Page 5 of By the Orchid and the Owl
Oh. The Good Council elites were our coachmen, too. I wondered if they would use Summoning magic like my fathers’ to propel our carriage upward, or if they were Element Wielders who could control the wind.
Turning, we spared a last glance at our families hovering on the edge of the square. Fabian and Don smiled at me, holding hands. Quinn’s mother nodded once, and her little brother hopped up and down with a frantic wave. Lander’s grandma mouthed goodbye. There was no Wilder among the small crowd, but that was to be expected; only family members were allowed to see us off. I’d always wondered why, but after what Quinn had said last night?
Well, I could see why the Good Council wouldn’t want people like Mrs. Pixton to show up. Anyone who had already lost sons or daughters to the Esholian Institute and the Final Test and the pirates beyond our dome might cause a scene.
I swallowed.
And stepped into the carriage.
Just as we were settling into the cushioned leather seats—Quinn and Lander squished together on one side and me on the other—odd, bubbling movement snagged my eyes through the vacant driver’s box window.
The two coachmen, reined like horses, were shrinking… but also lengthening.
I watched, clutching Quinn’s hand across the seat, as beaks ripped through the skin of their faces. Their arms melted inward, forming the broad plane of feathered wings, and talons shot through the leather of their shoes. Their skulls rounded. The one who’d fetched me grew two bright red plumes on either side of his head.
Shape Shifters.
“That’s hot,” Quinn said, and Lander shot her a bewildered look. “What? Maybe you should try Shape Shifting, Land. Then we can role-play when—”
“Ew, ew, ew.” I threw Quinn’s hand away from mine. “That’s as bad as hearing Fabian and Don through the wall.” But I knew what she was doing: distracting us as the coachmen spread their giant wings and the carriage lurched forward and—
I still screamed when the world tipped back, when Quinn and Lander fell forward and my head slammed against the leather seat behind me as we rose.
Up, up, up.
The beat of their wings rushed through my ears, and our village fell away as the carriage jolted higher and higher. I closed my eyes until I felt the coachmen level out, until we were soaring. Away.
Only when my heartbeat had steadied did I peer out the window to see if I could catch one last glimpse of Fabian and Don.
Nothing. My fathers were already lost among a cluster of thatched houses, and soon the jungle swallowed even that.
But Quinn was pointing at something else out the window. “Look.”
I followed the line of her finger to see the mists of the Uninhabitable Zone—a place we’d only heard stories about from villagers who’d ventured near—eddying and swirling on the western horizon, as thick and milky as the rumors claimed. Nobody who’d plunged into those mists ever came back out.
The irrational side of me thought it looked like shadows stirred from within, watching our carriage fly high and away.
CHAPTER
3
According to Lander’s wristwatch gifted to him by his grandma, it took us little more than an hour to fly to the edge of the island, where the Institute campus hulked by the sea.
During that hour, I braved more and more glances downward, watching the terrain of Eshol rise and fall in heaps of hills and jungle, sometimes speckled with villages three times bigger than our own. Soon, we were passing Bascite Mountain, the largest peak on the island where the majority of the Good Council lived. Even from Alderwick, I’d been able to spot its snow-dusted peak during rare moments when the clouds dissipated.
Now, as our carriage whizzed by, it still towered over us, and I felt the unnatural cold radiating from it, frosting the windowpanes. Roads and structures and lights made little glittering trails that spiraled up and around like it was a jagged horn poking through the top of the world.
“Don’t think I’d fancy living there,” Lander murmured, shivering.
“Are you kidding?” Quinn popped her eyes out at him. “Imagine living without all the gnats and other insects, above everyone else. And to seesnow!”
As much as I agreed with Lander, I had to admit that Quinn had a point about the snow—I’d never seen the stuff up close. But even that sight was nothing compared to the water that soon sparkled on the horizon.
The sea. They called Eshol an island, but just like the Uninhabitable Zone, I’d never actuallyseenthat vast expanse of waves and whitecaps supposedly surrounding us before this moment. Now, though, as the carriage began its descent, I couldn’t rip my attention away from it.
A different world. It was a completely different world out past that shore, where stray glimmers in the air betrayed the presence of the famous dome shielding us from… I squinted at the clusters of dots along the horizon.
“Pirates,” I breathed. Pirate ships.
