Page 68 of By the Orchid and the Owl
I stood up suddenly, marching toward him and poking a finger to his chest.
“You knew, didn’t you?”
He stopped in his tracks, blinking down at my finger.
“I… suspected. Not that the exiled go to Bascite Mountain,” he added quickly as my eyes flared. “I could’ve never guessed that… but I wasn’t convinced they actually get thrown out to sea with the pirates. You have to remember—” Even though there was no way a single spider could hear us over the crashing of the waterfall, Coen’s eyes still darted left and right before continuing “—I was nine years old when my captain sent me and the others through the shield, not a baby. I remember living on the ships, and we never once nabbed any exiles drifting on rowboats or swimming helplessly in the ocean, or whatever else you might imagine.”
Something about that gave me pause. Made me lower my finger from his chest and press it against my own chin.
“You were nine?” I repeated. “Nine years old?”
Even if I wasn’t a natural at arithmetics, I could do simple addition.When we were children,some… others and I were dropped onto one of the coastal villages—Hallow’s Perch—about twelve years ago,Coen had told me the first time I’d visited his bedroom. And if he had been a nine-year-old twelve years ago…
“You’re not twenty-three,” I said flatly, even though that statement sounded ludicrous. Every fifth-year was twenty-three going on twenty-four. Every fifth-year besides Coen, apparently.
His eyes flashed, then blinked in surprise. The next second, a grin had cracked his face.
“God, you’re smart. I’ve got to remember to be careful about what I say around you. But you’re right, I’m twenty-one. The twins are twenty-two. Garvis is—oh, let’s see—twenty-four now.” When my eyebrows flew into my hairline, he added, “we weren’t all born in the exact same year, Rayna. But when we got dumped on this island, we knew we’d have to stick together. Go to the Institute together and take our Final Tests together. So we lied about our ages from the very beginning.”
It made sense, but… I loosed a pent-up breath. Twenty-one. Coen wastwenty-one,only three years older than me. A mix of shock and… andembarrassmentflared through my chest, though I didn’t know why, so I latched onto another question.
“And Terrin? How old is he?”
Coen grabbed a fistful of his own hair and laughed as nervously as I felt.
“He willmurderme if he knew I was telling you this, but Terrin’s only nineteen. Yes, even with all his facial hair. He was the youngest of us to be used as bait.” Coen didn’t even cringe from that statement, although I did. “He was seven when we left the ships for the last time.”
My breath hitched. A pirate. Coen wasn’t just a pirate’s son, but an actualpiratewho had lived on one of those ships dotting the horizon for nine whole years.
Coen bent to snatch up the last bite of sandwich I’d discarded, and lifted it to my lips.
“Finish it. Your hands are still shaking.”
I took it into my mouth, my lips brushing the edges of his fingers.
He made sure I swallowed before he said, “Garvis and I have tried to follow the exiles every year. After they fail their tests, they’re escorted by Good Council security to a group of iron wagons behind the Testing Center waiting to take them away. Garvis and I don’t dare follow close enough for anyone to actually see us, or I’m sure Dyonisia Reeve would have our heads on two identical pikes. But we follow the screams of their minds from a distance away.”
“And?” I asked breathlessly.
“And the sound of the exiles cuts out after a few miles. Every year.”
“Like they’re dead?” I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. “Do you think the Good Council just kills them and takes their bodies up to Bascite Mountain?”
The weak ones are recycled,Ms. Pincette had said. Were their literal corpses recycled, then? The bascite in my system—had it come from the blood of a murdered Esholian who’d failed the test before me?
But Coen brushed his hands against my arms, and I felt a flutter of shock at the rough texture. What did the Mind Manipulators do in their classrooms to warrant such callouses? Or would his skin simply never shed the roughness of his childhood on a ship?
“No, Rayna, it’s not like a dead kind of silence. More like the exiled become muted. Shielded.” At my questioning gaze, he amended with, “Mind Manipulators can cast their own mental shields against fellow Mind Manipulators. That’s why Garvis and I are the only ones who try to follow, because we know that if we’re interrogated, we can block out the truth and feed out lies. I’d never ask Terrin or the twins to put themselves at risk by trying to investigate anything.”
Because iftheywere interrogated and found out, he didn’t need to say, they’d find out where the exiled went, alright. By joining them.
“So,” I said, trying not to let the halo of sparkles around Coen’s head—cast by the gemstones behind him—distract me. “You think a Manipulator on the Good Council is casting a shield around the exiled… to prevent anyone from following like you and Garvis try to do?”
“I think that’s exactly what’s happening.”
Coen’s hands had come to rest near my elbows, anchoring me into place. I tried to tell myself our closeness had everything to do with the secrets spilling from our lips and nothing to do with… anything else. Tried and failed.
“Garvis and I have always suspected the Good Council changes course as soon as they mute those kidnapped minds,” Coen continued in a harsh whisper. “We’ve always scoured the shores afterward, but… there’s never any sign of them. And…” He paused, as if weighing whether or not he wanted to tell me. Something seemed to fall into place in his eyes. “And I don’t think the dome around Eshol wouldletanybody leave, anyway. Even the exiled ones.”
