Chapter 38

I could sense them prowling outside all through the night.

Coen breathed against me on one side while Sasha and Sylvie curled together on my other side. Between the four of us, that massive king bed of Coen's finally seemed rather small, but I didn't care. Didn't care, either, that anyone who'd seen the four of us steal into the room together would be confirming Kimber's rumor tomorrow morning. I could practically hear the whispers that would follow us.

Whores. Whores. Whores.

"Stop it," Coen muttered against my ear. "Try not to think about it."

"Easier to think about that than them," I replied.

In the end, Dyonisia Reeve hadn't joined her Mind Manipulators, but I did recognize one of them. I'd seen him strutting down Bascite Boulevard moments before Coen had ushered the twins and me inside: a mullet that split into braided strings down his back, a wide, constantly flexing jaw, rutted, light brown skin—he'd been one of the elites sitting next to Dyonisia during the Branding.

But whereas before he'd paled in comparison to her, now I couldn't blink the image of him away. The way he'd marched, shoulders angled inward, leading the others down the path between houses… it was like a whispering presence followed his every movement.

"His name is Kitterfol Lexington," Coen whispered, "and he's probably the second most horrid thing on this island. Dyonisia loves him."

"There's talk that they share a bed," Sasha said beside me.

"And also talk that they're siblings," Sylvie added.

"Well, which one is it?" I whispered back.

"Who knows?" I felt Sasha's shrug in the darkness. "Maybe both."

A creak of the bed as Sylvie elbowed her. "That's disgusting, Sash."

I mulled it over and thought back to something Garvis had said in the Isolator. We do this every time the Good Council decides to look into a surplus of power. Which sounded like it had happened more than once.

"You said earlier that there was a murder during a pentaball game a few years ago," I whispered to Coen, though I knew Sasha and Sylvie were listening, too. "But has the Good Council ever come to investigate anything else?"

Coen hesitated. Sasha and Sylvie, however, twisted in bed.

"You haven't told her?" Sasha hissed.

"Told me what?" I asked, shooting up.

Coen's hand gently pulled me back down against him. He sighed.

"I haven't told you that when I broke up with Kimber last dry season, she was so livid that she sort of—how do I put this?" He inhaled through his nose, pinching the bridge of it. "She killed every animal within a ten-mile radius. Just left a circle of carcasses in every direction around us. Nobody likes to mention it."

Silence. My heartbeat stalled.

"What?" was all I could say.

"Kimber's fury cracked and she told them all to die," Coen said, his own voice cracking. "So they did. Birds and monkeys and butterflies just dropped dead."

"That's not possible," I began, even though I suddenly wasn't sure at all. "We can talk to animals, not command them to die."

"Your magic has barely scraped the surface as a first-year," Sylvie said gently on the other side of Sasha. "But for the most part, you're right. Kimber demonstrated exceptional magic that day. Too exceptional."

Just as Fergus had demonstrated too-exceptional magic today.

Now Willa's claim that Dyonisia had spiders spying on Coen all the time made perfect sense. They were probably spying on Kimber, too. But why hadn't they taken her to Bascite Mountain?

"The Good Council came to investigate your breakup," I said, trying to keep hold of the steadiness in my voice, "and—what? They found out what Kimber did and just left her alone?"

"More or less," Coen said. "Lawful magic that's gone beyond the scope of normal limitations catches their attention, but I believe they're waiting to see if Kimber's capable of doing it again. Hence why they've been keeping a close watch on her—and me—ever since. If they catch Fergus, they'll probably do the same to him. And keep an extra eye on him until his Final Test."

But we—Coen, Sasha, Sylvie, and I, and the other guys, too—wouldn't get the same privilege if we were caught. Not if Dyonisia found out our blood came from beyond the dome.

The danger of our predicament suddenly crashed down on me, as if the ceiling had dropped low and pinned me to the bed.

"Okay," Coen breathed. "They're moving on to our house now. I need all of you to breathe deeply, relax your minds, and let me concentrate."

