Chapter 8

Mrs. Wildenberg dipped a withered hand in the upside-down sunflower hat. When she brought out the first scrap of paper, even the flickering firelight arched over our heads seemed to pause, waiting.

"Archie van Grouse!" her warbled voice rang out.

A boy two rows in front of me trembled to a stand and walked to the stage, hands in his pockets as if he wanted to paint a portrait of casual indifference.

It didn't work. When he had climbed the two steps up to the raised platform and stood in front of Mr. Gleekle and Mrs. Wildenberg, facing the crowd of thousands, I could see his hands shaking in his pockets.

One of the instructors at the cart brought up a single poker with the bascite stamp on the end, and the other instructor hovered his hands over the brand. Instantly, fire poured from the instructor's fingers onto the bascite, heating it up to a flaming white circle of light, like a miniature moon on a stick.

Mr. Gleekle took the brand delicately and faced Archie.

"Only a pinch," he repeated with a jolly smile, and pressed the brand to the boy's shoulder.

Archie flinched, but no sooner had he done so than the orange imprint of the circle on his skin faded, and he gasped.

I felt a tug at my front pocket, right where the pill had been.

All around me, everyone else gasped, too, as their pockets emptied and hundreds of different items zipped toward the stage, landing in a clinking pile at the boy's feet: wristwatches, necklaces, rings, even a flew flasks like Rodhi had tried to hide, and rubbers that made several people around me shriek with mirth.

Mr. Gleekle beamed, spreading his arms wide.

"Object Summoner! Well done, boy, well done."

The group of older students directly behind us began to cheer and reel the boy toward them with their magic. Archie flew off the stage, down the aisle, and toward the stadium on his tiptoes, as if being pulled in by rope.

Mrs. Wildenberg was already pulling out another name.

"Chasity Lingerium!"

They brought out a brand-new poker for this girl, whose shoulders were hunched inward as if she'd rather shrivel up and die. When Mr. Gleekle pressed the new brand against her shoulder and she winced, Lander leaned in close to me.

"At least they're being hygienic about it, giving us our own brands and such."

"Mmm-hmm."

There had to be a lot of metal on the top of Bascite Mountain if they could afford to give everyone their own imprint. Although, come to think of it, the bascite on each stamp would have to sink into every person's skin to work, leaving nothing left for the next inductee.

A moment later, Chasity clutched her head, sank to her knees, and screamed.

"Mind Manipulator," Mr. Gleekle said, rather somber for once, but the group of older students to the left of us cheered. I stared at the girl, Chasity, who must be… reading hundreds of different minds right now, judging from the sound of her screaming. Was this how Coen Steeler had reacted when he'd been branded?

Was he in the crowd right now, cheering as she jerked and writhed?

Just as I thought this, the girl snapped upward, her arms at her side, and lumbered toward the Manipulator audience like a dead corpse walking. Someone in her new sector, I had no doubt, had just ordered her to shut up and join them.

On and on it went, and the randomness of the name calling was its own special kind of torture. Every time Mrs. Wildenberg's hand dipped inside the sunflower hat, my breath caught in my throat. But my name was not called.

A short, curvy brown-haired girl became the first Wild Whisperer when a literal tree behind the stage reached for her with its branches and hoisted her high in the air. Another girl became the first Element Wielder when the ground shuddered beneath our chairs at her branding. One of the boys who'd tried to throw rocks at my hair-braiding monkeys became the first Shape Shifter when fangs shot from his mouth and a tail ripped from the back of his trousers.

Everyone—save for the Good Council, who sat stick-straight in their chairs and never reacted to a single branding—laughed at that, a ripple of mirth at the expense of someone else, but I kept my lips clamped shut and clutched my stomach.

If the pill suppressed all my magic rather than just the raw, shapeless one, I would be worse off than the boy with a hole in his trousers. I didn't even want to imagine what the Good Council would do if nothing happened at my brand's touch. Send me back to Alderwick? Investigate me? Toss me to the pirates anyway?

Just then, Mrs. Wildenberg called Quinn's name.

There she was, merely five columns to our left, her hair shining like liquid ruby as she stood and strode to the stage, her chin high and determination set on her face.

A face I'd known so well until yesterday.

Beside me, Lander balled his hands into fists, watching her climb onstage with a tight, clenched expression. I placed a hand on his arm.

