Chapter 2

"What is that?" I breathed, eyeing the weapon but not touching it.

Of course, that was about the stupidest question I could ask. It was a knife, obviously, but…why had it been in Fabian's closet? And why was he offering it to me now?

"It was your mother's," Fabian said gently, still holding it out to me. "It's all I ever kept from her. And not that I think you'll need it," he added with a sharp note of warning in his voice, though the flash in his pupils told me that might not be quite true, "but maybe it'll remind you that you are not powerless, Rayna. You do have a bit of your mother's… fight."

God of the Cosmos. This was by far the most Fabian had ever talked about my mother, a topic he usually avoided at all costs. The only reminder that I'd even had one—that I wasn't some female clone of Fabian himself, down to the heavy tangle of blonde curls, the upturned jade-green eyes, and the dusting of freckles on our noses—was my complexion: a few shades darker than Fabian's delicate cream-colored skin.

I finally reached out to take the knife's handle, rubbing my fingers along the ridges engraved there.

Bone. It had to be made of bone. And the sheath…

Some kind of leather I couldn't place.

As if my hands were acting of their own accord, I slipped off the sheath and took in the blade beneath it. It wasn't quite rusted, but tarnished with gray, and curved in the shape of a sharp and cruel quarter-moon.

As much as I appreciated the gesture to give me something of my mother's, revulsion settled heavily on my skin. I couldn't imagine using this on anything, not even to gut a fish. But the blade sang of… of something far worse than defense.

Who had my mother been? I only knew of a few villagers with knives like this, and they were all used for hunting. Red brocket deer and crocodiles and the occasional boar.

The question hesitated on my lips, but Fabian abruptly said, "I'll put it in an inside-pocket of your bag."

Instantly, the leather sheath flew back over the blade and the knife soared across the room, nestling itself deep into one of my three bags that rested on the sofa. I'd been packing all day: clothes and toiletries and all the little coppers I'd been saving for the Esholian Institute. Now the knife would join my possessions.

I could only hope I'd never have to use it.

"You're gonna do great, kid," Don grunted heavily. "No matter which magic you get, you'll smash your test and get to come back so I can bug you for the rest of my life."

I swung my head back toward my fathers, wanting so badly to ask them what their Final Tests had been like. But I knew they wouldn't tell me. I'd asked a hundred times, and they'd never yielded, although sometimes Don's mustache would twitch as if he was about to. The Good Council forbids us from talking about it for a reason, Fabian would always tell me.

Well, if their Final Tests had been anything like what Mrs. Pixton's son had endured—locked in a trunk and thrown to the bottom of a lake—I couldn't blame them for not wanting to relive that.

"Can you play for me?" I whispered instead, sinking into the sofa between all my bags.

Don and Fabian exchanged looks. Then nodded.

Their twin lyres picked themselves up from against the wall by the front door and rose in the air, hovering overhead. I stared at them—not the lyres, but my fathers. My best friends. Their nightgowns hid the brands mottling their left shoulders, but I knew those marks better than the lines of my own palm by now: circles of scarred flesh filled with the imprint of the Esholian crest, a bulbed, five-pointed star. That same brand would mark my own shoulder in two nights. It would infuse my blood with magic that I didn't want, had never asked for.

And then my five years of training would begin.

I will pass the test, I told myself. I have to pass.

Leaning my head back against the sofa, I let my eyes close as the lyres began strumming themselves in midair. My fathers' harmonies ebbed and flowed over each other like two twining streams, and soon I felt the magic scoop me up and carry me gently to my own bed for the last time.

"Eat something," Fabian ordered me the next morning, when pink-tinged sunlight gushed through the shutters. My assigned Good Council elite would arrive any minute to take me away.

"Not hungry," I chimed, but the platter of wobbling pancakes clattered in front of me at the kitchen table anyway.

"How about some syrup?" Don sent the glistening bottle of syrup toward my pancakes and tipped it so that a drizzle cascaded down. "And a sprinkle of cinnamon, of course," he added, nodding at our cinnamon shaker, which lifted itself up with a jolt and tilted sideways over my pancakes.

"Okay, okay, thank you." I whisked up a fork and shoveled a few bites in my mouth, then took a swig from my mug of coffee. "I'm going to go check my hair one more time."

I raced to my room, where a mirror leaned lopsidedly against the wall opposite my bed. I smoothed out the creases in my tunic and tried to pat down the flyaways in my ponytail. I'd meant to braid it into a swirling crown for today, but I'd slept in—typical for me to do so on such an important morning. Raking a comb through it now would just puff up all my curls like a hornet swarm.

Maybe if the Branding gives me Shape Shifting, I'll be able to change my hair a little bit. Make it straighter and glossier, like Quinn's.

The knock on our front door made me flinch.

I made it back to the living room just as Fabian opened the door.

The man in our threshold, probably in his forties and with neat sideburns, wore a cloak clipped together with silver buttons, though a single circle of sheer fabric allowed me to see the brand on his left shoulder: the same as Fabian's and Don's, but with a red dot of ink in the center to indicate that he worked for the Good Council.

I blinked at it as I stepped between Fabian and Don to face him. How strange, that this man flaunted his burnt skin when it was usually so frowned upon to do so in public. Even magic itself was limited to the home or council-sanctioned jobs, never anything casually performed on the streets for fun.

Apparently, members of the Good Council could show off their power rather than keep it restricted like they demanded of the other islanders.

