The Enchanted Greenhouse(38)

Quickly, Yarrow caught her, cupped in his hands. “You don’t want to do that.”

“Hey! Why—”

A tiny dragon, about the size of a teacup, shot between the stalks. It breathed a candle-size spurt of fire at Lotti and then soared upward. It flew in front of Terlu, only inches from her face.

It was exquisite: an exact miniature of the great dragons of Ilreka. Each scale was a tiny jewel, and its wings were as delicate as a butterfly’s. It looked as if it were made of blown glass. “Wow,” she breathed. “I thought you might be joking.” The leafy mice had been fascinating, but this … this was extraordinary.

“I never joke about pollinators,” Yarrow said.

“Wait, pollinators?” Terlu asked. “They act like bees? Fascinating.” She turned in a circle, looking at the array of sunflowers—they stretched as far as she could see. Little dragons flitted from one sunflower to another, landing on the brown hearts of the flowers.

“What do you call a bee that’s been put under a spell?” Lotti asked.

Terlu raised her eyebrows at the little rose.

“Bee-witched.”

“No,” Yarrow said.

They walked into the sunflower maze and immediately the path split. “Keep a wall to our left at all times,” Terlu suggested. “It won’t be quick, but if we keep a wall to our left, it’ll eventually lead us through.”

“Why do bees hum?” Lotti asked. “Because they can’t remember the words.”

Terlu let her fingers brush the sunflower leaves to her left as they walked. It was only a few yards in before they hit a dead end, but she didn’t slow—she kept her fingers out, brushing the leaves as they walked.

At each junction, she chose left.

“What’s a bee’s favorite flower?”

“Please don’t say bee-gonia,” Yarrow growled.

“Ooh, you’re good,” Lotti said. “How about, what does the bee say to—”

Terlu held up her hand. What was that sound? She looked up and saw a flock—a school? a flight? a herd?—of miniature dragons. Hissing, they spiraled in the air. Their wings glowed in the unearthly amber-and-green light from the false sky.

Yarrow called, “Emeral, no!”

High in the sky, the winged cat dove at them, and they scattered. Flapping his wings, he changed directions and flew after the flock.

“Ooh, a perfect distraction,” Lotti said. She darted down Yarrow’s leg and between the stalks before either Yarrow or Terlu could stop her. In a few seconds, she was out of sight.

“Come back,” Terlu called. “We have to stick together!”

One of the dragons, a ruby-red beauty, wheeled midair and then flew toward the maze. It disappeared behind the heads of the flowers. Terlu shoved aside the stalks to rush after Lotti—

The flock of dragons coalesced above her, ignoring the cat, and dove. Yarrow yanked her away from the sunflowers, as Emeral pounced on the dragons from above. They veered away from his claws. She felt the tiny talons of a golden dragon rake through her hair.

Yarrow held her against his chest, his arms wrapped protectively around her, and Terlu buried her face against him. The flurry of wings stirred up wind around them. A second later, it was gone. She peeked out.

“Lotti?”

The little rose didn’t answer.

CHAPTER TWELVE

For an instant, within Yarrow’s arms, Terlu felt safer than she ever had, as if all was right with the world and everything would turn out just fine. But then he released her.

“We have to save Lotti,” he said.

She liked the “we.” It had been a long time since she’d been a part of a “we,” perhaps all the way back to Eano with her sister and cousins. In the city and especially in the Great Library, it had felt like everyone was on their own, even before they all figured out their paths and she didn’t. But as nice as the “we” was, she still grabbed his sleeve as he turned to charge forward. “Keep the sunflower wall to your left.”

Yarrow shook his head. “We don’t have time to solve the maze.”

“We don’t have time to get lost,” Terlu said firmly. “If we’re thorough, we won’t miss her. If we’re not, we’ll run in circles.” She was certain she was right about this, and she braced herself for an argument—but he didn’t argue.

A sharp nod. “You lead.”

She started forward, and he followed.

“Lotti!” they took turns calling. “Are you okay? Where are you? We’re coming!”

Above, the false aurora rippled, and the sunflowers turned their heads to face it. If she wasn’t so worried, she would have been fascinated by the light show. She’d never heard of a spell that could create such an effect, but then she hardly knew everything there was to know about magic. In the library, she’d been responsible for whatever tasks the second floor, east wing librarian set for her, which often included rebinding old texts and sorting through donated material from retired sorcerers—some of which was interesting and important and some of which was decidedly not, though she was certain that the sorcerer who had cataloged the various ways to enchant socks to be tear-resistant found his topic of study intriguing. She’d been more interested in why the long-gone sorcerer had been drawn to socks as his focus. What led a person to devote their life to enchanted socks? Similarly, what had led Laiken to devote himself to creating this greenhouse? And why had he crafted this maze with its false sky and miniature dragons and sunflowers that—