Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
“Any specific requests for the type of Floracantus I try to make first?” I joked, trying to ease some of my tension.
I was in the Evergreen Conservatory with Callan and the rest of the Root and Vine Society.
With everyone gathered, my nerves were showing their pesky faces as I wondered if I could successfully make a new Floracantus.
“Whatever you want, B,” Aurielle said encouragingly.
I surveyed the cave and found the lily of the valley flowers I had grafted there after my initiation into the Root and Vine Society. “Maybe I’ll try making those glow, like the genetically modified moonflower plants.”
Callan nodded as if he liked the idea. “Do you have a name in mind for the Floracantus?”
“Does it need to be in Latin?” Meadow asked.
“We think it could be any language. Eli’s family Floracantus wasn’t in Latin,” Callan said.
“But since this is through my family line, which historically used Latin to create Floracantus, I’m going with that just to be safe,” I explained.
“I’m dying to see how this works,” Heath said, his eyes alight.
I had memorized da Vinci’s riddle, so I recited it for the group:
With two hands, we gather power.
Bring each botanical gift to center.
Lay to canvas. Sprinkle light. Make the new creation bright.
I walked them through the process we had worked out in my head. “For the ‘lay to canvas’ line, we’re using the Floral Fete book as a template. It was full of Floracantus done solely by da Vinci, and it was written in a notebook, so that’s the type of ‘canvas’ I’m using.”
Coral opened my notebook on the ground in front of me.
I took a deep breath, glad for all the Latin studies I had done, and recited the words in my mind, envisioning them forming on the pages of the journal.
“Lay to canvas. Sprinkle light. Make the new creation bright,” Aurielle quoted. “I’ve got the candles.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a candle and some matches.
“Everyone ready?” I asked.
I was met with nods and a slow clap of encouragement from Hollis. It was now or never.
After opening the notebook, I hovered my hands above the pages, keeping my focus trained on the lily of the valley.
Callan stepped forward and nestled the cutting of Rosie in my hands.
I drew on all of my nine affinity powers, taking care to intentionally connect with each one. They felt stronger since my trip to the defensives conservatory, when the poison on my powers had been dissolved.
“Ready for the light?” Aurielle asked. When I nodded, she lit the candles and held them inches from me, bathing the journal in a soft glow.
I recited the new Floracantus in my mind once more, maintaining my connection with both the lily of the valley plant and all of my affinity powers.
At first, I thought nothing was happening, but then I felt movement in my fingers.
When I looked down, Rosie’s glowing petals were arcing toward the page of my notebook, as if wanting to dive into it.
I remained still, and with a ripple like a drop of rain landing on a lake, the petals hit the page and absorbed into it, disappearing. Light flickered across the journal.
Around me, my friends gasped. I forced my concentration back onto the Floracantus I was trying to make and pulled the lily of the valley back into my vision. I connected with each of the cells and thought of them glowing as brightly as the moon.
“Did it work?” Aurielle asked.
My heart racing, I looked at the journal and saw the Floracantus I had been repeating in my mind written on the page in a looping cursive. “It’s there,” I whispered, a smile touching my lips. It had worked. “Petale candenti.”
When I spoke the words aloud, every tiny white bell of the lily of the valley flower lit up like streetlamps in winter.
My friends gasped again, and I released Rosie, not wanting to crush the rest of the activated cutting.
Hollis, who had been unusually quiet for most of the ordeal, let out a low whistle.
“It worked,” Coral said, her voice shaky. She was beaming at me.
“And the new Floracantus just… exists? I feel like that defies the laws of physics.” Laurus said, scratching the side of his neck with a pencil.
“You know we’ve been working toward this for weeks, right?” Meadow asked, giving Laurus a sideways look.
“Yes, but it wasn’t real then.”
“How do you think the original Floracantus were made?” Yasmin asked.
Laurus put his hands up. “I know. I know. It’s just weird that this Floracantus that didn’t exist now does.”
“Physics and magic can coexist, Laurus,” Meadow said, flicking a piece of moss in slow motion at him as if to demonstrate it.
