Chapter 719: What Loriel Didn’t Know

Chapter 719: What Loriel Didn’t Know

Loriel wanted to leave before Leon finished explaining the agreement.

She had already folded the drawing and reached for her bag when he mentioned that they were meeting Edda tomorrow afternoon.

"Tomorrow?" she said.

"The collectors need different containers. And I’d like to tell Bai Heng where we’re taking half his camp."

Loriel glanced toward the darkening tent flap. "I know. I wasn’t suggesting we drag everyone out tonight."

Her bag remained in her lap.

Leon tried not to smile too obviously. "She has dried reedlace for you to examine."

"That drawing isn’t enough to identify anything," Loriel said. "And you’ve made all the leaf veins the same thickness."

"I was rather busy finding out that people live here."

She looked up, her eagerness settling into something more thoughtful. "Her grandmother grew those plants?"

"According to her. We need to learn more, but I don’t think we watched an entire world being born."

Seraphine stood beside the closed flap. "The entrance."

"That’s what I think," Leon said. "We were measuring a connection from the wrong side of it."

He left the larger questions there. There would be time to investigate them, and no way to ask his master tonight.

The immediate business took the rest of the evening. Bai Heng listened to the description of the bloom, then asked what part of each plant held the useful material. Leon could answer only one of his questions.

"Bring the instructions back with the plants," the old man said. "Please."

Vyra entered the grower’s tenth as a cost of the outing, ahead of the normal division. The four collectors checked shallow cases and found clean cloth suitable for separating delicate specimens. Nothing from the mineral harvest needed to be dragged along merely because it had proved useful once.

They left after dawn with the same eighteen people who had gone to the storm field. Bai Heng stayed with the twelve at the spring. Tian acknowledged the new journey from the entrance base, where all eighteen under her command remained accounted for.

Leon gave both camps the expected route. They would reach the garden that afternoon, gather the following day, and return to the spring by dusk the day after that. A delay would have to be reported from working range. If the bloom ran late, they would return with less rather than disappear beyond their own deadline.

Wen Shu tested the plaques as they traveled. Before midday, the ridges began breaking the connection. She marked the last place where Bai Heng could hear an entire message and took a reply before putting her plaque away.

Beyond that point, the party followed the route Leon had checked through his second body.

He kept that body well away from the path now, exploring an empty ridge to the east. He had no wish to discover how quickly Nerin would notice meeting him twice.

The descent Edda had warned about slowed the carriers. Its stones shifted underfoot, and Leon shortened one bad crossing while Seraphine helped guide the cases across. They reached the garden with several hours of daylight remaining.

Nerin was waiting above the channel.

He counted them openly, then hurried down to help a carrier who had stopped at the wrong turn. Edda emerged from the beds with a bundle of drying screens beneath one arm.

"You brought the containers," she said to Leon.

"And the person who wanted to see your plants."

Loriel stepped forward. "May I?"

Edda looked at the excitement on her face and moved aside.

Leon watched Loriel crouch beside the reedlace without touching it. She studied the stems first, then the soil and the small outlets at the ends of the rows. When Edda offered her the lifting stick, she used it to turn a leaf just enough to examine the underside.

"The roots stay wet?" Loriel asked.

"Only briefly. The water passes through."

Loriel leaned closer to the outlet. "I would have given it a cooler bed. The coating looks like something that grows in shade."

"It thickens in shade," Edda said. "So does the stem. Then the useful part dries badly."

"May I see a cut one?"

Edda called Nerin for the packet. Within minutes, the two women had moved to a flat stone with dried pieces between them. Loriel compared the pale inner layers while Edda showed her where a poorly grown stem became woody.

Nerin brought a second packet from the drying rack. Loriel reached for it, then stopped when Edda shook her head.

"Different bed. Compare this one first."

Loriel put the pieces beside each other and bent over them again. Leon watched her expression change as she found the difference. She asked whether Edda dried both at the same temperature, and the answer led to another question about when the stems were cut.

For once, nobody was asking Loriel to heal an injury or identify something already broken. She could simply be curious.

Leon had expected a pleasant introduction. Instead, he had apparently delivered Loriel to the start of a very long conversation.

He left them to it.

Vyra recorded the agreement and read it aloud. Edda could not read the Palace script, so Nerin made his own record while she listened. Both versions described the same tenth, the same outing, and the same responsibilities. Once they were satisfied, the collectors brought their cases over for inspection.

One lining was too rough. Nerin showed Lu Pei how to fold spare cloth over it so the stems would not catch. The carrier responsible for that case helped make the change rather than leaving it for someone else.

Leon checked the dry ground above the channel. It was large enough for the party without spreading into the beds, and the scouts found a clear approach and a sheltered place for a watch. The household settled near him while everyone else arranged their own sleeping spaces.

By the time he returned to the flat stone, Loriel had a little brown fragment balanced on her fingertip.

"This one grew too wet," she told him. "The leaves can still look healthy when the inside starts going wrong."

"Is that useful to know?"

"For these, yes. For anything similar, perhaps." She looked pleased with the distinction. "I would want to check."

Edda took the fragment back. "She asked before offering to change my watering."

Leon glanced at Loriel. She was doing a poor job of hiding a smile.

"I’m learning," she said.

He felt an unexpected urge to kiss her forehead. With half the collecting party nearby, he settled for handing her the notebook she had left with him.

"I thought you might want this."

"Thank you, Young Master." Loriel accepted it, and her fingers rested against his for a moment longer than necessary.

As the evening cooled, Nerin went down to check the water gate. He called Edda before he reached it.

The bud Leon had examined yesterday was standing away from its support. Several others had tilted in the same direction. Loriel joined Edda at the row, her notebook still open.

A faint warmth rose through the ground beneath Leon’s boots. He watched a yellow line widen between the bud’s petals, then stop.

Edda examined the neighboring stems before looking toward the northern hills.

"We leave before sunrise," she said. "The hollow is waking up."