Page 16 of By the Orchid and the Owl
“Rayna?”
I jumped and looked down, blinking.
“Lander?”
“What are you, uh, doing up in a tree?”
His face came into view, neck craned to look up at me. At the same moment, a fourth monkey skittered up the trunk and swung past me to join the others, but even that didn’t faze me. Lander was here.
Biting back a sob, I jumped down, landed in front of him on my hands and knees, and rose up to throw my arms around his neck.
“You found me. Oh, where have you been? I spent all night searching for you.”
“I spent all night searching foryou,” he said, slowly hugging me back. “You and Quinn. Have you seen her, by the way? I can’t believe we got separated so quickly.”
“I…” My breath stumbled. How could I tell him that Quinn had abandoned me, hadn’t even asked about him, and surely wasn’t searching for us? No, it would be better to let him see her once everything had settled and she came to herself. “I haven’t seen her, no,” I finished, wincing internally at the lie all the same.
“Oh, no. I was really hoping you had. I hope she’s doing okay.” Lander withdrew and raked a startled gaze over my braids. “Areyouokay?”
“Fine,” I said, waving a hand. If I couldn’t tell him about Quinn, I sure as hell couldn’t tell him about the bascale and Coen Steeler and the pill. Not yet. For now, I was content to let the familiarity and joy at his presence inflate in my heart. I hooked arms with him, and said, “How did you find me?”
We began walking, arm and arm, back toward the courtyard.
“Those class royals woke everyone up and told us we had free rein of the entire Institute until Branding tonight. The others began to wander off to explore, but I… I didn’t know anyone, so I just kind of stood there.” Lander’s ebony cheeks flushed. “But then one of those monkeys came up to me and started pulling on my sleeve, and it led me straight to you.”
“Huh.” I almost stopped. “Maybe you’re going to be a Wild Whisperer, Lander.”
We came to the courtyard, now bustling with people. Not just inductees, from the looks of it, but older students, too, who were showing off their various powers. This was a mingling, then, a get-to-know-you free-for-all before we were separated into sectors. Yet there seemed to be a wall already, an invisible one, with all that flirting and giggling and posing on one side and Lander and me on the other.
As we hovered on the edge of the courtyard, a group of rowdy boys ran past us, throwing rocks at the monkeys that had followed us along the rooftops.
“Hey!” I started, whirling, but Lander placed his other hand on my shoulder.
“Don’t, Rayna. Don’t make enemies before Branding. You never know who’ll end up in your sector.”
“Spoken like a true diplomat,” I muttered through my teeth. Lander’s entire line of family had been the mayors of Alderwick for generations—a small leadership role given the size of our village, but a political one nonetheless—and Lander himself was expected to take on the mantle once he returned home from the Institute. No one had ever seemed to doubt he’d pass his Final Test.
Lander sighed. “I don’t want to think about politics. Let’s go explore like everyone else, and maybe we’ll see Quinn somewhere along the way.”
I kept my mouth shut and went along with him.
We meandered through the jumble of roads and alleys and buildings, taking closer looks at every part of campus and passing jaunty groups of other inductees. The whole time, I kept half an eye out for Coen, though I didn’t know why, and Lander kept swinging his neck around for any hints of Quinn.
No sign of either of them, until we had ambled to the Shape Shifter section.
There, Lander was just telling me, “It would be awesome to be able to—” when he stopped dead. I followed his gaze and felt him shrink beside me.
Quinn was there, with Jenia and… a lot of older Shifters. All men. All strikingly handsome, though I couldn’t see how you’d ever know what a Shifter truly looked like, if they could manipulate any part of their appearance.
Quinn didn’t seem to mind, however, and before I could pull Lander back around the corner, she’d reached out to stroke one of their chests, laughing, running her nails down his skin.
“Do it again,” we heard her say. It was Quinn’s voice, but… higher-pitched than usual. Sultry, somehow, and I still couldn’t move to drag Lander away as the Shifter grew, his muscles bulging out far past the scope of normalcy, and she shrieked and dragged her fingers over every dip and curve again. Beside her, Jenia clapped.
“Quinn?” Lander whispered.
She didn’t hear, and I finally found my muscles again.
I yanked him away until we were in the shadows of an adjacent building, where I gripped his shoulders.
