Chapter 29

It did.

A week later, I patted myself in front of the bathing chamber mirrors next to Emelle and Wren, soaking in the sight of the dress Coen had picked out.

The dark green silk cascaded to the floor like liquid jade pooling at my feet. Heavy and cool, yet gloriously smooth and comfortable. A slit rose to my upper thigh on the side, allowing me to walk even more freely, and the top…

It was a V-neck that… well, just barely managed to cover my nipples. The inside halves of my breasts were gently pushed together and completely exposed to the world, the crease between them a dark, bobbing line.

I wouldn't have worn anything like this back in Alderwick, but I couldn't imagine wearing anything else here at the Esholian Institute. Something had shifted within me since the Branding, something daring and yearning.

"That's possibly the first time a man has ever picked the right thing in all of Esholian history," Wren said with appraisal, eyeing me in the mirror. Then she turned to survey herself again. "He did better than me, anyway. I look like a poisonous frog."

She wore a bright turquoise two-piece connected by chains, with long sleeves that billowed at her wrists and patches of black patterning the bottom half. She'd been mortified, she'd told me, when Terrin had approached her and Gileon before class the other day and invited them to the formal, so mortified that I'd worried she wouldn't come. But she'd had this dress stuffed beneath her bed for a year and had begrudgingly brought it out, saying she'd give the party a try.

"I think poisonous frogs are beautiful," Willa chimed in on the bathroom sill.

"Of course you do," Wren snapped at the mouse. "That's the point of them. They lure you in and then they—" She snapped her teeth, and Willa squeaked with laughter. The two had met a few days ago and were getting along splendidly. Or, at least, as splendidly as someone like Wren could get along with a creature like Willa.

"Well," Emelle said morosely, brushing a finger along her stomach through the scarlet mermaid dress she wore, "I look like a bloodstain, so…"

"Stop it."

They froze. Shit. I'd snapped at them.

I hauled in a deep breath. Forced my tone into something lighter, something without the jagged edge I'd been so prone to since Lord Arad's story. I hadn't been able to sleep lately, but found myself staring into the swirls of the ceiling late into each night instead, caught between so many emotions. Fury at Fabian being one of them. For stealing me from my mother, no matter his reasoning. For refusing to talk about her except for the night before I'd left for the Institute, knowing there wasn't enough time to fully dive into all my questions about her.

And fury at my mother, whoever she had been, for wanting to pass me over to the pirates like clay to be molded and sculpted into whatever they wanted from me.

"Neither of you look like a frog or a bloodstain," I said now, more gently. "You look like beautiful women wearing beautiful dresses who are going to have so much fun drinking and dancing, you won't even remember this moment tomorrow."

Not that I'd be able to drink with them. No, Coen still claimed that anything could trigger our raw power, which made me wonder… how had my mother handled her own less defined magic, as Lord Arad had put it? Without the pills, how had she subdued herself during her year spying on the island? During her year falling in love with Fabian and carrying me around in her womb?

The doubt hit me again, just as hard as it had in the past.

The pirates are searching for a way to shape their power, Coen had told me once. But Coen himself, Garvis, Terrin, Sylvie, Sasha, and I—we were all living proof that not even bascite could shape that raw power in our pirate blood. It could grant us foreign magic, but never a way to control our own.

Were the pirates truly wanting in for the bascite, then? Or for something else? The pills, perhaps—or whatever they were made of?

Why else would they be circling us so endlessly, sending their children as distractions and spies, and constantly trying to break through the dome?

"Rayna? You there?"

I jumped. Willa had scurried up my dress to my shoulders, and now sniffled up at me, while the other girls stared at me expectantly.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"We asked you if you were ready to go." Emelle's voice was calm, despite Wren's suspicious scrutiny beside her. She knew I'd had trouble sleeping. Heard me toss and turn each night above her, until sometimes she slipped in bed with me and held me until the darkness finally rolled me into dreams.

What Emelle didn't know, though, was my whirlwind of thoughts like the one I'd just had, thoughts that would suck me away from everyone around me and send me spinning through questions and confusion and uncertainty.

My mother and the pirates. Jagaros and the faeries of old.

"Yes," I said, pulling a smile onto my face and briefly running a finger over the imprint of my brand on full display. Just for tonight, I wanted the busy buzzing in my mind to go away. Just for tonight, I'd have fun. "I'm ready."

The Element Wielder houses had been completely transformed.

Whereas before they had resembled cutting-edge squares of the blackest caves, now plump bulges of snow skirted their flat rooftops like sparkling frosting. Snowflakes sprinkled down around them despite a noticeable lack of clouds, and garland bordered each window.

They would have looked rather cold and uninviting, I thought as Emelle, Wren, and I stepped up to Terrin's front door, if it hadn't been for the live sheets of fire eddying within the glass of each double windowpane.

Fire and ice. Like Jagaros's mind, according to Coen. Like the top of Bascite Mountain itself. Perpetually snow-capped and flitting with the lights of Good Council activity.

Activity that included torture.

