Page 104 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
“The monsters are gone!”
“The village is being rebuilt!”
Tears flooded Emelle’s eyes, and I grabbed her into a fierce hug before Mr. Conine and the rest of the class streamed over to hear the news for themselves. Nobody else had been from Merkwell, but the fact that the birds had returned at all had the class breaking out into excited chatter. Even Mr. Conine himself sighed in relief, despite his refusal to acknowledge the attack a few weeks ago.
Stepping away from the commotion so that Emelle could receive embraces from Gileon and Cilia and Mitzi, I eyed Rodhi as he slid off the back of a dolphin and trudged to shore, dripping with seaweed.
An idea had itched in the back of my brain at the sight of Mr. Conine’s obvious relief. An idea that involvedanotherinstructor who seemed too frightened to speak out against the Good Council in public but who, according to my unearthed memories, liked to sneak in tiny moments of resistance behind their backs.
“Did you enjoy your ride?” I asked Rodhi.
“Oh, yeah.” He winked at the dolphins still poking their elongated mouths out of the water. “I’ll seeyoufour later.”
They gave final clicking cackles and slid back under the surface, and his eyes slipped to the flurry of birds surrounding Emelle.
“I’m guessing it’s good news by the look on her face?”
“Yeah, good news.” I steeled myself to keep talking naturally. To loosen my shoulders and pop out a hip as if this abrupt turn in conversation I was about to make wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. “So… you know how you’re obsessed with Ms. Pincette?”
Rodhi’s eyebrows shot up.
“Well aware, darling, well aware.”
“Do you, like, know where she lives?” If I was going to employ Ms. Pincette’s help again, I wanted to ask her in the privacy of her own home, not a classroom where anyone could hear us.
Rodhi’s eyebrows couldn’t have gone any higher.
“Do you mean to tell me you’ve lived on this campus for a year and half and you’ve never wondered where our instructors sleep at night?”
He waited. I didn’t answer, because no, I hadn’t. Not until now, when my mind was imagining cold dungeons dug into the ground beneath the Testing Center.
“They live in their sectors, of course!” Rodhi had never given me such a look of exasperation before. “For instance, you know that tall building with the sharp, curved roof and the gangly drainage pipes between Mr. Conine’s classroom and the arboretum?”
“Yeah?”
“That’s Mrs. Smetlar’s house.”
I blinked. I’d thought that building was just another classroom, perhaps for upperclassmen to practice advanced magic in.
“Are you telling me you know where every instructor lives, Rodhi?”
He shrugged. “Just the ones I love or hate. Love Ms. Pincette. Hate Mrs. Smetlar.”
“She is pretty horrible, isn’t she?” Just this Monday, she’d made us feed the rotting carcasses of animals to a family of vultures, telling us that those carcasses would be us if we didn’t pass our Final Tests. “Okay, so which building is Ms. Pincette’s?”
Rodhi narrowed his eyes at me.
“You’re not trying to win over her romantic affections, right?”
“What the hell! No! One, I’m not into women.” Though it would probably make life easier if I was. “Two, she’s aninstructor, Rodhi.”
Rodhi shook his head, his voice dropping into a silky quiet despite the squawking, cheeping cloud of birds still surrounding our classmates up ahead. “Oh, but she’s so much more than an instructor. Okay, so here’s where you’re going to go.”
Up the stone staircase, through the alleyway where crab-eating racoons liked to loiter, and down the cobblestone lane cracked with moss, I finally found Ms. Pincette’s house crammed against a jutting piece of mountainside.
Cottony white cobwebs clung to the windows like exterior curtains. Moths perched on the roof like fluttering shingles. Cracks in the stone walls crawled with ants carrying leaves up and down. I couldn’t say I was surprised, but the sight of it all gave me the feeling that I was intruding upon a space that wanted to blend in.
When I moved to step up to the door, something silky and thin tickled against my chest.
