Chapter 12

Lander stayed with us deep into the night, until the rest of our sector finally trickled back into the bunkroom after the music from next door had died down.

In the end, it was Emelle who got him to break out of his sobbing fit—not by attempting to cheer him up, as I did, but by telling him softly of her own breakup the year before, and how much her heart still lay in pieces over it.

You'd think such a thing would have made him cry harder.

I was still pondering it the following morning, when we reached our first class of the day, The Language of Plants 101, taught by none other than the same instructor who'd pulled our names out of that sunflower hat. Mrs. Wildenberg.

Like Mr. Conine, Mrs. Wildenberg met us outside Building 3E. After we'd all gathered, she led us to the arboretum situated between the back buildings and the rising slope of the mountainside.

Here, rather than a jungle floor tangled with ferns and thorns and roots, the ground rippled with soft grasses and rows of flowers between the trees. A sanctuary of sorts, courtesy of Mrs. Wildenberg's guiding magic.

"Now, I want you all to lay down on your backs," she told us in that warbling voice, slowly bending to meet the grass on her hands and knees. Once she was firmly on the ground, she eased her frail body backward to sprawl out. "Close your eyes and listen to what you hear. We will discuss it during our next class period, but for now, just take note of each different sound."

We did as she said, Rodhi whispering that this certainly beat wading through the crocodile marsh.

I closed my eyes and let the warmth of the dry season sweep over me.

Like the night before Branding, when all the five magics had teased me before that shapeless power burst out, I could hear the grass shrieking beneath my weight. But the more I listened, shifting from side to side as if to alleviate its pain, the more I realized the sound was actually a high-pitched whistle. A calling, of sorts, to the heavens. Even the blades that weren't smashed under someone's body let out that whistle, faint but shrill and piercing all the same.

I shifted my attention to the trees on either side of me.

The roots… I could hear them sucking up water from the soil, a crinkling, slurping wet sound. And the leaves themselves were—I squeezed my eyes tighter, straining to listen—humming. Yes, that was humming, low and pulsing, like a mother shushing her baby to sleep. Tuneless, but calming.

Apparently, the Branding hadn't just made me understand animals. It had sharpened my hearing, too, letting me in on nature's song if only I concentrated hard enough.

A song that was disrupted, once again, by the hissing laugh of Jenia.

"I wish," Rodhi whispered to Emelle and me, "that girl could just be exiled right now. That would give me a nice night of sleep, I think."

"Don't joke about that," I breathed back. "Please."

The thought of banishment and pirates still left my gut in knots, because that would have been me without the pill Coen had given me.

"Sorry," Rodhi muttered. "No more ‘mean girl gets exiled and relieves us all of our pounding headaches' humor. Got it."

I elbowed him. Rodhi snorted.

When Jenia's laugh had faded again and nature's song flooded back into my ears, I focused on the flowers. Each one, it seemed, crooned a different tune.

The lilacs sang out distinctly feminine songs, twirly and bright. Their voices made me think painfully of Quinn and all the times we'd climbed trees together, slept under the stars together, braided each other's hair.

I shifted my concentration again before a lump could form in my throat.

The violets' tune was rather sexy and somehow… breathy, like they were constantly ramping up their verses with increasing vigor and passion. Their voices made my stomach curl and flutter. A face flitted in my mind against my will before I could swipe it away, so I shifted my concentration once again to avoid thinking of Coen.

The orchids—the orchids sang with such clarity it brought tears to my eyes. Charming and pure, their voices made me think of home and friendship and love.

On and on, I listened to each flower's tune, then brought myself back to the wider range of song. The blend of sounds washed over me, until something seemed to tug at my heart: a tether of sorts, flowing out from me to connect with it all.

Why do I have this dangerous, shapeless power inside me? I asked the lilacs. Where did it come from?

Does Coen have it, too? I asked the violets. Is that why he knows so much about what happened to me and how to keep it locked away?

What am I supposed to do with it? I asked the orchids. Keep it a secret forever, and never let it build or grow, never strive to understand it?

I heard their answers, heard the subtle changing pitch of their songs in response. But unlike tigers and monkeys and crocodiles, I couldn't instinctively understand them. It was like a foreign language, my understanding fluttering just out of reach.

As if they didn't want me to know.

Our fifth and final class on the schedule was Worms, Spiders Insects.

The instructor, we soon found out after filing into Building 3B and settling into desks, had permanent, calculating slits for eyes that seemed to cut into everything they landed on. Her arched eyebrows and chestnut hair tucked primly behind her ears only added to that sharpness.

