Page 11 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
Lexington was already turning on his heels, his stringy braids flying.
“Dyonisia Reeve has arrived for the Branding,” he said over his shoulder. “She would like a word with her… favorite student.”
Every one of my muscles tightened at the mention of her name. Normal. I had to act normal, for the sake of Wilder and my friends and my two fathers, who were still back in Alderwick, unaware of the threats dangling over their heads from both the pirates and Dyonisia herself.
I would not want you to have to witness your fathers’ bodies, broken and mangled and wrecked like this spider’s, knowing their death was stretched out by the man who had you chained.
I’d managed to avoid thinking about that so far, but now, with Dyonisia Reeve returned, I’d have to face it again: the fact that my actions here could have consequences for Fabian and Don across the island. I’d have to spin Steeler’s presence in my mind as something that made me look likeIhad things under control. Because I did. Idid.
“Coming, sir,” I intoned, and made my way after Lexington without glancing at Wilder again.
CHAPTER
5
It was just like it had been three months ago, only now Dyonisia sat in that glittering, throne-like chair without an audience behind her.
“Ahh, Rayna. Come here, child.”
She motioned for me with one long, angular fingernail. Behind me, Lexington bowed his way out, and I found myself completely alone with the founder of this island and the head of the Good Council in this arched space beneath the Testing Center’s dome.
I shuffled forward, barely daring to breathe. Her eyes—frosty blue and filled with nothing but a depthless void—tracked the path of my movement toward her, like a serpent eyeing a wandering mouse.
A glass of acai wine sat beside her on a limestone side table, along with a neat burgundy package wrapped in ribbons and bows.
Dyonisia smiled when I came to a halt in front of her.
“Sit.”
I glanced down, trying not to let shock flare in my eyes. Sit? There was nothing to sit on, besides the arm of her makeshift throne or…
My body seemed to melt to the floor at her feet—sickeningly obedient under that watchful gaze—until she was towering over me.
Apparently satisfied, Dyonisia said, “Kitterfol has informed me that you have not caught any sign of our enemy since our last talk?”
Her voice sounded like the wall of ice I’d built around myself, except shattered: jagged and sharp enough to slice.
“I have recently succeeded in making initial contact,” I said, choosing each word from the tangle of my thoughts ever so carefully.
“Oh? Is that so?”
Something flickered across Dyonisia’s regal face. Shock? Pleasure? Pride? I didn’t know. Only knew that I was glad Lexington had left the room, glad I couldn’t feel his slimy presence in my mind to pick up on the little half-lies I was about to weave through the truth.
“Yes, ma’am. I—I opened up my mind and lured him in with…” I dipped my head, as if embarrassed. “—promiscuous mental images.”
False. I’d just tried to help a fellow Esholian. But I obviously couldn’t tell Dyonisia how much I abhorred her practice of tossing her own people away like literal pieces of garbage.
Dyonisia’s tone became crisper. “When?”
“He wouldn’t agree to a specific time or place, but he said soon.”
Soon as in tomorrow night, when he’d leave a black pearl on my nightstand. But I couldn’t tell Dyonisia that either, couldn’t admit I’d been close enough to throttle him twelve separate times and slept through them all.
Dyonisia took a single sip of wine, smacked her lips delicately, and replaced the glass on that side table. Her sheet of midnight hair fell forward as she leaned even further over me.
“My sources tell me that you have been practicing some peculiar skills with your little tiger friend, child.”
Little tiger friend. Jagaros would have sunk his claws deep into her throat if he’d heard that insult. I didn’t dare correct her, though—not when I sensed danger hovering over each of her words.She knew.She knew I’d been meeting with Jagaros to practice with my mother’s knife.
