Chapter 6
CHAPTER
“Where’d you get that dress?”
All the girls in my dorm room were getting ready for the Branding the next morning, Emelle and Cilia helping each other with their makeup while Dazmine braided her hair in silence.
Willa usually liked to perch on my shoulder during these kinds of things, but today she’d had to help her family with some kind of altercation with royal spiders (whatever that meant) so I was readjusting my new dress without her high-pitched commentary in my ear.
Of course, I had prepared for Emelle to notice my new change of attire.
I’d come home from the Testing Center yesterday to find a spread of sleek dresses already on my bed, all tight on the top and flowy on the bottom to properly hide the new sheath now buckled to my thigh.
There’d also been four straighter, more slender knives that I’d stuffed in those other smaller pockets immediately.
I hated how much I loved it. Hated that Dyonisia had somehow known, not only my knife’s size, but my size.
The handle of my crescent blade pressed firmly against my leg, but the sheath itself fit around me like butter melting into my skin.
After my daily session with Jagaros, I’d worn it to bed beneath my nightgown and woken up to trade that nightgown with one of the dresses before the others had even stirred.
Now, confident that the dress was tied back in all the right places, that it truly hid the knives buckled to my thigh, I said as nonchalantly as I could, “Oh, an older Whisperer who had outgrown this kind of style gave me some of her old clothes.”
It could’ve been true. Here at the Esholian Institute, the peddlers from the nearest village only came once a year to sell their goods, so it wasn’t abnormal for people to trade clothing amongst themselves.
Still, though, I cringed inwardly at the lie as Emelle’s gaze narrowed with suspicion.
“Well, I think it looks sexy on you,” Cilia said from where she sat powdering Emelle’s cheeks.
We hadn’t known her too well last year, but ever since our new house princess had grouped the four of us together, she’d taken to Emelle and me nicely, and even tried to make conversation with Dazmine sometimes.
“Maybe you’ll meet someone new at the Branding ceremony tonight. ” She fluttered her eyelashes at me.
Dazmine seemed to pause her braiding. I’m going to find out what, she’d told me—which meant she was listening in on any clues about my current situation.
I threw what I hoped was a coy smile Cilia’s way. “Maybe.”
Meeting someone new was the last thing on my mind, but with Emelle and Dazmine listening so closely… I had to play the part.
Besides, I already had a meeting with someone tonight.
Steeler would leave a pearl, but this time I’d catch him when he did.
Because I wasn’t planning on falling asleep or even climbing into bed, in case he’d been using his Mind Manipulating power to force me to pass out before he hovered over me like a goddamned creeper.
No, I was going to lead him far away from the house and my friends and confront him in the jungle, where the trees and vines would be at my beck and call and my knife would be strapped to my body.
For the first time since I’d been tasked with catching him, I truly felt like I had a chance. Ignoring the ache that was slowly but surely spreading in my head, I patted some tinted beeswax on my lips and puckered them, feeling a genuine smile forming there.
Because now I knew where to stab Steeler to make it count.
Five hours later, the whole of the Esholian Institute flooded the arena, all of us breaking off into our different sectors.
Lander went off to sit with his fellow Shape Shifters, so Emelle and I waved goodbye to him and found Wren and Gileon smashed together in the Wild Whisperer section of the stands.
Cilia and Mitzi Hodges were chatting behind them, but Dazmine, I noticed, was nowhere to be found.
She’d left our room after finishing braiding her hair, and I hadn’t seen her since.
“Where’s Rodhi?” Emelle asked now, gently swiping away a moth fluttering near her face. The onslaught of dusk had beckoned all kinds of flying insects, it seemed—more than usual.
Wren shrugged. “I’ll bet you five coppers he’s off trying to woo Ms. Pincette for the hundredth time.”
Ms. Pincette was the youngest instructor at the Institute—and the strictest. Rodhi had been obsessed at first sight.
Emelle snorted. “You just need more coppers after losing that bet to him. No way am I betting on that when you’re probably right.”
Wren chose to ignore this and swatted at another insect, this time a whizzing rhinoceros beetle with two tiny horns. “Can you get out of my face for like, one second?”
