Page 92 of By the Orchid and the Owl
The question was quiet, but I still flinched. His tone told me what I’d already suspected, what I’d already dreaded. Coen had been planning on erasing this from me, anyway, as soon as Willa’s friends had woken him up and he’d pieced together what I’d learned.
Andthatmade me wonder if I’d figured it out in the past before. If he’d already erased my knowledge of this. My fingernails curled into my palm.
“I will pass the tests. I have to.”
I was determined to remain calm tomorrow, no matter what creepers and crawlers I had to face. That raging panic, I was certain, was what had made my power break through the suppressant and explode outward. Which was why this was so important—for my mind to stabilize for the next twenty-four hours.
Coen scrutinized me, unreadable. Each of his breaths came out in foggy tufts, melding with my own.
“I can lock it away,” he said finally. “Shield the knowledge of… of what’s in the tome so you can’t access it. Then remove that mental shield later.”
“Yes,” I breathed, even though part of me wondered if this was the coward’s way out. Ms. Pincette wouldn’t mention the tome again, I was sure, but she would have expected me to read it, and Jagaros would eat me alive if he found out I’d purposely hid away the map he’d requested me to find twice already.
But I knew myself. Knew my limits. And this was one of them. I would not be able to sleep or breathe or eat or doanythingtomorrow with this one thing chewing at every thought that tried to rise to the surface of my mind.
“If this is what you wish,” Coen said.
I nodded. Yes. I’d have this memory returned tomorrow night, and then I’d…
I’d confronteverything.
“But you have to give it back after my test tomorrow,” I warned suddenly. “You can’t keep it from me forever. Okay?”
He didn’t respond.
“Coen?”
He just gripped the back of my head, brought me close, and whispered three words into my ear as the moon finally sliced between the gray draping of clouds.
“Forget, my love.”
CHAPTER
34
The next day, I passed my History portion of the test for Mr. Fenway. I successfully convinced a mongoose and a snake to quit fighting for Mr. Conine. I fed a butterwort for Mrs. Wildenberg.
When Ms. Pincette asked me to fish a silver key out of a tank full of maggots, however, my power struck through the cracks of that suppressant and sent the whole tank shattering into a million glinting pieces—pieces that melted into the floor of the Testing Center as if they had never been.
Ms. Pincette flicked a maggot off her shoulder and kicked another one off her shoe. The entire room squirmed with them, like fat, wriggling ashes.
“Did you study, Ms. Drey?” she asked, deadpan.
What an odd question. OfcourseI had studied. I nodded, picked up the silver key that had been flung unceremoniously onto the floor, and tossed it over to her. She caught it with one hand.
“Very well. I shall report this as a fail. You did not retrieve the key.”
Although something in my chest shriveled up in shame, I nodded again.
“Yes. Thank you, Ms. Pincette.”
She watched me go, the lines of her face creasing. I had a distinct feeling that I’d missed an important clue or sign orsomething, but I couldn’t hurry out that back door fast enough, down the stairs and outside.
Where Coen waited for me between lampposts, holding up a sandwich.
I ran to him and threw my arms around his neck, squishing the sandwich between us.
“Did you pass?” he asked.
