Page 33 of Homegrown Magic

The courier frowns. “I was paid to give this directly to the proprietor of Greenwillow Greenhouses.”

“Well, you’ve found them,” Yael says with a bright smile and a quick bow.

The courier eyes them up and down.

Just three and a half months ago, few people would’ve believed that Yael had worked a day in their life. Those people would’ve been right. But now Yael stands in the dust in trousers with soil-stained knees, their simple tunic untied in the very late-spring heat. And if they were to run their fingers through their hair, grown nearly to their cheekbones by now, they would probably find a twig or two tangled in the dark strands.

“Very well,” the courier says, handing them an envelope nearly as fancy as the ones sent out for Yael’s graduation party.

“My thanks, sir’ram.” Yael fishes in their trouser pocket for any coins and comes up with two copper denaris and a fistful of cherries, which they’d swiped from the picking baskets in the orchard and were saving for a snack. They drop the whole lot into the courier’s waiting palm.

“I—Yes, my thanks to you as well.” Awkwardly, the courier tucks the coppers and the cherries into their breast pocket and remounts their steed.

Yael lets out a breath of relief, not turning their back until the mastiff has galloped down the lane and out of sight.

As they expected, they find Margot in the indoor orchard, still sifting through the picking baskets. “Good, you’re back,” she says without looking up. “Why don’t you start coring these cherries? I’d like to get them in the fermenter this afternoon if this batch is going to be ready by the summer festival.”

They would much rather be elbow-deep in cherries with Margot, their hands accidentally brushing when they plunge them into the same basket, than stand here clutching a message from the capital. Best to get it over with, whatever it is. “You have a letter. It’s from Ashaway; a courier gave it to me outside.”

Margot turns to them and lifts an eyebrow. “Who would be writing to me?”

Yael shrugs. “A secret admirer?”

“Quite a secret, if so.” She takes the envelope, breaking the mulberry-colored wax seal to slide out the parchment.

A familiar seal, now that Yael looks at it, like something they would’ve seen among their mother’s letters—

“It’s from Rastanaya,” Margot announces. “She…gods, she wants to come to Bloomfield!”

“What? What for?”

“Her summer collection,” Margot says as she reads, a slight tremble in her voice. “She wants to preview it here for a small, select audience before its debut in Ashaway. She says…she wants to use the greenhouse’s plants, my plants, as her stage. Something about…about the wild places of Harrow, and my work being magical. She’ll be here in a matter of weeks, and wants my recommendations for a staging ground…”

“What?” they ask again. “Margot, let me see.” After a moment, they gently pry the letter from her hand, which has gone limp at her side, to read it themself. “This is amazing! Truly, this is just the opportunity Greenwillow Greenhouses needs. This is going to change everything for you!” they cry even as, selfishly, they’re not sure they want everything to change.

But instead of looking thrilled as she should, Margot looks utterly panicked. “We can’t, Yael. This is impossible. She wants to bring the peers of the realm to Bloomfield? They won’t come.”

“They came for your parents,” Yael points out. “Even my parents came out that one summer.”

“Sure, to the manor house. But what are we going to do, put Rastanaya and the richest folk in Harrow up in Clementine’s Tavern?”

“Why not? I live there. It’s good enough for me.”

“Well, but…” she splutters. “All right, then where will she have the show, in the sheep fields? If the queens’ personal bard is gored by one of the mammoths, you think that’ll endear me to high society?”

So the weaver does have mammoths, after all.

“Why not host it at the manor house, then?” Yael suggests, making a mental note to wander out to the fields north of the town; they’ve never seen a mammoth up close, not even in Perpignan.

Margot grimaces. “There’s no way. Nobody’s been inside for three years. I’m sure it’s an absolute mess, and anything of value was sold off, the furniture included.”

“So? They’re not coming for dinner. They’re coming to see Rastanaya’s work—and yours too. Let her worry about where to put everyone up for the night. She’s an icon, so if she tells people that it’s the height of fashion to sleep in a potato sack in a hollow tree, they’ll probably believe her. All we need to worry about is a staging ground, and why not use your manor?”

“Because it isn’t mine, for one.”

“All right, maybe it technically belongs to your parents, but I’m sure they’d—”

“It isn’t theirs either.” She turns on them, squaring her shoulders, which makes Yael want to sink into themself on instinct. But she doesn’t tower over them or berate them—of course not, she isn’t Baremon—even if she does speak to them slowly, like they’re a child who’s neglected their lessons. “Why do you think I live in the cottage and not the manor house? Why do you think my parents are in the care home instead of cozy in their grand bedroom with a hired private healer?”