Page 129 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
“You still don’t trust me?” I asked.
Rodhi was looking back and forth between us with raised brows.
“I was starting to,” Dazmine said with a lift of her chin. “But then I saw you heading in the same direction as Mr. Gleekle and all those students about half an hour ago, and I wanted to see if you were going to join them.” Her chin went even higher, but—
“What did you just say?”
“I was starting to trust you…”
“No. About Mr. Gleekle and a group of students? You saw them take off into the jungle?”
Dazmine nodded. “During the height of the Cardina buzz, yeah. They looked really dodgy, too. So when you headed off in the same direction…” A bit of shame finally split through the hardness in her gaze.
My heart thumping against my ribcage, I turned to Rodhi. “Do you think your spiders could find out where Mr. Gleekle is right now?”
I wasn’t really sure how the spying system worked—or whether he had access to more spiders than just the ones on his shoulders—but Rodhi’s mouth burst into a huge grin as soon as one of them whispered into his ear again with those velvety legs resting against his neck.
“I think they already knowexactlywhere Mr. Gleekle is.”
After hastily collecting the poison dart frog eggs, I had the jungle take my satchel and hide it for me—just for an hour or two, I told it.
Then Rodhi, Dazmine, and I slipped into the river and onto the backs of the dolphins that emerged shyly from the water’s depths, giggling and splashing each other until Rodhi told them where to go.
I clung to the dorsal fin of mine, wrapping my legs around its slippery torso as it plunged forward through the river system.
Left, right, right, center, center left.
Rodhi’s spiders whispered in his ear, telling him which direction to lead us when the river split into separate streams—sometimes against a sudden rush of current, other times up a shallow, murky waterway caked in layers of algae.
Finally, just as I was wondering if I’d ever get the taste of moss and rot out of my mouth from how many times I’d accidentally swallowed a splash of water, Rodhi looked back and put his fingers to his lips. He and his dolphin eased to the bank,and I told mine to follow. Behind me, I could hear Dazmine muttering the same to her own dolphin.
Here, the jungle was absolutely crowded with strangler figs. It even seemed to sing a different tune than it did around campus, this one a deep baritone compared to its usual sweet humming.
When Dazmine, Rodhi, and I clambered off our dolphins and onto the shore, that tune paused for a second, noting the newcomers with a hesitation that made my skin prickle.
This way, Rodhi mouthed, pointing straight ahead.
Waving goodbye to our dolphins, Dazmine and I snuck after him.
We crept forward for several minutes until the sky finally opened up overhead, sending a spray of rain down onto the fig canopies and water rolling down their twisted trunks.
Only when the rain had completely overtaken the deep tune of the jungle with its deafening drumming did Dazmine tap me on the shoulder and point to her own head.
I nodded my understanding and funneled an opening in my blockade toward her as we continued to follow Rodhi.
You’ve seen Mr. Gleekle with a bunch of students before?she asked.
Yes, I sent back, ducking under a gnarled fig branch.Once.Right before that first time you met Terrin, actually.I thought it was just a strange one-time occurrence, though.
Now that I knew about that letter Dyonisia had sent Mr. Gleekle… I couldn’t let this go. He was obviously some kind of player in this game, not just a pawn. So why would he be taking groups of students into the jungle outside of regular class periods? Was he interrogating them? Testing them? Or just giving them extra help?
Do you trusthim?Dazmine asked. I thought she was talking about Mr. Gleekle until she nodded forward at Rodhi’s back as he hopped over a log with limber ease.
Oh. Yes. More than you trust me, apparently.
A beat later, Dazmine thought,I’m sorry about that. I don’t trust anyone or anything anymore—not since Jenia. It’s nothing personal.
I felt the tinge of her sorrow behind those words, as if maybe she wished she could change that, and I hefted my blockade back up. She’d probably claw my brain out of my skull if she knew I could sense her deeper emotions behind those carefully-controlled thoughts.
