Untitled Starfell #2 (Starfell #2) - Dominique Valente Page 0,41

first thing that popped into her mind. ‘Grumbling Gertrudes?’ Though the purple fruits always reminded her of Granny Flossy, which made her chin wobble for a moment, and suddenly there was a strange popping sound.

From within the hairy bag she heard Oswin moan, ‘Where’d the lining go?’

Willow blinked. Had she made that disappear?

No one seemed to notice her distress. Copernica, it seemed, had decided not to mention the noises she kept hearing from Willow’s bag. Perhaps when you were a Secret Keeper you were trained to turn a blind eye to things like that.

‘Okay. Come with me,’ she said, and they followed her to a clearing in the middle of the Old Library Gardens where they found what looked like a large brass clock on a waist-high podium. Instead of the time, though, it showed various sections of the library, and it only had one hand. In the centre, inked in fancy lettering, it said: Information.

Copernica tapped the glass with her fingernail and said, ‘Grumbling Gertrudes.’

The clock started to whirl round, then paused. The ink that had said Information before dissolved and formed the words Peddling Palatable Potions, Chapter Nine, Trade Secrets, by Festival Moss, and the clock hand pointed to shelf eleven.

‘Moss!’ exclaimed Willow. ‘That’s interesting – that’s the same surname as me.’

‘Well, magical abilities do run in families. Did anyone in yours have the ability to make potions?’ asked Copernica.

Willow swallowed. ‘Yes,’ she said as sadness filled her chest. She pushed it back down. She didn’t have time for that now. ‘But what do we do if we don’t know what we’re looking for?’

Copernica frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, we’re looking for the name of a plant we’ve seen. We don’t know much about it, though, except that it belonged to a forgotten teller.’

‘Hmmm,’ said Copernica. ‘Sometimes you can describe it to the dial and it sort of cross-references things. Otherwise, I’m afraid you might have to look at all of these.’ She waved a hand to indicate all the shelves filled with books on magical botany. ‘What does it look like, the plant?’

Willow opened the hairy green carpetbag and fished out the jam jar with the small purple iris inside, which then began to shift and swirl into smoke. ‘Like this,’ she said, showing it to her.

Copernica looked at the jam jar for a moment, then handed it back to Willow. She cleared her throat, then tapped the glass on the library dial and said, ‘Magical irises, purple, smoke-like properties?’

The dial whirled round and round, then the clock hand kept moving back and forth between shelves twenty-three and twenty-four.

There were two loud clock chimes, signifying the hour, and Copernica jumped. ‘Oh, Great Starfell, I’m late for my meeting with the council – I completely forgot about it. I was so enjoying meeting all of you!’

‘Us too!’ said Essential.

Copernica beamed. ‘What a pity. Next time you’re in Library, please do come and visit – I make a really good carrot cake!’

‘We’d love that! Thank you so much for all your help!’ said Willow, who had really enjoyed meeting the Secret Keeper and her tour of Library.

Oswin was the only one who didn’t seem all that impressed. ‘Carrots is not CAKE,’ he muttered from the bag. ‘Lib-brains.’

There were hundreds of books to choose from on shelves twenty-three and twenty-four.

Willow sighed. ‘Well, we’d better get started then,’ she said, opening a book that spoke of purple irises that were used in blood curses. ‘Gosh, this is a bit dodgy,’ she added, scanning it. The pictures, however, weren’t like the plant in her jar. She stared at it. The petals shimmered, then shuddered.

‘This one isn’t especially helpful either,’ said Sprig, showing them one that spoke about using irises in a garden border to protect against magical pests.

‘Or these,’ said Essential, who was paging through a historical book that described the changing climate of Starfell and how it affected the plants.

Then Essential spotted a thin blue book that looked handwritten. She picked it up and gasped. ‘The Lost Art of Forgotten Telling: A Year in the Garden,’ she breathed, ‘by Nolin Sometimes!’

They all shared a look.

‘This must have it!’ breathed Willow, sitting forward excitedly.

They paged through it. There were hundreds of detailed botanical drawings, including the magical memory flower and the bliss flower. There was also the rather creepy carvery, which she’d seen in a jar just the night before.

On the page next to each botanical print was a small history of the plant’s origins, properties and how it helped in the