The rhino beetle whizzed over to Gileon instead, whose gaze went cross-eyed trying to keep track of it. To my surprise, he reached out a single finger until the beetle settled on it before saying in his slow, deep voice, “Don’t worry about her. She’s only mean on the outside.”
The beetle cheeped something I couldn’t hear from the other side of Wren. Gileon smiled, said something back, then gave a gasp.
“What? You don’t have a name? Well, that’s okay! I can name you. How about… uh… let me think. Uh…”
“Nuisance?” Wren supplied.
“Yes!” Gileon’s whole face lit up. “Nuisance. Good idea, Wren.”
“God help me,” Wren muttered.
At that moment, Rodhi seemed to materialize from beneath us, squirming his way between bodies and squeezing himself between Emelle and me. “I’m here! It hasn’t started yet, right? What’d I miss?”
“Gil is best friends with a bug now,” Wren answered on cue, “and Rayna’s being suspiciously quiet.” I whirled to gape at her, my head pounding in response, but she just continued with, “How was trying to woo Ms. Pincette again?”
Rodhi didn’t even question her assumption. He just pressed his forehead into his hands and sighed.
“Dismal, actually. I thought I’d win this round, but... maybe it’s time for another strategy.”
I cleared my throat, determined to contradict Wren’s assessment that I was being suspiciously quiet—especially as that knife handle dug into my hip from the position I was sitting in. Suspicious, indeed.
“You make it sound like you’re in a war, Rodhi.”
Rodhi threw his arm around me and squeezed. “Sometimes, unrequited love requires one to enter the battlefield, darling.”
“Oh, spare us.” Wren glanced at Gileon, who was still conversing amiably with the rhino beetle on his outstretched finger.
Perhaps she would have said more, but Emelle pointed at the pentaball field and said, “Look, I think it’s starting.”
Sure enough, the hundreds of conversations around us trickled to a quiet as the class royals led the newest inductees to their rows of seats.
I watched, my blood curdling within me, as Dyonisia herself led Lexington and three other Good Council elites to the five chairs lined up right in front of the stage beneath strings of Element Wielder lights.
But it was the small-boned elite behind Lexington who caught my attention. I squinted at her as she sat on the other side of him.
“It’s Kimber,” I whispered to Emelle and Rodhi, tracking the yellow parakeet on her shoulder.
I couldn’t decipher her expression from this distance, but the fact that she really was here, right after her sister had been exiled…
I wondered what she thought of it all. If she still wanted to be part of the Good Council after they’d done that to a member of her own family.
But more than that, I wondered why Dyonisia had even brought Kimber rather than a more experienced Wild Whisperer. Those two elites who’d exiled Jenia had admitted that her older sister was as low-ranking as it got.
I was missing something, I was sure. Some vital piece of information about Dyonisia’s motive. But I didn’t have time to dwell on it as our president, Mr. Gleekle, clambered onstage and began his speech.
“Welcome, young ladies and gentlemen, to the annual Branding!” He stretched his arms wide, his voice amplified on the streams of wind that he sent out with his Element Wielder magic.
“I want to personally congratulate you all on reaching this crucial stage in your cultivation as worthy citizens of Eshol.”
It was much the same as last year, except now I didn’t have nerves weighing down in my belly.
In fact, I was pretty sure I must have blacked out from those nerves last year, because the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t remember the details of my own Branding at all.
Just waiting and waiting for my name to be called, and then finding Jagaros beside me.
I wondered where he was at now, whether or not he was watching from the mountainside, as the elderly Mrs. Wildenberg dipped her hand into a giant upside-down sunflower hat and pulled out the first name for Mr. Gleekle to read.
“Manhi Wood!”
A terrified, shaking eighteen-year-old boy walked to the stage, attempting to keep his head high. We all waited with bated breath after Mr. Gleekle pressed the brand-headed poker onto his shoulder, imprinting him with the Esholian star.
Scales erupted all over the boy’s body. The Shape Shifters to the left of us screamed with approval, morphing their own bodies into an identical reptilian humanoid, and the boy sauntered over to them.
