Chapter 7: The Plant That Wasn’t a Rose

  Botany. Or as they like to call it here—Herbiculture.

  The noble art of discovering which plants can kill you, which ones will just make you wish you were dead, and the rare few that actually help you.

  Thrilling.

  Don’t get me wrong—plants are fascinating. But did we really need a detailed lecture on how the fleshvine slowly digests its prey? With diagrams?

  I still have nightmares about that mushroom class. We do not talk about the mushroom class.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Today’s horror feature is the Cordelin Rose.

  A paradox in plant form: lethal enough to fell a grand mage, yet somehow effective in treating the sniffles in babies.

  How?

  Don’t ask. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this course, it’s that plants are weird, and logic took a vacation centuries ago.

  The bell rang. Finally.

  A blessed reprieve from staring at a flower that looks nothing like a rose.

  Time to vanish before—

  “Miss Kareina, please stay behind.”

  Fudge.

  I was this close to escaping.

  “Okay, sir,” I said, slinging my bag over my shoulder like it was a weapon and trudging after him down the hallway.

  He was young-looking, early twenties maybe, the kind of age that makes you question your life choices when he gets to be a professor and you can barely keep up with magical plant taxonomy.

  His office was neat, unnervingly so.

  I stepped in, the door closing with a soft click behind me.

  He turned, pulled off his glasses, and gave me that look—the one I’d been avoiding for weeks.

  “Hello, brother.”

  What do you think about this story idea