Page 20 of By the Orchid and the Owl
Then they all morphed into identical anteater-like figures to welcome him, and I watched as Lander shrank back into himself and sheepishly joined his new sector. The Shape Shifters.
Maybe Quinn would notice him again, now that he could grow unnatural muscles, I thought. Or turn into a lion that she could pet.
Slowly, but surely, the chairs around me emptied. I took note when Quinn’s friend, Jenia, became swarmed with vibrant butterflies circling her head like a halo, but after that I quit focusing as nausea, thick and sour, churned in my gut.
What would be worse: if the pill didn’t work like it was supposed to and I exploded with that raw, shapeless power? Or if the pill worked a littletoowell and I exploded with… nothing? The crowd of thousands would stare at me, the island’s first dud, the first—
“Rayna Drey!” Mrs. Wildenberg called.
After hours of Branding, everyone in the crowd was beginning to lose interest as they whispered among themselves and their new recruits.
Thank the God of the Cosmos for that. Only the remaining inductees watched me push myself forward, toward that stage.
I climbed the steps, saw the shininess of Mr. Gleekle’s cheeks up close, and turned to face them. The Good Council.
The middle one—she was the only one who mattered—pinned me with her ice-blue eyes. A fathomless void eddied in there, like a sea of… of death, frozen over.
I couldn’t maintain it, the eye contact. I looked away as the instructor with the fire power heated up my brand, and Mr. Gleekle turned to face me.
“Are you ready?” he asked cheerfully. Only to me.
No. No. No.
“Yes,” I said.
“Jolly good. Just a pinch, then.”
I lifted my sleeve, and he pressed the brand against my shoulder.
A half-second of scorching pain that seemed to sink through all my layers of skin and meld with my blood, and then—
Nothing.
Nothing in my bones shifted.
No whispers, no shrieking grass, no electricity crackling between my fingers.
The Good Council leaned forward as one.
The rumbling of low conversation in the crowd died down to watch, and I cursed Coen, the prince of the Manipulators, hated him, wanted to scream at wherever he was, for doing this to me. Had he really given me a pill to erase every hint of power within me?
“Just relax,” Mr. Gleekle murmured, his smile rooted in place. “Let it come out.”
I clenched my teeth, willing myself to change shape or sprout with flame or summon anything, anything at all, from the mass of breathing, hushed bodies before me.
That hush only seemed to ripple toward me. Soon, people were craning their necks as if looking for my power somewhere in the aisles.
My vision narrowed. I could feel the Good Council’s eyes on me, but I couldn’t make myself meet their stares—herstare—and they were going to exile me, they were going to toss me away like a piece of garbage, and I would never see Fabian or Don again, I would never get to master my potential, and I…
Something slunk up the middle aisle, slow and deliberate.
I blinked. Rubbed my eyes. Peered at the thing people were craning their necks for a good look at. And I heard it now, the gasps snaking up the rows of seats.
The Good Council twisted to watch, slivers of shock finally breaking the masks of their faces, just as some vital part of me cracked open, brimming with awe.
As a tiger, snow-white and striped with deepest black, padded up to the stage and settled on its haunches before me.
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