Page 11 of By the Orchid and the Owl
I nodded.
“Well,” he continued, “all that metal, native to the island, of course, is sitting at the top of the highest mountain of Eshol, justwaitingto be stolen, you know? And sometimes, certainconnectedpeople who may or may not have grown up in Belliview, you might say, are able to nab some ale infused with bits of that stolen metal.”
I stared at Rodhi, noting the features that did indeed mark him as someone who’d grown up in Belliview, the capital of Eshol that sat in the shadow of Bascite Mountain: the combed hair, the loose way he talked, even the crispness of his clothes.
“To be clear,” I said, nodding at the flask, “there’s actualfaeriemetal in there?”
Not that I knew much about bascite, the substance that would be burned into all of our shoulders tomorrow night. But I knew enough to blink at his flask as if it might catch on fire at any moment.
Rodhi nodded eagerly. “Essence of it, yeah. Drinking it doesn’t give you any permanent magic, but as long as it’s in your system, you’ll get little wisps of power.”
“So…” I shook my head, astounded that Fabian and Don and the other villagers had hidden this phenomenon from me. Or were we so far removed from the rest of Eshol that they’d truly never heard of it either? “You can know what sector you’ll be inbeforeBranding?”
Excitement flared in my chest at the thought. To justknowwhat kind of power the brand would trigger in me would alleviate so much anxiety.
The girl on the other side of me, however, shook her head. “It’s not like that.”
“What?”
Rodhi shrugged. “It’s like our powers don’t know what shape they want to take until the actual Branding. Before then, drinking this stuff…” He smiled down at his flask like a mother might gaze at her newborn. “Totally random every time.”
So it would be like rolling dice, then. A drinking game and nothing more. That didn’t sound like it would undo the knot of worry in my stomach, but… I shook away my misgivings and said, “I’m in.”
Anything, anything at all, to maintain the new, delicate friendship I’d formed with the people in this tent.
Rodhi clapped me on the back, unscrewed the cap, and said, “Bottom’s up, bitches.” Then he swallowed.
At first, nothing happened. Rodhi smacked his lips, set down the flask, and burped. I glanced around at everyone else’s eyes, pinned on his face as if waiting for some kind of monster to claw its way out of his sockets.
“Might not be strong enough…” one of the boys started to suggest—and then he smacked himself in the face. “Hey, what the hell?”
“Ha! Do it again, but this time a little lighter.” Rodhi stretched his arms up in the air, perfectly at leisure. “Wouldn’t want to give you a bruise before Branding.”
As commanded, the boy smacked himself in the face, gentler this time.
“You’re Mind Manipulating right now?” I almost yelped.
Rodhi turned toward me. “Yeah! It’s not super clear, but I’m getting a hazy outline of your thoughts. You’re thinking about quills? Or is it quicksand? No, it’s a quickie! Get your mind out of the mud, Rayna!”
Quinn. I was thinking about Quinn. He’d simply snagged the first sound.
I tossed aside the thought of her and forced my lips into the shape of a coy smile. “You can never judge a book by its cover.”
Fabian had taught me that. Don, in response, had always told me that covers were the critical first impression that could make or break whether someone even gave a book a chance.
I brushed away thoughts of my fathers as Rodhi held the flask out to me.
“Your turn, my scandalous friend.”
My stomach churned. “Um, someone else can go before me.”
Rodhi only paused to take in the faltering smile on my face for a second. Next second, he shrugged and passed his flask off to the girl beside him. She drank.
The tent dropped into frigid cold, our breaths puffing out in front of us, frost icing the tips of our hair. The girl clapped her hands to warm it back up.
Around the flask went. With the next gulp, a single hibiscus popped up from the floor of the tent, right in front of the boy who’d hit himself in the face. He laughed, plucked it, and passed the flask. After the next kid took a swig, our pillows jiggled in place all around us, as if he were tugging at them using invisible strings.
His Summoning magic hit me with nostalgia, but I shook it off, once again, as the girl beside me shivered when her hair turned a startling shade of violet.
