Page 89 of By the Orchid and the Owl
But I locked those worries away and made myself take the burning intensity of Ms. Pincette’s gaze.
“Thank you for the extra reading,” I said.
“Study hard, Rayna.”
CHAPTER
32
Later that night after everyone else had gone to bed, I was in the study room, letting my body curve over the tome so that if anyone happened to barge in here for some late-night studying, they wouldn’t see Ms. Pincette’s hand-drawn map before I had a chance to snap it shut.
Nobody came, though, and the only sounds were of the crickets singing outside and the creak of the house settling. Coen himself had gone to bed early tonight since fifth-years would be the first to take their tests tomorrow at the crack of dawn, so my mind stretched with a cautious kind of silence as I soaked in the information.
Ms. Pincette had drawn the island of Eshol, a jagged shape like an egg turned sideways in the center of the whited-out page. I didn’t pause to pore over the details there, the labels of all the villages, the Uninhabitable Zone, Bascite Mountain, or the Institute. Instead, I let my eyes bounce around to the three different landmasses around it.
One was significantly larger than the other two, bleeding off the top of the page and filled with the nameASMOD.The other two cloistered at the bottom, nearly touching each other and filled with the namesSORRONIAandPLIYITH.
Asmod, Sorronia, and Pliyith. I mentally repeated the names and scanned the tinier labels dusted among each of them, cities and towns connected by roads and rivers. It didn’t seem possible, that three entire continents loomed over and beneath us, but I didn’t doubt Ms. Pincette’s findings. I just couldn’t fathom why this information had been kept from the island.
Until I read the descriptions crammed in each corner of the page, that was.
The longer I read those, the longer it took for each breath to fill my lungs.
Eshol, the island experiment: overseen by the Good Council and steeled by a dome of anti-power. No one survives going in or out.
“Except for Coen,” I amended softly.
Coen and Garvis and Terrin and the twins had survived going through that dome of—I reread the description Ms. Pincette had used—anti-power. Coen had called it a disease or poison made solid, but Ms. Pincette obviously didn’t know that.
Good. No one should know what Coen had told me in the cave. I moved on to the next description, still shivering from the whole “island experiment” label.
Pliyith, the nation of humans: split into seven provinces and steeled with weapons and technology. No magic. Homeland of the people of Eshol.
Homeland. Weapons. Technology. The terms circled through my mind like vultures preparing to feast on something I couldn’t quite make sense of.
I moved on before I could stitch it together.
Sorronia, the faerie lands: a divided queendom steeled by long lifespans and individual magics. Magics aren’t fully developed until the faerie reaches maturity.
I read that paragraph again. And again. But each time I re-read it, I felt like my eyes weren’t giving me anything more than squiggles on a page. No comprehension beyond the fact that faeries still existed beyond the island’s dome, faeries still existed beyond the island’s dome,faeries still existed beyond the island’s dome.Everything else was just meaningless syllables and ink splatters and sounds.
I moved on before I could hyperventilate.
Asmod, the vampire realm: ruled by one royal family and steeled by immortality and predatorial strength. No magic. Human blood slaves.
Vampires? Blood slaves? Immortality? Something in my chest wanted to streak away and hide, as if those terms could come to life and suck my blood right then and there.
“Whatcha reading this late?”
I jumped.
It was Willa, scuttling from beneath the windowsill and onto the desk. I knew mice couldn’t read, but I still almost closed the tome when she sniffed the top of its spine.
“It’s—I’m studying.”
“Studying the writings of a five-year-old?”
I couldn’t help but snort. Ms. Pincettedidlook like the kind of person who should probably have better penmanship. I trailed my fingertips over her words and came to a decision right then and there. If I couldn’t trust Willa, who could I?
