Page 64 of By the Orchid and the Owl
Oh yes, I was certain of it now: the shield was to keep us in. To keep us from the rest of the world so thatshe, Dyonisia Reeve, could hoard us and abuse us.
And my magic, my blood, my other power—it was certainly something she’d want to study and tamper with and use.
“Why?” I croaked. “Why is she doing this? Whoisshe?”
By the flare of her pupils, I could tell Ms. Pincette knew exactly who I meant. But she only pursed her lips, straightened her posture, and patted at her blouse.
“I am giving you a fail, Ms. Drey, for being… unable to get the cockroaches to move. I expect you to study and sharpen your communication skills for next time.”
In the silence that followed, the black-as-ink, still-twitching dummy seemed to stare me down, but a small part of my panic loosened.
Ms. Pincette was not going to record what had actually happened. As long as all those spiders who had been eavesdropping during the test were truly under her direction… I was safe.
For now.
“You may go, Rayna,” Ms. Pincette said quietly. “Better luck next time.”
I got up on shaky legs. Just as I was reaching the back staircase, which looked like it would spit me out to the rocky edge of the cliff behind the Testing Center, I looked back at her.
“Do you happen to have a map of the world, Ms. Pincette?” I swallowed the heat and grittiness of my bile. “I thought it would help me with my studying.”
I need to know where my mother’s people came from. WhereIcame from. And maybe… maybe where Dyonisia Reeve came from, too.
Ms. Pincette, however, just raised her chin. “Better luck next time, Ms. Drey. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go find more cockroaches for my next test.”
CHAPTER
23
Coen. Coen, I need to talk to you right now. Coen, can you hear me?
The moment my feet hit the ground outside and the back door of the Testing Center swung shut behind me, I threw those thoughts into the muggy night air.
I must have been in the Testing Center for hours. Stars blared between clouds overhead, warm and winking. A few people milled about beside those two lampposts sandwiching the staircase that led down to the shore, but I didn’t stop—around the Testing Center, across the courtyard, down Bascite Boulevard… I shouted his name in my head as I ran, wishing, for once, that his voice was already inside my mind.
But nothing filled the space between my ears besides the pounding of my own blood. Wherewashe? I knew it wasn’t fair of me to expect him to know that I was done with the test, but my terror couldn’t seem to rationalize anything.Hewas in danger, too, he and Garvis, Terrin and the twins—they would all be dragged to the top of that mountain and tortured if they revealed their true powers during their upcoming Final Tests.
The pirates were laughable compared to that.
Without pausing for breath, I sprinted over the bridge and down the street to my house, where I plunged through the opening doors just as a group of fellow Wild Whisperers walked out.
“Are you okay, Rayna?” one of them asked.
I threw back a quick, “Yeah, thanks!” and headed straight downstairs to the dining hall.
Here, a bunch of people in my class were eating a late-night snack to replace the dinner we’d missed. I didn’t see Emelle, Rodhi, Gileon, or Wren, but I paused long enough to listen in on another group of friends, including Mitzi Hodges and Norman Pollard.
“I think I failed the History portion.”
“IknowI failed Predators & Prey. When I let out that fuzzy caterpillar, the owl just stared at me.”
“The only testIpassed was Ms. Wildenberg’s,” Norman said, “but I think it’s because the old bat was falling asleep and just too embarrassed to ask me to repeat my answers.”
“Better than what happened to Bekka Nickleson,” Mitzi said. “Did you hear about her? She failed all of them and tried to run away back to her village. The prince of the Shifters caught her.” She lowered her voice. “Apparently, he shifted her kneecaps into stone so she couldn’t run anymore.”
“But it doesn’t matter if you fail one or fail them all, right?” someone else asked. “In the end, if you can’t pass every portion, you’re pirate food.”
From the fragile, frightened tone of their voices, I knew they were all imagining themselves thrown out to sea, unaware of that mountaintop prison and the worse horrors that would await them there.