Jenia began whispering to Dazmine, "This is going to be my favorite class, I think, since the butterflies chose me during Branding. Did you see how they—?"

"Butterflies," the instructor interrupted, shutting the classroom door with a snap, "are among the dumbest insects and therefore feel most comfortable around humans of a similar nature. Now, this is not an open-discussion class, Ms. Leake, so I would appreciate it if you merely listened unless your name is called."

A chilling silence. The back of Jenia's neck flushed. I sank deeper into my seat, hoping the instructor wouldn't notice me. Although the fact that she already knew all our names without ever having met us… I doubted shriveling up would prevent her attention if she wanted to call on me.

On either side of me, Emelle bit her lip and Rodhi absolutely beamed.

"My name," the instructor began, "is Ms. Pincette. I am the island's leading researcher on the nature of insects and the connection they pose to us who are gifted with Wild Whispering powers. Much like plants, you will find that worms, spiders, and insects are significantly harder to understand than animals, even with your magic, so this first year of class will focus on dissecting their various values first."

Ms. Pincette whirled toward her blackboard stretching from one end of the classroom to the other and plucked up an unused stick of chalk.

"Let's start with spiders. Can anyone tell me why spiders would be useful to us? I trust you will think beyond their spot in the cycle of life."

Rodhi's hand flung upward.

"Yes, Mr. Lockett?"

"My pa says they bring good luck," he said eagerly.

Ms. Pincette waved a hand. "Purely superstition. Anyone else?"

Rodhi's smile sagged. Nobody said anything. Nobody dared even blink.

"Very well, then." Ms. Pincette turned to scribble something on the board, her wrist jerking with harsh, sharp strokes. When she was done, the class gasped.

One hour ago, Mitzi Hodges and Norman Pollard confessed their undying love for each other behind the hibiscus bushes in the arboretum.

In the back of the classroom, Mitzi Hodges and Norman Pollard blushed.

"How could I have known this?" Ms. Pincette said.

This time, Rodhi raised his hand more hesitantly.

"Yes, Mr. Lockett?"

"You used the spiders as spies?"

A slight smile crept onto Ms. Pincette's face."Exactly. I used my spiders to spy on every single one of you the hour before this class. Most of you were doing just as Mrs. Wildenberg said and listening to the plants, but two of you snuck away to use that time for confessions… among other things." Her lips twitched. "Your task before the end of this class, then, is to find a single spider hiding in this classroom. There are fifty of them listening in on us now, so once you find one you may leave. But I warn you… it might be harder than it looks. They are notoriously silent, so you must gather all your wits to catch the sound of their creeping. Begin."

It took a moment for the screeching of chairs to fill the classroom as everyone began, dazed, to get out of their seats… and hunt.

Jenia, Dazmine, and Fergus headed straight for the baseboards and cornices. In the back, Mitzi Hodges and Norman Pollard rifled through their own pockets, as if to catch the spider who'd sold them out. Rodhi wandered over to Ms. Pincette's desk, where she had sat to observe us. I watched him bend low to inspect the cracks around the polished wooden legs, whistling a jaunty tune that had Ms. Pincette raising her eyebrows at him.

Emelle and I aimed for the shelves lining the far classroom wall and began picking out book after book. To no avail. I coughed, waving the dust away, and—

An idea hit me.

"Emelle," I said out of the corner of my mouth, "tell me a secret."

"What?"

"Tell me something you've never told anyone else."

Understanding sparked in her eye as she slid a book back in place.

"My breakup last year… it didn't hurt because I actually loved him. It hurt because our parents had sworn us to be married and I wanted so badly to please mine. But we… weren't compatible in our ideas of how to have a good time."

Emelle's ears flared with a sudden pink hue. She lowered her voice even more.

"He liked to spank and choke and… a lot of other things that I didn't enjoy."

"By the orchid and the owl," I muttered, the phrase slipping out after only a few days of hearing the older women say it all the time. "I'm so sorry, Emelle."

She shrugged. "My parents will just have to get over it. I'm happy to be free of him, and after seeing your friend Lander go through so much grief over losing someone he actually loved… it changed my perspective a bit. Your turn, now."

I paused. I couldn't risk telling her about what had happened the night before Branding, not when certain listening ears might report it to the Good Council.

What was a secret I'd never told anyone? Something, perhaps, I hadn't even admitted to myself?

