Page 2 of By the Orchid and the Owl
“Wait, what?”
Thunder splintered the air, closer than before. I felt the vibrations of it on my very tongue, and a monkey overhead shrieked in answer.
“Well, you know how those Final Tests go…” Quinn started.
Yes, I did, but only because of Quinn’s snooping. Fabian and Don didn’t talk about the Final Test or anything related to the Esholian Institute, because the Good Council had forbidden anyone from doing so. To avoid giving certain inductees the advantage of foresight, apparently. But when had Quinn Balkersaff ever let something like a silly little rule stop her from doing what she wanted?
“The Good Council will put everyone in a life-threatening situation,” she continued, “and the ones who can save themselves quickly and efficiently with their given magic get to stay on the island. With Mrs. Pixton’s son, apparently, they locked him in a trunk and threw him to the bottom of a lake.” I tried not to cringe at the casual way she’d said that. “Reports say he was exiled after failing to save himself within a certain time frame, but Mrs. Pixton… she was insisting he’s still locked in that trunk, using his powers to keep from drowning but never able to break free.” Quinn’s eyes cut to mine. “She became so escalated that my mom had to sedate her.”
I frowned, chewing over those words.
“Do you think she’s right?” I didn’t know why I was asking such a thing; the Good Council wouldn’t just abandon someone at the bottom of a lake—the whole reason they exiled those who failed their tests was to… well, cleanse Eshol of inferior magic. Mrs. Pixton had probably just gone crazy with the grief that she’d never see her child again and was inventing reasons her son might still be on the island. To maintain hope.
Quinn held out her cigarette like she was examining her fingernails. “I think the Good Council should pull those little sticks out of their assholes and stop tossing away their unwanted citizens like pieces of literal garbage. But that’s just me.”
Of course Quinn would think the one thing that would get her into the most trouble if anyone else heard. She’d always been a furious blaze of a person, and I couldn’t help but think that she’d do well with the ability to control fire itself.
But the Branding activation was completely random, with each inductee having an equal chance of acquiring any of the five magics once the Good Council pressed that faerie metal to our skin. I listed them silently in my head. Mind Manipulating. Element Wielding. Shape Shifting. Wild Whispering. And Object Summoning, the gift both my fathers carried and used in their little blacksmith shop across the street from the church.
“I’ve got to go,” I whispered, mostly because the thought of the Branding made the nerves in my stomach rise up to my throat, but also because… sleep. We both needed sleep. Tomorrow morning, we’d leave Alderwick for five years—and maybe for the rest of our lives if we didn’t keep our wits about us. I’d known this was coming my whole life, and this… thisthingQuinn had told me about Mrs. Pixton’s paranoia wasn’t going to do anything to help me pass my own Final Test in five years.
“See you bright and early, Ray.” Quinn waved her cigarette dismissively.
I waved back before shimmying down the ladder and hurrying my way back home. A light drizzle tapped uneven beats onto my head, and I folded my arms tighter across my chest. Not because I was cold, though. The mugginess of the air was making it hard to breathe, or maybe that was fear itself, clogging up my windpipe as if that would somehow save my life in the face of danger.
Bed, I told myself.Just get back to bed, and then mull over what Quinn said.
But when I made it to my house with its thatched roof and line of mud-caked boots by the front door, I saw the jittery light of a candle through the window.
A candle that had definitely not been lit when I’d snuck out.
Shit. So much for avoiding my fathers’ disappointed faces.
Sighing, I sidled inside—through the front door they’d unlocked for me. There was no use trying to sneak back through my window when they had obviously already checked my room and witnessed my empty bed.
“Where did you go?” Fabian asked quietly from his favorite armchair once I’d clicked the door shut behind me, cutting off the constant growl of nighttime.
“The House. With Quinn.”
There was no use lying to him, either. We’d always been close, so close I’d been calling him by his first name since I could talk—definitely not something Quinn or Lander Spade could relate to. Unlike their parents, Fabian had never so much as glared at me for too long, evident even now. Even with his slender legs crossed and delicate arms folded in the shuddering candlelight, his features were already softening like warm butter.
Beside him, Don, who had stomped into our lives when I was three and become every bit a father to me as Fabian, was doing slightly better at pretending to be mad: he’d pushed out a more exasperated, beady stare framed by his ruddy face.
Before either of them could say anything, I blurted, “What if I don’t want a magic?” Because without the Branding, without a power, I wouldn’t have to take the Final Test and risk exile in the first place. “What if I just refuse to go tomorrow?”
I knew even as I said it, though, that I didn’t have a choice. Everyone on the island of Eshol was branded whether they liked it or not.
“You know what they say.” Fabian laced his fingers together. “The magic woven into Eshol is the only thing that keeps us safe from the monsters beyond our shield. We must each bear a thread of that magic to keep our fortifications tight.”
He didn’t have to add the last part of the pledge we’d all learned in the village schools:when a thread snaps, when a person can’t bear their magic, they jeopardize the safety of everyone else on the island.
I just couldn’t see how Mrs. Pixton’s son would have been that big of a liability.
“I’m flattered you want to stay with us, kid,” Don said, his forehead scrunches easing, “but I knowI’mgetting grumpier and uglier by the year. There’s no reason a bright soul like you should stay with two crotchety old men like us when your whole potential waits for you at that institute. Right, Fabian?”
Fabian didn’t answer. His jade-green eyes were tracking my face, and when Don nudged him with his shoe, he sucked a whistle of air through his nose.
“I should have given this to you a long time ago, Rayna.”
