Page 63 of By the Orchid and the Owl
Slowly, I rose within the tank and hoisted myself out. The silence of the room echoed like the aftermath of thunder as Ms. Pincette looked at me and I looked back at her.
I had no idea what I’d just done, but Ididknow that Wild Whispering abilities couldn’t merge a thousand insects with a dummy. And that lunge inside me—it had felt an awful lot like my raw power had the night before Branding… only pointed and directed andhoned, somehow, rather than shapeless.
Ms. Pincette, still staring at me, seemed to make up her mind.
“Leave us,” she snapped at seemingly nothing but air.
The subtle, departing clicking of a dozen spiders faded from the walls.
Ms. Pincette motioned for me to come closer and waited until I was a nose-length away before seething, “What. Was. That.”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly—but I couldn’t let her get too suspicious, so I added with a quick, careful smile, “But I did as you said, right? I got them off me and made them swarm the dummy instead. That’s a pass, right?”
My voice sounded like nothing more than feeble bleating even to my own ears. I clenched my fists to keep her from seeing my shaking hands.
Ms. Pincette, however, eyed those fists, then let her gaze travel up the rest of my body, landing on my face. Her own face hardened. She gestured to the armchair.
“Sit, Ms. Drey. Sit and listen very carefully to me.”
I sat. Now Ms. Pincette towered over me with a pinched expression.
“Do you know what these tests are for, Ms. Drey? The Final Tests?”
“To make sure we have control of our magic,” I answered automatically, afraid to say a single wrong thing. “To make sure we are worthy of living on this island.”
“And why would this be, Ms. Drey?” Ms. Pincette’s fingers drummed against her own folded arms. “Why would the Good Council seek this kind of control?”
I blinked at her. Dare I say what I truly thought about the Good Council? Wasn’t she part of them, in a roundabout way, by teaching at the Institute?
Deciding to play it safe, I said, “To weed out the weak.”
“To weed out thestrong,” Ms. Pincette hissed, her tone as harsh as those roaches had been. “Do you really think they care about the people who genuinely fail these tests, Ms. Drey? The ones who can’t talk to animals or summon objects or wield fire? No. They care about finding the people who can pass the testtoo well.Do you understand me? Because the people who pass the testtoo wellare a threat.”
I already suspected this, of course, but I still felt a sliver of surprise that Ms. Pincette would dare say it to me.
“I understand you,” I told her earnestly. “I really do.”
“No, you don’t.” My surprise only sharpened when she leaned even closer and said, “You don’t understand a thing, Rayna Drey, because you’d be shitting yourself right now if you did. Now.” She sat on the edge of the armchair, hovering over me. “I want you to use one hundred percent of your brain right now. Forget about what you’ve been told.” Her jaw clenched. “Would the Good Council, seeking both the weakest and the strongest of society during these mandatory tests, truly give those strong ones to the pirates who are trying to break through our magical shield?”
I thought about it. Tried to use one hundred percent of my brain even though it was still buzzing over what had just happened.
The pirates—my mother’s people—had the same raw power as me… but they didn’t know how to control it, so they were seeking access to the island’s bascite as a way to help themselves.
It didn’t make sense, then, that the Good Council would truly exile people with that same bascite in their blood. If they did, they’d be… they’d be handing over exactly what those pirates wanted. Bascite. Controllable magic. And by extension, tools and weapons to use against the island itself. A way to break through the shield.
My heart dropped through my chest.
“What do they do with the ones who fail the test, then?”
Because I understood now. It wasn’t just the bottom of the barrel that failed the test, but the top of the barrel, too. Only the ones with average, predictable magic got to stay on the island. The rest…
“There is a prison,” Ms. Pincette began, her shadow shielding me from the light of the room. “A prison at the top of Bascite Mountain, where the Good Council lives. The exiled are sent there, where the weak ones are—” She winced “—recycled, and the strong ones are…” Another wince, deeper this time. “Experimented on.”
My breath was a puddle in my lungs, stagnant and refusing to move.
Recycled? Meaning their blood was drained from their bodies to reuse the bascite in their system? And… experimented on? Dissected and studied and tortured?
Images floated across my vision. A cold mountaintop sparkling with smoky gray metal. A fortress filled with screaming. Dyonisia’s cruel, cruel eyes. And what Quinn had told me so long ago:Mrs. Pixton is convinced her son is still on the island, locked up somewhere and waiting for her to rescue him.
