Page 48 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
No one is good, I had told Dazmine the other night.
But couldIbe good, if I had the right tools?
As if I needed more persuading, Steeler said, “You’ve already hindered my ability to use Mind Manipulating anyway.” A wry smile as he gestured at his chest. “And it’s not always… fun to have to juggle two powers at once. I’d rather be able to perfect my Walking.”
“But if I become a Mind Manipulator…” I started slowly, a small trickle of hope deflating. “I’llbe juggling two powers at once.”
“Yes.”
Here, Steeler’s eyes strayed to his feet, just for a second, as if he couldn’t bear to look at me anymore. A muscle throbbed in his jaw. In the twirling firelight, I saw the faint scar of where I’d nicked him a week ago. God of the Cosmos, I’d given this man—thisfaerie— nearly as many physical wounds as the emotional ones he’d given me.
And I tried, tried, tried to make myself feel smug about that.
Steeler cleared his throat.
“Two powers at once—and a third lurking beneath the surface, inhibited by those pills—it’s a risk, Drey. That’s why it… why it wasn’t until you told me about your headaches that I thought it might be a risk worth taking.”
Okay, nowthatpissed me off. Who was he to decide what I should risk or not?
“So you’ve known about this alternative all along,” I said, my voice dropping just as cold as my mug had become. “Yet you didn’t think to ask me what hardship I’d be willing to try to handle? You just thought you could choose that all on your own, did you?”
The closest twin, Sylvie, dropped a hand on my arm.
“Everything Coen’s done this last year has been for you, Rayna.”
I almost snorted at that.Everything Coen’s done… if everything he’d done had been for me, he would have included me in all his plans. Not ripped me away from them and loitered in the shadows of my reality to talk to me when and where he pleased.
No, I didn’t believe he’d done any of this for me one bit. And as much as I didn’t want to hurt Sylvie’s feelings—pirate or no pirate—I ignored her and bit out, “What’s the risk if I do this, then?”
An unnatural paleness had washed over Steeler’s face. He seemed to be scraping in deep, slow breaths.
It was Garvis who answered in his stead, setting his mug down on a side table with a smallclinkand speaking in a wispy, mild voice.
“Lunacy, mainly. Neither humans nor faeries are meant to handle more than one type of bascite at a time. The more magics you have, the greater the symptoms of paranoia, anxiety, confusion, incoherency… For many, it only takes two powers todrive them mad. Some can handle up to three. Four is when it always gets bad.”
He made it sound like this happened all the time. And suddenly, my thoughts snapped to Jenia Leake, screaming on her hands and knees.
What if I’d truly seen a second brand on her arm? And what if that brand hadn’t increased her Wild Whispering abilities at all, but given her asecondpower? Those butterflies that had been circling her head, for instance—they’d moved as if compelled to flutter faster and harder than their wings could physically handle.
As if she had been able to talk to themandcontrol them.
I didn’t know why or how Jenia could have been branded with Mind Manipulating, but it was another twisted, vile thing that seemed to click into place inside me.
“You don’t have to decide right away,” Steeler said, his voice raspier, more gravelly than before. “You can—”
“Let you wipe my memory until next week, when you propose this to me all over again? No, thanks.” A pause hung on my lips, but only for a moment. “I’ll do it. I’ll take the Mind Manipulating.”
Silence.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
More silence, this time swollen with all the sounds I hadn’t been able to fully hear since my Branding: the constant grumble of thunder, the smashing and clashing of the ocean, the snapping of fire and screeching of wind against the windowpanes. All of that had been overpowered by the music of the jungle or the babble of animals over the last year.
But here, in this cottage, there was no jungle, no animals except Felicity—who had finally quit fiddling with pots and pans to lope forward with a tin container rattling with objects.
“Coco asked me to collect some metal pieces for you to choose from if you said yes,” she said now, holding the container out to me. “I’ve sterilized all of them with witch hazel, by the way.”
