Page 35 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
“See,” I muttered. “Knew he could do it.”
But I finally forced myself to meet Willa’s eyes, and found a peculiar blazing expression reflected in them, one that made her whiskers twitch. My gentle little mouse friend was… wasgladI’d done it, I realized with a jolt,gladI’d defended myself in this way. And that small bit of curdling shame in the pit of my stomach seemed to dissolve.
Willa smiled with her two front teeth.
“Just wash your knife before you cut my cheese with it, okay?”
Half an hour later, after a quick bath and change of clothes (I did, indeed, wash my knife in the bathing chamber sink, thankful that no one else was around to watch the blood swirl down the drain), I made my way down to the dining hall with Willa on my shoulder.
Only a few Wild Whisperers were up so early on the first weekend of the new year, so there wasn’t even a line to the kitchen counter. After I grabbed a parfait and a side of cheese, I turned to realize I’d missed Rodhi, sitting at a table in the corner all by himself, nursing a mug of coffee as if his life depended on it.
“Hey.” I went over and sat down next to him. “You okay?”
Rodhi jumped, blinking at me rapidly before his face relaxed again. “Oh, hey, darling. Hey, cutie.”
He nodded at Willa, who actually batted her eyelashes at that. I wrinkled my nose at her, and she stuck out her tongue before scurrying down my arm and onto the table to start nibbling at her piece of cheese.
“Yeah, m’alright,” Rodhi said, uncharacteristically oblivious of all this as he sighed into his coffee. “Just had a long night is all.”
“Oh?” Usually when Rodhi said he had a long night, it involved his flask and a couple of girls—or sometimes even boys—and an after-morning glow. Not now, though. Now he truly did look tired. I picked at a few blackberries sprinkled over my parfait and said carefully, “I never saw you at Lander’s party.” Not that I’d been in the right mind to keep track of everyone for the majority of it, but still. Rodhi made his presence known wherever he went. “Where were you?”
Rodhi’s answer was a little too hasty.
“I had some stuff come up and couldn’t make it.” Before I could so much as raise my eyebrows at him, he turned his earnest expression toward me. “It wasn’ttooboring without me there, was it? I mean, I know I’m the life of the party, but hopefully I’ve impartedsomeof my gregarious wisdom onto—”
He snapped his mouth shut, released his coffee as if it had electrocuted him, scooched his chair back, and… just walked away.
“Uh, Rodhi, what—?”
But I knew before I even turned around. Knew from the slimy, oily presence that had just wormed its way into the dining hall, from the way everyone around me had all jerked their gazes away, as if yanked by puppet strings. And not the Object Summoning kind. The Mind Manipulating kind.
The kind that directed brains instead of bones.
“Hello,” I said stiffly as Kitterfol Lexington sat in Rodhi’s vacant spot. Rodhi himself had already lumbered out the door, and Willa had stopped nibbling her cheese to gape upward with her two front teeth.
“Shoo,” Lexington said to her.
Willa squeaked and ran off, spiraling down one of the legs of the table, her tail flying behind her.
I wanted to punch him in the pockmarked face for that, but I supposed I should be grateful he hadn’t punchedherand left her a furry, twitching mess. Yes, it was better that Rodhi and Willa were gone for this.
Lexington didn’t wait for my permission before he turned his cold, pale eyes onto mine and plunged into my mind.
I felt every thought and memory waft to the surface of my mind as he touched them, leaving his slimy residue behind in reverse order: there was me last night, chopping a guy’s fingers off, and the two of us grinding beforehand. There was the black mamba and the sundew and the fire ants.
And then there washim. Steeler. Besting me in the alleyway. Anchoring my wrists over my head.
Take this pill and I won’t bury this memory of us. You can show it to the Good Council—how you nicked me.
Well, Lexington was watching me nick him now. Through a hazy kind of film, I watched the color leak from his face—but only for a second. By the time he pulled himself out of my mind, his sneering composure was back.
“You let him go.”
“Not on purpose, obviously.” I steeled myself to say what I had to say, but Lexington cut me off.
“What did that pill do to you?”
“I don’t know.”
