Page 131 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
Raindrops rolling down her forehead, Dazmine turned to me with a glint of rage that seemed to breathe sparks onto my own ice.
“Okay,that’sit. It’s time to get that bitch to talk.”
CHAPTER
39
Unfortunately, Quinn wasn’t much of a talker.
Dazmine learned this the hard way when she tried knocking on the Element Wielder house door after class the next day. And the next day. And the next.
Each time, the person who answered the door simply told her that Quinn wasn’t available. Just like they’d always told me.
“We’re going to get her to talk,” Dazmine seethed during a Language of Plants lesson where Mrs. Wildenberg had paired us up once again. “One way or another, she’s going to tell us what she knows.”
Last year, I might have been just as determined as Dazmine after what we’d seen, but my nerves could only seem to be directed at one thing right now: those pills.
After that fireball incident, I’d retrieved my satchel from the jungle. Steeler had arrived that night to pick up the ingredients for Nara, but apparently, she would still need four more weeks to mix and brew the poison until it was strong enough to kill a faerie. Four whole weeks of torture for me as I went to classafter class, playing the part of an innocent Esholian student and trying not to wonder if Dyonisia's death would create a level of chaos that the island wasn’t prepared to deal with.
I climbed sun bears in Mr. Conine’s class, helped caddisflies gather sticks and stones in Ms. Pincette’s, listened to Mrs. Smetlar’s scowling lectures in History, and, one Sunday, found myself sitting on the beach outside the lighthouse with Garvis, finally learning the Mind Manipulating art of commands.
“So, this is what your mind is like, huh?”
I stood up outside the gate of Garvis’s mind for the first time, gazing around me in awe.
His walls weren’t walls at all. They were more likecurtains, hung up by pillars and rods of stone but flowing back and forth with strips of what looked like cashmere. The result was a constant fluttering of white, as if Garvis’s thoughts were wisps of the gentlest clouds.
“This is me.” Garvis’s consciousness turned to face me. “No need to get through someone’s gate for this lesson, though. All you need to do is give me a command with as much force as you can muster.”
“Oh. Okay.” I tore my eyes away from the mesmerizing flow of those curtains. “Jump up and down?”
Garvis shook his head. “Not enough force. When you make a true command, you’ll feel it in the form of a mist leaking out of you and latching onto your victim.”
Victim. I didn’t like the sounds of that, but it was accurate, and something I needed to learnabouteven if I decided to never use it on someone else.
Clenching my fists, I filled my voice with as much force as I could muster. “Jump up and down.”
Like tendrils of smoke, my command flowed out of my mental body in little wiggling strings and drifted to Garvis’sconsciousness. Right as they tried to latch onto him, he gave a great, violent shudder… and they dissipated.
In the background film of the real world, I saw Garvis remain sitting from where we faced each other, cross-legged. “Try again,” his inner self said. “Reallypushthe command out.”
“Okay.” I flexed my mental fingers. “Jump up and down.”
This time, the tendrils of mist floated out of me and latched onto Garvis’s consciousness like squirming puppet strings before he could shake them off. In the real world, he scrambled to a stand and jumped twice before sitting back down.
“Oh, good!” He sounded surprised that I had caught on so quickly. “Can you do that again?”
“I don’t know.” I hadn’t liked the feeling of those strings of mist connecting me to him, but I gave another command anyway. “Scratch your nose.”
Again, that mist flowed out of me and latched onto Garvis’s consciousness. Again, he heeded my command and scratched his nose.
“Tap your head,” I commanded.
Garvis tapped his head.
“Wiggle your fingers.”
Garvis wiggled his fingers, but frowned.
