Chapter 11

After History, Emelle and I returned to the house for a quick lunch before doubling back to campus, where our next two classes would take place in Building 3C—a double block of Befriending Predators Prey with an instructor named Mr. Conine.

Mr. Conine didn't even let us enter the classroom, however, a steepled, two-story structure slightly less shabby than Mr. Fenway's. Instead, he greeted us outside the front door and then, when all fifty of us had gathered around him, said, "Follow me, everyone!"

We traipsed through the Whisperer sector, toward the jungle that grew thicker and thicker the longer we walked. Monkeys swung through the treetops, hurling jokes down at us, which Rodhi never failed to reciprocate.

"Oh yeah?" he called upward as we passed the last of the buildings and slapped through the beginning of a marsh, the ground spongy beneath our feet. "Well, your mama's so dumb, she threw away the banana and ate the peel!"

I cringed. "Rodhi, this class is called befriending predators, not antagonizing them."

"They started it," he muttered. "Nobody gets to talk about my ma like that."

Emelle gazed upward, awe-struck. "I think they actually like it, the banter. Listen. They thought it was funny."

She was right. I never thought I'd hear so many monkeys snickering in a tree before, but here we were, traipsing beneath a whole layer of snickering, chortling shrieks. Even Mr. Conine glanced upward to shake his head at them, amused.

He stopped us right before the ground became too mushy to hold our weight. Before us, a swamp swathed the ground between crooked, moss-cloaked trees, several films of algae patching it with murky green.

Mr. Conine turned to address us, the tan, leathery skin of his face and graying circle beard completely at ease.

"Your first task, ladies and gentlemen, will be to wade through this marsh without getting eaten alive."

A couple people chuckled nervously. Mr. Conine raised a bushy eyebrow.

"You think I'm joking? Well, perhaps you will think differently when the crocodiles emerge. They are always hungry, and to them it doesn't matter if their food can talk back or not."

Even Jenia snapped her mouth shut at this. For some reason, I had assumed that befriending predators would require little more than saying hi. Apparently, my instant connection with Jagaros had been a rare case.

I should have suspected so when he'd hissed so viciously at the others.

"Lesson number one, then," Mr. Conine said. "Crocodiles love praise." Without further ado, he began wading out into the swamp, and when everyone stood rooted to the spongy ground, he called over his shoulder, "Now, please!"

We jolted forward after him.

The algae-caked water rose to my knees, then my waist. Rodhi mumbled something about unsanitary conditions, which I had to agree with, and Emelle… poor Emelle had the marsh clear up to her chest. She took quick, shuddering gasps, her arms roving in circles to propel herself forward.

To our right, someone screamed.

And then I felt it, a rush of muck swirling around my ankles and a great swooping pressure as a scaled, grayish-green snout broke the surface before me, followed by a pair of piercing yellow eyes with slitted pupils.

Around me, I could sense other crocodiles rising on either side of Rodhi and Emelle as well, but I kept my eyes firmly locked on the one in front of me.

"A midday snack?" the crocodile grunted, gliding nearer.

"Oh," I said, "you deserve much better than me."

The words came out as near-squeaks, but the crocodile paused.

"Why do you say that, Wild Whisperer?"

So he was aware of the nature of what I was—what we all were—and had still ascended to snack on me. I blocked out the pleading of those around me and said, "Surely, someone as handsome as yourself would want something tastier than me." I dropped my voice as if telling a secret. "I'm afraid I had turnips for breakfast."

God, I hoped crocs couldn't pick up on lies.

"Handsome?" the crocodile asked, cocking his head.

"So handsome," I repeated, nodding, "what with your scales and your… your teeth. You've got to have the biggest teeth in this entire marsh!"

"I do," the crocodile said importantly.

"And," I pressed on, "you could probably protect me from all the other crocodiles here. If any one of them so much as snapped at me, you, my friend, could tear them apart in an instant. That's how strong you are."

"Well, of course."

