Chapter 5

Brisk wind greeted Saffron on Monday morning. The considerable walk and bus journey to reach the University College London campus seemed especially interminable, what with the promise of another tense conversation with Alexander. What worried her more, however, was the meeting she anticipated between her and Dr. Aster.

The head of Botany, though he was still new to the position, was as intimidating as he was old. That was to say: very. Aster had been the friend of her mentor, Dr. Maxwell, but Aster had never shown her any of the warmth Maxwell had for Saffron.

Stepping onto campus after a break had felt for many years like a welcome home, a return to the place she believed she'd one day belong, contributing to the world and its knowledge. Now she felt none of that thrill, or even that comfort, that she'd once taken from walking into the Quad. The stone buildings bracketing the circular drive seemed to watch her with their darkened windows like somber eyes as she crossed the pavement on her way into the North Wing.

She climbed the steps to the second floor, where she unlocked her office, set her things down, and surveyed the room. Her desk had a tall stack of files atop it, and her collection of plant cuttings in the window sill were in dangerous need of water. Their pale roots tangled at the dry bottoms of the test tubes she'd arranged them in. She took the wooden rack in hand and headed back out into the hall.

She planned to go down into the bowels of the building to the breakroom, but going into the basement and facing dim halls lined with furniture covered in white fabric was deeply unappealing. She didn't care for being underground, for one thing, but her general dislike had bloomed into full-blown reluctance in recent months. Surprisingly little had bothered her about the conclusion of her last case, but two things continued to emerge in her dreams or catch her off guard in her waking hours: flashes of fleeing through moonlit rooms full of covered furniture, and the dead, empty face of Mrs. Keller. She'd known Mrs. Keller's corpse would haunt her for a long time, but the former surprised her. It wasn't the villain's chilling confession nor having her head mercilessly bashed that lingered … but white-swathed furniture. It made her feel rather like an idiot to have her heart pound at the prospect of the basement and its rows of discarded desks and shelves, but she'd avoid the reminder all the same.

Dr. Miller and Mr. Feinstein, two members of her department, had paused to talk just before the staircase. Usually, she would have turned tail rather than interrupt a conversation between the pair, but if she was going to work out how to be a contributing member of the department, and to the study of botany in general, she needed to be able to have conversations with them that did not end with her wanting to hide from their sneering comments.

She exhaled, straightened up, and walked toward the stairs. "Good morning."

Feinstein nodded politely, pausing his complaint about fertilizers to reply. "Good morning."

Dr. Miller eyed her, his enormous mustache twitching. "Your galivanting on the continent lasted quite a while. How are your samples from Brazil faring?"

Ice trickled down her spine at his tone. What had happened to her samples to make him smile so smugly? Aster had approved her tropical pigmentation study on the condition it wouldn't take her a year to complete, and if something happened to her samples, it could put her back months.

She didn't bother forcing a pleasant expression in return. "I'm sure Mr. Winters has done an excellent job managing them."

That was an utter lie. Taciturn Mr. Winters despised foreign plants, especially the dangerous sort. She'd thought that his relative kindness in the past meant he could be trusted to keep all her samples alive, but had that been a mistake?

She nodded to the two men, murmuring "Excuse me," before quickly retreating down the stairs. She had to ensure nobody had sabotaged the only step in her career she'd been sure of.

The chilly morning meant the glass walls of the five greenhouses belonging to University College London were entirely opaque with milky condensation. Saffron bustled inside, set down her still-dry test tubes, and snapped off her hat, gloves, and hat. She stowed them on the hooks just inside with practiced inattention. Her eyes were already sweeping over the greenery within.

She didn't see any of her samples, but she hadn't expected them in the first greenhouse. That space was reserved for the full-grown species that belonged to tropical regions. She'd likely find them in the second or third greenhouse, where it was still warm but less crowded with massive fronds of every shape and shade of green.

She tied on her apron and pulled on her heavy leather gloves as she slipped into the second greenhouse, where lines of tables were spread like miniature roads. Each surface was covered in tiny pots. Some looked like nothing but dirt lay within, while others showed the first promising signs of life in minute green sprouts attempting to push through the black soil.

A quick sweep of the room showed that her specimens were not among the little pots.

Growing worry increased her pace as she strode from the greenhouse. Greenhouse Four was the dry one, and she was relieved to see her tropical plants had not been mistakenly put in there. But that meant that her samples—the ones that were retrieved for her from Brazil by Alexander and could not be replaced unless she begged cuttings or seeds from institutions notorious for their lack of cooperative spirit—were in Greenhouse Five. Where plants went to die.

Or, in the case of the xolotl vine, went to thrive. The toxic yellow vine had taken over the entire back wall of the greenhouse, not caring that the building was a little too drafty, a little too dry to suit its origins in the warm jungle of the Yucatan peninsula in which Dr. Maxwell had discovered it.

She ignored the vine, though, for she immediately saw that her plants were not in the greenhouse.

The now all too familiar sense of dread returned to squeeze her lungs. Her samples were nowhere to be seen, and she was meant to promptly visit Aster for a report on the conference and finalize her decision to keep her name off the paper she'd written with Lee. She'd have to tell him that her plants were missing.

She hurried back to the germination greenhouse. She read each and every label, stooping low over the tiny sprouts as she scrutinized each one. Sweat prickled her forehead, the heat and humidity of the greenhouse working in tandem with stress to overheat her.

"Blast," she whispered, straightening up and surveying the room once more. No hint of her tiny, poisonous plants. It was nearly nine in the morning, and Dr. Aster would be expecting her. She needed to get back to the North Wing, but how could she face him, knowing she was bringing only bad news? A hundred excuses and prevarications circled in her mind, but she knew Aster would accept none of them. What was she going to do?