On and on it went. I found myself watching the Good Council instead: Dyonisia’s pristine posture and sheet of shimmering black hair, Kimber’s parakeet jutting from her shoulder, Lexington’s lifted chin.
It wasn’t until Wilder’s name was called that I jerked my throbbing head back to the stage.
I’d forgotten about him. Again. Guilt made itself a knot in my stomach as I watched him march up to Mr. Gleekle and roll up his sleeve, exposing his left shoulder to the new brand pulled out especially for him.
He’s not my friend. I didn’t regret those words, not when they might have kept Lexington from getting too interested in him… but I still absolutely sucked for not seeking him out and apologizing afterward.
I winced when Mr. Gleekle pressed the brand against Wilder’s skin, but Wilder himself didn’t. He just stared straight ahead, his fists clenched at his sides.
“C’mon, Wild Whispering,” I muttered, and Emelle gave me a strange sideways glance. I’d explain it to her later. Right now, I was just hoping Wilder’s random burst of magic would align with his family’s wishes, for his sake.
The next second, however, Widler’s fists flew to his head, and he clutched either side of his ears. As if he’d burst with the same kind of pain tormenting my own head right now.
“Shit.” I leaned back. It was the classic sign of Mind Manipulating—to suddenly hear a thousand different thoughts would drive anyone crazy at first. Mr. Gleekle confirmed it a moment later, and Wilder stumbled toward the Manipulating section, looking dazed.
“Do you know him?” Emelle whispered to me.
“He’s from Alderwick. I—he’s always wanted to be a Wild Whisperer.”
But as soon as I said that, I wasn’t sure that was actually true. Had Wilder ever said he wanted to be a Wild Whisperer, or just that his family wanted him to be? What if he had actually been rooting for a different sector? What if he was happy to learn the art of Mind Manipulating?
And at that thought, it occurred to me: I knew next to nothing about the Manipulating art itself.
Not that I was supposed to seek out information about other sectors, necessarily…
but if I was going to trap and stab Steeler tonight, shouldn’t I find out everything I could about the way his magic worked?
The next inductee’s branding caused a storm to surge overhead, splattering the entire arena with a torrent of water until the other Element Wielders calmed it with upraised hands.
“By the orchid and the owl,” Wren cursed, wiping water from her eyes with the back of her arm.
We protect and care, this we swear, by the orchid and the owl. I knew my sector’s motto by heart, but it was time to learn Steeler’s motto, too.
After the last person was branded, everyone began running toward their houses just like last year.
It was easy to slip away from Emelle and the others in the chaos.
Easy to follow the Mind Manipulators to their mansions of daunting marble pillars, where I snuck into the alleyway between the boys’ houses and pressed my back against the wall next to one of the many windows.
My house would be all chatter and screeching and excitement right now, but through that nearby windowpane, all I heard was…
Moaning. And groaning. And… yep—that was the sound of someone throwing up.
Oh, gross.
I prayed Wilder was holding himself together, at least for the sake of his own dignity.
Waving away a few lacewings, I willed my mind to calm, to not give away its location to any of the older Mind Manipulators on the other side of the wall, who would be busy gathering the newly-inducted and welcoming them to their new sector.
Voices rumbled from inside, soothing and so unlike the crisp, matter-of-fact way Kimber Leake had spoken to my house a year ago. I definitely wouldn’t be able to make out what they were saying, unless…
“Hey,” I whispered out into the muggy darkness. The sound of a thousand different chirping insect conversations stopped abruptly. “Any spiders around here?”
Nothing answered except a mosquito who whined in my ear, “No spiders! Just me! And my sisters! And brothers! And you!”
No spiders around? Weird. I massaged my temples for a moment, and was just pushing myself off the Mind Manipulator wall, ready to slip back into my own house, when a low, dark chuckle bloomed in the shadows of the alleyway.
“Trying to eavesdrop on other sectors, are we?”
I whirled to face it.
And there he was, in the flesh and blood. Not standing over me while I slept, but leaning against the wall of his old house, merely ten paces away, as if he’d been there all along.
Dark brown hair. Rich, tan skin. A smile that curved his mouth into something wickedly beautiful.
“Hello again, little hurricane,” Coen Steeler said.