By the Moonbeam and the Mist (The Esholian Institute #2)

PROLOGUE

COEN

Even as a Mind Manipulator, I couldn’t wipe the image of her from my brain.

That wild cascade of curls, those jade-green eyes, even the freckles strewn across her nose and cheeks, as if the God of the Cosmos had sprinkled a little extra stardust over her Making—I saw them all in the spaces of every blink as I stared across the vast expanse of ocean.

But even the memory of her face didn’t absolutely suffocate me the way the memory of her voice did.

Please, Coen. Take whatever you want, but don’t take away us.

My innate magic jolted, like a fishhook trying to tug me away, and I had to clench my fists and say her name in my head to keep myself tethered in place. To not let that endless darkness gobble me up and spit me back out somewhere I didn’t want to be.

A small, furry shadow loped to my side, but I didn’t glance down to where I knew the creature would be gazing up at me in concern. I didn’t need concern right now. I needed to keep Rayna from exploding with her innate magic again… without her knowledge of my presence. Which meant I needed to focus.

But the creature’s mental images oozed toward me anyhow—a little, nonhuman mind demanding I pay it attention.

So I made a quick dive toward it with my Mind Manipulating power and found a fuzzy picture of me on my knees, digging for clams, plucking something small and round from the bed of meat.

“Yes, I have one.” I held up the black pearl pinched between my forefinger and thumb. It wasn’t just a gift for Rayna, but a reminder, a declaration. A piece of me that I could leave behind without the Good Council’s detection.

She had all my pieces anyway. This was just a talisman of that. A way to tell her subconscious that I would come back for her again.

And again.

And again.

“I’m ready,” I told the creature through a deep breath. “I’ll be back before you can even have time to trash the kitchen again.”

That earned me a jab in the shin, and I almost smiled… but couldn’t hold it as the memory of Rayna’s voice permeated my mind again, wafting down every twist and turn of neurons, swirling with the mist of my memories.

Please, Coen. Take whatever you want, but don’t take away us.

My little hurricane, I wished so badly I could have said. I would never do anything to cause that light to leave your eyes.

But I hadn’t said that. And I couldn’t regret it, even if she hated me now. Even if it scooped out every piece of me worth fighting for and left me a hollow monster with aching teeth.

So I wrenched my eyes from the sea’s horizon where Garvis, Terrin, Sasha, and Sylvie would be bobbing on one of those ships past my newly sharpened line of faerie sight and turned on the pebbly shore.

Back to the jungle. Back to the Esholian Institute on the other side of the island.

Back to my reason for every beautiful thing I’d done and every wicked thing I still had to do.