Page 26 of By the Orchid and the Owl
Like the persistent whine of insects, Jenia was whispering to Dazmine over Mr. Fenway’s speech, no doubt ridiculing him or the idea of faeries. One seat ahead of her, a guy I’d never noticed before was lounging back in his chair, chuckling at her every insult and mockery.
I didn’t like the looks of him: greasy hair that curled near the nape of his neck, hooded eyes, a too-casual swagger about him—nothing like Coen’s playful smirk or Rodhi’s inherent confidence. This was just pure contempt for everyone else around him, besides perhaps Jenia herself.
“Then,” Mr. Fenway continued, raising his wispy voice slightly to drown out Jenia’s whispers, “the faeries began to die out.”
A young man with a broad build in the very front row gasped softly.
“Why?” he asked, his tone low—and perhaps a bit slow.
“What is your name, boy?” Mr. Fenway asked, squinting at him.
“Gileon, sir.” The young man drew out every syllable, and the greasy-haired boy huffed out a scoff of amusement, which made Jenia grin.
“Well, Gileon,” Mr. Fenway began, “faeries lived for eons, but it was difficult for them to reproduce, and soon, their offspring became more and more rare. So they died out about five hundred years ago, the last of them laying themselves to rest at the top of what is now known as Bascite Mountain.”
He nodded somberly as Gileon gasped again.
“Yes, yes, yes, it was very sad—so say the birds who pass their stories down from generation to generation. And even sadder…” Another cough “…was that the island, without its protectors, began to die, too.”
On the opposite end of the classroom, Rodhi was clinging on to every word, his knee jittering as if the lack of talking was literally going to kill him. But it made me respect him all the more, that while Jenia whispered and tittered, he kept quiet.
“Plants shriveled up,” Mr. Fenway persisted over the drone of her lowered voice, “predators overhunted and starved themselves out. The birds, I have heard, quit singing. Yet before the island could collapse completely, not long after the last of the faeries died,shecame. The head and founder of our Good Council. Dyonisia Reeve, whom you all saw witness your Branding last night.”
Ice-blue eyes, star-bright skin, razor-sharp bangs and flowing black hair. I couldn’t shake the image of her out of my mind as Mr. Fenway went on.
“Dyonisia sailed in from the outside world and beheld the decay of the island all around her. She is the one who discovered bascite at the top of the mountain. For, you see, every other part of the last faeries had disintegrated like everything else … except for the magic metal in their blood. That metal, bascite, remained.”
Magic metal in their blood? I’d always known that bascite came from the ancient faeries, somehow, but I’d never known it came from theirblood. How many faeries, exactly, had to have died to leave heaps and heaps of their remains atop Bascite Mountain—enough for generations of inductees, year after year? Enough for people to steal and dissolve into ale?
Mr. Fenway broke into a coughing fit, then wiped his mouth. “Excuse me. As I was saying, Dyonisia formed this remaining metal into brands, that when stamped on a human’s skin, as you know, joins our own blood and grants us vague remnants of the faeries’ old powers. Once Dyonisia garnered enough branded people to revive the island, humans wishing to escape the terrors of the outside world sailed in in droves, repopulating what had once almost died. And now we, thanks to Dyonisia’s discovery and invention, care for the plants and animals of our dear home as the faeries once did.”
The classroom burst into murmurs at that. Across the room, Rodhi couldn’t contain himself any longer and cried, “Bascite came fromblood? Wicked!”
But I stayed silent. I couldn’t get those ice-blue eyes out of my head.
Dyonisia Reeve. The founder and head of the Good Council. At least I now had a name to put to that cruel, beautiful face. And another thing:
If the last faeries had died about five hundred years ago and Dyonisia had discovered the island not long after, then…
Through Shape Shifting, I was sure, regenerating her organs and bones and skin time and time again, the leader of our island had to be hundreds of years old.
A crone in a young woman’s body, indeed.
CHAPTER
11
After History, Emelle and I returned to the house for a quick lunch before doubling back to campus, where our next two classes would take place in Building 3C—a double block of Befriending Predators & Prey with an instructor named Mr. Conine.
Mr. Conine didn’t even let us enter the classroom, however, a steepled, two-story structure slightly less shabby than Mr. Fenway’s. Instead, he greeted us outside the front door and then, when all fifty of us had gathered around him, said, “Follow me, everyone!”
We traipsed through the Whisperer sector, toward the jungle that grew thicker and thicker the longer we walked. Monkeys swung through the treetops, hurling jokes down at us, which Rodhi never failed to reciprocate.
“Oh yeah?” he called upward as we passed the last of the buildings and slapped through the beginning of a marsh, the ground spongy beneath our feet. “Well,yourmama’s so dumb, she threw away the banana and ate the peel!”
I cringed. “Rodhi, this class is calledbefriendingpredators, not antagonizing them.”
“They started it,” he muttered. “Nobody gets to talk about my ma like that.”
