Skyblossom (The 313th Galeria #1)

Chapter 1

THE LEGENDARY BLOSSOM

CADENCE

Skyblossom.

It looked like a perfect match… I turned the pages back and forth, looking between the reference pictures and the flower I had on the table in front of me.

The greenhouse was quiet, outside of the sound of two galobalos playing in the bushes, the feeling of magic strong on my senses and the air sweet with the scent of rich magic earth and plants.

I pinched my lips together, looking back at the book, and I sighed, picking up my tea.

I laughed when a lumini fluttered its wings and landed on the other side of the teacup, looking at me with the characteristic magic light from its wings flicking brighter with curiosity, tilting its colorful-crested head looking at me, and I held out a finger for it to step onto, transferring it onto a nearby branch before I sipped my tea and settled back to look at the notes.

I’d found the flower during one of my field trips through the campus grounds, growing wild in a little cluster in the knots of a feybough tree’s roots.

It was a beautiful thing, with thick, creamy white petals and vivid streaks from the center outwards, a different color on each petal.

I could tell it was magical, but I hadn’t seen it in any of my textbooks, and I practically lived in my textbooks.

So I’d plucked one of the flowers, kept it in a magical stasis, and I’d been spending the past two days looking through every reference document that existed at Starfall.

I’d just about emptied the Sparkes Center of Herbalist Reference looking through every book, and just when I was starting to wonder if the flower was an illusion, here it was, an exact match, looking up at me.

But this was fey tricks. There was no way it was right.

A legendary rare blossom, some pockets of it are rumored to exist somewhere on the grounds of Starfall Academy and its neighbor school Elara Magica.

The skyblossom flower has a deep connection to the ley lines and to fate itself. If you trust in your heart and pluck the right petal, the ley lines will grant a wish.

But beware! If you don’t listen to your heart and go astray and pick the wrong petal, it unleashes a terrible curse upon you.

Sure. And I was secretly a dragon.

Talk about sensationalist… it felt less like I was reading an old reference document and more like a tabloid written for a nonmagical audience.

There was a stir across the table, and I looked up at where Knot crept up over the side of the table, looking at me—well, he was a snagweed I kept, a magic flowering vine, so it was a little generous to say he looked at me.

But he had a very charismatic presence, and I set down my tea, holding up the flower like I was showing him.

“What… do you think?” I said. “Think it’s a legendary magic bloom that can make my wishes come true?”

He curled up around the vase on the other end of the table, one leafy little stem curling out to poke at the supposed skyblossom in curiosity. A touch of magic rippled from the point where he touched it, and I took the flower back, turning it slowly, staring into it.

“Guess we’ll give it a try,” I said. “I just want to be done with this thing… I’ve got exams to focus on. What do you think, Knot? Six petals means I’ve got a five in six chance of being cursed. What do you think I should wish for to make that worth it?”

He raised one stem up high like a head looking curiously at me, and then back to the empty chair opposite me. I slumped back in the chair.

“Don’t… don’t attack me like that, Knot.”

I mean, I knew he was just poking around feeling things like a dog would sniff rocks. But it still felt a little targeted.

I knew it had been a minute now since Natalie had left—we’d only been together for three months, and it had been longer than three months since she’d left.

I had no reason to still be sitting here with a second chair out at the table, like I was waiting for her to show up and things to go back to normal.

It wasn’t like I was likely to ever find somebody else. I spent all my time either in greenhouses and gardens or in private study rooms cramming mountains of material. It wasn’t exactly the best place to find a date.

It shouldn’t have bothered me. I had my studies to focus on. I didn’t need a lot of people. I had my friends at the galeria. And I could not talk to somebody without embarrassing myself anyway.

But I knew how I spent my time daydreaming.

How I would read romance novels and then curl up in the chair by my window looking out over the gardens and ache in my chest wishing for my own love story.

That somebody would walk into my life and I’d…

I don’t know, somehow manage to charm them by talking about flowers. I wasn’t exactly a smooth talker.

