“I can tell you about it because this field study assignment comes with a certain level of clearance.”
I swallowed.Right. The reason we were here. “The field studies invitation mentioned counterpoisons. Is that your area of research?”
“It wasn’t always, but yes. As botanists with defensive plant affinities, it’s as important to study how to guard against defensive plants as to wield them. Too many botanists fail to understand this.”
I nodded, thinking of the incident the previous year where most of the student body had been drugged withScopoliaand had started spilling our guts due to the truth serum. Nevah, a founder’s descendant who had attended the previous year, had helped me to work on my detection skills after that at the insistence of Callan. However, my training had been truncated when my powers had been cut off on campus.
“You won’t have to convince me of that,” I said honestly.
Petra nodded. “I didn’t think so.” She set a box on the picnictable that took up nearly half the room. “We’ll start with the basics and see how you do. Do you have much experience detecting poisons?”
“Very little,” I admitted.
“It’s much like detecting any other part of a plant, except when you connect at the tissue level, you need to search for something hidden, almost as if reaching for a trap door.” She held out a leafy plant I didn’t recognize. “Give it a try.”
I opened up my senses, filtering through the tissues of the plant down to the cell level and back up again. At first, the experience felt a little like the investigations I had done on campus last year. But it was amplified, and I wondered if it was the effects of the green zone allowing me to be so precise.
Then I felt something quietly knocking, as if asking to be let out. I zeroed in on the little pockets that were trapped. They were spread throughout the plant, but I felt them most acutely in the seeds.
“Ah, you’ve got it. I can feel them responding,” Petra said. I opened my eyes to see her nodding encouragingly. “That’s poison hemlock. More potent in the spring but still zesty enough in the fall for us to feel it. Try this one.” She held out a different plant, and I noticed that there were a dozen samples in jars on the table.
I opened up my senses and repeated the process.
An hour later, I could zero in on each toxin and identify the plant without looking. Petra hadn’t been exaggerating about the potency of our magic here. It was subtle, but I felt more connected to the plants I was working with than ever before.
“Excellent. Professor East told me you were powerful, but that’s a subjective word. He was right to use it, though. You picked that up extremely quickly.”
I glowed under her praise. Finally, I was working with an established magical botanist in a setting where I could stretch my powers. I hadn’t known how exhilarating that would feel.
“Thank you, this is fun despite how difficult itis. Will we be doing this at every session? Is there something specific you’d like me to help research?”
Petra paused as she reorganized some of the plants. “I have a few goals in mind for us, but we will start with one that came on special request by Professor East.”
“Really? What kind of request?”
“He would like us to find out the affinity of whoever poisoned the verdant shield.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Isat in eager, slightly stunned anticipation as Petra began to explain the plan. “Professor East provided samples of the poisoned soil that he collected last year. While he’s been running his own tests, he thinks that us defensives may be able to find something he hasn’t, and I agree.”
She removed a jar of soil from behind the secret wall panel and set it on the table. “I have been doing research in a niche field of detecting magical signatures. This is a skill that defensives are particularly well suited for.”
“Magical signatures?”
“It’s a new field of magical botanical science still in its infancy. But the theory is that using magic to modify a plant or soil leaves behind a trace. It doesn’t sound groundbreaking since we know that if someone modifies a tree’s cells, for example, they have to be someone with a tree affinity. But when it comes to soil manipulation, it’s not obvious what affinity power the manipulator had.”
“Professor East described some of the things that were added to the soil last year to poison the verdant shield. You’re saying that there might be a way to trace the signature of whoever did that?”
“Correct. It won’t lead us to a person, but it should lead us to an affinity power. Or multiple affinities, if that was the case.”
I leaned forward. “Have you found anything so far?”
“I’ve gotten close to untangling the signature, but a small piece of the process keeps eluding me. I believe you could be of some help here.”
“How so?” My mind was racing, excited by this possibility.
“Soil is—what is the word you use?—tricky. It is a combination of many things, and only part of it is organic matter. Professor East tells me you have some skill in sensing the properties of soil. Combine that with your access to all of the affinity powers, and you may be primed to untangle the magical signatures from the various plant material in the soil.”
