Page 119 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
For even if she didn’t try to attack the queen soon—even if Fabian and Don, Emelle and Lander, and all the others could live out their lives semi-peacefully—there was always achanceshe’d decide it was time. There was always achancemy fathers and the family I’d made at the Esholian Institute would find themselves facing a queen they had no hope of surviving.
And that was a chance I wasn’t willing to risk.
“We could take them with us,” Steeler suggested quietly. “You heard Nara in my memory. Anyone with Wild Whispering, Object Summoning, Element Wielding, Shape Shifting, or Mind Manipulating can make it through the dome just fine. And even if they couldn’t, I would Walk them through—to wherever you want to put them.”
The way he said that, with a hint of a cringe, made my heart pause.
“Wherewouldwe put them, Steeler?” Not on the ships, surely—I doubted the Fated General would want to keep a whole pack of humans onboard evenifthey passed the Old Veracious test.
Now Barberro was cringing, too.
“I don’t know,” Steeler answered finally, hefting up his chin with a look of defiance.You want the truth from now on? Well here it is.I wasn’t sure if he’d grazed my mind with those words or if I could just read his expressions like a map at this point. “The human territories aren’t safe—they’re run over with vampires. And Sorronia is prejudiced against humans, so I don’treally know of a place we could take your friends or family. But we can try to find somewhere, if you’d like.”
I’d turn over the world for you, if that’s what it takes.
Thatwashis voice in my mind, dark and fathomless as always.
I shivered, even as an idea hacked through me.
“Orwe could keep the island for ourselves.”
Barberro crossed his arms. Steeler spiked an eyebrow.
“Go on.” His lips hitched up at the corner, obviously amused by the spark I could feel flickering in my eyes.
“Think about it.” I began to pace, just as he had before. “We get rid of Dyonisia, and we get rid of the whole damn system. The bubble pops. No more Branding. No more Final Tests. No more exiles or torture chambers or secret readying for war.” And everyone in that prison would be set free—including my mother, if she was up there.
Steeler’s attention moved with me as I paced.
“And how, Rayna, are you planning ongetting rid ofthe second most powerful faerie to ever exist in Sorronian history?”
For a moment, I felt like I had my own fangs as I stopped to flash him a grin. The idea churning in my mind felt like a hurricane of hail and ice and snow and every cold, sharp thing the last six months had carved into me.
“We won’t have to touch Dyonisia at all.” I turned to Barberro. “If Nara can fill those pills of hers with poison and I give that stash to Kitterfol like I promised him I would…”
“…then Kitterfol will poison Dyonisia for us,” Steeler murmured, “thinking he’s slipping her a love potion instead. God of the Cosmos, woman. I’m actually starting to fear you.”
I couldn’t find it in me to smirk, because the idea was risky. But if Kitterfol was truly as power-hungry and love-crazed as I thought, he’d go to any lengths to crush up those pills and get them into Dyonisia’s system—and how would he know if theywere poisoned? He still didn’t know I was a Mind Manipulator, and at this point I was fairly certain I could learn how to feed him those mental lies without Steeler and I having to… act out certain scenes again.
“Yes, yes.” Barberro was nodding, his gaze distant as if listening to a conversation in his own head. After a few moments, his eyes refocused on me. “Nara says she can do it… but it’s very hard to poison faeries, and she doesn’t have right ingredients on ship.”
“Well…” I gestured around us, at the liverworts and bluffs bursting with fungi and the thick overflow of foliage looming over us in every direction. “It’s a good thing we live on a jungle island where ingredients aren’t hard to come by, isn’t it?”
I could feel Steeler’s smug pride wash over me, but I chose to ignore it for now. If I was going to do this, I needed every last dreg of mental clarity… and whatever it was that always seemed to radiate from him and wrap me up in a chokehold was not helping with that.
“What does Nara need to get the job done?”
CHAPTER
36
So do you want me to call you princess now? Because I will—gladly.
Against my will, a deep thrill unfurled in my belly when Steeler’s voice grazed against my wall merely twenty minutes after Walking me back to the Institute that night.
I’d just slipped into a nightgown and settled into my pillow, curling my blanket around me in the dim starlight that squeezed through the window and dappled the ground of my dorm. Knowing that he was still somewhere out there within Mind Manipulating range, lurking in the dark, maybe even watching my silhouette through the window—why did that send tiny explosions cascading through my bloodstream?
I’m not a princess,I replied, turning over in bed to hide my smile from Cilia and Dazmine. Emelle was, once again, with Lander for the night.I’m a foreign queen’s long-lost sister’s estranged daughter. There’s a difference, Steeler.
