Page 185

“Niye, niye, NIYEET!” the healer shouted.

Too late. The door burst open—they must have been listening through the wood—and a flood of my favorite people swept inside.

“Rayna! You’re awake!” Emelle rushed to my side, throwing her arms around my neck. “Coen told us you have…”

Her eyes drifted to my right shoulder. Back in the prison, I’d shifted my skin to hide its mark, but now it was out in the open for everyone to see. A bulbed, five-pointed star just like the other.

“Shape Shifting,” I confirmed. When Lander sidled up beside her, I said, “You’ll have to give me your best tips and tricks.”

Before I leave for Sorronia, I didn’t add.

Lander smiled in an attempt to smother the horror I knew they were all feeling at the sight of a fourth brand. “Of course. You’ll have it in no time.”

Gileon nodded beside him. He still looked rather weaker and thinner than usual, but some color had returned to his cheeks. “If anyone can figure out a bunch of powers, it’s you, Rayna. All the prisoners who got out are saying you must have something formicatable in your blood.”

“You mean formidable?” Wren asked fondly.

“Yes! That.”

“Oh.” I coughed. “I’m not sure…”

“No need to be modest, darling.” Rodhi plopped himself down at the foot of my bed. “Pretty soon, you’ll be the most versatile Wild Whisperer in history. Imagine this—a crocodile tries to eat you, and you just, poof, snap back with even sharper teeth. And you can tell it to eat marsh shit if you want.”

Wren rolled her eyes. “That’s pretty much the opposite of what every instructor in our sector would teach us about communicating with crocodiles.”

“Well, our instructors aren’t here right now, so…”

I noted the stiffness in Rodhi’s voice and raised my eyebrows. “Speaking of instructors, have you heard from Ms. Pincette? I didn’t see her on Bascite Mountain, but I could have sworn she left her mark.”

The image of Mrs. Smetlar, dead and strung up by cobwebs, would probably be ingrained in my mind forever unless I had my subconscious bury it. For some reason, though, I felt it would be an important detail to remember. Another mystery to unravel when the time came to pull at those threads.

Rodhi shrugged all-too-casually despite the hint of pink tinting his face. “I like to think she must be sprawled out on some beach somewhere, soaking up the sun now that that damn mist is gone. In any case, I haven’t heard from her—or anyone at the Esholian Institute, for that matter. Everyone who fought on that mountain came here, and the rest of the island…”

He seemed to realize Jagaros was still loitering in the corner, and clamped his mouth shut. I picked up the rest of his thoughts anyway.

The rest of the island is in disarray. Trying to figure out where we go from here. How we function now that Dyonisia is gone. Where our new king is.

The answer was here. Our new king was here, in this room, making sure I was okay. I still didn’t know what to call him or even think about him, but I did know Jagaros couldn’t stay holed up in here forever.

Whatever past we needed to process together, it would have to wait until he built up this island’s new future.

If he could even get out of this room, that was. Much to the healer’s dismay, the door burst open again, and Dazmine shoved her way past Nara and Barberro. She took one look at me sitting upright in bed before giving a sigh.

“Oh, cool. Kind of glad you’re still alive.”

As much as the words hurt, knowing that so many others weren’t alive anymore—Cilia and Quinn and Kanuk—I clamped down on a smile. It was about the closest to sincere affection I’d probably ever get from Dazmine.

“I could say the same for you.” I tilted a brow. “I wasn’t sure you’d two survive a few months alone with each other.”

Terrin had snuck in behind her, avoiding the healer’s swats to get out. They both blushed, then profusely looked away as Terrin schooled his features. “We met a lot of people along the way, so she couldn’t torture me every second of the day.”

“A shame,” Dazmine said, picking at her cuticles.

I knew they were downplaying what they’d done. Together, the two of them had convinced most of the island to accept Jagaros’s reign. In doing so, they’d saved countless lives from Coen’s oath.

And perhaps had a story of their own to tell. But later… right now, even more footsteps and voices echoed from the hallway, and then it was Fabian and Don who hurried in, each carrying an animal on their arm or in the heart of their palm.

“Raynie!” Felicity shrieked, bounding forward and hopping up onto my bed to throw her arms around me, her little bell hat flopping in my face. “Don’t you ever leave us like that again!”