Brody stopped in front of us. “Man, we were playing fetch with my frisbee and then she just bolted.”

“It’s okay. She’s selective with her terror. Birdie and the others are inside eating. I’ll take her with me. Thanks for running her.”

Brody bumped Seamus’s fist. “I needed it too. Catch you later. Bye, Franks!”

“Bye!” I smiled. It was funny to me to find which people started calling me Franks like Uncle Kyle.

“C’mon, Rootbeer, you crazy girl.” Seamus waved for me to follow him, with Rootbeer immediately following in line beside him like the good service doggy she was. “Don’t be nervous, Frankie⁠—”

“That immediately makes people nervous, Seamus,” I said and signed as we walked. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.” His blue eyes sparkled with excitement.

He talked to Rootbeer as we walked, and it was the cutest little conversation about her frisbee catching, so I didn’t interrupt. We went back inside the same building Constance had taken me to meet Professor Rigdon, but we didn’t return to that library, thankfully. No, he led me all the way down the hall to where another set of wooden double doors sat. When he pushed those open, my breath actually left me in a rush.

It was kind of similar to the library down the hall yet so different. Instead of two walls of books, there were rows and rows of potion bottles and vials. Where the actual library had felt like someone’s bougie living room, this place was a workshop. There were large wooden tables spread throughout the giant room, and they reminded me of chemistry lab tables but more rustic like in woodshop classes. Students were scattered throughout, heads bent over cauldrons and piles of herbs,

“What is this place?”

Seamus grinned. “You know how Swords has their training room with the mats where everyone fights?”

I nodded.

“This is the Cups’ apothecary.” He gestured around. His face was absolutely beaming with happiness like a little kid who just saw all his presents under the Christmas tree. “This is where we work. We make potions and stuff here. These stacks carry basically any ingredient we could need to make potions. There are solids and liquids and even the restricted section with some vials of gasses, but I’m not supposed to know that.”

I grinned. “I love watching you work with this stuff.”

He frowned, then glanced around to all the other students in the apothecary who I’d just realized were definitely curious about me. He cleared his throat. “What did you say?”

I signed, ‘I love watching you work with this stuff. Your whole face lights up.’

‘I feel at home here. Peace,’ he signed back with a blush in his cheeks.

‘So, you like being in Eden? Glad you came?’

He nodded immediately. ‘I found my path here.’

I stood up straight from petting Rootbeer. ‘What’s that?’