For the first time, Patricia looks rattled.

“Wildcraft is shorthand for the branch of Rootcraft she practiced. The type of energy she could manipulate is found in growing things—plants, herbs, trees. As a student, she spent hours here in the gardens and—” Her face folds into a sympathetic frown. “I’m so sorry, Bree… I thought this would be a comforting, familiar setting to you. I thought you knew about her.”

I almost fall off the bench. How many times in a week can one have their world spun and fractured and put back together again? A dozen? Two dozen? After-Bree presses against the walls that restrain her. Against surprise and secrets and another moment of my life that breaks the world open a little further. My skin feels prickly and tight. I shut my eyes and shove it all back before panic steals my senses. “My mother… manipulated energy?”

“Yes.”

Questions tumble against one another like dominoes. “What type of energy? What is Rootcraft?” Does everyone keep secrets here?

Patricia recovers her composure. She taps a polished nail on her lower lip, her eyes darting back and forth in thought. “I’m not sure that I should say any more.”

Suddenly, I’m so impatient and indignant I could shake her until the answers fall out. Scream until she shares what she knows. I grit my teeth. “Why not?”

She hesitates, but meets my eyes. “I don’t think it’s my place.”

“Why? Did she tell you to keep this from me?” A thought occurs to me. “Did my dad?”

She spreads her hands over her skirt. “I didn’t know Faye very well, and we didn’t keep up after graduation. I didn’t even know she had a daughter until your father called me today, didn’t even know she’d passed. And I doubt your father knows about any of this. Most often, the craft flows from mother to daughter.”

“What?” I shoot to my feet.

“Bree, I’d like you to calm down.”

“Why would I be calm about this? My mother had a secret life and she never told me. Why didn’t she tell me?”

“I don’t know why Faye made the decisions she did. When loved ones die, there are always questions like this, with answers we can only guess at.”

Confusion and anger flood me in a hot rush. “And are those questions always about magic?”

“We don’t call it magic.”

“We?” My fists ball at my sides. “I just met you, and now it’s ‘we’? You and my mother?”

Patricia’s lips thin.

“My mother was a botanist. A scientist. Five minutes ago, I thought any manipulation of plants she did happened in a—a pharmaceutical lab. And now you’re telling me she lied to me.”