Chapter 9

The challenge can be completed as many times as necessary, so long as the piper has the tenacity to try again. The record for the most attempts before success belongs to Jimothy Daughtler, a greed piper. Records indicate it took him sixty-three attempts before he received his pipe. As he came down the cliff, he slipped and perished on the sharp rocks below. But he died a piper, and that is what mattered most to his family.

-A History of Pipers; A.A. Wesen

Ihave no one to give me any supplies. I have no one to escort me to the mountain or prepare it. I have nothing and no one, only Giselle, so I decide I'll have to steal what I need to pull this off. I find a meat pie sitting in a window to cool and take it. I find a loaf of bread on another and swipe it, giving Giselle and the other rats starting to follow me bites as I move. I find another house with a woman sewing, her basket of sewing supplies sitting beside her. I knock on the door and rush back to the window, watching as she stands and slowly makes her way over. I'm in and out before she even knows what's happened, the sewing basket in my hands.

Are you sure this is necessary, Fenwick? Stealing is so very unlike you.

"It's necessary," I reason. "They won't help me, so I have no choice."

I find a safe place in a barn to sew my clothing better. It still looks crooked and slightly wrong, but they're no longer falling apart. I try my hand at sewing little rats along the hem, but they only end up looking like little blobs. I'll have plenty of time to practice my sewing after this. I'll make sure anything I sew in my future will be the best of the best. I'll make sure it glistens in the sun the way my father hates. I'll be as flashy and flamboyant as I want, just as he'd said I never could be.

"Now we climb," I say, traveling with Giselle and the other rats to the cliff. I haven't slept, and my ribs are still screaming at me, making breathing painful, but I refuse to give up. Despite my aching legs, I have to figure this out.

Tucked away in my pocket, I have matches and the supplies I might need at the top. The bowls won't be lit so I'll have to light them myself. There will be no pomp and circumstance today. There will be no one to witness my climb unless they notice from a distance. It'll just be me and Giselle and the rats who come to cheer me on. They surround me now, dozens of them, all watching me carefully. At first, I'd thought perhaps it was because I was feeding them. Now it feels like something else, like they recognize exactly what I am.

Something more. Though I have no idea how yet.

We can always just run away, Giselle offers. I would care for you regardless.

"But what if I'm right?" I ask, while staring up at the cliff. "What if I'm so much more?"

She hesitates. Then you deserve to be more. She presses her tiny paw against my heart. Just don't forget about me if you rise, Fenwick.

"Never," I reassure her. "Where I go, you go."

She nods. Then let us climb, piper.

Her belief in me is always just what I need. With her support, I reach for the first handhold and start to climb. It's so much worse than the first time. I'm injured now, and my legs are already burning from the first climb. This time around, they ache so bone deep, I have to take small steps to avoid crying out. I can only take shallow breaths with my broken or bruised ribs. I don't know how bad it is, and right now, I don't care. It's all something that can be taken care of later.

A quarter of the way up the cliff, I have to stop to take a rest, my arms beginning to shake. My body screams at me, desperate for air, but I ignore it.

Climb, Fenwick, Giselle encourages as the other rats begin to climb after me, following our path. You've got this.

I nod and pull myself up higher, dragging my body until I'm forced to pause again. All I can think about is how glad I am that father didn't break my arm instead of my rib. The rib, I can push though. If my arm were broken, I'd never be able to make this climb. I'd be forced to heal.

Reaching for another handhold, I gasp when my hand slips and I nearly plumet to my death. I grunt in pain when my ribs hit against the wall, but I don't scream. I refuse. Below me, as the sun starts to rise in the sky, someone calls out.

"He's climbing again! Look at him!"

"What's he doing? Didn't he already fail once?"

"Someone, go get Bonaventure."

I ignore them all as a crowd begins to gather. Their opinions don't matter. Their taunts don't hurt me. Nothing can hurt me but myself.

When I have only a quarter of the way left to go, my family arrives in the crowd below. I know because they start shouting at my father about his embarrassing child. I glance over my shoulder to find my father sneering up at me with their words. Figures he'd show up to this one and not the first one, but I'm glad he's here. I'm glad he's going to witness this. Finley and Finnian are behind him, their eyes wide. Mother is the last to arrive, her arms wrapped around her body, her eye bruised. Anger fills me. He'd taken it out on her anyway. The bastard.

Climb, Fenwick. Finish this, Giselle encourages.

"What the fuck are you doing, rat?" Father shouts up at me. "Come back down this instant!"

I don't answer him. I only continue to climb. Fuck him and his orders.

"I am your father and?—"

"You're no father of mine," I cut him off. I look over my shoulder at him with hatred in my gaze. "Remember?"

His face twists with more menace than I've ever seen it. He turns to Finnian with that fire and gestures to him. "Go get him. I don't care if you have to push him off or drag him down. Just stop this madness."

