a task, but it was something that she could quite happily do. Emeral was still lounging on the new bed. As she sat on the side, he stretched, splaying out his toes and his feathers. “How was your day, Emeral?” She stroked his back beneath his wings, and he began to purr.

Yarrow tossed the garlic into the skillet, where it sizzled.

“Are there other winged cats on the island?” Terlu asked. “Where did he come from?”

“Got left behind,” Yarrow said. “When my sister went to live with our aunt and uncle … She’d had a cat who had kittens, and they’d rounded up all but one. Couldn’t find the last one. They searched and searched, but the boat couldn’t afford to wait anymore. I promised to send him on when I found him.”

“But you didn’t?” It was more of a statement, but she made it sound like a question anyway so he’d keep talking. Purring, Emeral pushed his head into her hand so she’d pet his neck and his chin. She obliged.

Yarrow shrugged. “He didn’t want to leave.”

It was, at least, a friendlier kind of shrug. Before, when she’d asked about his family, she’d felt like she was pulling words out of him. Now … he wasn’t acting as if he wanted to bolt.

“He’s good at making it clear what he wants,” Yarrow said, amusement in his voice. “You can feed him, if you like. He’ll love you forever if you do. There’s a direct line from his stomach to his heart.”

Terlu hopped off the bed—or not precisely hopped but stood up with enthusiasm. After bending over the worktable, perched on a stool, for hours on end, her body felt too stiff for rapid movements like a hop. She wondered if she’d aged while she was in statue form and decided it didn’t matter if she had. It felt good to ache; it meant she could feel. “What does he like to eat?”

“There’s a bit of grouse in the chill box.” He nodded at a cabinet near the sink. It had, she noticed, a thicker door than the others. She hadn’t looked through any of the cabinets to see what was inside them. “Can’t grow meat in the greenhouses, so I set a few traps in the forest, mostly for Emeral’s dinner.”

Crossing the cottage, she opened the “chill box” and felt a breath of cold air. Hence the name. Makes sense. “Is this another spell?”

“Just a lot of ice. No shortage of that this time of year.”

She supposed not everything here was necessarily enchanted.

“In summer, there’s enchanted ice.”

Of course there is. Like the rest of the cottage, the icebox was neatly organized, and she found the grouse quickly. It was beside the zucchini he’d sliced earlier, the vegetable soaking in some sort of marinade. She felt a bump against her elbow and looked down to see that the winged cat had followed her.

Closing the icebox, she fed Emeral a bit of grouse with her fingers, and he bit into it delicately. She laid another chunk on one of the saucers and put the remainder back in the box before washing the grease from her fingers.

“In summer, he mostly eats rodents and birds,” Yarrow said. “In winter, I help. It would be simpler if he liked fruits and vegetables, but … carnivore.” He shrugged. Adding the toasted garlic to the soup, he stirred. The smell was beginning to spread through the cottage, and Terlu found herself salivating. She set bowls on the table and filled glasses with water. She also filled a bowl with water for Emeral, which he licked at noisily between nibbles.

“So it’s been just you and Emeral? For two years?”

Another shrug.

She wondered if he missed his family. Had he ever thought about asking them to return, or even following them where they went? She didn’t ask out loud. She didn’t want to push, not when they were finally talking easily. “The soup smells amazing.”

He carried the pot to the table and scooped soup into the two bowls. He then set the pot on the bricks of the hearth to cool. “Just me and Emeral since my father left. The plants, the ones like Lotti … they went silent long before then, before Laiken died. Never knew why. Always wished they’d wake again.”

“Lotti didn’t recognize you, but you’ve lived here your whole life.”

“Either Laiken kept her away from his gardeners, which is possible, or she could have gone dormant before I was born. Also possible. Laiken’s plants are long-lived, and he himself lived at least twice a normal lifespan.”

Terlu sipped the soup. The warm bite of the garlic filled her mouth, her nose, and her sinuses, and she felt as if she were tasting soup from the emperor’s own table. He’d added herbs she didn’t recognize that made it taste as sweet as a late-summer fruit, while still as earthy as a potato should be. “You are an incredible cook.”

He shrugged a third （or fourth or fifth…） time. “I have the right ingredients.”

“It’s more than that. This … You could make the imperial family weep.”

“My grandfather taught me to cook,” Yarrow said. “He could look at a plant and tell you six ways to prepare it. He had a recipe for a peach tart that I’ve never been able to replicate. Just tasting it would make you dream of summer for a week.”