Domi woke the next morn to warm Trellis-light spilling across his face. When his eyes fluttered open, for a moment he didn't know where he lay.

The canvas ceiling above him hummed a soft lullaby. For the first time since Arbita reversed his suppression, the sound of promenia did not bother Domi. He stared up at the cloth in wonder, and a dim memory rose of lying down last eve beneath its gentle, golden light and being lulled to sleep by its soothing bellsong.

Across from him, a pillar held bundles of upside-down herbs, like his ma tied them from the rafters in the loft back home to dry when she got her hands on fresh spices. Behind the pillar, a couple of canvas screens hung to provide privacy on the side of the cottage that was otherwise open to a garden beyond.

A garden.

Memory came crashing back, and Domi's smile at the pleasant, peaceful surroundings faded. The garden. He was in the greenhouse where the Gardener lived and worked.

Domi sighed, sitting up in his cot-like bed and stretching. He felt more well-rested than he had in a while. His firm mattress reminded him more of the packed straw back home than the too-plush bed Valens bought him, which tended to put a crick in his neck.

But the familiar bed was not the only reason he felt well-rested. He had slept through Brightening, the morning Rain, and salutatio as well.

He shrugged and reached for his bag. It wasn't like he could make a great impression on the Gardener even if he wished. The man already met him in all his Pullatus glory.

Though he supposed there was nowhere else to go from there but up. Pulling a fresh tunica and paenula from his bag, he climbed out of bed.

When he wandered into the garden, dressed in clothes that emerged from his bag only a little wrinkled, he discovered he was not alone. Scattered across the greenhouse beneath shady trees, four youths reclined on triclinum couches as they nibbled their breakfasts and read.

The Gardener was nowhere in sight.

Reluctant to break the peaceful hush, Domi approached the first kid he spotted, a girl with rich-bronze skin and wavy dark-brown hair pulled back into a loose, elegant braid. "Excuse me," he said, his voice a whisper. The girl glanced up from her book. "Where's the Gardener?"

"You mean Aix?" She jerked her head toward the cottage. "Still asleep. He'll wander out later."

"Oh. When?"

The girl shrugged. "An hour? Maybe two. Till then, find a book and grab breakfast. Nothing from the Caeles though. A real book from the library—ah, your room. He always expects us to tell him a bit about our reading when he wakes."

What the heck kind of teacher was this man? Even the traveling storytellers who sometimes came to teach Pullati kids tales from the Holy Ovidiana had a more reliable schedule than this.

"Where do I find breakfast?"

The girl chuckled and waved a hand toward the sprawled bushes and trees. "Eat whatever you find. So long as it isn't glowing, it's edible." She flicked her fingers at a small table beneath a date tree. "Plates are over there."

What the heck was with this place? After a moment, Domi shrugged his surprised dismay off. It was not his first time scavenging fruits and nuts from trees for a meal, and at least this time he had permission. It would be a pleasant change not to need to run from any city watch for the theft.

"The peach trees are still bearing because of the greenhouse," the girl said. She didn't glance up from her book. "I'm Favilla, by the way."

"Good to meet you. I'm Domi."

"Welcome to the Garden Group." She turned a page.

Domi snorted, peering around at the other students. These were by far the laziest gardeners he had ever seen. They were more like lawn ornaments. He glanced down at the older girl. "So... What's your story?"

She set the book aside with a sigh. "Story?"

"My impression is this isn't the typical way people go through the conservatory." He didn't know much about Promethidae life yet, but he learned enough to understand students usually studied with an aedificans of their own lineage from among the academies' five official teachers. Aix was anything but official. "There must be something special about you, if Aix is your aedificans."

The girl lifted a brow. "Ah, you're wondering what's wrong with me."

Domi found himself blushing. "I wouldn't phrase it like that, but yeah." He shrugged. "I'm pretty sure I'm here because someone suppressed my magic at birth, I just kindled, and I suck at magic."

"You're also impure."

Domi grimaced. "You've heard about me. Word sure travels fast." He wasn't surprised. The Collegium was a small community, after all, and the Garden Group didn't seem to have anything better to do with their time than gossip. "So, what's your story?" he asked again.

Favilla shrugged. "I'm a freak like you. Not suppressed and feral and all that, though, just impure." Domi raised his brows, and quirking a wry smile, she tugged down her paenula's collar to show off a violet laurel with flecks of ruby glittering in the tracings. "Forgeholder and starholder. My parents, fools for love that they are, ignored the restriction."

