However one did that.
I closed my eyes, locating thatshiverdeep inside me. It was there, tickling just below the surface, responding to every sound and scent and wisp of energy around me.
But I wasn’t sure what to do from there. I didn’t want to send out a blast of power the way I had in the forest, or in the field with the basilisk. When Octavian had described essence, he’d made it sound like people could manipulate the essence ofotherthings, not just influence whatever had built up within their own bodies. But how the heck did I dothat?
“What are you doing?”
Alastor stood in front of me again, that permanent frown still plastered on his face. Apparently those two drinks had done little for his mood, because he was back to looking like it was some sort of chore to be in my presence.
Maybe I should just vomit again, I thought wryly. For a hot minute there after I’d thrown up, we’d almost been friends. Almost.
I lowered the succulent from my ear, not especially eager to explain to him what I was trying to do.
“What are we doing next?” I asked.
A cheer went up from somewhere on the other side of the tree. Below us, the song of the orchestra trailed away, disappearing beneath the swell of excited shouts. It was like we were standing above a giant concert arena and the headliner had just walked on stage. I felt a nudge ofshiverfrom somewhere in the near distance.
“Come on,” said a woman on the platform beside us, tugging her male companion along by the wrist. “I don’t want to miss the start of the pageant!”
And indeed, all around us people were moving to the edges of the platforms, finding any rail where they could look down at the Hill below.
I didn’t wait to see if Alastor wanted to watch—honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. Instead, I followed the crowd, squeezing into a spot along the edge of the rail and looking down. A moment later, I heard a step behind me and caught a whiff of Alastor’s distinctive scent. He didn’t say a word, but at least he didn’t try to drag me away from the show, either.
Another crowd had gathered below, packed tight in the street that encircled the base of the Hill. They looked up and we looked down, all eyes focused on the hilltop.
The dancers were gone. They’d all disappeared to make room for the colorful procession of people now spilling across the grass, dancing and tumbling to the ever-growing cheers of the crowd. They had several of those giant puppets with them, each one supported from beneath by at least six people holding wooden rods.
The first was a bird, with shimmering wings and a tail of flowing red fabric that moved like fire. The puppeteers danced and swerved across the hilltop, moving the creature in a way that made it appear to be truly flying. And then—
It changed. One instant it was a bird, and the next the puppeteers turned, twirled, and the fabric they held above their heads became something else—a snake, sleek and slithering, circling the base of the tree to the great applause of those who watched.
It changed once more, and this time I tried to catch the pattern, the sleight-of-hand behind the transformation. But I couldn’t. The snake became a wolf, with silver fur and sharp teeth and glowing eyes. The woman beside me shrieked so loud in her delight that she nearly deafened me.
And another puppet had appeared. This one was a tall, beautiful woman—and the puppeteers that guided her moved her with such grace it was like watching the wind sweep fallen petals across the grass on a spring day. Her hair shone gold and silver and copper all at once, and her gown was made of frothy fabric laced with glittering ribbons, reminding me of the sun breaking through the clouds in the late afternoon. In fact, her entire figure seemed to glow, as if she was lit from within.
The beautiful woman puppet danced across the Hill, twirling around the wolf with those lovely, elegant movements. Theshiverunder my skin was growing, prickling, and I wished I was close enough to see what the puppeteers were doing, to study how they manipulated the essence of the fabrics to make them dance like that.
But no—theshiverwasn’t coming from the puppeteers, or from anyone on the Hill. I couldn’t explain how I knew it, but it was like that tickle inside me had a direction, like it was tugging at me from something in the middle distance.
I looked out across the town below. From this height I could see across the rooftops and over the rings of streets all the way to the settlement’s outer walls. The streets were alive, rivers of color and movement and light, and any number of things could have caused that extra little surge of essence I felt.
My eyes dropped to the hilltop once more—where a third puppet had come forth to join the other two.
It was a manticore.
Oh, I realized when I looked more closely,It must be Leonaris.Because it looked exactly like the majestic beast I’d seen in the mural down below, the one Ary had told me was theMythic One, whatever that meant—like a great lion with dark, feathered wings sprouting from its back, and a tail with scales that sparkled in the lanternlight shining down from the branches. Two great horns, curled like a ram’s, sprouted from its head, and they glinted as it raised its mouth to the sky and roared.
All around me, people’s shouts grew louder, and someone down the platform started a chant of “Leonaris! Leonaris!” that confirmed my guess about the creature’s identity.
And I couldn’t help but wonder, as I watched the magnificent puppet strut across the hilltop, guided by the team of performers underneath, how this beast compared to what Octavian had once been—had his coat shone like gold, and had his wings been so regal? Or had he looked more brutal, more terrifying, more—
“Marigold.”
The deep, rumbling tones of Octavian’s voice behind me made me jump, and I spun around, nearly toppling into the people beside me.
He was there, standing right next to his brother, and while I caught a brief spark of puzzlement in Alastor’s face, Octavian only had eyes for me. Those eyes pinned me to the spot, and in that heartbeat, I could see that the same wild, intense confusion that had lived inside me since our bath burned in him as well—pulsing and bewildering, powerful preciselybecauseit was complicated, and messy, and bound to get messier before all this was over.
We both knew it.
