Chapter 9

"Pet me."

"W-what?"

I'd heard the growl vibrate in the tiger's throat, but my mind—it had translated the sound automatically into words. Human words.

"Pet me," the tiger repeated. "I haven't been petted in ages. I usually eat anyone who gets too close to me, you see, but I'm dying for a good scratch."

He didn't have to ask me a third time. My hand shot out to stroke the massive, silky arch between his flicking ears, and the crowd seemed to suck in a gasp.

Beside us, Mr. Gleekle shifted uncomfortably, leaning away.

"Wonderful, wonderful. We have another Wild Whisperer!"

But the cheers that came from my new sector's section in the stadium sounded more wary than exuberant, the applause hesitant. I'd heard of the rare tiger on Eshol, but never a white one. And I'd never, ever heard of one venturing near humans. Even Wild Whispering humans.

"Who are you?" I breathed down at the creature.

"My name is Jagaros." The tiger closed his eyes, purring.

"I'm Rayna," I said, swallowing. "Rayna Drey. It's—it's nice to meet you."

Truly, it was. Relief flooded my entire body, washing out all that dread and self-disgust, as I threaded my fingers deeper into his fur. Coen's pill had worked, suppressing the forbidden power but letting a lawful, normal one creep through.

A Wild Whisperer. I could handle that. I liked that.

"How can you understand me?" I asked him. "I'm not growling, am I?"

It sounded like I was speaking normal human language, but I couldn't be sure.

"Unlike mortals, animals can understand the strange yapping of your kind even when they can't usually mimic it to talk back," Jagaros said. "So no, you are not growling, but I am. The magic acts as a translator for you."

"Amazing," I breathed.

Jagaros sighed, the sound a casual snarl in the back of his throat.

"Okay, they're staring a little too much for my liking. Place your hand on my back and I'll walk you to your new sector. And Rayna?"

"Yes?" I answered, doing as he instructed and letting him lead me offstage. Everyone indeed stared, their eyes following our movement to the stadium—leaning away, like Mr. Gleekle had, to keep their distance.

"Do not," Jagaros said, his shoulders shifting to and fro as he prowled forward, "trust a man with a fake smile or a woman who is not a woman at all."

"Noted."

I hadn't even dared to glance at those ice-blue eyes after my Branding. I didn't dare now, either, but I could feel the sting of her attention on the back of my neck, like two pricks of frigid ice picks.

The fact that a beast as graceful and terrible as Jagaros could also sense her otherworldly presence did nothing to warm me.

And the man with a fake smile—that must be Mr. Gleekle himself.

When we'd finally made it to the stadium and I could see the mass of faces gaping at us in shock up close, the tiger's skin rippled under my touch.

"Have a good time, then, Rayna Drey. I shall see you again."

He began slinking away, but I called after him, "Wait! When will that be?"

"Whenever I need more pets," Jagaros said over his snow-white shoulder. "Which will not be often." He paused, then, his eyes narrowing at a young man sitting on the first ledge of the stadium. "What are you looking at?"

"N-nothing," the man stammered, and it was then that I realized this whole section of the crowd could understand Jagaros as well. A blush creeped up my neck.

Our conversation hadn't been private, not from everyone.

Jagaros hissed out a curse once, the Wild Whisperers around me flinched, and I watched as the white tiger bounded off into the night.

I couldn't even hear the results of the rest of Branding, what with how many Wild Whisperers—my new peers, I realized with a pleasant jolt—reached their hands out to congratulate me with thumps on my back, or hissed excited questions in my ear as soon as I had squeezed in between them all.

"What did the tiger say up onstage?"

"Have you ever seen it before?"

"You're so lucky! He was beautiful."

I answered everyone to the best of my ability in a hushed voice. Before I knew it, Mrs. Wildenberg was hobbling away with the emptied sunflower hat, the other two instructors were hauling off the cart of used brands, and Mr. Gleekle was spreading his arms wide again.

"Now that you've all joined a sector," his wind-carried voice cried, "you may go see your houses for the first time and meet the members of your new Institute family. And remember, classes start tomorrow at sunrise, so don't stay up too late!"

His chuckle was lost in the rumble of the crowd as everyone sprang upward.

And began running.

I followed, forcing my legs into a jog as my sector streamed around the stage and onto Bascite Boulevard. I didn't know why we were running, but I wasn't going to disrupt this newfound sense of belonging to ask stupid questions.

After a thousand stomping footsteps and a hundred cheers that sprang into the night, my sector split off into two different directions: the girls to the stone mansion on the left, and the boys to its twin mansion on the right. Behind and before us, other sectors were doing the same, rushing into their designated houses like forks in a river.

