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My pen stopped. I looked at the plant. Then at Barrett, who’d already gone back to his sanding. “How do you know that?”

He frowned. “Not sure. I just know it will.”

I carefully turned one of the tiny leaves. There was, in fact, the faintest violet blush along the underside. I frowned. This wasn’t the first time he'd done that. In fact, the more time I spent with him, the more often I noticed it.

Our work had begun to blur together over the past three days. At some point, my survey had become our project, although I couldn’t remember either of us making the change.

I showed Barrett what I knew about plant structures, reproductive systems, and habitat specificity. He showed me what he knew best: Screaming Woods. He knew where water moved after heavy rain, which slopes shifted, where certain species grew, and how the forest changed with the seasons.

Twice, he’d stopped me from taking a cutting because, according to him, the plant “wasn’t ready to lose it.”

Both times, I’d assumed he was applying years of practical woodland experience. Now I wasn’t so sure.

I turned back to the propagation trays lining the windowsill. “What about this one?”

Barrett followed my finger. “White creeper.”

“That’s not a creeper.”

He shrugged. “It creeps.”

I lifted the tray. The cutting was only six inches tall, but three new leaves had unfurled since yesterday. They were almost translucent beneath the morning light, each one traced with fine silver veins branching from a red central midrib.

I knew those leaves. Or something very close to them.

I carried the tray to the table. “Where did you get this?”

Barrett glanced at it. “North side of the ravine. The one past the sink trail.”

“The protected ravine?”

“Most ravines should be protected from you.”

“Barrett.”

“Yes.”

I set the tray down and crossed to the shelf where I’d left two of my reference books. The photograph took less than a minute to find because I’d stared at it often enough during my postgraduate work to remember roughly where it sat in the text.

When I returned, Barrett had stopped sanding.

I laid the open book beside the tray. “This is Argyrea nocturnis.”

He studied the photograph, then the living plant. “Looks like it.”

“Looks like it?” I pulled the tray closer. “Barrett, this species has an obligate relationship with a highly specific fungal network. Attempts to cultivate it outside its native habitat have repeatedly failed.”

He glanced at the healthy cutting on his table. “This one’s doing okay.”

I turned the pot slightly, examining the medium. There was nothing remarkable about it: dark woodland soil, some leaf mold, fragments of bark. No controlled substrate. No humidity chamber. No evidence he’d done anything remotely sophisticated.

“How did you propagate it?”

“Cut a piece off.”

I closed my eyes briefly. “I understand how cuttings work. What medium did you use?”

He pointed at the pot. “Dirt.”