"Let us stroll together, then, and talk about better snacks for you than myself."

My heart pounding in my throat, I began wading forward again, this time with the crocodile gliding alongside me. All around us, several other classmates were plunging forward, too, while others still gave desperate compliments in a standstill.

Halfway there, I chanced a glance behind me and held in my sigh of relief at the sight of Emelle and Rodhi among those pushing forward. Ahead of us, Mr. Conine was already clambering up a slippery slope.

By the time my crocodile and I got to the other side, we had agreed that a nice, fresh crab from the seaside would suffice… which I promised to bring him within the next week.

I scrambled up the slope, and my crocodile sunk back beneath the algae.

Mr. Conine cocked a bushy brow at me.

"Clever to offer him something in your stead, but make sure to follow through with that promise. Otherwise, you'll never be able to return to this swamp again without him ripping you to shreds on sight for what he'd consider a betrayal."

I nodded.

"Yes, sir. Thank you."

Great. Now I'd have to figure out how to catch a crab who could talk back. The thought of a little crustacean snapping its claws at me, begging me to let it go while I hauled it to a crocodile marsh… it made me sick to my stomach.

Later. I'd dwell on it later. For now, I watched the rest of the class slowly but surely make it to the bank, soggy and reeking of rotten eggs, until only one was left: the greasy-haired boy who had scoffed at Gileon in History.

"C'mon, Fergus, you've got it!" Jenia cried.

Emelle, huddling close to Rodhi and me as she shivered from head to toe, passed me the faintest of smirks—probably at the sight of Jenia's perfect figure drenched in just as much filth as the rest of us.

In the swamp, Fergus was saying, "No, I don't want to pick moss out of your teeth, you ugly brute."

Within half a second, the crocodile was surging forward with an open jaw.

Within the next half second, tree roots shot from the ground at Mr. Conine's feet and wrapped the crocodile from snout to tail, holding it back, before—snap.

The crocodile tore from the makeshift ropes and lunged for Fergus…

Who was already clawing his way up the bank, cursing.

"What kind of a teacher do you think you are," he seethed, raising himself to a stand before Mr. Conine, "sending us into that nightmare on our first day?"

Mr. Conine just observed him calmly.

"I'd hardly say calling it an ugly brute is anyone's idea of praise. That was a female, so she took particular offense to that."

"I never wanted this," Fergus said, clenching his fists, and even Jenia held back to bite her lip. "I never asked to be a stupid crocodile whisperer. I would have picked any other sector besides this one." And he stomped off.

Rodhi whistled. "Too bad for him we have to go back through the swamp to get home."

"No." Mr. Conine tracked Fergus's trek deeper into the jungle. "Even I wouldn't want to mess with the crocodiles twice in one day. We'll go around. And remember." His eyes skipped over each of us. "Our blood does not choose what form our magic takes. None of you had any talent like crocodile whispering lurking in your veins before Branding. Rather, the magic itself decided, the moment it merged with your blood, to make you a Wild Whisperer."

He paused, and the creak of the jungle, the thickness of the humidity, the chit-chatting monkeys and high-pitched birds high up in the treetops, pressed in on us.

"Do not," Mr. Conine said, "disappoint the magic that chose its shape within you."

Befriending Prey was a lot easier than Befriending Predators.

Once we'd returned to the classroom and made our way inside, Mr. Conine had an Element Wielder colleague come by to magically swipe the water and grime off our clothes and bodies.

I still felt an invisible layer of filth on me anyhow, but I couldn't complain. Not when we all spent the next hour of class sprawled on the floor, playing with capybaras.

At dinner that night, we told Wren about Fergus's meltdown.

"Ahh, I've seen guys like him before," she said, digging into her coconut bowl filled with fruit and seeds. "He doesn't just think he's better than everyone else. He expects everyone else to think it, too. I mean—" She swallowed thickly "—take me, for example. I think I'm better than everyone else, but do you see me going around demanding everyone to bow to me? No. That, my friends, is for guys like him."

