Page 132 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
“I don’t think these commands are really testing your abilities, Rayna. I have no reason to resist them. You need to tell me to do something I wouldn’t want to do.”
Inexplicably, my thoughts drifted to Quinn again, and how often her Mind Manipulating mother used to tell her to do something she didn’t want to do. No matter what kind of person she’d turned into since our childhood, I should have stood up for her more in the face of that. I folded my arms at Garvis.
“Sorry. There’s no way I’m doing that to you.”
Garvis stroked his mustache with a soft smile. “While I appreciate the thoughtfulness, Rayna, this wouldn’t exactly bemy first time. In our very first year as Mind Manipulators, our instructors made us command each other to do unwanted things. I’m pretty sure one of my classmates actually made me shit myself during my first quarterly test.”
I gaped at him, unfolding my arms. “That’s horrible!” Now my thoughts drifted to Steeler in the lighthouse behind us. If that had been everyone’s experience in the Mind Manipulating sector, I could only imagine what manner of classes and tests he’d had to endure over the last five years. No wonder he’d developed such a commanding presence—this power required you to control orbecontrolled. No alternatives.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “How about this? What’s something you’ve alwayssecretlywanted to do that you haven’t had the courage to?”
Garvis stopped stroking his mustache to peer at me.
“That’s an interesting question.”
I shrugged. “Seems more humane than telling you to shit your pants.”
Something in Garvis’s expression reminded me of a cat raising its head after a long afternoon nap. He glanced at the foundation of his mind and said, “I would want just that—to have courage.”
“What?”
He sighed and looked back up.
“All my life, I’ve felt that I just drift wherever the tide takes me. And while that’s how I prefer to go about things, I also wish, just sometimes, that I could throw myselfintoit. Meet new people, go to new places, discover new things.” He smiled. “To have the courage to try something new.”
I stared at him. Garvis—a Mind Manipulating pirate, one of Steeler’s best friends who had been giving up his time to teach me about this power with everlasting patience—hefelt that he lacked courage?
The look on his face was already darkening into embarrassment, so I made a quick decision before he could regret telling me.
“Jump into the ocean,” I commanded. “Right now.”
Those strings of mist shot out from me harder and faster than before, latching onto Garvis with shocking force. I snapped out of his mind just in time to see him begin sprinting toward the water’s edge.
Laughing, I ran after him, feeling the heavy presence of a pair of watchful eyes from the lighthouse window but not looking over my shoulder to meet them. If I was going to make a friend throw himself into something like this, I was sure as hell going to join him.
We both crashed into an oncoming wave at the same time.
The biting cold of it wrapped around my ankles, and Garvis gasped beside me. I could feel the puppet strings of my command withdrawing from him, but he only shot me a rare laugh and threw himself deeper. I waded forward, too, letting the waves soak the bottom of my dress and the seaweed wrap around my ankle, until we were both chest-deep in the water, rocking back and forth with the waves.
“And to think,” Garvis called over the roaring sound of it all, “that our captain always warned us against eventouchingthe water lest a sea monster got us!”
I whipped my head toward him with a squint, my smile plastered on my face.
“Captain?”
“Yeah!” We bobbed up with a particularly large wave, and a splash of water salted my mouth as Garvis said, “The captain of our ship.”
“Oh.” Had I been mistaken about the female faerie with the tattoo on her back in Steeler’s memory? Was she, perhaps, not the Fated General, but merely the captain? I didn’t ask Garvis,though, not when he laughed again in the face of a wave as if he’d never truly laughed before.
We were both completely soaked by the time we trudged back up to the lighthouse to dry off.
“Well, how does it feel to have made your first official command as a Mind Manipulator?” Garvis asked.
I hesitated on the doorstop, thinking about that question while I wrung out my hair. The idea of controlling someone like that on a daily basis made actual bile pool in the base of my throat—it felt as if the more I did it, the more I’d feel those strings of mist wiggling around inside me, begging to be released.
“I don’t think I want to go around making commands,” I said honestly, “unless it’s a life-or-death situation.” Those spiders back at Ms. Pincette’s swam in my mind. I wouldn’t have had any problem combining my powers to tell them to get off me. Lexington, too. If he ever tried to touch one of my friends like he’d used his commands to harm me, I wouldn’t think twice before shooting that mist at every inch of his consciousness I could latch onto.
But other than that? No. The Cardina jeweler’s wince back in her green-striped tent was enough of a reason to stay away from this type of Mind Manipulating as much as possible. I never wanted to see anyone look at me in fear like that again.