Our shoes clicked up the steps together, and when we pushed open the door, ethereal music seemed to fill my every pore. Another Mind Manipulating trick? Or—no. Above the hundreds of heads dancing and swaying and mingling, windchimes and other musical instruments hung from the ceiling, played by an intricate wind that swirled along the top of the room. For a moment, I saw Lord Arad and Velika and the other tomb bats again, in the shape of those dangling instruments.

I shook away the image as Emelle nudged me and pointed through the crowd.

"Look who's already here. I take it Ms. Pincette didn't accept his invitation."

Rodhi had stayed behind after our last Spiders, Worms Insects class to ask Ms. Pincette to the formal. I couldn't fathom why he'd actually have expected her to say yes, but here he was, smashed in the corner between two Shifter girls I didn't know, taking turns tonguing each of them as if he wanted to forget a certain rejection.

"I swear one of them just made her boobs grow three sizes," Wren muttered, wrapping her arms around herself. "Seems pretty fake to me, but hey, at least Rodhi's getting some."

I peered sideways at her, suddenly curious… what kind of person was Wren interested in? She had been spending a lot of time with Gileon, but the way they interacted seemed more like a platonic alliance than a budding romance to me. Although Gileon had presented her with a bouquet of needles after the Cardina visit.

Just as I thought this, Gileon himself bobbed toward us through the crowd, his massive frame towering over everyone else while he held two drinks in each fist.

"Hi!" he called cheerfully. He almost dropped his drinks when he got a full look at Wren. "Wow. You look like one of those beautiful poisonous frogs in Mr. Conine's class."

"By the orchid and the owl," Wren cursed. "Give me one of those." She grabbed a drink from his hand and drained it in a single bob of her throat. Then, wiping her mouth with one of those flowing turquoise sleeves, she said, "Let's go dance, Gil."

"Oh. Okay."

Emelle and I watched Gileon follow Wren into the swaying, dancing throng, a bewildered expression clouding his face, but a smile beginning to perk at his lips.

"Do you think they're….?" Emelle began uncertainly.

"I have no idea."

I stood on tiptoe, trying to find anyone else we recognized. Emelle, too, was craning her neck, a nervous flush peppering her neckline.

Where was Coen? We'd agreed to meet here, but the fact that I hadn't even heard his voice in my head in the last several hours… I exhaled, releasing a quivering breath. I was becoming too used to it, this mind-to-mind communication with him. Too used to traipsing into the Mind Manipulator house every Sunday, knowing exactly where to go for my pill… and more.

A tug on my skin. I looked up to find Sasha and Sylvie wiggling their fingers at us, and I smiled. The twins terrified me somewhat, but at least they were familiar.

Emelle and I floated over to meet them, where they were sneaking appetizers off a nearby table with nothing more than a tendril of magic. I watched, amused, as a gingerbread cookie floated inconspicuously into Sylvie's waiting hand.

"These are really too good," Sylvie said, taking a munch.

"Sometimes I think Wild Whispering is the lousiest magic ever," Emelle said morosely, watching Sylvie swallow the rest and lick the icing off her fingers.

"Just wait till you get to your fifth year," Sasha said with a wink. "Fifth-year Wild Whisperers are some of the most ruthless people I've ever met. They can strangle you with a vine just like that." She snapped her fingers.

"That still sounds kind of lame compared to other magic," Emelle mused, then scanned the twins' dresses. "You guys look amazing."

Indeed, the white, skin-tight dresses they wore offset the rich hues of their skin like the purest snow against the deepest charcoal. They each wore scarlet lipstick and gold hoops in their ears that swung with the slightest movement.

I was about to express my own appreciation when Lander barged into our little group, breathless and flushed and holding a…

"Is that a kettle?" I asked him, blinking at the silver pot in his arms.

"Perhaps," he replied, rather… mischievously. I'd never heard him sound mischievous in my life. He turned toward Emelle, who had relaxed at his presence but stiffened again as his attention landed fully on her, and said, "It's for you."

He held out the kettle. Emelle bit her lip and took it.

As soon as her fingers touched the silver surface, the pot morphed—springing upward into a bunch of orchids that matched the red of her dress.

"Oh!" Emelle exclaimed, a laugh bursting from her throat. "This is… wow! I didn't know you were able to shift anything else besides yourself!"

I raised my eyebrows at Lander, who pointedly ignored me, though that flush on his face only deepened. He opened his mouth to say something, when a flash of ruby-red hair blurred past us, and suddenly Quinn was there.

We fell quiet. Lander swiveled to face her. She stood there, in a velvet green dress only a shade lighter than mine, wringing her fingers together and staring at him.

Right. Although we were in the boys' Element Wielder house, this was still her sector, still part of her residence. Of course Quinn would be here.

I just didn't know why she was bothering to give us any attention.

"Can I talk to you?" she asked Lander.

If her lips hadn't moved, I wouldn't have believed those words had come from her mouth. As far as I knew, she hadn't talked to either one of us since my conversation with her on the beach.

Say no, Lander, I begged him silently. Say no. Not that talking was bad, but Emelle… I'd never seen her go so rigid. Her knuckles whitened around the bouquet of orchids.

"Uh, sure, I guess."

Lander swept a nervous hand through his hair.

When Quinn turned to press deeper into the house, he jolted after her, glancing back at Emelle before disappearing into the crowd.