Quinn lifted her sleeve, and Mr. Gleekle brought the brand to her bare shoulder. She barely twitched at the hiss of molten fire against her skin, and then—

Quinn's hair exploded into flame.

Hot, living flame, dancing on her head like a turban. Thick, gray smoke billowed out from her head, more potent than all the cigarette smoke she'd ever breathed out.

The crowd of onlookers to our right burst with cheers and pulled her toward them with a lasso of wind.

As she passed us, I saw only feverish joy lighting up her face, like fire sparked in her pores as well. Part of me—the part of me that would love her no matter what and hoped she came to her senses soon—sagged in relief for her, that she didn't have to follow in her mother's footsteps and learn the ways of Mind Manipulating.

Beside me, tension seemed to leak from Lander's posture as well.

The rest of the Branding seemed to speed up, names and faces and magics blurring together—until Lander himself was called up.

He rose on surprisingly steady legs, gave me a calm nod, and joined Mr. Gleekle onstage. Please let him be in Element Wielding, too, I prayed. Maybe if Lander and Quinn were in the same sector, they wouldn't fall apart.

Lander sucked in a breath as Mr. Gleekle pushed the brand against his skin.

And fur sprouted from every inch of his body.

His form shrank and hunched, his nose lengthening and arching. Within two blinks, a humanoid anteater was standing where he had just been, and the crowd between Summoners and Wielders screamed out their approval.

Then they all morphed into identical anteater-like figures to welcome him, and I watched as Lander shrank back into himself and sheepishly joined his new sector. The Shape Shifters.

Maybe Quinn would notice him again, now that he could grow unnatural muscles, I thought. Or turn into a lion that she could pet.

Slowly, but surely, the chairs around me emptied. I took note when Quinn's friend, Jenia, became swarmed with vibrant butterflies circling her head like a halo, but after that I quit focusing as nausea, thick and sour, churned in my gut.

What would be worse: if the pill didn't work like it was supposed to and I exploded with that raw, shapeless power? Or if the pill worked a little too well and I exploded with… nothing? The crowd of thousands would stare at me, the island's first dud, the first—

"Rayna Drey!" Mrs. Wildenberg called.

After hours of Branding, everyone in the crowd was beginning to lose interest as they whispered among themselves and their new recruits.

Thank the God of the Cosmos for that. Only the remaining inductees watched me push myself forward, toward that stage.

I climbed the steps, saw the shininess of Mr. Gleekle's cheeks up close, and turned to face them. The Good Council.

The middle one—she was the only one who mattered—pinned me with her ice-blue eyes. A fathomless void eddied in there, like a sea of… of death, frozen over.

I couldn't maintain it, the eye contact. I looked away as the instructor with the fire power heated up my brand, and Mr. Gleekle turned to face me.

"Are you ready?" he asked cheerfully. Only to me.

No. No. No.

"Yes," I said.

"Jolly good. Just a pinch, then."

I lifted my sleeve, and he pressed the brand against my shoulder.

A half-second of scorching pain that seemed to sink through all my layers of skin and meld with my blood, and then—

Nothing.

Nothing in my bones shifted.

No whispers, no shrieking grass, no electricity crackling between my fingers.

The Good Council leaned forward as one.

The rumbling of low conversation in the crowd died down to watch, and I cursed Coen, the prince of the Manipulators, hated him, wanted to scream at wherever he was, for doing this to me. Had he really given me a pill to erase every hint of power within me?

"Just relax," Mr. Gleekle murmured, his smile rooted in place. "Let it come out."

I clenched my teeth, willing myself to change shape or sprout with flame or summon anything, anything at all, from the mass of breathing, hushed bodies before me.

That hush only seemed to ripple toward me. Soon, people were craning their necks as if looking for my power somewhere in the aisles.

My vision narrowed. I could feel the Good Council's eyes on me, but I couldn't make myself meet their stares—her stare—and they were going to exile me, they were going to toss me away like a piece of garbage, and I would never see Fabian or Don again, I would never get to master my potential, and I…

Something slunk up the middle aisle, slow and deliberate.

I blinked. Rubbed my eyes. Peered at the thing people were craning their necks for a good look at. And I heard it now, the gasps snaking up the rows of seats.

The Good Council twisted to watch, slivers of shock finally breaking the masks of their faces, just as some vital part of me cracked open, brimming with awe.

As a tiger, snow-white and striped with deepest black, padded up to the stage and settled on its haunches before me.