Page 82 of By the Orchid and the Owl
Not that I’d be able to drink with them. No, Coen still claimed that anything could trigger our raw power, which made me wonder… how had my mother handled her ownless definedmagic, as Lord Arad had put it? Without the pills, how had she subdued herself during her year spying on the island? During her year falling in love with Fabian and carrying me around in her womb?
The doubt hit me again, just as hard as it had in the past.
The pirates are searching for a way to shape their power,Coen had told me once. But Coen himself, Garvis, Terrin, Sylvie, Sasha, and I—we were all living proof that not even bascite could shape that raw power in our pirate blood. It could grant us foreign magic, but never a way to control our own.
Were the pirates truly wanting in for the bascite, then? Or for something else? The pills, perhaps—or whatever they were made of?
Why else would they be circling us so endlessly, sending their children as distractions and spies, and constantly trying to break through the dome?
“Rayna? You there?”
I jumped. Willa had scurried up my dress to my shoulders, and now sniffled up at me, while the other girls stared at me expectantly.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“We asked you if you were ready to go.” Emelle’s voice was calm, despite Wren’s suspicious scrutiny beside her. She knew I’d had trouble sleeping. Heard me toss and turn each night above her, until sometimes she slipped in bed with me and held me until the darkness finally rolled me into dreams.
What Emelle didn’t know, though, was my whirlwind of thoughts like the one I’d just had, thoughts that would suck me away from everyone around me and send me spinning through questions and confusion and uncertainty.
My mother and the pirates. Jagaros and the faeries of old.
“Yes,” I said, pulling a smile onto my face and briefly running a finger over the imprint of my brand on full display. Just for tonight, I wanted the busy buzzing in my mind to go away. Just for tonight, I’d have fun. “I’m ready.”
The Element Wielder houses had been completely transformed.
Whereas before they had resembled cutting-edge squares of the blackest caves, now plump bulges of snow skirted their flat rooftops like sparkling frosting. Snowflakes sprinkled down around them despite a noticeable lack of clouds, and garland bordered each window.
They would have looked rather cold and uninviting, I thought as Emelle, Wren, and I stepped up to Terrin’s front door, if it hadn’t been for the live sheets of fire eddying within the glass of each double windowpane.
Fire and ice. Like Jagaros’s mind, according to Coen. Like the top of Bascite Mountain itself. Perpetually snow-capped and flitting with the lights of Good Council activity.
Activity that included torture.
Our shoes clicked up the steps together, and when we pushed open the door, ethereal music seemed to fill my every pore. Another Mind Manipulating trick? Or—no. Above the hundreds of heads dancing and swaying and mingling, windchimes and other musical instruments hung from the ceiling, played by an intricate wind that swirled along the top of the room. For a moment, I saw Lord Arad and Velika and the other tomb bats again, in the shape of those dangling instruments.
I shook away the image as Emelle nudged me and pointed through the crowd.
“Look who’s already here. I take it Ms. Pincette didn’t accept his invitation.”
Rodhi had stayed behind after our last Spiders, Worms & Insects class to ask Ms. Pincette to the formal. I couldn’t fathom why he’d actually have expected her to say yes, but here he was, smashed in the corner between two Shifter girls I didn’t know, taking turns tonguing each of them as if he wanted to forget a certain rejection.
“I swear one of them just made her boobs grow three sizes,” Wren muttered, wrapping her arms around herself. “Seems pretty fake to me, but hey, at least Rodhi’s getting some.”
I peered sideways at her, suddenly curious… what kind of person was Wren interested in? She had been spending a lot of time with Gileon, but the way they interacted seemed more like a platonic alliance than a budding romance to me. Although Gileonhadpresented her with a bouquet of needles after the Cardina visit.
Just as I thought this, Gileon himself bobbed toward us through the crowd, his massive frame towering over everyone else while he held two drinks in each fist.
“Hi!” he called cheerfully. He almost dropped his drinks when he got a full look at Wren. “Wow. You look like one of those beautiful poisonous frogs in Mr. Conine’s class.”
“By the orchid and the owl,” Wren cursed. “Give me one of those.” She grabbed a drink from his hand and drained it in a single bob of her throat. Then, wiping her mouth with one of those flowing turquoise sleeves, she said, “Let’s go dance, Gil.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Emelle and I watched Gileon follow Wren into the swaying, dancing throng, a bewildered expression clouding his face, but a smile beginning to perk at his lips.
“Do you think they’re….?” Emelle began uncertainly.
“I havenoidea.”
