Page 107 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
Now it was my turn to mull it all over.
Was this the only path forward?
No. I could choose to forget what Steeler had told me in the lighthouse, could choose to pretend that Dyonisia Reeve was not the mother I’d always craved to know. I could refrain from investigating, live in ignorance, know I could never step foot on Steeler’s ship because his Fated General could very well use Old Veracious to slice through my neck if the truth-telling sword saw through the lies.
Maybe by telling me to go figure it out, Steeler had been giving me that choice.Go figure out if you really want this or not.
I nodded at Ms. Pincette and lifted my chin.
“It is the path I would like to choose.”
She gave the barest hint of a smile.
“You know, I do remember one thing very clearly about you from last year, Ms. Drey: you were abysmal at talking to insects. They simply wouldn’t respond to you no matter how hard you tried.” She stood and tucked a strand of chestnut hair neatly behind her ear. “So imagine my surprise when you walked into your first day of second-year class and demonstrated perfectly average insect communication? As if the thing—or person—who held you back last year is now gone?”
Kimber Leake. The person who had held me back last year was Kimber Leake, by commanding all the insects to cease all communication with me. I could feel that little piece of memory dislodge itself from the ice of my foundation with little effort on my part. Maybe my mind was beginning to melt of its own accord.
“Nevertheless,” Ms. Pincette continued with a sigh, “I will send a message to Dyonisia Reeve saying that her most… suspicious student is still performing abysmally and needs further assessment.”
I blew out a breath. “Thank you, Ms. Pincette.”
She inclined her head. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, Ms. Drey. Now please leave before someone discovers you here.”
I was halfway to the door, leaving my glass on a sparkling glass coffee table, when I paused with my back turned to her.
“You didn’t say ‘leave us’.”
“Come again?”
I half-turned to her, my hand floating to the doorknob as those cobwebs outside her window darkened with trickles of rain.
“Those spiders back there—they’re the first ones I’ve seen on campus in six months. You would think they’d be eavesdropping on us right now, ready to turn us in. You would think you’d have to tell them to leave us for a conversation as forbidden as this one.”
Ms. Pincette’s eyes glimmered with something restrained and muffled. Something that hinted of a layer she’d long ago buried.
“You would think.”
CHAPTER
32
The first quarterly test started the same way it had last year.
All the second-years swarmed the outside of the domed building until the third-years were finished and Mr. Gleekle ushered us inside.
Each sector streamed to their own archway crowned with the respective mottos. I felt the hidden brand on the back of my neck tingle as I passed BY THE MOONBEAM AND THE MIST on my way to the Wild Whisperer one.
What would it be like to take those tests instead of the ones I was supposed to? Would I pass them, or would my weekend lessons with Garvis amount to nothing compared to the daily classes other Mind Manipulators got?
A pair of cool blue eyes in the center of the room flicked toward me, and I froze. Mr. Gleekle, with his shiny, tightened smile permanently stamped on his face, had caught me looking at the wrong archway.
Shit. I bowed my head and let the crowd sweep me onward, where I clambered up my own staircase and sat in the waitingroom outside the first Wild Whisperer testing door next to Emelle, Rodhi, and Gileon. My heart was pounding in my ears at that eye contact Mr. Gleekle and I had just made; he knew me as Rayna Reeve, and now he’d just seen me staring at the Mind Manipulator archway with—I couldn’t deny it—longing on my face.
Thankfully for my nerves, it didn’t take long for Mrs. Smetlar to appear from behind that first door.
“In, in, in,” she said with a clap for each word. “Or do none of you think that the History of the Esholian Biome matters?”
“Not really, no,” Rodhi muttered a little too loudly.