Finnian hesitates only a moment before he hurries to the base of the cliff and begins to climb. I curse, knowing I have far less time now. Finnian is the fastest climber of all of us.

Go!Giselle orders. Fenwick, you must go! Hurry!

I push myself as hard as I can and hoist myself over the edge quickly. My ribs are screaming at me, my legs so weak they shake, but I force myself to stumble to the six stone bowls. I pull the matches from my pocket and start to light them. War. . . Greed. . . Eros. . . Botanical. . . Comedy. . .

I hesitate over the chaos bowl. I've never seen it lit, so I'm not sure it has the same magic as the other bowls.

Do it, Giselle whispers. So you have all options.

I do as she says, striking the match and holding it over the bowl. It roars to life immediately, the same as the others, the magic within the bowl catching. I toss the matches away and roll my shoulders.

Quickly, Giselle says.

Finnian shouts something up at me, but I can't understand the words. It sounds like he's about halfway up now, so I meet my father's eyes and hold my hand over Comedy. It goes out immediately this time, the flame sputtering and dying a quick death. I put my hand over Botanical. The flame goes out after a few seconds.

"Fenwick! Don't make me hurt you!" Finnian shouts, closer now.

I shove my hand into the eros flame and watch as it goes out, watch as it dies and festers. The bowl goes cold. The first inkling of panic starts to filter in through my mind. I'd been so sure. . .

Keep going!Giselle shouts in my mind. Don't stop now!

Finnian is almost to the top, so I place my hand into greed and watch as it goes out. Only war and chaos are still lit, the flames still flickering.

As Finnian hoists himself over the edge, I shove my hand in the war bowl. He's panting hard as he collects himself after the rapid climb. The flame in the war bowl goes out and I immediately move to the last one, my eyes on the green flames dancing there.

"What are you doing, Fen-dick?" Finnian snarls, taking a menacing step toward me. "Wasting everyone's time? Failing once wasn't enough for you?"

I turn to him, my eyes filled with annoyance. "Why won't you just leave me alone? I didn't ask anyone to be here. I'm not hurting you."

"You're embarrassing the Bonaventure name further," Finnian hisses. "A name I have to carry on after this. You being human doesn't matter to me, but it matters to Father, and I have no choice in the matter."

"You always have a choice," I spit. "And you chose wrong. You've all chosen wrong." I look back at the flame, my eyes flickering with the pretty color.

Finnian pulls his pipe out. "Don't make me do this, Fenwick."

"Do what you must," I say, tipping my chin up. "And I'll do what I must."

"Leap from the edge," Finnian orders. "It'll solve everything. You don't deserve this second chance. If you live and continue this ridiculous voyage, you sully our lineage. You could have just left. Now you leave me no choice. Just know that."

He lifts his pipe to his lips.

My eyes harden. My brother, who I'd meant no harm to, betrays me in this. If I'm a piper, his music won't even affect me once I get my pipe. If I'm not a piper, it will, and I'll die.

He should have stayed at the bottom.

"No," I tell him. "I will not leap."

"Leap," Finnian snarls. "Or I'll give you no choice."

I turn and meet his eyes. "Fuck you," I say, and shove my hand into the cold fire of the chaos bowl.

Finnian stares at my hand just as I do, waiting, watching. There hasn't been a chaos piper in centuries. We don't even know what a chaos piper does. We only know it's the most powerful of the six, and no doubt, my family thinks it could never be me, but something in my soul tells me the first test was wrong. That I'm a piper.

I watch the flames as they sputter and dance, and then go out.

My heart sinks as I stare at the bowl in horror. I've failed again. I was wrong.

Finnian laughs. "I told you, Fen-dick. You were never meant to be a Bonaventure." He takes a deep breath?—

And the flames erupt around me with a roar that surprises me. I stumble back and the flames come with me, crawling along my arm. It's so large, it turns me into a fireball as it surrounds me. Finnian shouts in surprise and stumbles back, his foot hitting the edge of the cliff. I can't even warn him as the fire turns from cold to hot as it consumes me. My scream is shriller than his as he goes over.

I knew it, Giselle whispers. I knew you were something great, Fenwick.

The flames suddenly dissipate, taking their pain with them, and leave me behind to stand at the top of the cliff alone. I look over at my right hand where a pipe now exists when it didn't before. It's wooden, nothing special about it compared to the others I've seen, but where the band would normally be green for greed or black for war, the band on this one is gold.

This time, when Giselle speaks, her words aren't just in my mind. They're out loud.

"Show them," she says, her whiskers tickling my jaw. "Show them who you are, Fenwick."

I step to the edge of the cliff and look down. The townspeople stumble back in fear, their eyes on the body of my brother where he'd shattered against the rocks below. My father stares up at me with horrified eyes and I meet them without flinching. This is it. This is what I was meant for.

I grin. "Am I a Bonaventure now, Father?" I ask and lift the new pipe to my lips.