The Enchanted Greenhouse(80)

One woman with silvery hair and a wide smile patted Terlu’s shoulder. She had a bony hand and wore a city-style dress that was embroidered with flowers. She didn’t look related to the rest—perhaps she’d married into the family? “Don’t you worry about space, my dear. We’ll fix up our own homes, and it’ll be just fine. This is where we belong, after all.”

“Is it?” Yarrow said.

Ignoring him, the man who said his name was Rorick drew a deep breath. “Ah, it smells like home!” He then beamed at Terlu. “Are you Yarrow’s wife?”

A woman near the back gave a gasp that was almost a laugh—she was the one who Yarrow had said was his sister, with gold-and-black braided hair. “Whoa, Yarrow married?”

Excitedly, the crowd clustered around Terlu, led by the woman with the wide smile, and she had to explain: no, she wasn’t his wife. They were friends. She was helping him with the greenhouses. She’d written the letter, on his behalf—

Yarrow cut through the chatter. “Why are you all here?”

His relatives stilled.

A man’s voice said, “You invited us, Yarrow.” And the crowd parted so that the speaker was facing both Terlu and Yarrow. He has Yarrow’s eyes. It felt like looking at a version of Yarrow, aged several decades. He was muscular, though wrinkles lined his arms and face. His back was straight, despite the cane.

Yarrow scowled at Terlu. “What did you say in that damn letter?”

She glared right back at him. This wasn’t her fault. “Exactly what I told you I said.” Okay, so it was partially her fault since she’d had the idea for the letter, she’d written it, and she’d sent it—fine, it’s mostly my fault.

“I’ll ask again then,” Yarrow said, no warmth in his voice, “why are you all here?”

Rorick answered, “You haven’t heard the news from the capital? There’s been a revolution. The emperor was killed, and half of Alyssium burned. The empire has fallen. Until we received your letter…”

“We thought that’s why you wrote,” Yarrow’s father said. “To save us.”

“We’re here,” Yarrow’s sister said, her arms crossed and her eyes narrowed as if she didn’t like the words she was saying, “because we don’t have anywhere else to go.”

* * *

Chattering all at once, Yarrow’s relatives described the chaos in Alyssium.

Terlu knew already that there had been a revolution and that the emperor had been defenestrated. What she didn’t know was that afterward, in the chaos that followed, the library had burned.

Marin hadn’t mentioned that detail.

Not all of it had burned, thankfully, but some of it. Many books were still unaccounted for, and Terlu hoped they’d been stolen rather than destroyed. A stolen book could be recovered, or at least appreciated by whomever owned it, but if all the books had burned or fallen into the canals … She was able to extract enough of a description to know that the North Reading Room, as well as a portion of the North Wing, had been lost.

If I’d been in the North Reading Room when the revolution broke out …

Terlu shuddered.

And then she realized the truth: I was there. That had to have been how she was saved. Rijes Velk must have used the chaos of the revolution to extract Terlu.

The epiphany took her breath away, and as she absorbed it, the voices of Yarrow’s relatives faded. Terlu tried to imagine what kind of chaos there had been in the Great Library … Somehow in the midst of the bedlam, Rijes Velk had stopped to think of a lowly librarian who’d broken the law and acted to save her. It was an extraordinary gift.

How can I ever repay that?

Suddenly, she knew what she had to do.

Breaking away from Yarrow’s relatives and weaving between them with repeated apologies, Terlu ran down the dock, where the two sailors and the shrubbery were preparing to leave. “Marin!”

Marin was untying the line from the dock. “Told you, I can’t stay. I’ve got another stop to make, and this was … Let’s say there’s a reason I’m a supply runner, not a goddamn ferry. But they paid, on top of what your gardener already paid me. And here they are, deal complete.” She was still smiling, but it looked strained. For a formerly solo sailor, it had to have been an uncomfortable ride, even with the help of a second sailor and a verdant deckhand.

Knowing she shouldn’t ask for more but determined to do it anyway, Terlu dug her hand into her pocket and produced the ruby from the little dragons’ hoard. “I can pay. Rijes Velk. She is, or was, the head librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium. I don’t know where she’d be now, if the library burned.” Please let her have survived. She didn’t want to think anyone had sacrificed themselves for her. Or that someone so kind and so brilliant and so indomitable as her had suffered.

Behind Marin, the second sailor, the man with the purple hair and diamond horns, said, “We are very sorry, but we aren’t returning to Alyssium.”

“Plans change, Dax,” Marin said as Terlu dropped the ruby into her hands.

“But you said—”

“Ruby, Dax. Really big ruby.” Holding the gem up to the light, Marin whistled. “Can’t guarantee I’ll find her,” she said to Terlu.

“Can you guarantee you’ll try? If you find her…” She felt her throat tighten. How did you find the words to thank the woman who’d given you a second chance? A second life?