The Enchanted Greenhouse(85)

“Oh. I … Yes.” There was so much relief in his voice that she smiled.

In silence, he cooked while she cleaned, and then they ate dinner and prepared for bed, all still in silence. She wondered if his family had settled in for the night, if they were able to sleep, what kind of dreams （or nightmares） they had after leaving the lives they’d built for themselves and then seen torn down.

Only when the lights were out, the fire was low, and Terlu was about to climb into bed did Yarrow speak. “It’s warmer together,” he said.

“It is,” she agreed.

She slid into his bed, and he wrapped the covers around her.

“I won’t…” he began.

“We’ll just sleep,” she said.

He was quiet for a moment and then said, “Thank you,” before he slid his arm around her waist and drew her close to him.

Outside, it was quiet as well, except for the gentle call of an owl.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

At dawn, Terlu woke to the smell of honey cake. She blinked open her eyes to see six cakes already cooling on racks on the table, while Yarrow mixed batter for another batch.

“How many?” he asked.

“What?” Sitting up, she patted at her hair, which was poking out at odd angles.

“One for every three people, or one for every two? They’ll be hungry.”

“You’re making them all breakfast?” Of course he was. She thought of how he’d fed her, set up a bed for her, let her live with him, even before he knew her. That was what he did: he claimed not to care and then he did something like this that proved the opposite. She smiled.

“Nine cakes?” he guessed.

That was a lot of cake. Each tin made a loaf. “If you can manage that many, they can eat the leftovers for lunch as well.”

He nodded. “Will you take them?”

“Of course.”

“I can’t.”

“I know. It’s okay. I’d be happy to. Let me just get dressed.” She could take messages and deliver honey cakes and whatever as long as he wanted. Sure, maybe it wasn’t the healthiest way to handle it, but if he wasn’t ready, then he wasn’t ready.

Besides, she wasn’t in any kind of position to give advice on how to handle one’s family, given that she hadn’t even told her family she was alive.

“The last batch still have to bake, so take your time,” Yarrow said.

“I can help—”

He waved her off and then poured the batter into tins. “I’ll make twelve. Ten for them, one for us, and one for the dragons in the maze. They’ll like that, won’t they?”

“Yes, they’ll absolutely like that.” Terlu didn’t specify which “they” she meant, but it didn’t matter since she meant all of them. She slid out of bed and stepped over Emeral, who was lounging by the hearth.

By the time she was clean and dressed in her favorite soft pants and a warm top that cuddled her curves, Yarrow was stirring rose petals and sugar into a pot to make rose tea while the honey cakes baked. Without looking at her, he said, “I cut you a slice.”

She spotted a wedge of honey cake on a plate with a dollop of jam beside it. Just one plate and one fork. “Did you eat?”

“Not hungry.”

“Did you sleep?”

He shrugged.

“Do you want to talk or not talk?” Terlu asked. Sitting, she dipped a bite of the honey cake in the jam and popped it into her mouth—sweet and airy with a tartness from the lemon-raspberry jam. She almost let out a little moan. It made her feel as if she’d been dipped in sugar. She had sugar for blood and raspberry for breath. Shaking herself, she focused again on Yarrow. He had no idea of the effect of his baking. “I’ll listen, whenever you want to talk. But you don’t have to.”

If what he needed to do was bake, she absolutely had no objections.

Yarrow wrapped the finished cakes in cloth napkins. Finishing, he stared at them and then spoke. “When I was a kid, my uncle Rorick decided I needed to be toughened up. He said I was too dependent on my father, and if I was going to be a contributing citizen of the Crescent Islands Empire and, more importantly in his mind, the Greenhouse of Belde, then I needed to learn self-reliance.”

She studied his face. He was focused on the wrapped cakes as if seeing something else entirely. This isn’t going to be a good story.

“He said we were playing a game, and if I found my way back home, I’d win,” Yarrow said. “He convinced me to put on a blindfold, and he led me for what felt like miles. He told me to count to ten, then remove the blindfold. When I did, I was alone in the dark. Pitch dark. I’d thought he was bringing me to a greenhouse on the opposite side of the island. But instead he brought me into the caves beneath the island. And he left me. Without light, without food, without water except what I could lick from the walls.” He fell quiet. The tea began to boil.

“Did you find your way out?” Surely, his uncle had come back for him. Or maybe he hadn’t been far from the entrance.

“Three days. Never liked mazes after that. Or caves.”

Three days, under the earth, alone in the darkness, with no food and no water. She shivered. “How old were you?”

“Nine.”

“Nine years old, and no one came to find you? What about your parents?”