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Mr. Gleekle looked up, too, and his mouth clamped down on the rest of whatever he’d been about to say. His body shrinking in my shadow.

As it should.

In the Uninhabitable Zone in that treehouse, I’d warned everyone what I would do if they betrayed us. Rayna had already dealt with the Gileon impersonator, but that same promise bubbled in my veins now.

In a way, Mr. Gleekle had betrayed us all. Betrayed us by pretending to protect and care when all he did was spout out carefully structured words aimed to mold us all into prey and pawns. He’d known the elites were here to exile Rayna—I snatched that little tidbit from his mind with ease—but he’d chosen to stay hidden away, safe and sound, while they dealt with her. Had only crept out after the elites had flown off and the danger of conflict had faded into the clouds.

Now he was out here telling everyone that Rayna’s exile was okay.

So I did what I should have been there to do to Gileon’s impersonator.

“You have one last chance to piss yourself,” I said, my voice coming out chillingly calm. “To show everyone the coward you are.”

“Wh—I—you can’t be here—I demand that you—”

I marched forward. Mr. Gleekle inhaled as if to call upon his wind, but I didn’t give him the chance. Merely plunged my hands straight into his soft stomach and wrapped my fingers around his warm, pulsing intestines.

Then yanked them out, twined them around his throat, and pulled tight.

When Mr. Gleekle thumped to the ground, I didn’t even bother glancing down at his body. I simply turned to face the crowd.

No one said a word. They just cowered. Trembled. Paled in my presence.

I didn’t care. The Good Council had taken my little hurricane. Had endangered her friends. Killed one of her roommates. And now, it was finally time for them to pay.

I didn’t have to lay eyes on Rayna to set my sights on them.

To pick apart every last one of them.

That anguish from earlier had all but evaporated inside me. What was left was so much colder, calmer, and deadlier than anything I’d ever known. Like I was truly a monster that had clawed its way through the dome to decimate anyone in my way.

One they had every right to fear.

CHAPTER

47

RAYNA

“What are you going to do?”

The words wisped out from the woman in the middle of a marble gazebo up ahead, sitting on a throne laced with flowering vines. Petals cascaded around her like a blooming skirt, and her jade-green eyes pricked me with curiosity.

“I… I don’t know,” I admitted to my subconscious, moving closer.

I did know I was deep in the recesses of my own mind, only it didn’t look like it usually did. Beyond the stone platform where the gazebo was perched, my wild garden crumbled into darkness—and not Coen’s kind of darkness, rich and filled with far-off stars. This was a thin nothingness spreading forever in every direction.

Like my mind had flaked away.

“No.” My subconscious shook her head, curls rustling like tree branches. “It has not, but they have discovered your secret Mind Manipulating power now. They are even more frightened of you than before… hence the extra hold on your mind to make sure you don’t use it against them.”

“Oh.” I nearly slumped to the floor of the gazebo, exhaustion pulling on my bones even in here. “Well, it was only a matter of time, I guess.”

I wasn’t just talking about their discovery of my secret power. I was talking about this, too. Exile. Prison. Whatever lay in store for me at the top of the mountain. I’d simply broken too many rules over the last few years to escape this fate.

“Exactly.” My subconscious dipped her head. “So what are you going to do about it? Your fight doesn’t end here. You have too far to go.”

I wasn’t sure I had an answer for myself, and at that moment, the darkness creaked above me. Like a door opening, raining blue-tinted light down upon us.