Page 115 of By the Orchid and the Owl
I pressed a hand to myself. Not to rein in a gasp.
To keep myself from vomiting.
Ms. Pincette let her tunic fall back into place.
“When they were done doing those things to me,” she said rather dryly, like her last tears had fossilized behind her eyes years ago, “they asked me if I’d like to die, or if I’d like to teach.”
Oh. Oh, oh, oh. I felt my sculpture crack, just the tiniest bit, near my heart where it screamed and flailed and bucked at what Ms. Pincette had just revealed.
“I’m sorry,” I got out, slumping. “I should have never suggested—”
“—that I’m a useless lump of shit on this island that keeps manufacturing new test subjects like pawns in some centuries-old game most of us don’t even know we’re playing?” Ms. Pincette suggested, a droll smile tightening her face.
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. The locusts had reached a pitch too loud for me to think through.
Had every member of the Good Council been subjected to such horrors before they’d agreed to join? Had Mr. Fenway and Mr. Conine and Mrs. Wildenberg failed their tests once upon a time—either for demonstrating too much power or not enough—and been dealt just as many scars and that same horrible choice?
Ms. Pincette seemed to read the question on my face.
“I think not,” she said. “I think Dyonisia Reeve is a masterful marionette who knows exactly what to say or do to get people on her side. With me, she knew I wouldn’t work for her willingly and that I was useless enough to bargain with.”
A twitch tugged at the corner of Ms. Pincette’s lips at that. Failed. She had failed her Final Test, something I’d been so afraid of my entire life—and suffered a fate worse than banishment and pirates. Worse than what I’d always feared.
“So,” Ms. Pincette continued before I could elaborate on that, “I let them experiment on me until I’d lost my sense of purpose and soul and everything else besides the pain. That’s why I joined her ranks, let her give me a new name, promised her I’d never contact my family again—my family who thinks I was exiled long ago. Because it’s this or death, and I’ve always been a coward.”
I didn’t know what to say. The thrum of my heart was lost among the chorus of locusts, and my tongue was nothing but a stone in my mouth.
Ms. Pincette could call herself a coward and a failure and a useless lump of shit. She could hide all of that behind her prim and proper mask… yet she’d lied for me, made an illegal map for me, sent the spiders away for me time and time again…
That didn’t seem cowardly.
My tongue was still heavy when it said, “Why me?”
Because I knew she’d never done this for anyone else. Knew it deep in the place those vines were rooted and my raw magic eddied, trying and trying and trying to wake up.
Ms. Pincette flicked an annoyed glance behind my shoulder, at the locusts.
“Oh, shut up,” she barked at them—and they dropped into ringing quietness.
Then she leaned forward, got a good look at my face, and leaned back again.
“I sense something in you, Rayna. I don’t know what it is, yet, but I’ve learned the hard way to always trust my gut.”
She smiled that dry, cracked smile, and I thought of the spiders she’d sent away, suddenly feeling as if a few invisible ones were scuttling up and down my face.
But no, that was just the awareness in Ms. Pincette’s eyes as she looked at me. Beheld me.
“My gut says that whatever you’re leashing in there,” she whispered finally, nodding at my chest, “is what could finally shatter this God-forsaken dome and free us all.”
There was no Coen to greet me outside the Testing Center when I finally made my way down the stairs and pushed myself outside. My name had been called earlier than usual for Mr. Conine’s test, so patches of pink still bruised the sky this time.
More people than I was used to milled by those lampposts to talk about their test results or lean over the railings and look out at the ocean. I hardly spared a glance at the ships dotting the dappled horizon, and was only focused on the direction of my own footsteps when I heard it—a distressed voice.
Dazmine’s.
I shot a look over at the fountain, where she was facing Fergus and Jenia.
All three of them abruptly stopped talking when they noticed me. The gray in Jenia’s eyes zeroed in on me, and she crossed her arms. Fergus’s mouth formed a wicked V with his smile. Dazmine looked away.
