Benji had rather a lot on his mind as he left an evening shift tending Rick. If it had just been the impending first round of exams, including a hands-on languageworking assessment he was almost certain to fail, that would have been plenty.

  As he passed the Trug nest on the way back up to the teashop, he imagined for the hundredth time what he’d say to Jurni to convince her to help them. He knew that he’d likely need to use Nella’s membership in the Completists as leverage. He didn’t know if that would be enough, if Jurni would simply laugh at the idea of risking her own academic standing to help an antisocial plantworker and a senior first-year.

  Perhaps not as serious, yet no less irksome, the fibbett attracter he’d borrowed on behalf of Simon and Lucy was now over a week past due, and he had expected Reena to show up and drag him into the OPMI office for questioning at any moment. There weren’t many situations in which Benji wished to be a completely different person, but lacking the force of personality to claw back a magical item from a couple of thirteen-year-olds was certainly one of them.

  To top things off, Matilde had started giving him lower marks on his assignments, often accompanied by a glare that clearly said, I’m deducting ten points because you’re a sneaky little bastard.

  He was so distracted that he didn’t see the shape emerging out of the shadows near the ladder to the teashop.

  Benji’s scream was probably audible in the shop above. The shape cupped a very cold hand over his mouth.

  “Please don’t be startled,” came an ethereal yet familiar, voice. “I mean only the usual amount of harm.”

  Benji stepped back as the hand released him, and he looked up into Maynard’s shadowed face. His fellow senior first-year seemed lit from below, the shadows propelled upward over his pale forehead in a manner that felt disrespectful to the magelights on either side of him.

  “Maynard, what are you doing here?”

  “I came to try the tea.”

  “And ended up in the secret passage below the shop? Seems like you might not be that great at tea.”

  Maynard’s obvious regret almost made Benji feel bad. “I knew I didn’t have the necessary pores, and yet I wished to partake in this most human of substances. Alas, I have developed . . .” he looked regretfully down at his hands, which were a shinier shade of white than usual “. . . a sheen.”

  Benji stared in disbelief at Maynard, whose entire body did have a new, almost slick glowiness.

  “Honestly, it looks kind of cool,” Benji said. “How do you feel?”

  “Rather . . . sheeny.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Maynard’s bashful expression quickly turned into a stare that could pierce flesh and worm its way into the very core of one’s being. It would be less disconcerting if he blinked.

  “So . . .”

  “Ah yes, thank you.”

  Benji quirked an eyebrow. “For?”

  “For showing me whatever it is you are attempting to hide. It is very kind of you to take me into your confidence.”

  Benji tried to hide the guilt that was no doubt streaming over his face as he considered. He hadn’t intended to involve Maynard, both because he didn’t know if Maynard could actually help, and out of a perhaps misplaced sense of protectiveness. The strange man was so out of step with the rest of the university that it seemed unjust to ask him for anything that might further risk his position.

  Benji could always take him down to the Trug nest, play with the gloopy creatures for a while, and pretend that was all he was hiding. Maynard might even believe him, or be willing to accept the lie out of respect for their friendship.

  In another light, however, Maynard’s strange status at the university might make him the perfect person—if he could be called that—to help. He was here by force, so surely some level of misbehavior was expected? Besides, he was perhaps the least likely to spill secrets to the faculty. And, he could turn himself invisible.

  Seeing his hesitation, Maynard added, “How about a trade? If you show me this secret, I will show you several of my own.”

  “I never pegged you for someone with secrets,” Benji said. “You’re so normal.”

  “Never call me that again.”

  Resigned, Benji motioned for Maynard to follow. Studying for his languageworking exam would have to wait.

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  Maynard’s natural glow, augmented by the tea-induced sheen, made the passage and its uneven magelights seem softer somehow, the surefooted glide of his steps making Benji feel he was the one following Maynard, rather than the other way around.

  Benji offered no explanation, even as Maynard observed the vines spilling out into the tunnels, and even when they came before the plant who might one day destroy half the city.

  “I see,” Maynard said with the air of a doctor diagnosing a common but incurable fungal infection. “It appears you have yourself a bit of a Worldeater situation.”

  “Rick?” Benji called. Rick usually went dormant for a while after the plantworking, but he didn’t mind being woken up.

  When the leaves unfurled and one of the flowers bobbed overhead, Maynard bowed with stiff reverence.

  “Rick, I’ve brought one of my friends,” Benji said, not really sure what to say. “Please don’t eat him.”

  Maynard’s canines flashed in defiance. “I’d be intrigued to see him try. But no, I am here to offer my assistance.”

  “You have brought me one of the Old Ones,” Rick said. “How fascinating.”

  “Old Ones?” Benji asked.

  “A bit reductive,” Maynard said. “But close enough for plant understanding.”