"Restriction?"

Her brows arched in surprise at the question, but after a moment she nodded. Domi grimaced. Everyone no doubt realized he was a Pullatus and clueless about Promethidae ways. "Starholders are only supposed to conceive kids with other starholders. Our lineage is the least dominant of the five, so unless we tumble other starholders, no starholder babies. They had five kids, most pure forgeholders."

"Except you."

"Except me." Favilla jerked her thumb toward a girl with short black hair cut to frame her chin. "Cithara's the same. Lifeholder and forgeholder." She nodded to a cluster of rose bushes, where a long-haired mindholder boy proudly sporting the faintest hint of a mustache over his upper lip lounged. "Aulicus had a botched kindling and is a late start like you. Dium," she dipped her chin toward an ebony-complected starholder with straight black bangs sheared across their forehead, "can't sense stars or command aught larger than an ant. They're creepy smart, though. Like, way, way smarter than even other starholders. Super weird." Her eyes flicked toward and away from something over Domi's shoulder, and she smirked. "And Sidus is the Trueborn son of a couple of Empowered."

"Sidus?"

"That would be me."

Domi whirled toward the voice coming from behind him and found himself gazing at a smiling young man with wavy black hair and, Eternal Radiance preserve him, stunning, intense almond eyes.

Favilla smirked as Domi stood there speechless. "His name means 'Star of Wooded Valleys' because, as you can see, the Rex's breeding program succeeded at restoring two fallen starholder lines."

The vivid ruby laurel was not what drew the eye. Domi swallowed and found his voice, heat flooding his face as the handsome boy took him in with that unwavering gaze. "Hello, Sidus."

"Why, hello."

Favilla rolled her eyes. "Well, I see I'm not wanted here any longer." And with that, she plucked her book up off her lap and rose, taking her leave with a wink over her shoulder at Sidus.

Heat flooded Domi's face. "I..." Away. Eternal Radiance, that gaze. He needed to get away. "Got to go read."

He was not proud of the way he fled. Still, he had no idea how to react to the handsome boy. What the heck had those stares meant?

He shook his head as he retreated to the cottage to find a book, leaving Sidus laughing softly behind him.

By the time the Gardener—Aix—emerged an hour later, Domi had made his way through a plate of nuts and fruits. He also managed to puzzle through the first ten pages of the book he had plucked from the pile scattered across his cot the eve before.

He was discovering that, in some ways, reading came easier than he expected. Each glyph Valens taught him represented a sound in the Nova Latina language, and so several of the glyphs together represented a word. Although he didn't always know in advance which similar-sounding glyphs would be used to construct a particular word, he could often study a term for a little while and figure it out.

Valens had been surprised—in a pleasant way, for once—by his vocabulary. Domi had learned decent grammar by listening to and memorizing passages from the Holy Ovidiana, which traveling storytellers shared with poor children in the forum market every Cultus. He possessed a good memory for stories shared in the forum marketplace every Cultus. The creative words storytellers used to spin their tales tended to weave their way into Domi's own vocabulary. It helped that his ma wanted him to memorize at least five new words every time he attended a session the traveling storytellers offered poor kids. Growing up, he had cursed Merula for her unorthodox teaching methods, but now he found himself grateful.

But this particular book proved harder to understand than the Cultus wondertales and the simple books Valens made him practice reading. He had never heard of something called "natural history," let alone "xeno-natural history." He understood what "natural" and "history" meant. And he got the sense the book talked about the plants and animals on Aquarius and ancient debates between people called natural historians about whether day-side creatures belonged on the planet.

The book confused him, and not just because it took bloody forever to sound out the complicated words. How could plants and animals not belong on Aquarius? Where else did they belong?

The book seemed useless, but then again, he thought the stuff taught to citizens in the schools must be sort of useless. After all, Domi lacked an education and couldn't read, at least not until now, and he was not missing out on much essential to survival, right?

Still, he would have liked to get his hands on a book about promenia use or, even better, the things worldholders could do. He needed to sift through the mess back in his room later and see if he could find something more useful.

"Good morn, lovely young people."

Domi lifted a brow as, around midday, Aix sauntered out between the trees.

"Come, come, gather around," the Gardener said, gesturing toward himself as he slumped at the base of a tree. The students began to rise. "Tell me what new and interesting things you have learned today. Aulicus, you go first."

