Page 59 of Garden of Poisoned Delights

“Victor, he won’t stay still,” Sava said, though he looked about as bewildered as Victor felt.

“That’s— Yes, I’m him. Please stay put, Zeno, you’re still recovering. If I make you tea, will you drink all of it?”

“I’ll do anything you want forever,” Zeno said.

“Then staying still and getting warm is the first priority.” Victor started making tea, quickly relating what the boy said to Sava. Sava looked from Zeno to Victor, brows furrowed.

“How?”

“I don’t know.” Victor climbed into the pit to help Zeno drink. “What do you mean, you wished for me?”

“There’s a fountain in the main square,” Zeno said, “by the cafe where the philosophers beat each other up.”

Sava raised his brows, and Victor shrugged. “That sounds like philosophers to me,” he said in Lukoi.

“The one I saw didn’t seem like much,” Sava muttered, and Victor smiled.

“There’s a spirit in the fountain,” Zeno was saying, “or two. They were arguing, but one of them said he would send me to Lukos since I wanted to be your apprentice.” He went quiet, pressing his mouth together tight, and took a shaky breath. “If you want one. I promise I’m good, I want to be a historian too. I’m getting good grades in class and I can refill inkwells and carry books, and if you want me to write chapters for you, I wrote an entire report on the first college and it won an award and everything.”

“I…” Victor looked at Sava for help, but Zeno’s rapid-fire plea had clearly overtaken what Gerakian Sava knew. “We can…talk about that when you’re better.”

“Are you going to send me away?” Zeno’s voice went so small that Victor felt like someone had squeezed his heart in a stone fist.

“No. No, no one is sending you away.” Victor adjusted Zeno’s hat. “You’re here and we’re taking care of you.” He repeated it to Sava, who nodded slowly.

“I promise I can be useful,” Zeno said.

“You don’t need to be useful. Just drink this tea and feel better.” Victor paused, then wrapped an arm around the boy’s shoulders. “So a spirit brought you here.”

“I thought you’d understand.” Zeno sipped his tea, and while he was still shivering slightly, his lips were no longer purplish-blue, and his eyes were brighter. “They said you still didn’t have a last name when you left for Lukos. I mean a real one, with a family.” He took another shaky breath. “I don’t either. People think they want me, but they send me back. But you made it all the way here, to the most interesting place ever, and you got your own name. Is this your husband?” He said the last in a scandalous whisper, glancing at Sava.

“His name is Sava Snow-Walker, and he’s very nice.”

Zeno turned to Sava and gave him a nervous smile. “I don’t know your language, but thank you for bringing me here.”

Victor didn’t need to translate that. Sava ruffled Zeno’s hair through the cap, and Zeno beamed.

“Lukos is amazing as you said it was,” Zeno said, half frozen from the cold and bundled up in a cocoon of blankets, his hands and feet soaking in warm water in the hopes of not losing any fingers and toes. “I really did make the right wish.”

* * *

When it was clear the young boy was asleep, Sava stripped his clothes and went into the bath.

He didn’t know what to think about any of this. He let Victor relay everything the boy had said, and his heart ached at the possessions that Victor slowly pulled out of the boy’s bag—a puppet of a fish-woman that Victor called a mermaid, a fossilized shell that seemed to be from some distant shore, and–

A copy of Victor’s book.

“Oh,” Victor whispered. “Oh, Sava.” He waved the book. “It’s true. He came here because of me.” Victor’s dark eyes filled with tears. “He could have died. You—You!” He stopped. “Sava, what are you doing here?”

Sava, resting with with his arms on the sides of the tub, shrugged. “I am bathing, little owl. The water feels nice. When the boy is awake, perhaps he should—what?”

Victor was staring at him, his hands his hair, looking as he used to back when he’d first come to Lukos. “You’re supposed to—the trials! Is this part of it?”

“I do not think a child being left in the snow is part of the trials, no,” Sava said, and shrugged. “I would not leave a young boy to freeze, Victor. You know this.”

“I do, you’re perfect and I love you, but how did he get here?”

“He said a fountain spirit,” Sava said, thinking of the fox prints in the snow, the fur he’d left behind.

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