Terlu, Lotti, and the other plants help Yarrow rescue as many plants as possible from the failing greenhouse. When the room becomes “deeply, deadly cold” (168), Yarrow urges the sentient plants to retreat. Terlu carries Lotti to safety and then hurries back for Yarrow and Dendy, who stayed behind in a futile effort to save one last bush. Dendy falls unconscious and begins to wither, and Yarrow and Terlu prepare a fresh pot of soil and warm water for him.

While the librarian watches over the rhododendron, Yarrow hurries to begin relocating the rescued plants to increase their chances of survival. Lotti and Emeral cuddle Terlu for comfort. When the lost greenhouse’s failing magic sets all of the plants they couldn’t save on fire, Terlu begins to cry “for the loss of all those innocent plants, for Yarrow, for feeling helpless, and for Dendy” (171). Dendy wakes up and immediately offers to help Yarrow with the replanting.

Yarrow expects most of the relocated plants to survive, and the sentient plants eagerly offer to care for them. The exhausted man wishes that he had a sorcerer, but the plants argue that they need more gardeners. Terlu offers to write to his family and ask for their help, and he hesitantly accepts.

Terlu struggles to compose the letter to Yarrow’s relatives because bringing more people to the island means having potential witnesses who could report her for working magic. She goes for a walk in the woods to clear her head and finds herself in the exact spot where she awakened when the spell wore off. Although she wonders what Rijes and her family would think of her plan to work magic again, she’s certain that her course of action is morally sound. Terlu finishes the letter to Yarrow’s family in Alyssium and raises a flag on the dock to signal the sailor who does Yarrow’s supply runs. A sea serpent rises from the waves, and the librarian takes the majestic creature’s appearance as a sign that she made the right decision.

Marin the sailor arrives shortly afterward, and Terlu gives her the letter. The sailor explains that delivering a message to Alyssium may be difficult because revolutionaries have overthrown the emperor and seized the capital. Terlu is astonished at this news and hopes that Rijes and Yarrow’s family are safe. One of the sentient plants, a wax myrtle named Ree, longs to be a sailor, and Marin agrees to let him join her on her voyage.

Two weeks later, Terlu identifies what she believes to be the spell that seals the greenhouse’s walls. Yarrow helps her gather the necessary ingredients and leads her to an isolated lost greenhouse in case the magic goes awry. When she warns him once again of the risks of an untrained person casting spells, he takes her hand and says: “I’ll be here, whatever happens […] You aren’t doing this alone” (194).

Terlu accidentally turns the lost greenhouse’s glass walls and ceiling to water, and Yarrow shields her from the ensuing downpour with his coat. Terlu is astonished when the gardener laughs and insists that he still trusts her. She longs to kiss him but restrains herself. The duo resolves to try again in another lost greenhouse the next day.

Terlu and Yarrow return to the cottage and change out of their wet clothes. The sight of the muscular gardener shirtless flusters Terlu. She shares her favorite childhood memory with him, the time that she learned a lost Enoan dialect and was rewarded with one of her grandmother’s prized oranges. This experience was both the first time she taught herself a language and “the first time [she] realized [she] could be good at something” (201). Yarrow reciprocates by telling her a story from when he was six or seven years old. His father entrusted him with his first plant, which grew sick after he overwatered it, and the boy’s tears of concern convinced his father that he was ready to begin his training as a gardener. Terlu is touched by his openness and tries to restrain her attraction to him for fear of jeopardizing their friendship.

Terlu realizes that she might have better success trying to learn one piece of the spell at a time rather than attempting to cast the whole thing at once. She stays up late working on her new approach and falls asleep on top of her notes. In the middle of the night, she awakens groggily, gets up to use the bathroom, and accidentally climbs into Yarrow’s bed. In the morning, they awaken cuddled together. Terlu explains that she didn’t mean to enter his bed uninvited, and they agree that it was a happy accident. The couple share their first kiss.

Terlu and Yarrow’s passionate embrace is interrupted by the arrival of Lotti. The rose wants some time away from the other sentient plants because they don’t understand why she misses Laiken, and she asks to spend the day with the humans.

With Lotti and Yarrow’s help, Terlu uses a new spell to repair some of the cracks in a lost greenhouse’s walls. The librarian feels discouraged by the painstakingly slow process, but the gardener praises her. Terlu asks the sentient plants if they would be willing to help her cast the glass-mending spell and encourages them to weigh the decision carefully: “You’d be risking your freedom, even your lives, for a tedious task” (217). The sentient plants all eagerly agree to help.

The following morning, the sentient plants take over the task of magically repairing the cracked walls, and Terlu focuses on parsing out a new fragment of Laiken’s spell. Her goal is to create a protective bubble that will allow the walls to maintain the precise conditions necessary for the plants inside. When Terlu suggests that she cast the spell alone, Yarrow kisses her deeply to demonstrate that he won’t leave her.

After a few failed attempts with the new spell, Yarrow moves to kiss Terlu again, but she stops him. The librarian explains that she’s “not good at kissing without caring” and suggests that they focus on saving the greenhouse until they are certain of their feelings for one another (226). Lotti and the sentient plants rush into the room and announce that more humans have arrived on the island.