The cold came to Rindhollow overnight, and Austin had nowhere warm to sleep. He wanted one thing more than warmth: a place as apprentice to the kindest shopkeeper in town. But every morning he lost his nerve at her door. He was ten years old, his shoes split open at the toes, his face and hands black with road dirt. A boy like that did not get hired. So he waited, and now the frost had come for him. He spent the night in the ruins of an old cottage. Thick vines covered its walls. Its roof had half fallen in, but the plants had grown so thick they blocked some of the wind. Austin curled against a cold stone wall and hugged his rabbit close. The little bunny had soft fur in purple, pink, and yellow. He had pulled it from a ditch last spring and kept it ever since. Now it shivered against his chest, and he could not stop its shaking. By dawn his fingers would not bend. The rabbit had gone quiet and still. Austin knew he could not wait another day to be brave. He had to find warmth now, or lose the one friend he had. So he carried the rabbit to the greenhouse at the edge of the gardens. He had passed it many times. Warm steam always clouded its glass. Inside worked the gardener who grew the sweetest fruit in Rindhollow. He had watched her hand apples to children for free. He had been too ashamed to speak to her. He was not ashamed now. He pushed the door open. Warm air hit him like a wave. Flora Greenwood knelt among her plants, gloved hands deep in black soil. A strange plant sat beside her in a pot, its leaves bright and its face shifting from a frown to a grin as she worked. A tiny winged hamster hovered near her shoulder, its butterfly wings flashing green and pink. Flora looked up. She saw the dirt, the torn shoes, the still rabbit in his arms. She did not frown. "Bring that little one to the heat," she said. She cleared a space on a warm stone bench near the pipes. "Set him there. Quick now." Austin laid the rabbit on the warm stone. For a long moment it did not move. Then one ear twitched. Its chest rose. Austin's breath broke out in a sob he could not hold back. Flora pressed a cup of hot tea into his frozen hands. She studied him while he drank. "You've slept rough," she said. It was not a question. "Cold's not done with us yet." She looked at his hands, steady on the cup now. "I need help here through the frost. Honest hands. You look like you've got those." Austin stared at her. The warmth, the work, the kindness he had been too afraid to ask for sat before him. He opened his mouth. He had to find the right words, before the chance slipped away.

Austin found his words, and Flora kept him on. For three days he carried water and swept soil. But this morning she handed him a real task. She knelt beside a long bed of tender green shoots. "These are my fever-leaf seedlings," she said. "Water them while I take fruit to the village. Not too much. Not too little." Then she was gone, and Austin stood alone before a bed she had grown for months. He lifted a watering can. The shoots looked fragile as thread. He had no idea how much they could drink. One can felt too little. So he poured another, and another. The soil turned to black mud. The little stems bent and sagged. Water pooled and did not drain. Austin's stomach dropped. He had drowned them. He could not fix this alone. He remembered the little shop near the gardens, the one with seed bins out front and a sign that swung on a chain. The woman who kept it knew plants better than anyone. Austin ran. The shop smelled of earth and dry seeds. Shelves held cans of every color and pots stacked in a leaning tower. Behind the counter stood Sunflower Meadows, her blonde hair tied back, sunflowers stitched on her apron. She was pressing seeds into a paper packet. She looked up and took in his muddy clothes without a flinch. "I drowned Flora's seedlings," Austin said. The words tumbled out. "The fever-leaf. I gave them too much water." Sunflower set down her packet at once. "Fever-leaf hates wet feet," she said. "But they're tougher than they look. You can still save them." She came around the counter and knelt to his height. "Tip the pots and let the water run off. Then set them somewhere warm with light. Give the roots air. Don't touch that soil again until the top goes dry." Austin repeated it back. Tip them. Warm light. Let them dry. Sunflower nodded and pressed a small can into his hands, one with a narrow spout. "Use this next time. It pours slow. A seedling wants a sip, not a flood." He ran back. He tipped each pot and watched brown water stream out. He carried the bed to the warm bench near the pipes and spread the shoots in the light. He did not water them. He only waited, and watched the top of the soil. By the time Flora returned, the stems had begun to lift. She knelt and studied them a long moment. "They nearly went," she said quietly. She looked at the slow-spouted can in his hands, then at his face. "But you knew where to go. That's worth more than knowing everything." She did not smile, but her voice was warm. "Tomorrow you'll handle the ripe tomatoes. They bruise if you so much as breathe on them."