  Feeling enormously out of his depth, Benji stepped back and watched Maynard and Rick converse.

  They appeared to hit it off. In fact, the conversation was so natural and inhuman that Benji wondered if they were communicating at a level beyond human speech.

  He also wondered if perhaps this union boded poorly for Thelspoint, and the rest of the Unified Coast as a whole.

  “I did live in the Canalworks for a time,” Maynard was saying. “Of all my homes near to human habitation, it was the most comfortable. But this is quite an abode, if not necessarily the correct climate for your kind.”

  “How does everyone know that Worldeaters prefer dry weather?” Benji said to himself.

  “The Canalworks, the home of all that the city has cast aside,” the plant said knowingly. “It is strange that such a place is also vital infrastructure.”

  “Humans enjoy their paradoxes.”

  The plant nodded. Benji took the opportunity presented by the brief pause in the conversation to ask, “Rick, how do you know what’s going on in the Canalworks? I can’t imagine Nella told you about them.”

  Rick’s stem stiffened, but Maynard put up a mollifying hand. “It’s really quite simple, actually. Rick is connected to the Knowledge.”

  Another pause passed as Maynard smiled at Benji, as if expecting him to say, Oh, now I see. Thank you very much for your thorough explanation.

  “The Knowledge?”

  Rick became so agitated that his other flowers emerged, rocking back and forth. His vines tightened, sending a shower of dust and crushed rock pouring down from the ceiling.

  “Your ignorance is perhaps a failure more of academic plantworking than your studiousness,” Maynard said. “I have been surprised not to have a single lecture on the subject thus far.”

  Benji whispered to Maynard, “Can you please just tell me what it is so Rick doesn’t strangle us?”

  The narrow slits of Rick’s flowers seemed to indicate that strangulation was merely the beginning of the intended consequences.

  “There are plants all around us most of the time,” Maynard said. “Alongside them is an intricate web of bacterial and fungal matter, including that which makes up a good part of what you think of as ‘Benji.’ It is a complex organization of information, passed through the smallest elements of bacteria, and codified in the very structure of plant life. Not all plants can tap into this web, but those that can have access to a nearly unlimited flow of knowledge. The Knowledge.”

  “So you’re saying that the ferns I’m supposed to curl the leaves of in plantworking class could tell me what’s happening on the other side of Thelanel?”

  “Don’t be daft,” Rick said. He had calmed somewhat, even if the flowers remained out. “While plant intelligence may mean speech, it more often means access to the Knowledge. Most of us cannot tap into it, we can only enact its will, become part of the ever-growing web.”

  “This is one of the reasons Worldeaters are so precious,” Maynard said. “He is both message and messenger for the vast knowledge underpinning the world.”

  “I had no idea.” Benji found himself suddenly overcome by how much he didn’t understand about this world, which was alive and complicated and completely ignored beneath his feet. Or even inside his own body. “This does seem like something they should teach in class, if I’m honest.”

  “I wonder,” Maynard said. “Would humans really believe that the Knowledge is as extensive as it is? Would they try to exploit it for their own gain? Maybe better for it to remain a niche interest of the obscure plantworker.”

  “So you’ve been tapped into this Knowledge from the beginning,” Benji said. “Is that how you learned to speak?”

  Rick’s three flowers nodded gravely. “My awareness of the Knowledge came long before human speech. It is difficult to describe this awakening. I suppose it is no different than a human child learning how to walk, or talk for the first time. Yet I did so over the course of a few brief days, and have full memory of that process because it is contained in the Knowledge.”

  “Could humans access it?”

  Maynard’s loud laugh echoed in the hall. It quickly became clear that part of the echo was being contributed by Rick’s approximations of laughter.

  “It would be unwise, I think,” Maynard said. “Humans are not particularly adept at using the knowledge they already possess in their books and minds. Imagine if they could suddenly stare into the soul of the entire universe.”

  “I guess that would be bad,” Benji said.

  “Or it could save you all from your own destruction,” Maynard said with a shrug. “Who could know?”

  Looking up at the crawling vines, dappled with the glow of Maynard’s skin, Benji had the sensation of being very far away from his family’s one-bedroom apartment. An apartment that, for all he knew, was directly above where they currently stood. He’d wanted to challenge himself by attending the university. He hadn’t known exactly how world-shaking that challenge would be.

  “Gentlemen, as illuminating and deeply disconcerting as this all is, I do have an exam to study for,” Benji said. “Maynard, let’s talk about getting you onto the schedule to help with the plantworking and keeping him from, you know, doing his worldeating thing.”

  “Of course,” Maynard said with an ominous smile. “And don’t forget, I now owe you a secret.”

  “A deal’s a deal,” Benji said as he turned to go, suppressing his protest that another secret was the absolute last thing he needed right now.