Page 46 of By the Orchid and the Owl
Then I sat on a rock by the dead crab and watched the waves crash onto the gritty land before me and the lightning splinter through the clouds. I gazed at the pirate ships where my mother might or might not be staring back in my direction.
It was only when the other crabs rose again, this time to observe the scorched one of their kind at my feet, that I cried.
And cried.
And cried.
CHAPTER
17
On Sunday, the sky was still damp and draped in clouds.
I took my pill. I hauled the dead crab—which our house cook had let me keep in the kitchen ice box overnight—to the crocodile swamps and threw it in. I snuck Willa some more cheese and asked her if she knew anything about Jagaros being king, to which she merely squeaked and scurried away.
I shrugged. It was hard to care, with Quinn’s words hanging so heavily over my shoulders. I hadn’t slept with those words scooping out my insides all night.
A Mind Manipulator abused your best friend for years, but you’re choosing to fraternize with them now.
You have always been content to stay small.
You. Hurt. Them.
“Rayna?”
It was Emelle, followed by Lander. I turned from where I’d been leaning against our bunkroom’s balcony railing, watching the lazy Sunday afternoon strolls of people down below, to force a smile at them.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
I almost said yes. Almost said I was fine. Then a stray tear skidded down my cheek, and I said, “I don’t know. I…” I hesitated, feeling the weight of Lander’s eyes. I didn’t want to dig deeper into his wounds by telling him what Quinn had said about us, but I also… needed to know if she was right about all the other things.
Emelle leaned against the balcony beside me, and Lander drifted to my other side.
“Tell us,” she said softly. “You’ve been off all weekend. Did something happen with…?”
She widened her eyes a bit, and I realized she meant Coen. That was the last time she’d seen me acting normally before my conversation with Quinn, after all—at the party, talking to Coen. The few minutes I’d spent hunting her down and taking her to bed didn’t count, since she’d been too drunk to walk straight.
“No, Coen’s fine. It’s just… was I out of line, with Jenia and the others? Was I… evil for turning the ants on them and hurting them like that?”
Emelle passed a worried glance to Lander over my head.
“As kindly as possible, Rayna, what the hell are you talking about? Of course you weren’t out of line! They had us pinned to the ground. You saved us.”
“They didn’tallhave us pinned to the ground,” I countered. “That Object Summoner did. Maybe I should have told the ants to biteonlyhim until he let us go.”
“Out with it, Rayna,” Lander said, a hint of exasperation breaking through his gentle demeanor. “What’s got you troubled about this?” He’d heard, of course, what had happened with the ants. Everyone on campus had heard, though I was sure the story had inflated with exaggeration the more it was passed from ear to ear.
Something broke free in my chest when he placed a steady hand on my upper back. Emelle, too, grabbed my arm, and I just… let it out. Every detail and word of what had happened on that rocky shore.
When I was done, Emelle was visibly cringing, and the blood had drained from Lander’s face.
“She really said you and I were holding her back?” he asked.
“Not exactly. She just said that people should be discarded if they hold you back. And she’s sort of discarded us, so I just assumed…havewe been holding her back, Lander?” I pressed a desperate stare onto him. “Can you think of a time back in Alderwick where she—I don’t know—said she wanted to go do something and we told her no, or wouldn’t do it with her, or made her feel unimportant?”
“No…” Lander said slowly. “She always told me she wanted to relocate to Belliview after our Final Test if the Good Council would allow it, take some painting classes from the city’s finest artists, and I said… I said I’d go with her.”
When shadows seemed to claw at his eyes, I knew what a sacrifice that had been for him, to tell Quinn that, especially since everyone expected him to take over as mayor one day. And like me, he wasn’t good with change.