"Greetings." The man had pulled a script from an inner pocket of his cloak and now stepped forward, filling the doorway. "Are you Ms. Rayna Drey?"

"That's me." I tried to hold my chin up high.

"And you are" —The man cocked an eyebrow at my hair— "ready to go?"

"I…" I turned to face my fathers one last time. They would follow me out to the square and watch our departure, of course, but this was the last moment I'd get to share with them in this cottage, where we'd cooked and danced and bickered together for the last eighteen years. I blew out a deep breath and stepped forward to let them both gather me into a final hug.

"We'll see you in five years, Rayna," Fabian murmured.

"Don't eat any funny mushrooms, kid," Don sniffed, and I knew that was his way of telling me he loved me.

"I love you, too," I told him. "Both of you."

Before they could say anything else to make that knot in my throat grow even bigger, I ripped myself away and hurried to gather my bags on the sofa.

The Good Council elite nodded once, pivoted on a heel, and led the way outside. I stumbled after him. Neighbors lifted their heads from their gardens as we trooped past, Fabian and Don following closely behind. The elderly Mr. Toko poked his face out his front door to wave with a gnarled hand. Village kids pressed their noses against their windows to gawk, and from the shadows of an alley, I saw Wilder watch me pass, his mouth clenched.

How many times had I done the same? Peeked through shutters to watch the eligible inductees of the year march off with these strangers from Bascite Mountain? And now I was the one being marched off.

When we finally reached the village square, where Quinn and Lander were already waiting with their own bags and a second Good Council elite, I stopped to rake my stare over the carriage sitting primly in the center of it all. Topped with diamond-tipped spires, it sat on wheels with spokes that glittered gold in the sun.

Quinn swiveled toward me, her well-oiled hair flying over her shoulder.

"There you are! I'm glad you made it in time. I thought you might have died."

"Good morning to you, too, Quinn. Hey, Lander."

Lander, in a white tunic that contrasted strikingly with his ebony skin, passed a gentle glance my way, smiling in that quiet way of his.

"Hey, Rayna. How are you feeling?"

I glanced at the Good Council elite as he took my bags from me. "Great."

A lie, but he knew that, and so did Quinn. As Fabian and Don caught up, she drawled, "I think we're all going to get the same magic. I really do."

Another lie, to keep the ground steady beneath our feet. Because as much as I hated to leave Fabian and Don behind, I really, really hated the idea of being separated from Quinn and Lander at the Institute. If only she was right, and our Branding activated the same magic in each of us so that we could stick together….

"Okay, all loaded," the second Good Council elite called, hooking a silver belt around his waist and clipping it to the reins of the carriage. After the one who'd fetched me did the same, they both pressed assessing stares onto Quinn, Lander, and me.

"In you three get!" they called. "It's time."

Oh. The Good Council elites were our coachmen, too. I wondered if they would use Summoning magic like my fathers' to propel our carriage upward, or if they were Element Wielders who could control the wind.

Turning, we spared a last glance at our families hovering on the edge of the square. Fabian and Don smiled at me, holding hands. Quinn's mother nodded once, and her little brother hopped up and down with a frantic wave. Lander's grandma mouthed goodbye. There was no Wilder among the small crowd, but that was to be expected; only family members were allowed to see us off. I'd always wondered why, but after what Quinn had said last night?

Well, I could see why the Good Council wouldn't want people like Mrs. Pixton to show up. Anyone who had already lost sons or daughters to the Esholian Institute and the Final Test and the pirates beyond our dome might cause a scene.

I swallowed.

And stepped into the carriage.

Just as we were settling into the cushioned leather seats—Quinn and Lander squished together on one side and me on the other—odd, bubbling movement snagged my eyes through the vacant driver's box window.

The two coachmen, reined like horses, were shrinking… but also lengthening.

I watched, clutching Quinn's hand across the seat, as beaks ripped through the skin of their faces. Their arms melted inward, forming the broad plane of feathered wings, and talons shot through the leather of their shoes. Their skulls rounded. The one who'd fetched me grew two bright red plumes on either side of his head.

Shape Shifters.

"That's hot," Quinn said, and Lander shot her a bewildered look. "What? Maybe you should try Shape Shifting, Land. Then we can role-play when—"

"Ew, ew, ew." I threw Quinn's hand away from mine. "That's as bad as hearing Fabian and Don through the wall." But I knew what she was doing: distracting us as the coachmen spread their giant wings and the carriage lurched forward and—

I still screamed when the world tipped back, when Quinn and Lander fell forward and my head slammed against the leather seat behind me as we rose.

Up, up, up.

The beat of their wings rushed through my ears, and our village fell away as the carriage jolted higher and higher. I closed my eyes until I felt the coachmen level out, until we were soaring. Away.

Only when my heartbeat had steadied did I peer out the window to see if I could catch one last glimpse of Fabian and Don.

Nothing. My fathers were already lost among a cluster of thatched houses, and soon the jungle swallowed even that.

But Quinn was pointing at something else out the window. "Look."

I followed the line of her finger to see the mists of the Uninhabitable Zone—a place we'd only heard stories about from villagers who'd ventured near—eddying and swirling on the western horizon, as thick and milky as the rumors claimed. Nobody who'd plunged into those mists ever came back out.

The irrational side of me thought it looked like shadows stirred from within, watching our carriage fly high and away.