It spilled from me before I could rethink it.

"There's a fifth-year who I think is… really attractive." God, that sounded so lame, but Emelle's eyes widened all the same. "Like," I forced myself to continue, "I've never been super into anyone back at home." Indeed, I hadn't even thought of Wilder since I'd left Alderwick, and I was sure he hadn't thought of me. "I've kissed exactly one boy, and that was more because I was curious about what it would feel like than anything else. And I did enjoy it, but not as much as I imagine I'd enjoy kissing him." I was rambling now, trying to scramble through the realization.

"Who?" Emelle whispered.

"I—do you hear that?"

We both paused.

Like the subtlest of fingernail taps against glass came a click, click, click: multiple spider legs scuttling closer to hear what we were saying.

Emelle mouthed something to me. I nodded, and stooped down low. She hooked one leg around my neck and mounted herself up on my shoulders.

I raised her up on trembling legs, letting her peer over the upper ledge of the bookshelf.

"Got them!" she exclaimed. "Let me down."

I lowered her to the floor as a few fellow classmates glanced in our direction, looking puzzled and frustrated. Emelle opened her hands to reveal two long-legged orb weavers hulking in her palm.

"Very good, ladies," Ms. Pincette said from across the room.

We decided to wait for Rodhi before heading back to the house, which took… a while, surprisingly.

By the time he emerged from Building 3B, grinning so widely I thought his face would crack open, the rest of our class had already filtered past us. I could hear the clamoring sounds of other sectors heading home for the day, too.

"What the hell…?" I began.

"I'm going to marry her," Rodhi declared, catching up with us.

"Who?"

"Ms. Pincette, of course. Have you ever seen a woman so fine?"

Emelle giggled into her hands. I gaped at him in horror.

"She's an instructor!"

"So? I'm technically an adult, aren't I? And even you thought I could pass as a teacher myself. Sometimes you think so small, darling."

He began marching in the direction of the courtyard, not a single doubt slumping his narrow shoulders. Exchanging raised eyebrows, Emelle and I followed.

We rounded the corner of a building. And stopped.

There in front of us, four people squatted behind one of the pillars on either side of a stairwell that snaked back to the courtyard: Jenia, Dazmine, Fergus, and a boy I'd never seen before—from another sector, then.

With their backs to us, they didn't notice us rooted in place behind them, watching as they snickered down at the young, burly man twirling in circles in the entrance to the courtyard. Gileon. And…

I squinted, horror blooming in my chest.

A stick, as if moving all on its own, was jabbing him in the back over and over, flying out of his reach whenever Gileon turned to try to grab it. Gileon tripped over his feet, landed on his knees, and groaned when the stick whacked him across the back of the head.

"That," said Fergus smoothly, nudging the stranger next to him, "is what I call a real power. I don't know why I got stuck with this stupid tree shit."

An Object Summoner, I realized with a bolt of shock. The stranger squatting next to them was a Summoner, controlling the stick for Fergus, Jenia, and Dazmine's entertainment. Hurting Gileon for fun.

For the first time in—well, ever—pure, undissolved rage flared within my veins.

"Stop it!" I sprang forward, seizing the Summoner's raised hand. Immediately, the stick down below dropped, but I didn't dare let my gaze stray downward to make sure Gileon was okay. "That's sick."

Fergus's eyes narrowed on me as his friend yanked himself out of my grip.

Jenia rose to a stand.

"Look who it is. The girl with the self-righteous stick up her ass. Her friend Quinn told me all about her," she added, turning to the others. "Said she's never stepped a toe out of line and looks down on anyone who does."

"I do not," I seethed—only pausing when Emelle touched me briefly on the back of my arm. Do not engage.

"Look," Rodhi said, stepping up beside me, "what you're all doing is a really shit way to have fun. If none of you can think of another way to entertain yourselves besides poking at a fellow classmate like chimps, you're even stupider than you look."

Rodhi made to push past them, but Fergus grabbed him by the collar.

"Look, you twig. I don't care how many friends you have or how smart you think your mouth is. I could snap your bony frame in half, if I wanted."

"Why don't you try, then?" Rodhi bit out.

I groaned, and Emelle shouted, "No!" but too late—

Fergus had nodded at his Summoner friend, who lifted a hand again.

And I felt something like an invisible hook drag me to the ground. Rodhi and Emelle, too, crumpled beside me, until all three of us were flat on our stomachs, our chins grinding into the cobblestone pathway, while Jenia shrieked with glee.