“Callan Rhodes? I didn’t know you were coming,” the woman’s voice called.
There was a clicking sound, and the door swung inward. Callan stepped through first, and I was right on his heels. As soon as I crossed over the threshold, I felt access to my powers cut off, just like at Evergreen Academy.
“Good to see you, Patricia.”
“Callan, this is quite the pleasant surprise.” Patricia seemed a little flustered, despite her words. “Usually, someone calls ahead if a member of the family is visiting. We would have made arrangements for whatever you need.”
“Don’t worry about it. Last-minute decision. There is no need for anyone to accommodate us.”
“Are you sure? I can call one of the research assistants to come?—”
“I insist,” Callan said, voice kind. He reached into his backpack. “And I brought something for you. Fresh cider from Evergreen Academy.”
Patricia beamed, finally relaxing. “No one makes cider like they do. Thank you.” She unstopped the cork of the glass bottle and took a sip. Her eyes briefly closed. “Delicious. Okay, let me get visitor badges for the two of you. Make sure your friend signs in there.”
Patricia was reaching for a stack of green lanyards on the counter when her eyes suddenly went a little fuzzy.
“That’s our cue,” Callan whispered, and with a touch to the small of my back, he gently pushed me forward.
“Please tell me that wasn’t what I think it was,” I said, moving steadily through the narrow chamber of bark, Callan’s hand still gently propelling me forward.
“Depends what you think it was.”
“Something to erase her short-term memory, like you and Kaito planned to do with the rest of the Root and Vine Society if we didn’t opt into the group?”
“Invoking my rights against self-incrimination,” Callan said. “I feel kind of bad about it. Patricia is a sweet lady. She’ll be fine, though. I mixed it to only block out about a minute of memory.”
We were climbing a set of narrow stairs carved into the tiny tree entrance, as if going to another level. “And the swirling leaves outside… I take it those were blocking a scouting vine?”
“The entrance is riddled with them. I thought it was better if they didn’t have anything to report except for a little wind.”
We emerged out of the dark tree hallway, and I drew in a sharp breath. We were standing on a slatted trail, which swung softly as we stepped farther onto it. Thin handrails made of vines stretched from our tree to one about twenty feet away.
There were a series of slender wooden trails identical to this one running across the forest in every direction. Some were an even height to ours while others were above or below, giving the illusion that the forest was a skyscraper, with botanists working in treehouses on every floor.
I reached out to a floating, glowing orb the size of a raindrop.
“Bioluminescent sap,” Callan explained.
The orbs were sprinkled through the air, casting light throughout all levels of the forest. They resembled fireflies but in slow motion, floating with a carefree, silent magic.
“What happened to all the moisture?” I asked. While the humidity had been intense outside, it felt drier in here.
“There’s a shield, kind of like the one at Evergreen Academy. Douglas Vitalis, my ancestor, was credited with the magical technology that put the shield into place. He did something similar here so that the conservatory could be open to the sky but not susceptible to the quantity of rain that occurs in the surrounding forest.”
“I feel like I’m in some kind of Amazon kingdom. The lost city of trees.”
“That’s not too far off.” He pointed toward a collection of trees to our right. “That’s the tree hall of fame. We have moon trees—trees grown from seeds that went to space with an astronaut who was a magical botanist?—”
I cut him off with a shocked look. “A magical botanist was an astronaut?”
“I told you, local. Friends in high places.”
I rolled my eyes at his joke, and he continued to point out trees in the hall of fame. “There’s a sycamore. An American chestnut, planted here before the blight wiped so many of them out. That one’s a dragon’s blood tree…” He continued to describe various unique trees, spinning little tales about them.
I became completely entranced in tour guide Callan, his love of these trees coming through brighter than he could possibly have imagined.
“You’re amazing,” I said when he finally came to a pause in the presentation.
