Chapter 353: Bring Them Both

Ren cut the flowers before leaving Verdance that morning.

They grew thickly around the Worldroot, all from the packet of south-field seed his mother had sent. He chose a dozen stems near the edge, leaving the smaller buds, and wrapped the cut ends in a damp cloth. Some of the flowers had opened already. He loosened the wrapping so he wouldn’t crush them inside his coat.

Lyra and Iris were waiting where they had agreed to meet the evening before. Lyra carried a parcel of her own. She glanced at the flowers when Ren checked them, but neither woman asked him to hurry.

Together, they went down the campus road to Halvern.

— • —

He received them in a plain room, with no sign of the garden beyond its windows.

"Your parents are already inside," he told Ren. "I collected them myself. Your mother has been setting the table."

Ren stopped with his hand still on the door.

"They’re ready?"

"They’re waiting for you. You’ll enter here and return to this room." Halvern looked at all three of them. "Keep the meeting private."

"Of course," Lyra said.

"We’ll leave when the garden light begins to fade. I’ll warn you beforehand, so there will be time to say goodbye."

He stepped aside to close the outer door. Lyra shifted her parcel from one arm to the other.

"I should have brought something from the market," she murmured. "Something they don’t have at home."

"You brought the tea," Iris said.

"I know."

"You chose it yesterday."

"It seemed enough yesterday."

Iris glanced at Ren, then smoothed her sleeve. "I’ve been deciding what to ask them."

Lyra turned toward her. "Since yesterday?"

"Since the letter."

Ren would usually have said something. Instead, he checked the cloth around the stems again. It had begun to dampen the lining of his coat.

Halvern returned to them.

"Ready?"

Ren nodded, and the room disappeared.

— • —

The squared hedges and straight streams were familiar. Beyond them stood the clipped tree, with a table beneath its branches.

His mother reached him before he had taken more than a step.

Ren bent to hold her. She pressed her face against his shoulder, one hand gripping the back of his coat. He had thought about what he would say when he saw her, but he couldn’t remember any of it now.

"Hello, Mom."

She nodded against him and held on. He kept his arms around her until she drew back, wiping her face with the heel of one hand. The other stayed on his arm while she looked him over.

"Let me see you properly."

He straightened. She touched his cheek, then noticed the two women waiting behind him.

"Lyra? Iris?"

"I’m Lyra." She raised the parcel slightly. "I brought some tea. And I rewrote my line in that letter three times."

Elena smiled. "Well, I was glad you wrote it." She reached for Iris’s hand as well. "Both of you. Come and sit down."

Adrian came around the table. His hair was longer than Ren remembered, and he paused in front of him before resting a hand on his shoulder.

"You got bigger."

"A little."

"More than a little." His fingers tightened briefly, then he let go and turned to Lyra and Iris. "I’m Adrian."

"We’ve heard about your garden," Iris said.

"And the goat?"

"And the goat."

"Your mother put that in the letter before she mentioned the beds," he told Ren.

Elena was already taking the tea from Lyra. "The beds didn’t break into the shed twice."

Five places waited beneath the tree. Ren sat between his father and Lyra while Elena lifted the lid from a pot and began serving. There was sliced herb bread, pickles, and honey in a jar with a cloth tied over the top. Iris moved the cups aside to give her room.

"Leave those, dear. Pass me the bread."

Iris handed it over. Elena put a slice beside Ren’s bowl before offering the plate around.

The herbs came from Adrian’s beds behind their house. Lyra asked about one she could taste, and Elena broke a piece from her own slice to show her the leaves baked into it.

"Chop them before you start the dough. If you remember halfway through, you end up working it too much."

"I’ll remember that." Lyra reached for another slice before finishing the first.

Elena watched her for a moment, then glanced at Ren.

"Does he eat properly?"

"I’m eating now," Ren said.

"I can see that. I’m asking about when I’m not here."

"He came to supper with us after he got back," Lyra said. "We went to the lower market."

"And before he left?"

Ren swallowed his mouthful. "I ate before I left, too."

His mother laughed, and he found himself smiling at the sound. She reached across to touch Lyra’s hand, then took the pot around again.

Iris waited until Adrian had finished serving himself.

"What did you build the growing beds on?"

He set down his cup. "Stone beneath the soil. The ground holds water too long, so I cut drainage channels and lined them."

"Before the first planting?"

"After. That’s why I had to move half of it."

Elena looked up. "Maro told him before."

"Maro told me several things. I was working out which ones were useful."

"Was the drainage one useful?" Iris asked.

"Very." Adrian drew a line beside his plate with one finger. "The outlet needed to be lower than I’d put it. Once I changed that, the far bed stopped staying wet."

Iris asked about the depth, and he shifted his cup to show where the channels ran. Ren listened while his father explained the work, occasionally looking across at Elena to check a detail. At home, these were the conversations Ren had once hurried through on his way to something else.

"And what have you been doing?" he asked his mother.

"Moving the things your father leaves in the kitchen."

Adrian looked up from his explanation. "They were drying."

"They were on the table." She turned back to Ren. "I’ve been trying the herbs in the bread. Some are stronger than the ones we used before. The first loaf tasted of almost nothing else."

"I ate it," Adrian said.

"You had asked me to use more."

Lyra broke another piece from her slice. "This one’s good."

"I’ll write down what went into it before you leave."

Ren passed his bowl when Elena reached for it. He wanted another helping, and he wanted to stay at the table while she served it.