“This is going to be revolutionary. We’ve never been able to get flowers to glow without genetic modification,” Aurielle said, her attention still on the shining white orbs.
I looked at Callan, who smiled.
We took another moment to marvel at what had just happened before Coral asked, “So, what next? What type of Floracantus could you make that would be most successful in taking down Feathergrass?”
I paused, lacing my fingers together in front of me. It was time to share the idea that Wyatt had suggested. Callan and I had kept it to ourselves until we solved da Vinci’s riddle.
I cleared my throat and said, “I want to make a Floracantus to reset the verdant shield.”
Silence filled the room, and a smile pulled at the corner of Callan’s mouth.
Hollis quit playing with the fern he had been annoying Coral with and turned his full attention to me.
“What do you mean?” Yasmin asked.
“The founders used a Floracantus to put the shield in place, including stipulations that only founders’ descendants could recharge the shield. What if we were able to change that?”
“You really think you can create a Floracantus to reset the verdant shield?” Ravenna asked. “Isn’t that going to be much harder than making petals glow?”
“I’m going to practice and work on harder manipulations, but I have to believe it can be done.
Wyatt—Callan’s brother—was the one who suggested it.
He thinks it’s possible, and he’s pretty well acquainted with the verdant shield.
We’ll need to do more research on how the shield was set up.
That book Meadow stole for her Root and Vine initiation might have some information.
We can’t guarantee this will work, but we need to try.
Part of what the society is doing that we disagree with is consolidating power into the hands of founders’ descendants.
If we can remind them of why Evergreen Academy was created in the first place—to be somewhere for all magical botanists to study together, then maybe we can turn things around. ”
“It’s a bold plan,” Hollis said. “I like it.”
Meadow nodded. “I’ve been reading the book about the founders.
It’s proving to be pretty illuminating. The shield design was initiated by Douglas Vitalis, Callan’s ancestor.
” She nodded toward Callan. “And it was put in place by all of them, using a protective Floracantus from the Compendium Floracantus. The mechanism that made it so only founders could recharge it was implemented by the defensives founder, Jean-Claudia Callahan. The poison from her magic was what Briar experienced when she tried to help charge the shield last year.”
“So are we all going to need to help reset the shield?” Heath asked.
“According to the book, it was a time-consuming process for the founders to all merge their magical abilities like that,” Meadow said.
“There’s no guarantee we will get that much uninterrupted time.
And none of the founders had all the lead affinity powers like Briar does.
Theoretically, she should be able to do it all herself.
Especially if she’s using a similar but new Floracantus of her own creation. ”
A few nods came from around the group, but I could tell some of them wouldn’t be fully convinced until we successfully pulled it off. I couldn’t blame them, because I felt the same way.
“Do you have a plan for how to get to the charging ring? Feathergrass still has it locked down,” Hollis said.
“Not yet. We’ll have to get creative in figuring out how to distract him.”
Playfulness lit up Hollis’s eyes when he nodded in approval at my response.
“And we’ll have to do it quickly, since the vernal equinox is just around the corner,” Callan said, stepping forward and effectively calling the meeting to a close.
After a few more side conversations, the members of the Root and Vine Society left the cave in waves, heading off in different directions. We didn’t need other students tracking us down and reporting what we were doing so they would get to use the Dandelion of Desire.
When just Callan and I remained, I stared at the lily of the valley flowers, which were still glowing in the cave from my Floracantus.
We were one step closer. We had solved the riddle. I could make new Floracantus. Wyatt’s plan was out in the open, and our friends were on board.
When I turned to Callan, he was studying me.
“Do you really think we can pull this off?” I asked, voicing the concerns I hadn’t wanted to express in front of the others. “What if I can’t figure out how to make the right Floracantus to replace the current one?”
“I know you can, and you will.” Callan took my hand. “We’re going to figure out how to make a Floracantus to reset the verdant shield, then on the vernal equinox, the Board of Regents is going to find out exactly how powerful you are.”
I nodded at him in response, the cave seeming to clear of everything else as we looked at each other. I had a newfound power, one that had been lost—at least in my family—for generations. And I was going to do whatever it took to use it to help save Evergreen Academy.