Natalie had been a miracle. And I’d known that, and I’d clung to her so hard it drove her away. Which probably only made it harder for me to find somebody, if I was hung up on my ex.

I took the petal with the purple streak between two fingers—I didn’t feel some divine power guiding me, but purple was my favorite color, and I spoke in an awkward mumble, trying for a casual kind of I’m just playing around and don’t believe this is a thing. “I wish… to meet the love of my life.”

I plucked the petal.

Nothing happened.

A slight shimmer of magic, just like you normally would when picking a magic flower.

The petal was a little heavier than it looked, the soft texture of it dense in my fingers.

I lay the petal down on my herbal bank alongside the other samples I had on right now, and I held the rest of the flower up to the light.

“I didn’t see any magic light. I guess now I’m cursed.”

Knot lowered his little stem head, seemingly in sympathy. I set the flower down with a sigh, and I reached for my tea, but I paused at the sound of a rustle from the bank of trees and bushes to my right, and I turned to a snap sound.

It was quiet for a second, nothing moving, and I relaxed a little, just for an instant, before there was a lurch in the trees, and a shriek of surprise, and a shape hurtled out through a tree, leaves breaking off like confetti, and I jumped back with a startled cry when a person fell on the table.

It was all so instant—a snap, a crack, and then like a Shatter to the face, a person slamming down on top of Knot on the other end of the table, sending my samples scattering into the air, rattling my tea set, and putting the fear of furious dragons into me.

“Oww,” she groaned—a girl, currently lying on her side on the table, wearing Dragon House colors, covered in twigs and leaves. She propped herself up, pushing her hair and the leaves stuck in it out of her eyes, and she beamed at me. “Phew. Sorry to drop in unannounced.”

“Uh… h-hi.” I blinked fast, my hands up. “Are you okay?”

“Apparently that plant turns into a catapult. We live and learn.”

“Pitcherbell. You have to be careful picking the blooms or you get, well… p-pitched.”

“I’m gonna be feeling this in the morning…”

“Oh, saints, you’re crushing Knot.”

She rubbed her back, sitting up a little. “Crushing not? I can assure you I am a little crushed.”

“No—not not, Knot!”

“Huh?”

“The—my snagweed!”

“Oh!” She looked back down at where Knot was twitching with a stem in the air, like a cartoon character dramatically drawing their last breath, and she sat up, shifting off of him.

He slumped down in relief, and then she laughed when he crept up over her shoulders—I looked incredulously as he coiled around her like a magic-vine feather boa.

“Aw. I think it likes me,” she said, patting the flowers.

“He—he doesn’t normally do that.” My heart fluttered nervously in my chest, the situation suddenly settling in.

It was… almost certainly just a coincidence.

I hadn’t actually summoned the love of my life with a wish.

That was just the hopeless romantic in me seeing things that weren’t there.

But Knot was a smart little vine, and he’d probably understood what I’d asked for and thought that… oh, saints.

She was so pretty I was already prone to forgetting how to speak or think, with short, choppy brown hair and bright blue eyes that radiated energy, enthusiasm, like she was just so excited to be here.

Like a breath of fresh air or a little ray of sunshine.

And she had a smile that could drive out demons.

“Aw,” she said, stroking the ends of the vine. “I’ve always wanted to be the chosen one.”

“You’re… you’re not hurt?” I said, still frozen up from surprise, hands hovering at my chest. She laughed.

“I’ll be good. Just a little ringing in my ears. I think I whacked my face a little on the flight path.”

“Oh—hold on. I have something that can help.” I rifled through my herbal bank to take a small bough of Galyr’s tooth, holding it up for her. “Ball it up and bite it between your back teeth, and you’ll feel better.”

“Field doctor to the rescue,” she said, voice bright, as she took the bough, and my heart dropped out of my body as a shape swooped in and alighted—the lumini from earlier, perched with one foot on my finger and one foot on hers.