I hurried up the steps to my new home for the next five years, passing beneath that giant balcony overhead and crossing through the white-trimmed doorway. The foyer, as massive as my entire cottage back at home, split into two different staircases in the back. One spiraled upward while the other dropped down. Between them, a giant cuckoo clock seemed to watch the whole room.

No sooner had I made it into this foyer when someone slammed the double doors shut behind me, and I was pushed toward a lump of girls in the center of it.

The rest of the female Wild Whisperers, young women ranging from nineteen to twenty-three years old, surrounded us with clasped hands, forming a ring of connected bodies that drew us closer and closer together.

"What—?" someone beside me began.

The women around us sucked in a unified breath and began to chant:

We, the whisperers of the island

Welcome all who've heard

Any part of this great, big wild

From boundless bud to rarest bird

I jumped when something spiraled up my ankle. A vine, snaking from everywhere and nowhere at once, winding tighter and tighter around me and then spilling toward the girls on either side of me. Lacing us together. As the chant continued, more and more vines stitched us even closer, until we were nothing but a tangled knot. Until I couldn't exhale.

Each plant sings a song of old

Each animal has a tale

Each creeping, crawling little thing

Speaks to us as well.

So we listen to each warble,

Each hiss and howl and growl,

We protect and care, this we swear,

By the orchid and the owl.

When they broke apart, cheering again, the vines holding us together snapped away. Several girls stumbled forward with hands on their chests, and I unleashed my stiffened breath.

"Welcome, new Whisperers, to the house of the wild!"

The princess of our house, a small-framed, sharp-chinned brunette I'd seen patrolling the arena last night, was standing in front of that cuckoo clock between staircases. Her hands flew together behind her back, and a beady-eyed parakeet shifted from talon to talon on her bony shoulder.

"We are happy to take you under our wing, both literally and metaphorically," she said, "but please note that anyone older than you here at the Institute is your superior. We have a better grasp on our magic, and we won't hesitate to use it to put you in your place."

It was more or less the same warning the princes and princesses had given yesterday—a threat none of the older villagers in Alderwick had ever dangled over our heads back at home. I briefly wondered about that, but the Whisperer princess was already continuing on as if she hadn't just implied we belonged in her parakeet's bill.

"Your bags are already upstairs on the topmost floor, where you'll find the first-year bunkroom and three dozen vacant bunkbeds to claim. You'll all share the single bathing chamber beside it, but don't worry." Finally, a smug smile cracked her mouth open, just a bit. "Next year, you'll only have to share with three others. And by the time you're a fifth-year like me, you'll get a room and bathing chamber all to yourself."

It was hard to believe that a single house could fit so many rooms, but I supposed it was as deep as it was tall. I wanted to go explore it, but the sharp-chinned brunette clapped her hands twice. Her parakeet soared off her shoulder, and the older girls began pressing drinks into our hands—not bascale, thankfully, but what looked like sparkling acai wine—and introducing themselves with expressions ranging from bored to eager.

Kaya. Wren. Sorcha. Bailey. Lilith.

I learned too many names to count. It wasn't until I was on my second drink and introducing myself for the tenth or eleventh time when I noticed her.

Jenia Leake. Shit. I'd forgotten that she'd joined the Wild Whisperers when those butterflies had swirled around her head.

She was deep in conversation with a beautiful fellow first-year, a girl with rich, bronze skin who had curtly introduced herself to me as Dazmine earlier. As I watched, another girl—the short, curvy one who'd been the first to join the sector when that tree had hoisted her high with its branches—sidled up to them and said something with a smile.

Jenia turned to Dazmine. So loudly I could hear from halfway across the foyer, she said, "It's a wonder that tree was able to lift something so heavy. Poor thing."

My blood froze. The girl's face drained of all color. She had heard, of course. Everyone on this side of the foyer had.

She started to turn away.

I lurched forward, catching her by the arm.

"I thought your Branding was cool," I said quietly.

Her eyes widened as she recognized me. The girl with the tiger.

"Thanks. Yours was, too! Did it…" She paused to tuck a strand of brown hair behind her ear "…scare you, to touch him?"

Jenia was regarding us from the corner of her eye, so I turned my back on her, blocking her view of the girl. "Not really. He was kind of cute, actually."

Of course, Jagaros would probably rip my face off if he heard me say that, but still, I was glad to see a trembling smile lift up the girl's mouth.

"I'm Emelle," she said.

"Rayna." I had spoken my name so many times by now that the syllables were becoming more and more foreign on my tongue each time. Before I could overthink it, I asked, "Do you want to go claim a bunk with me?"

Relief softened Emelle's face.

"Yes, I really would. This is…" She gazed around at all the people and the parakeet zipping around the room, her eyes flicking briefly toward Jenia. "A bit overwhelming."

"Agreed," I said. "Let's go."

Jenia watched us pass her by, the gray of her eyes reduced to slits.