“Looks like it’s already started.”
A white line darted across the dark expanse, another right on its heels. They looked on in silence as stars winked in and out of existence. It was a comfortable sort of silence, a sacred silence, and Emory thought Romie might have smiled to see them like this.
“Remember the time Romie snuck us out of our dorms in the middle of the night to look at the stars?”
The corner of his mouth lifted at the memory. “She nearly got us in trouble.”
“Wasn’t she always? You didn’t mind that sort of rule-breaking so much back then.”
“Trust me, I did. I just wanted to…” He trailed off, ducking his head like he’d said too much.
“Wanted to what?”
He palmed the back of his neck. “To keep an eye on her. On both of you. So you didn’t do something too reckless.”
Emory couldn’t help but think he’d started to say something entirely different. That the sole reason he tagged along on all of Romie’s reckless ideas was for her.
“She told us stars and dreams are the same,” Baz murmured. “That when she walked in the sleepscape, all she had to do was reach for a star, and that’s how she’d end up in someone’s dream.”
Another streak of white shot across the sky. Emory suddenly yearned for the clear skies of Harebell Cove, where she and her father would trace constellations in the stars and she would wonder if her mother was out there somewhere navigating by the same ones. If those same stars might lead her back to Harebell Cove one day.
“My dad always said they’re lost souls trying to find their way back.”
“Back to where?”
Emory shrugged. “Home, I suppose.”
Baz looked at her for a second longer than he normally would, making her blink, caught off guard again at the effect she seemed to have on him. She let her eyes flicker to his mouth. He looked away then, staring blankly at the book in his lap. Emory hugged her knees close to her chest and reached for the dead trailing vine at her feet, running a delicate finger on a crisp leaf. She watched it disintegrate at her touch, something breaking inside her.
“You know, I think I could revive these plants if I tried.”
Baz sighed and closed his book. “I knew this was coming.”
“I have to start somewhere, right? Why not here, with this?” She pointed at the sky through the broken window. “Tonight’s a waxing moon, so if your theory’s right, it should be easier to call on Sower magic. And more importantly, there’s no one around.”
“You’re not ready.”
“How will I know if I don’t try? The more I read about Sower magic, the more I think it’s a lot like Healing. When I heal someone, I feel what’s wrong in their system, what it needs from me. And I just… mend it. Sower magic follows a similar principle. The whole point of it is to make things grow and bloom. To heal them, in a sense.” Certainty thrummed in her veins as she swept a hand through the bits of crumbled leaf. “It got me thinking… What if I could restore this place so it doesn’t feel so much like a grave?”
She waited for him to come up with yet another excuse for why she shouldn’t access this power in her veins. He remained quiet, which she took as encouragement.
“Just one plant, Baz. That’s all I ask.”
He looked up with a sigh, muttering something under his breath that sounded like For Tides’ sake, what did I get myself into. “A single leaf,” he consented. “And we’ll see how it goes.”
Emory beamed at him. “A single leaf. I’ll take it.”
She stepped up to the nearest plant, a once majestically trailing philodendron, and ran a hand over it hesitantly, unsure how to begin. She opened her senses to the thin waxing crescent above, recalling the feel of Sower magic rushing through her on the beach that night, the way the algae and barnacles clinging to Travers’s body had pulsed with life. The magic was still there inside her, as if it’d always been a part of her. Emory pulled tentatively on it, directing it to the vine between her fingers. The faintest sheen of brownish green appeared on it, but it was there and gone again as her grip on the magic faltered.
She gave Baz a withering look. “See, this is what happens when you won’t let me practice. I lose my touch.”
“It’s been all of ten seconds. Try again.”
Emory did, but again she couldn’t quite seem to grasp it. She heaved a frustrated sigh. “All I see is dead plant, and I have no idea how to restore it. It’s like I have the magic, but I can’t visualize it. I don’t know how to direct it.”
Baz’s arm brushed against hers as he reached for another one of the philodendron’s vines. “It starts at the root, not the leaf.”
She watched, mesmerized, as he wound back the time. The sandlike soil in the clay pot turned a deep brown, and the smell of damp earth filled her nostrils. The stem emerging from the fresh soil became green, color traveling up and up until it reached the tip of the first leaf, then the second.
Baz looked at her. “Like that.”
This close, she could see the spatter of freckles on his nose. And suddenly she was a younger version of herself, the one who’d been endlessly fascinated by Baz and all things Eclipse. She could still recall all the times she’d pestered him with questions, much to Romie’s annoyance, and the handful of occasions she’d seen Baz use his magic—a falling pebble he’d stopped before it reached the ground, the old coin they’d found in the field that he’d restored to its shining state—small things that seemed inconsequential now, but had held all her attention back then.
Emory wondered again if he saw it, this power he held. Despite all his reservations, the ease with which he used it, the control he exercised over it… it was nothing short of incredible.
She realized she was staring at him. Realized just how close they stood as his throat bobbed and his gaze wandered to her lips. Emory stood frozen with the sudden understanding that she’d been right—there was still something here, at least on his part. And here she was using it to get what she wanted.
Baz cleared his throat, becoming a flustered mess once more as he pulled away. “I, uh… Here.” He held up the vine for her and stepped aside. “Try it again.”
Emory swallowed past the sudden tightness in her throat. She focused her attention on the philodendron, trying to banish the lingering feeling of Baz’s closeness. It took her quite a few more tries before the forward motion of growth and transformation flowed through her fingers. The philodendron came to life under her touch, first at the roots, then up the stem and down to the very tip of each heart-shaped leaf. A delighted sound escaped her.
“There,” Baz said quietly. “Now it feels a bit like Romie’s again.”
Emory beamed at the fruit of her efforts, clinging to the earthy scent of this one live plant. But as she watched it, the leaves began to wither again, as though the magic had only been temporary. Her smile waned. Mediocre. “It’s not enough.”
“It’s a start,” Baz countered softly.
Again, something seemed to pass between them. Before she could make sense of the fluttering in her stomach, they heard a sound: footsteps outside, laughter in the night.