Page 29 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
“Oh yes.My venom has a soothing property that works so quickly, it’ll be like floating among the clouds and stars within seconds. Tell me, girl—how long has it been since you’ve felt pleasure?”
Never, it seemed. It was as if I’d spent my whole life sleeping up until three months ago, when I’d opened my eyes to haze and coldness. To emptiness and pain that only grew and grew and grew.
The tears in my throat rose up to nip at my nose, my eyes.
Clouds and stars. That sounded nice. That soundedgood. Ibelongedup in the clouds, between stars and beneath the moon.
But—I shook my head and stumbled back a step—I had to help the Good Council catch Steeler on Sunday.
My vision seemed to clear. I found the mamba’s slitted gaze.
“I know of something even better than clouds and stars.”
It paused. Flicked its tongue once.
“Oh?”
“Yes,” I said, determination hardening in my bones. “Yes. It’s far away from here, on the other end of the island, where there are no other snakes to compete with. Only endless food and endless sun.”
It was my biggest lie yet, of course. Nobody knew what lay within the boundary of the Uninhabitable Zone on the other end of the island. The one time I’d seen it from a flying carriage, it had been nothing but swirling, milky mist thatdefinitelywouldn’t let any sunlight through.
Still, the mamba seemed to consider my words with a tilt of its coffin-shaped head.
“And you would forego sweet, dark oblivion for this place of endless light?”
What had Jagaros told me last night?Everything will come to light soon enough. And this time, that light will be permanent.
To me, it didn’t matter if that light came from warm, buttery sunlight or the fiercest blaze of wildfire or the stroke of a moonbeam on a dark, misty night. I just needed something,anything, to shed a glimmer onto the dark, frosty thing I’d become inside.
“Light is light,” I answered. “If I had to choose, I would take that over darkness any day. As should you.”
The mamba was silent for so long I wondered if it had gone to sleep. Then it bowed its head ever so slightly.
“Perhaps I shall go find this faraway place, then.”
It saw through my deception, as Mr. Conine had predicted. Saw through my deception and respected it. With a swift jerk of its glistening gray head, it slithered away until the last of it had disappeared.
Leaving me with that single question: how long had it been since I’d felt pleasure? Or anything besides a throbbing head and a wall of ice?
Maybe Emelle was right—maybe it was time to go to a party forreal. To break my no-drinking rule for a night and flirt and dance.
And shake away the weight of Steeler’s body in that alleyway, warm and hard and electric where it had pressed against mine.
CHAPTER
12
That Friday, I stepped inside Lander’s brick mansion for the first time ever. As dark and cozy as it was on the outside, it was just as stuffy and chaotic on the inside—at least at the present moment.
Groups of girls danced with colorful gills or seashells growing from their bodies like ornaments, boys played mini pentaball with what I could have sworn were classmates-turned-into-balls, and an assortment of couples lounged on couches with drinks in their hands.
Deep, thumping music poured from Shifters who’d basically turned themselves into walking drums. I let the bass of it pound through my ribcage as Emelle led me into the throng.
“Rayna!” Lander seemed to materialize from thin air and gathered me in a one-armed hug, his free hand balancing a drink of clear, sloshing liquid. “I haven’t seen you all week! How do you like your new classes?” He lowered his voice, and I had to lean in to hear him through the noise surrounding us. “Melle says you have a… bad new instructor.”
Indeed, Mrs. Smetlar hadn’t let our second class with her go by without highlighting, once again, how much she’d enjoy watching the Good Council exile so many of us in four years’ time.
“Let’s just say that she doesn’t like her students talking back,” I said grimly—which was true. Rodhi had learned that the hard way when she’d made him polish some eyeballs after he’d questioned her primary sources yesterday. “Or her animals,” I added as an afterthought.
