Page 139 of By the Orchid and the Owl

I dipped my head.

“I will find Coen Steeler for you, ma’am.”

“What’s wrong, darling?” Rodhi slung an arm around my shoulder. “We get a whole three-month break before classes resume! You should be smiling.”

The rest of my friends were walking alongside us, too, as we took a midnight walk through campus. Lander was popping into different animals at random, making Emelle burst out with giggles while Wren rolled her eyes at Gileon, trying to keep her grin hidden beneath her pursed mouth.

We weren’t the only ones. It seemed that out of everyone on campus, only Quinn and I had been brought into the Testing Center for questioning. Everywhere we turned, groups of people swaggered this way and that, celebrating the end of a year and the months-long break we’d get before our next one started. The Element Wielders sent sparks shooting and spiraling through the air, lighting up all of campus with their sizzling magic.

In three months, a fresh batch of eighteen-year-olds would arrive at the courtyard. I’d be in the stadiums for the Branding this time, watching as bursts of power exploded from them all.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the ones who’d taken their Final Tests today, though. Many had passed, but some had failed—had joined the carriages behind the Testing Center that would take them out to sea and force them through the shield.

The same shield Coen Steeler had apparently escaped through this morning. Would he be one of the pirates waiting for them on the other side? Would he jump his previous classmates, ripping into them and stealing more magic for himself? Or would he just chain them up, too?

I made myself smile up at Rodhi.

“Oh, nothing’s wrong. I’m just wondering who attacked Jenia.”

That wasn’t necessarily a lie, actually. Jenia Leake’s sudden appearance in the sick bay with bloodied gauze wrapped around her head was another thing that seemed weird… as if I was supposed to have that memory, that knowledge of how it had happened, but it had leaked out from between my fingers. One of those five pirates had to have been involved—why else would Jenia’s older sister have investigated their childhoods and turned them in?

“Want my guess?” Rodhi asked, a manic glint in his eyes. I was used to that glint by now. It meant he was about to make a comment about Ms. Pincette’s ass or something else as equally rude and inappropriate.

“What?” I asked, huffing out my exasperation.

“She was looking in the mirror for too long and it shattered.”

At that moment, Lander popped into a peacock, and even Wren muffled a laugh against her sleeve when he screeched out a pathetic warble that sounded a lot like Mrs. Wildenberg. I’d asked each of them if they’d been approached by someone from the Good Council this morning, keeping my question purposely vague, and they’d each looked at me with a blank stare—even Emelle, who’d woken up with Lander, had only asked me in a quiet, concerned tone, “Why? Did something happen, Rayna? Wherewereyou last night anyway?”

I’d simply shaken my head and mumbled something about a hangover. Better not to get them involved, not when their biggest concern right now was the screech of Lander’s cringy attempt at mimicking a peacock.

I was grateful for the distraction of their joy, anyway.

While everyone else started warbling back at Lander, I threw a glance out toward the sea. I couldn’t see the ships speckling the horizon right now, but I knew they were out there, lurking, like always, on the other side of the shield.

And Coen Steeler was on one of them.

Predators can’t stay away from their prey, dear one.

If it was true—if he’d put these bruises on me, if his people were killing more and more innocent civilians by the day—then I’d feel no regret when I did what I had to do.

Lure him in. Catch him. Turn him in to the Good Council for execution.

For Fabian and Don and the coastal villages and myself, I could do that. That icy fear had coated my veins as soon as I’d left the Testing Center, locking itself into place and filling me with something cold and empty—like the space between stars.

But that coldness and emptiness could be honed. I thought about my mother’s knife, still sheathed and buried deep in an inside-pocket of my bag. I’d never used it.Thatwas something I remembered very clearly, as if the scrap of knowledge had been left out like a beacon, like a shiny coin for me to pick up and turn round and round in my mind to inspect.

Next year would be different.

Iwould be different.

I’m ready for you, Coen Steeler,I sent out into the night filled with sparks.

But this time I would be the predator, and he would be the prey.