Page 51 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
Then a voice cut through the onslaught with a growl that I thought might be real, not just in my head.
“Put up the blockade for her, Garvis. Please. Do it now.”
Instantly, the voices seemed to slam against an invisible wall hovering inches from either side of my head.
Still on my knees, I removed my hands from my ears and cranked my head up, panting, to lock eyes with Steeler. His lips opened, but—
Poor thing is still so pale. I hope she’s not going to upchuck.
Now my head whipped toward the corner of the room, where Felicity was wringing her tail in her hands on the sofa’s armrest.
Her thoughts. Those had definitely been her thoughts, shooting right through the blockade Garvis had wrapped around me.
But now that it was only her, it wasn’t so…screechy. In fact, her mental voice sounded sweet and crystal clear, like she’d actually spoken the words out loud.
“I’m not going to upchuck,” I said to the monkey, still breathing heavily. “I’m…” I trembled to a stand. “I’m okay now.”
Steeler’s gaze whipped between Felicity and me, something like surprise widening the unyielding hardness in his pupils.
“You can hear what she’s thinking?”
I rubbed the dizziness from my eyes. “More clearly than everyone else.” I paused. “That’s not normal, is it?”
Even though I’d always known Mind Manipulators couldcontrolanimals, I’d never known of one to actually talk to any animal mind-to-mind. In fact, I didn’t even know how Steeler had been able to communicate with Felicity to offer her a place here in the lighthouse.
Every part of Steeler’s body seemed to be relaxing as the seconds ticked by and Garvis’s blockade held firm—at least from the humans in the room. Clearly, my screaming had grated onhis eardrums because he’d looked ready to burst out of his skin when those shrieks had first ripped out of my throat.
Now that I was calm, a sense of shame was creeping up my cheeks. Had I really just been on my knees screaming? At Coen Steeler’s goddamned feet?
“No,” Steeler said eventually, massaging his jaw over the spot where I’d nicked him last week. “Usually, animal minds are muddy, hard for us to wade through. There are very few animals who have mental images and words clear enough for us to understand.”
Sasha cocked her head at me, clearly intrigued.
“Sounds like her magics are working together, not clashing.”
From her tone of voice, I felt like the implication of that statement held a lot more weight than I was currently able to understand, but…
My memories. That’s why I’d agreed to this whole ordeal in the first place: to be able to get my own memories back and guard myself from my enemies.
I gathered a shaky breath and leveled a stare back at Steeler.
“Okay, it worked.” The fact that this meant the Good Councilhadbeen lying to us about the Branding process… another thing I didn’t have the mental capacity to think about right now. So I only said, in my most commanding tone yet in the hopes that my new Mind Manipulating power would force him to obey, “Now give me my memories back.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Terrin raise his eyebrows, Garvis shift on his feet, and the twins exchange glances. Felicity’s thoughts flitted out to me, soft and bright as moth wings in the moonlight.
Uh oh, this isn’t going to go over well.
Steeler didn’t obey. He just crossed his arms over his chest—still stupidly bare—and clucked his tongue.
“I never said I’d give your memories back if you did this, Drey. Just that I would stop burying your new ones every week.”
A molten wave of rage flowed from my head to my fingertips.
Before I knew it, one of those fingers was flying forward, jabbing him right between his annoying pectoral muscles.
“Are youkiddingme, Steeler? You claim you’ve been stalking me, drugging me, invading my mind, and now kidnapping me formonthsall to hide secrets even more detrimental than the fact that we’re both faeries or that Dyonisia is keeping five of our kind imprisoned at the top of Bascite Mountain.” I couldn’t even rake in a deep enough breath, my lungs were so filled to the brim with rage. “If that’s all true—if youhaven’tbeen doing this all to me just because you’re a sadistic monster—then you’d give me my entire mind back now that I can protect those secrets myself.”
“Oh, look,” Terrin said suddenly. “The fire’s getting low.”