I felt like I got a spell to the face, stunned looking at where the girl stopped, holding her hand against mine to steady it, her eyes sparkling and mouth wide as this little magic bird stood there with wings glowing bright.

“Oh, wow,” she laughed breathlessly, looking at the lumini. “I didn’t realize I’d found a magic nature princess.”

“This—doesn’t normally happen.” A lumini was supposed to be a good sign for love.

It was just something people said. This was just a lot of really weird coincidences.

The lumini settled in, relaxing, puffing out its chest feathers a little as it got cozy, and I looked past it, at the girl, who laughed.

“I think this means we have to stay here now.”

My chest felt uncomfortably tight, like it was hard to breathe when I looked at her, but that was… I mean, I was just overthinking it. “He’ll move in a second,” I said.

“I’m not in any rush. He’s a cute little guy.” She beamed at me, and my throat felt dry. “I’m Summer, by the way.”

“Normally summer comes in more gradually.”

She laughed. I felt myself blush hot.

“I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

“I mean, I can’t argue. You make a good point.”

“I’m—I’m Cadence.”

The lumini stood up taller again, ruffling its wings, and it took off, leaving a shimmering trail of magic glow behind it, settling like stardust between me and Summer, who beamed, waving after the lumini.

“Thanks for visiting!” she called, before she took the Galyr’s tooth away and did as I said, balled it up and put it in her mouth.

She went wide-eyed as she bit down on it, and she put a hand over her mouth.

“Oh—that’s potent. You’ve got the good stuff. ”

“I’ve got the best… stuff. I’m so sorry, I’m sure you’re here for a reason and I’m distracting you with Knot climbing all over you.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Were you planning on climbing all over me?”

“No—no, no, no.” I felt my face heat more, wanting to curl up into myself and disappear. “I mean, Knot. Not not, but… Knot.”

“I don’t think I follow.”

“Knot. The snagweed. His name’s Knot. K-N-O-T.”

“Oh, Knot.” She laughed, sliding down off the table and alighting on her feet, and she held a hand up to Knot, who coiled off of her shoulders and around her wrist. He never did that with anybody.

He was so shy with anybody who wasn’t me.

I didn’t know what was happening. “I like him,” she said.

“He’s the most charming vine who’s ever hugged me. ”

“Um… short list?”

“Short, but it’s grown recently. I’ve been spending a lot of time picking around weird magic plants lately, so I’ve gotten a lot of hugs.

Typically violent hugs.” She dropped into the seat across from me, and I tried not to think about the implications that only existed in my head.

“I’m an alchemist. I’ve been working on a new design of potion extension, so I’m looking for rare herbological compounds to help me make it.

You’re an herbalist, aren’t you? Do you know where I can find snapbush root? ”

“Oh…” I looked down at my pile of books, sprawled out over the table, my notebooks filled with meticulously organized information.

I guess I could see why she thought I was a…

reliable source of information. Or a nerd, depending on which way you spun it.

“It’s not here,” I said. “Snapbush root needs to be harvested wild to have any magical properties. But I know, um… I know a spot close to Glimmerdeep where you can get some.”

She beamed. “You’re an angel, Cadence. Can you show me tomorrow after class? I don’t trust myself to not get pitched straight into the lake. Do you take a tracker’s commission? I can spare some mats.”

“No—no, no. I’m not taking your materials for it.”

She pouted, folding her arms. “I’m not letting you do it for nothing. I’d feel like a rotten wartcat. Five hundred materials?”

“I’m just happy to help.”

“I’ll give you a potion? Anything you like.”

Ugh—I was agreeing to help because I thought she was cute and I was never going to get time around a girl like her without some massive outside help. But I couldn’t very well just say that. “Nope,” I said. “I’m not taking anything. But I will take you to get the snapbush root tomorrow morning.”

She leaned forward, resting her hands on the table. “I will get you to accept something.”

“You will not.”

She grinned wider. She had the most radiant smile I’d ever seen… “After class tomorrow,” she said. “I love a challenge.”