Page 70 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
None of the pirates had.
I don’t deny the attacks, but they’re not what you think—Steeler hadn’t been lying when he’d said those words to me on his knees.
When Jagaros eyed me now, his pupils softened.
“You are correct in your assumption that I have been working with Coen Steeler. Not often, I might add, but whenever it is necessary for your protection. His mind called out to mine when he left you all those months ago, asking me to take care of you. His mind called out to mine again merely a week ago, telling me his plan to offer you Mind Manipulating power.”
So he knew. Jagaros knew I could read his outer thoughts right now, even if I hadn’t yet learned to dive into his mind to access his inner ones.
My lungs twisted in my chest as I raked in a breath and let it out again on a question that seemed to hover uncertainlybetween us. A question that had been hovering uncertainly between us for a while.
“And whyareyou protecting me, Jagaros? What am I to you?” I almost stopped there, but if I was expecting honesty from him, I knew I’d better deliver my own, even in the way I shaped my questions. “Why are you so invested in my safety, but no one else’s? Why are you comfortable talking to me, but no other Wild Whisperer?”
This time, Jagaros kept his maw shut.
But I heard every desperate thought break free from his constraint of silence anyway.
Once upon a time, it was I who ruled this island in a different body. I was the faerie king of old, in harmony with my people… untilshecame and conquered.
I knew whoshewas even though his mind couldn’t seem to conjure her image without clamming up. Dyonisia, of course.
I froze in my position in the tree, reeling in every unspoken word.
She conquered, and I could do nothing to protect my people, not truly, not as a rightful king should have. But you, Rayna Drey…Pain and regret and something even more ancient swelled in the cracks of his thoughts.You are a faerie born on this island, just as my people were. So maybe I can save you in ways I couldn’t save them.
A lump burned its way up my throat.
Perhaps I had known, deep down, that when Steeler had said Dyonisia swept away the indigenous clan of faeries, he’d been talking aboutJagaros’sclan. But that didn’t make the lump burn any less.
“I’m sorry, Jagaros. For everything you lost.” I reached out and placed my hand over his paw. When he didn’t move away from me, I said carefully, “Does this mean I need to bow to you?”
Jagaros gave a snarling laugh that lightened some of the density in his eyes.
“No.What you need to do is focus on your Mind Manipulating lessons with Steeler. And keep practicing defending yourself with that knife in case you’re ever in a position where either of your magics are nullified.” He placed his other paw on top of my hand for a brief moment before hefting himself up.“And no, Coen Steeler didn’t ask me to train you with the knife. That was my idea… perhaps born of my frustration that I don’t currently have proper hands of my own.”
I furrowed my eyebrows at that.
Whydidn’tJagaros have hands of his own? If he’d once ruled the island in a different body—a faerie body, I assumed—did that mean he was a Shape Shifter who’d become stuck in this alternate form? Or had Dyonisia cursed him, somehow?
It wasn’t in me to pry even further, however. Not when Jagaros had already given me the one truth that mattered most:
I truly was a faerie born on this island. Which meant Dyonisia was not my only ruler—hewas, too.
And for now, that ruler wanted me to train.
I pulled my blockade back over myself like a shroud.
“Well, if I’m going to focus on Mind Manipulating and defense, I need to get Kitterfol Lexington’s weekly interrogations out of my way.”
CHAPTER
23
On the morning Lexington was due to arrive, I woke up to meager veins of sunlight straining through our window’s foliage and felt my heart sink at the sight of them landing on Emelle’s empty bed.
Over the last five days, the news about Merkwell had spread across campus in both whispers and wails. The older Wild Whisperers had sent some other birds back to the village to check for survivors, but the birds had yet to return, and none of our instructors seemed to want to address it—except Mrs. Smetlar, who’d given a smug, “See? This is what happens when you don’t have enough control of your magic to ward off outside threats” during Tuesday’s class.
To which Rodhi had called her an ugly old bogsucker.