"You know," Emelle said, "I'd love to have your self-esteem, Wren. I really would."

At that moment, Rodhi returned from wherever he'd been (I was learning not to question it when he scurried off, since he seemed to have friends in every corner of campus) and thumped his hand down on our table.

"Guess what, all you pretty little darlings? Including you, goth girl," he said to Wren, who scowled at him. "You can go ahead and thank me right now, because I just got our whole sector into the coolest party on campus tonight. We are going to the Manipulator house."

I paused mid-chew. Swallowed.

"The Mind Manipulators? How… how did you manage that?"

Not that I knew the rules or etiquette for inviting other sectors over, but… if there was a party at Coen's own mansion, surely I'd see him there? I hadn't caught a single sight of him since that night in the alleyway, and a small, doubtful part of me was beginning to fear I'd made him up.

Rodhi beamed. "I just made out with one of their third-years beneath the stadium, and she invited us all afterward. I know, I know, selling my body for the sake of your popularity, how sad. Anyway, see you all there!"

He practically skipped away, leaving even Wren gawking.

"What a weirdo," she said finally, her voice brimming with admiration.

Two hours later, Emelle and I were powdering our cheeks and swiping oil on each other's eyelashes in the bathing chamber, preparing for the party.

The powder was Emelle's, but the oil came from my garden back at home, squeezed from one of our castor plants and mixed with a bit of charcoal powder for color. I had retrieved it from an inner pocket of my bag and paused when my hand came in contact with my mother's knife.

Even just looking at that weapon felt… wrong. Especially now that I was a Wild Whisperer. The handle was made of bone. The sheath of leather. And whatever profession the Good Council assigned me to after my Final Test (if I passed, of course), they wouldn't make me go hunting down the same animals I could talk to.

I'd snatched the vial of black castor oil and hurried after Emelle without touching the knife again.

Just as we were finishing up, a fourth-year peeked in.

"Rayna? There's some Shifter outside asking to see you. I think his name's Lander? Should we let him in? We never allow members of other sectors to come inside unless they've been given express permission by someone they—"

"Yes," I said immediately, setting my vial down. "Hold on. I'm coming."

Glancing at Emelle, I hurried after the fourth-year to the front doors, where I threw them open and found Lander standing on our steps with his hands in his pockets.

I'd never seen him cry. Not once. But that was definitely silver emotion lining his eyes.

"I went to talk to her," he said. "I went to talk to her thinking that maybe she'd find me cooler now that I'm a Shape Shifter, but I found her… kissing. Someone else. I broke it off right then and there before I could even think, and she just… she just watched me go, Rayna. She didn't even try to stop me."

My heart plummeted.

Quinn… how could she do that to him? How could she do that to us, the three childhood best friends, the perfect trio?

That trio, or perhaps the illusion it had been, was shattered now. I knew that as I took in Lander's face, mere seconds from crumpling. I'd assumed Quinn would revert back to her old self after a few days, not casually throw away their relationship like it meant nothing.

"Oh, Lander." I held the door open wider. "I'm so sorry."

A few fellow Whisperers jostled past me just then, cocooned in a haze of perfume as they headed to the Manipulator house, with its thumping music and strobing lights—where Emelle and I were supposed to meet Rodhi and Wren, and where maybe, just maybe, I would see Coen again.

But then Lander's breath hitched, and I made a decision.

Reaching out, I pulled him into the foyer, where Emelle stood with her hands clasped in front of her, trying to hide her curiosity behind a pleasantly concerned expression.

"Hey," I told her, "you go ahead without me. I'm going to hang out with my friend from back home tonight."

But Emelle shook her head.

"I'm not going to some Manipulator flirt-fest without you. Can I stay?"

I nodded, so the two of us led Lander upstairs to the empty bunkroom, letting the music and lights of the neighboring party flood through the window.

As Lander hooked his arms around me and finally broke into sobs.