His parents had questions of their own. He told them his world was registered as Verdance now. When the conversation reached Stage Six, he spoke about its size and the work of looking after the shores and settlements. Adrian wanted to know how people moved between them. Elena asked about the house and whether he spent much time there.

He answered what he could, then told them about Ebbmere: the market street uncovered by the falling tide, the nursery’s broken gate, and the beds that had to be lifted whole.

"You couldn’t divide them?" Adrian asked.

"They needed the roots kept together. The growers checked each bed before we moved it."

"And you got them out?"

"The ones we could move safely. Some of the damaged growth had to stay."

He described the lifting frame and Wake carrying the loads around the headland. His father stopped him there.

"A whale?"

"Wake’s one of mine. We fitted a frame to its back."

Adrian sat back, looking at him. Elena asked how they kept the plants wet, and Ren explained the coverings and Eira checking each load. He told them Vesper had kept watch on the tide and made sure everyone left in time.

There was plenty he could tell them. Cassian was getting better, slowly. Yuelan still made herself heard across the table. They kept a chair for Kaelen while he was away.

"When is he coming back?" Elena asked.

"I don’t know yet."

She nodded and passed him the bread. He took another piece, listening as Adrian returned to a question about Wake’s carrying frame.

The flowers came out after they had finished eating.

Ren laid the bundle beside his mother’s plate and opened the cloth. The half-open heads had spread during the visit, showing the color he remembered from her south field.

Elena looked down at them without touching them.

"Where did these grow?"

"From the seeds you sent. There’s a whole field of them around the Worldroot now."

She lifted the bundle and turned one flower toward the light. Her thumb rested beneath its head while she examined it.

"Do they keep flowering?"

"They have so far. I see more whenever I go there."

Adrian reached across and took a stem. He held it for a while before slipping it into his coat pocket, with the flower clear of the edge.

Elena brought the bundle close to her face. Ren waited while she breathed in, then helped her fold the damp cloth around the stems again.

She kept them beside her plate while she poured Lyra another cup of tea.

— • —

Adrian joined him beside the stream afterward. Behind them, Iris was helping Elena clear the bowls while Lyra held the bread cloth open for the remaining pieces.

"The old family puzzle," Adrian said quietly. "I asked you about it in the letter."

"I know."

"You didn’t answer that part."

Ren looked at his father. "I’ve learned some of it. Not enough yet, and it isn’t safe for me to tell you."

Adrian’s hand rested on the folded cloth in his pocket. He glanced toward Elena before looking back.

"Does your mother need to know anything now?"

"Nothing that changes what you need to do. Stay where Halvern has put you."

His father was quiet. Ren waited, keeping his voice low when he spoke again.

"I’ll tell you when I can."

Adrian put his hand on Ren’s shoulder.

"All right."

He left it there for a moment, then turned with him toward the table.

Elena had kept a plate aside for Halvern. She took it to the far end of the lawn, where he was trimming a hedge. Ren and Adrian followed far enough to hear her call to him.

Halvern set his work down and accepted the plate.

"I want you to pass something along," she said. "To Caelan, when he’s well enough to hear it. The Valis family still owes him a seat at harvest dinner for the rest of his life."

"I’ll pass it on."

"Thank you." She waited while he took a mouthful. "And thank you for today."

"It was owed."

"I’m thanking you anyway."

Halvern inclined his head. She went back for the flowers, and he stayed beside the hedge with his plate.

— • —

The light had begun to soften when Halvern crossed the lawn again.

"Soon," he told Ren.

Elena folded the cloth around the honey jar. Lyra helped her gather the dishes while Iris checked that the tea parcel was packed with them. There was time to finish without hurrying, though Ren kept looking at his mother whenever she spoke.

"The bread," Elena said suddenly. "I said I’d give you the recipe."

Iris brought out her slate, and Elena drew a chair close enough to see what she entered. She began with the flour, then stopped at the herbs to explain which needed less. Lyra leaned over Iris’s shoulder.

"How much water?" Iris asked.

Elena considered. "I go by the dough. Add it slowly. It should come away from your hands."

"You used to let me do that," Ren said.

"You can still do it." She looked up at him. "They don’t have to make it for you."

"I’ll help."

"Good." She checked the list once more before Iris put it away. "And let it cool before you cut it. Your father never waits."

Adrian shook Iris’s hand, then Lyra’s, thanking them both for coming. When he reached Ren, he held his shoulder again and drew him close.

"Write to us."

"I will."

"More than two lines."

Ren nodded against him.

Elena hugged him next. She held the flowers to one side so they wouldn’t be crushed, then stepped back and took Lyra’s hands.

"Next time, I want the whole of Ren’s story. Not the letter version. What he eats, where he goes, who he argues with."

"He argues with Iris," Lyra said.

"She argues back," Ren said.

"I should hope so." Elena squeezed Iris’s hands in turn. "You can tell me yourself."

Ren looked back once before the garden disappeared. His father stood beside his mother with the packed food at his feet. She still held the flowers.

Then he was in the plain room with Lyra and Iris, his coat empty against his chest.

— • —

When Ren returned to Verdance, he went to the Worldroot.

The field looked much as it had that morning. Near the edge, a few short stems showed where he had cut the bundle. He crouched beside them and rested his hand on the ground.

"She asked if they keep flowering," he said.

"Tell her they do, Ren," Kaia said.