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Over the last four weeks, I’d been sneaking here after class or on weekend mornings every day, not just to practice my third magic but to bring him food and water and fresh buckets for relieving himself. It was as if Dyonisia had planted him right in the middle of a humiliation ritual, his bare-bones survival completely in my hands. So every day, I also tried to rip apart his chains, determined to hack through the Shifted, Element-altered metal. To no avail, of course.

Yet Fabian never complained. Never wavered from his steadfast determination to help guide me until my Object Summoning began to steady.

“That’s okay, Rayna,” he said now, much too calm for my liking. He didn’t even glance down at the manacles that were cutting into his wrists and ankles. “Let’s practice one more time before your test. I think you have a few more minutes.”

Blowing out a breath, I nodded and turned away from him. My gaze landed on the neat piles of objects glittering like mountains of treasures through the abandoned classroom. I raised my invisible hands.

An empty ceramic vase zipped upward, stopping in midair to hover as if it were bobbing on the surface of a sea. Forehead furrowing with concentration, I sent up a handful of keys, buttons, rings, and coins as well, until they were all swirling along the ceiling like a pocket of storm clouds filled with trinkets.

“Good,” Fabian said. “Now let it rain.”

One by one, I dropped my invisible hold on the swirling objects—but kept a tight grip on the vase itself. The vase jerked left and right, catching a brass key, a wooden button, a silver ring, a copper coin. Clink, clink, clink. I caught object after object, until most of them were piled up in the vase.

“Good!” Fabian clapped. “You only missed a few this time!”

I made myself smile for his sake. I wanted to feel proud of myself, wanted to revel in this accomplishment, but I couldn’t help feeling as if I were playing right into Dyonisia’s hands by finally gaining control of this extra magic.

Why did she want me so powerful? She knew I was lying about wanting to be a good elite. Did she think chaining up my father would change my mind? Or did she think this extra power would make me snap into a monstrous version of myself that would tear down villages for her? Did every Good Council elite start off like me, angry and fearful, only to turn into an arrogant loyalist with no reservations about public exiles and executions?

Would I turn into someone that Coen would actually have to fight?

“Come here,” Fabian said suddenly, spreading an arm.

I sank down beside him and rested my head on his shoulder as he squeezed me tight. “What do you think Don would say right now?”

Neither of us had mentioned him since that first night, as if by keeping his name in our hearts, we could pretend he was still in Alderwick, baking in the kitchen or working in his and Fabian’s blacksmith shop. Maybe he was, but the aching heaviness in my chest doubted it.

Nobody attacked an elite and got to live.

Fabian stiffened for a moment, then sighed. “He’d probably tell us to quit doing party tricks and start making something worthwhile, like tools or pancakes.”

A chuckle escaped my lips. Don would probably say something like that. But something in Fabian’s tone told me he was trying to tell me more. He’d never been one to openly defy the Good Council or question the way the island worked, so I would take what I could get from him. I nodded.

“Noted. Okay, I’ve got to go.” I glanced out the classroom window, which I’d scrubbed free of grime last week so that Fabian could get a few trickles of sunlight through the foliage. “It’s almost test time.”

His chains clinked as I made for the door. “Be careful, Rayna. Remember that you are braver than your fear.”

I paused with my hand on the door handle. “I’ll be fine. It’s not the Final Test, just a quarterly one.”

Besides, after Mind Manipulating exercises last year and now Object Summoning lessons this year, facing a few centipedes or ocelots during a regular Wild Whispering test sounded like a nice reprieve. Or maybe I was about to eat my words.

With a reassuring wave to Fabian, I slipped outside and hurried down a cobbled lane bordered by other derelict classrooms. Two years ago, a snarky, younger version of Coen had been in my head telling me that the First Quarterly Test wasn’t dangerous, only “very, very uncomfortable.” How I wished his voice was in my head now, but between our obligations to Mydusia and Dyonisia and our own secret mission, our moments together were becoming increasingly scarce.

If you were vigates, you’d be able to talk to each other no matter the distance, my subconscious whispered. I swiped her words away just as I did the curtain of moss in front of my face, stepping out onto one of the main roads connecting the sectors.

Butterflies whispered gossip in my ears. Monkeys tossed down jokes from the rooftops. Birds chirped their greetings above my head—one in particular singling me out and twirling down to flap above my shoulders.

“Hey, hey, hey!” tweeted a blue cotinga. “Have you seen Melle? Have you?”

“Here,” came a new voice.

I twirled and smiled to find Emelle rushing toward us from the direction of the arched bridge, several other students emerging behind her. As soon as she’d caught up, we headed toward the courtyard together with Pedwill flying in loops above us.

Any news? I sent into her head.

Yes, actually. Emelle’s mouth lifted at the corners. A few potoos flew in late last night and gave word that villagers in Merkwell and Sickimore have found the coins. They don’t dare talk about their discoveries in public, but they’re whispering, communicating in private about the face of the faerie king on their surfaces.

Merkwell and Sickimore. I filed the names away for later, a bloom of success rushing through me. Phase one of the plan was working. The faeries of old were resurrecting in the minds of the Esholians who had always believed them to be dead.