Page 126 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
“Okay,” I said. “Have a good day, ma'am.”
She blinked, then called out just as I was turning around, “How would you expect me to get it to you anyway? Custom orders take time, you know, and I’m afraid I'll have to pack up and head home for Cardina soon, seeing as that nasty president of yours forbids us from staying any longer.”
I bit my lip. This had been a stupid idea. I had frog eggs to collect and corrupt rulers to poison, not pieces of little jewelry to have made.
But the soft remnants of black bamboo that always lingered on my skin nowadays seemed to pull me back, reminding me of what lay in that pocket of my satchel.
I turned to the jeweler. “I thought you said the wind was your friend.”
In response, she cracked open a smile and beckoned me back.
CHAPTER
38
Twenty minutes later, I was sneaking into the jungle behind the Wild Whisperer sector, heading toward that same cliff Mr. Conine had made us climb in our Predators & Prey class.
Now, though, I didn’t bother with actual footholds. I just sent a whispering song to the jungle until vines and tree trunks curled around me, hoisting me up, up, up until I’d made it to the very top.
A reddish glow had begun to trickle through spaces in the clouds by now, but the clouds themselves were bursting with gray. It wouldn’t be long before the sky pelted the canopies with rain.
I picked my way toward the river system, occasionally trading jokes with various monkeys who called out or saying hi to the birds that watched me pass. It wasn’t until I actually made it to the riverbank that I felt the presence of those eyes on my back again.
“Hello?” I called. “Emelle?”
Nothing answered besides the song of the jungle.
I lowered my blockade a fraction to see if I could pick out any thoughts hiding among the trees behind me, but there were so many animals nearby that the cacophony of mental words crashed over me instantly. And I didn’t know where to funnel my opening toward.
Trying to shake off the feeling, I returned my attention to the riverbank. Poison dart frogs usually laid their eggs on the moistest parts of the ground rather than the actual water itself, so I was willing to bet there would be a spawn of eggs somewhere among all these water hyacinths I now knelt in.
“It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you,” I muttered when a slug froze as I pushed aside some leaves and found it hulking in the mud. “Have you seen any frog eggs around, by chance?”
God, I was going to feel awful when I picked the eggs from their nesting place and put them in a jar. Mr. Conine’s old motto came to mind.Part of being a Wild Whisperer is bearing the pain of the cycle, of balancing the love and suffering of predators and prey alike.
In a way, I was doing that right now. Bearing the pain, the discomfort, of snatching life from the soil of Eshol in order to hunt the biggest predator on the island: Dyonisia herself.
“Think I saw some eggs that way a few days ago,” the slug finally said in a slow, loose voice, twisting its flexible neck to its left and nodding with tapered antennas.
“Great, thank you. Have a nice day.”
I released the leaves exposing it and shuffled in the direction it had indicated for several seconds until—yes! There they were: a black cluster of the tiniest orbs resting in the crook of a giant grass blade.
As I dug through my satchel for an empty jar, I felt the weight of those eyes return to the back of my head and twisted around.
“Hello?” I called again, this time straightening and letting my fingers drift to my knife.
The trees behind me seemed to stir. Not as if a monkey was jumping from one of them or a bird was taking flight, but as if something much larger had poised to attack from within.
Narrowing my eyes, I funneled an opening in my blockade toward the trees in an attempt to catch whatever mind was pinned on me.
A resoundingcrashby the riverbank had me spinning sideways, brandishing my knife at—
“Rodhi?” I gasped.
My friend was picking himself up from the bank, dripping wet and wearing the biggest shit-eating grin I’d ever seen.
That grin faded slightly as he rubbed his eyes and blinked at me several times through the water streaking down his face.