For some reason, I'd thought the Good Council would simply cast around for guilty-sounding minds while we slept, maybe conduct an official investigation tomorrow morning based on what they found tonight. I hadn't realized how precise it would be, house to house, person to person, their minds shooting through walls to invade every mind one by one, regardless if that mind was swimming through dreams or just as awake as we were.

But I could feel them as the investigators moved closer to us, heard that whispering presence and imagined the group of them now standing right outside the Mind Manipulator house, staring at the many little windows as if they could see inside.

"Here we go," Coen hissed.

He clasped my hand, and I clasped Sylvie's, who clasped Sasha's.

Usually, I couldn't feel Coen in my mind until he actually spoke to me, but now a pressure built at the base of my skull and snaked toward my forehead.

I didn't know what was happening until a foreign voice fractured through my thoughts and spit, did you kill Frank Fenway?

Kitterfol Lexington didn't wait for me to respond.

He plunged through my most recent memories, and I relived them, too, as he flicked through me like I was nothing more than a textbook.

But when it came to my suspicions of Fergus, there was curiously nothing, as if a sheet of generic terror had been slid carefully over that knowledge.

When Kitterfol dug deeper, rooting around like an invasive worm that had split into several separate heads, I sensed Coen's presence lurking, handing the Mind Manipulator private memories but folding the most secret ones far, far beneath everything else.

Kitterfol watched with amusement as Coen and I had sex for the first time. I cringed internally, trying to fight my way out of that memory, but Coen grabbed my thigh and gave it a squeeze that would surely end up bruising.

Breathe deeply. Relax your mind.

So I let Kitterfol watch it, the most intimate thing I had ever experienced.

Before Coen and I reached our climax, however, I felt him grow bored—and lunge for a new memory.

The one where I hurled myself into a tank of cockroaches.

No, no, no. Not that one. I couldn't let him reach the end of that one.

Coen wrenched him back. And changed the scene to hold his attention.

Now he, Coen, was dragging out chains from beneath this very bed and cuffing me to the bedpost—spreading my arms and legs wide until I was completely bared for him. Exposed to the air and his wicked contemplation.

"Where should I start?" Coen's voice dripped with venom as he swiped a finger between my legs, making me arch my back violently. "Here? Or here?"

He plunged that same finger into my mouth, gagging me.

When the Rayna in this false memory began to sob, Coen chuckled darkly and said, "Here, then." And stuffed himself into my mouth until I was retching.

It worked. Kitterfol Lexington didn't try to fish out any other memories.

By the time he ripped himself out of my mind, his little worms weren't curious anymore. They simply oozed satisfaction and triumph and sick smugness.

Coen released a groan and slumped against me. I hadn't even realized how rigid he'd become, but now his limbs were trembling.

"He's gone."

"Without checking us?" Sasha asked incredulously.

Coen fisted a hand against his forehead. "He had his fun and assumed the memories would be the same for each of you, since you're all sharing my bed. God, I'm so sorry, Rayna. That should have been easier than it was, but Kitterfol is more powerful than I anticipated." He was shaking. Coen was actually shaking. "I've never had to defend any of us from him before—it's always been one of the others. But he was clever. He would have pierced through my shields and guards if I hadn't distracted him with what he most wanted to see."

"What?" I asked, breathless. "Abusing women in bed?"

My heartbeat was drowning in my throat at what I had just witnessed.

"Discipline," Coen said. "Submission. Power. I'm so sorry," he repeated.

"Hey." I began to rub soothing circles along his shoulder. "It's okay. You just saved me. You don't have to apologize for doing whatever it took."

There had been so many dangerous memories Kitterfol could have snatched. The cockroaches. The cave. Fabian's letter. Lord Arad. The maggots. If enduring a false bondage scene was the price to pay to protect those memories, then so be it.

Even if I'd never be able to shake that image from my memories, now: myself, chained up and spread wide open for Coen to mock and tease and lord over.

"You saved me," I repeated, pressing my face against his chest, telling myself that what I'd seen, what Coen had done to me, wasn't real. Wasn't real. Wasn't real. "Thank you."

Slowly, his shaking subsided, and we all four fell into a quiet huddle.

But none of us slept until the Good Council left at dawn.