“Yes,” he said. “Does it work better when you’re angry? When you’re sad?”
So, not coffee then. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“There are other naturalists.” He fixed her with a long, searching glance. “Why should I choose you?”
“You shouldn’t,” she said. “I’m a waitress, not a naturalist.”
One of the seedlings split open and dug into the wood of the table.
“There are gifts and there are talents,” the man said. “What would you say this is?”
“Neither.” The second seedling cracked. “A curse, maybe.”
“Hm.” The man glanced down at the seeds, then up at Reina. “What are you reading?”
She’d forgotten she still had the book tucked under her arm. “A translation of a manuscript by Circe, the Greek witch.”
His mouth twitched. “That manuscript is long lost, isn’t it?”
“People read it,” Reina said. “They wrote down what it contained.”
“About as reliable as the New Testament, then,” the man said.
Reina shrugged. “It’s what I have.”
“What if I said you could have the real thing?”
The third seedling shot up, colliding with the ceiling, and when it fell, it dug into the grains of the floor.
For a few seconds, neither of them moved.
“It doesn’t exist,” Reina said, clearing her throat. “You just said so.”
“No, I specifically said it was long-lost,” the man said. “Not everyone gets to see it.”
Reina felt her mouth tighten. It was a strange bribe, but she’d been offered things before. Everything came with a price. “So what would I have to do, then?” she asked, irritated. “Promise you eight years of harvest in exchange? Make up a percentage of your annual profits? No, thank you.”
She turned and something cracked beneath her feet. Little green roots sprouted from the floor and crept out like tendrils, like tentacles, reaching for her ankles and tapping at the base of her shoes.
“How about,” the man posed neutrally, “in exchange for three answers?”
Reina turned sharply, and the man didn’t hesitate. Clearly he’d had some practice leveraging people before. “What makes it happen?” he asked. His first question, and certainly not the one Reina would have gone with if she’d been the one given the choice.
“I don’t know.” He arched a brow, waiting, and she sighed. “Fine, it… uses me. Uses my energy, my thoughts, my emotions. If there’s more energy to give, then it takes more of it. Most of the time I’m restraining it, but if I let my mind go—”
“What happens to you in those moments? No, wait, let me clarify,” he amended, apparently sticking to his promise of three answers. “Does it drain you?”
She set her jaw. “It gives a little back, sometimes. But normally, yes.”
“I see. Last question,” he said. “What happens if you try to use it?”
“I told you,” she said, “I don’t use it.”
He sat back, gesturing to the two seedlings still remaining on the table, one half-heartedly growing roots while the other lay split open and bare.
The implication there was clear: Try it and see.
She weighed the outcomes, running the calculations.