Page 1 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
PROLOGUE
COEN
Even as a Mind Manipulator, I couldn’t wipe the image of her from my brain.
That wild cascade of curls, those jade-green eyes, even the freckles strewn across her nose and cheeks, as if the God of the Cosmos had sprinkled a little extra stardust over her Making—I saw them all in the spaces of every blink as I stared across the vast expanse of ocean.
But even the memory of her face didn’t absolutely suffocate me the way the memory of her voice did.
Please, Coen. Take whatever you want, but don’t take awayus.
My innate magic jolted, like a fishhook trying to tug me away, and I had to clench my fists and say her name in my head to keep myself tethered in place. To not let that endless darkness gobble me up and spit me back out somewhere I didn’t want to be.
A small, furry shadow loped to my side, but I didn’t glance down to where I knew the creature would be gazing up at me in concern. I didn’t need concern right now. I needed to keepRayna from exploding withherinnate magic again… without her knowledge of my presence. Which meant I needed to focus.
But the creature’s mental images oozed toward me anyhow—a little, nonhuman mind demanding I pay it attention.
So I made a quick dive toward it with my Mind Manipulating power and found a fuzzy picture of me on my knees, digging for clams, plucking something small and round from the bed of meat.
“Yes, I have one.” I held up the black pearl pinched between my forefinger and thumb. It wasn’t just a gift for Rayna, but a reminder, a declaration. A piece of me that I could leave behind without the Good Council’s detection.
She had all my pieces anyway. This was just a talisman of that. A way to tell her subconscious that I would come back for her again.
And again.
And again.
“I’m ready,” I told the creature through a deep breath. “I’ll be back before you can even have time to trash the kitchen again.”
That earned me a jab in the shin, and Ialmostsmiled… but couldn’t hold it as the memory of Rayna’s voice permeated my mindagain, wafting down every twist and turn of neurons, swirling with the mist of my memories.
Please, Coen. Take whatever you want, but don’t take awayus.
My little hurricane, I wished so badly I could have said.I would never do anything to cause that light to leave your eyes.
But I hadn’t said that. And I couldn’t regret it, even if she hated me now. Even if it scooped out every piece of me worth fighting for and left me a hollow monster with aching teeth.
So I wrenched my eyes from the sea’s horizon where Garvis, Terrin, Sasha, and Sylvie would be bobbing on one of those shipspast my newly sharpened line of faerie sight and turned on the pebbly shore.
Back to the jungle. Back to the Esholian Institute on the other side of the island.
Back to my reason for every beautiful thing I’d done and every wicked thing I still had to do.
CHAPTER
1
The sweet, earthy scent of black bamboo washed over me as I lay in the grove, closing my eyes and listening to the song of the jungle.
Wildflowers crooned around me. Shrubs and ferns sang in rougher, more bristly tones, while the bamboos themselves hummed excitedly, the pace of their synchronized voices matching the quick fluttering of their thousands of leaves.
This. This was the only place I could go to that seemed to calm the constant ache in my head where my memories had been wrenched from me against my will three months ago. Everywhere else just left me feeling cold and empty, but this grove of gracefully swooping plants…
Something tickled my senses, like the string of a spiderweb brushing over my closed eyes.
I grabbed the knife nestled in the grass beside my head and popped up to my feet in a single swift movement—
Just as a striped mass of muscle and fur pounced from the grove’s deepest shadows.