The boy with the shadow of a mustache nodded. "A night-side tribe called the Luminis have not lived under the Trellis since their founding, but they build prayer rooms filled with promenia lanterns that glow in the same wavelengths as the Trellis." He glanced up toward the crisscrossing bands of golden light, which filtered through the greenhouse glass. "Every day, they go to the prayer rooms to read the Holy Ovidiana. They believe they're spending time in the Eternal Radiance's light. So they avoid the depressive disorders so often found in other communities that never receive Trellis-light."

"That is wonderful," Aix said. Domi stared. Who was this man and where was the surly Dyer? "And how about you, Dium?" he asked the kid with striking kohl-lined eyes under a mop of silky black hair.

Their fingers tapped the cover of their book. "Two hundred years ago the Nubigena curia experimented with a technique of promenia use they called 'spellsongs'. They abandoned that method in favor of the chants they use today, but there might be something to it."

"Very interesting." Aix glanced at Cithara. "That will be your project for this month. See if you can make yourself a little ditty of a spellsong." And then the Gardener turned to Domi. "And what have you learned?"

He bit his lip. He hadn't learned much at all. "I didn't understand a lot of the words. I um..." His cheeks burned. "I just started reading three weeks ago. It's hard."

"Well, then what did you learn about reading?" Aix held up a hand as the students stared and whispered, and they fell silent.

"About... reading?" Domi asked. He caught Favilla gawking and fixed her with a defiant glare, then blinked as she smiled.

The Gardener nodded. "Whatever we do or try, in particular when it is a challenge, can be a learning experience. You said reading is difficult for you. That means it is a good learning opportunity. So, what did you learn?"

He shrugged. This man was weird. "I guess that I have a decent vocabulary because of the Holy Ovidiana and the sermons and tales the storytellers share on Cultus. So there is a lot I should be able to read once I learn the rules for sounding out glyphs."

Aix nodded. "My suspicion is you possess a superb vocabulary." He smiled at his alumnas as Domi blinked in confusion at the compliment. "The storytellers who visit the forum marketplace are no slouches. They are fine people to learn from. Some of the most talented wordweavers and historians in Provincia Sicarii, in fact." He winked. "I should know, I recruited them myself."

Domi frowned. "You recruited them?" Aix must have been referring to something else. He felt a blush creep into his cheeks. "I was talking about the storytellers that come tell wondertales to poor kids and repeat all the Princepses' sermons and share the news and stuff."

"Indeed, the very same. A little arrangement between the Praetor and city leaders." Keen gray eyes held Domi's gaze.

Between Cerasus and Merula, Aix meant. Eternal Radiance, what had Domi's ma given the Praetor in exchange? Cerasus must be getting something out of the arrangement. But how did the Praetor benefit from filling a bunch of Pullati kids' heads with stories, dramatic scripture readings, and the like for two hours each week?

Aix offered a slow nod as Domi mulled over it. "So, you possess an excellent vocabulary and are well-prepared to apply it to the challenge of reading."

Domi's ears heated. "Not excellent. I'm just decent at memorizing stuff."

"Do not sell yourself short, Domi. As I recall, Pullati children often memorize whole books by heart." He glanced at the mindholder boy with the tiny mustache. "Aulicus, can you recite the whole Holy Ovidiana?"

The boy shrugged. "Not without using promenia to improve my memory."

Aix smiled at Domi. "There, you see? Your talent is almost magical." He chuckled as Domi squirmed in discomfort under the unexpected attention. "I suspect you will be reading like an expert in no time."

Domi nibbled his lip. "I don't think so. A lot of words aren't familiar. Stuff that's not talked about in the Holy Ovidiana, like 'xeno-natural history.'"

"Oh, heresy," Favilla giggled, faking a shiver of excitement. At Domi's confused glance she smiled. "You'll find that Aix has an unorthodox approach to gaining knowledge."

The Gardener sighed. "If by 'unorthodox' you mean unwilling to confine myself or you to little but information shared in the Holy Ovidiana, then yes. There is an enormous wealth of things, young people, that are not mentioned in the scriptures. If we look into such things, they may expand our understanding of what the Holy Ovidiana says and the value its stories and precepts should have in our lives."

Domi blinked. He'd never heard someone say something like that before. He had always assumed the scriptures could be taken at face value. After all, their stories and commandments seemed clear to him. But now, for the first time in his life, he wondered.

He glanced around the small circle of youths and their teacher. These were strange people, but he found he kind of liked them.