“I lit Waylon! I lit Waylon! He’scoveredin green dust.”
Coral’s enthusiasm finally wrenched my attention from Callan, and I smiled and gave her a high five. “Nice work. And not a spot on you.”
“I managed to hold out until the end. An aquatic affinity from your team tagged Yasmin, though.”
I looked at my roommate and confirmed that she was covered in orange dust.
“Honestly, I don’t even care that we lost. I’m just celebrating accomplishing my mission.” Coral looped her arm through mine, and we began to walk back to the academy.
“So, tell us how Meadow took out Hollis,” Yasmin said.
Aurielle rushed to fill her in on the thrilling tale, including her role in it. But I tuned it out as I wondered what Callan was doing and why he wasn’t attending classes on Monday like the rest of us.
Chapter Fifteen
Yasmin slid into the seat next to mine in our prop creation class at SCC. Because I’d taken winter intersession courses and then a full load over the summer, I only had to take one class each semester to be on track to graduate with my associate’s degree in the spring. I was broadening my horizons with my art electives and had chosen prop creation, a new class designed in collaboration with the theater department.
“Let’s hope today’s class goes better than last week’s,” Yasmin murmured. She had surprised me when she enrolled in the class. As she put it, “Our art class last year really pushed me out of my comfort zone. And I saw you pushing yourself into taking Calculus. You inspired me to not always take the easy route.”
I hadn’t let on how much the words had touched me.
“Hello, class. Exciting news. I’ve just learned that the theater department has selected the play they’ll be putting on this spring. They’ve gone withA Midsummer Night’s Dream, and we are tasked with creating much of the set design and costuming. I’d like each of you to sign up for your first design of interest, and you’ll work in small groups to draft these and determine your needed materials.”
Our instructor pointed to colorful papers that were scattered throughout the drafting tables in the room. “Walk around and see the group options that are available, then sign up for the ones you want to be on.”
I reached for the nearest paper and read it aloud to Yasmin. “Trees for the forest. They need to incorporate lights and fireflies. Sounds interesting,” I said.
“Put that in themaybecategory,” Yasmin agreed, and we proceeded to make our way around the classroom, exploring our different options. By the end, there were two more set pieces that appealed to us.
“So, we’re down to the forest—which they need a large team for—the fairy faces and crowns, or the flower that gets struck by cupid’s bow,” Yasmin said.
“I’m really interested in the flower.” I lowered my voice. “It needs to look enchanted, and I wonder if we could use a real flower from the academy and make modifications to it.”
“So long as it looks plausible that we could have created it with materials here.”
I scribbled my name onto that paper. “I think we can make it work. I’m going to sign up for the forest, too, since they need a lot of hands for that one.”
“Same.” Yasmin followed my lead in writing her names on those two groups. We were the only ones who signed up for the flower, and we made plans to start working with the tree group during the next class period.
“Still no sign of Callan?” Yasmin asked as we cleaned up our workspaces.
“He’s missed almost the first two weeks of class. What could he be doing that’s that important?” I was glad Yasmin asked since I had been itching to talk about him.
“Maybe it has something to do with his field study? Could he be starting earlier than the rest of us? Who knows when it comes to founders’ descendants. Speaking of descendants”—she loweredher voice—“have you learned anything more about your history? I know you were doing some reading this summer.”
“Nothing groundbreaking.” I matched her hushed tone. “I don’t know what I was expecting. Obviously, I wasn’t going to find anything about his… botanical heritage in regularly published books. I wish the collection at Evergreen Academy was bigger, but there is hardly anything about botanists of the Renaissance period there.”
Yasmin frowned. “That’s kind of strange. Why were records so poorly kept of that era? I wonder…” She pushed open the door of the classroom, and we emerged into the crisp autumn air. “Most of the magical botanical conservatories have their own libraries, from what I’ve heard. Perhaps the information you need is stored at one of those?”
I perked up, eager for a new lead. “Really? Can anyone request books from them?” I could almost feel the warm, tingly feeling in my hands that had occurred when I first picked up one of da Vinci’s journals.
She shrugged. “They all have different rules. I know that with the fern conservatory in Alaska, you can only access the books there in person. They don’t let people remove them from the library unless they’re a VIP academic researcher.”
“Well, it’s something to think about. But which conservatory would be most likely to have books on the Renaissance-era botanists? If what Professor Tenella said last year is true, many botanists back then had all of the affinity powers. So could books about them be in any of the conservatories?”
“It’s possible. I wish there was some kind of directory that listed all the books in each of the conservatories, but as you’ve probably gleaned by now, information sharing across affinity groups isn’t always a top priority in the magical botanist community. That’s part of what makes Evergreen Academy so special. Things are less siloed among the affinities there. At least, that’s how it’s been.” Yasmin worried her lip.
“We’ll make sure it stays that way. As students, we should have a say in the goings-on of our school, shouldn’t we? If all the affinities want to continue collaborating with each other, we should be able to.”
