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Jagaros sighed, leaning over the limestone railings twined with vines.

“The humans of this island don’t get their magic directly from my people, but they still get it from faeries. Your abilities to talk to wildlife, manipulate minds, and move objects are still considered… unjustifiably earned.”

“Because true faeries have to go through a catastrophic event for their powers to emerge?” I ventured. And we were simply stamped with a brand of stolen magic…

“Oh, not just that.” Kanuk had set his basket down and was now juggling five tangerines at once. “That Sorronian fyci Dyonisia Reeve, she takes the original Good Council’s magic and synthetically enhances it. Take your Mind Manipulating—” Without dropping a single fruit, Kanuk nodded at my head as if he could see right through my skull. “It may have started from a specific kind of telepathic magic, but Dyonisia expanded it to include mind control and erasing memories as well. And your Wild Whispering?” He snorted. “That falls under naturalistic magic like mine, but a true faerie power would only give you the ability to talk to plants or animals. Not both. Again, Dyonisia expanded this magic to give her citizens an unnaturally large scope of power.”

My skin went cold despite the buttery sunlight flowing over us. I glanced over my shoulder at all the faeries still facing off in the training ring, and it hit me just how much Dyonisia had tampered with natural faerie power.

The female who could suck air from your lungs—she obviously had a type of elemental magic, and it was impressive, but… both Terrin and Quinn could probably do something similar as well as manipulate fire, water, and the ground. And that male who could turn bones into mush—he obviously had a specific type of metamorphosis magic that Lander would be able to do if he just practiced hard enough. Yet Lander could also shift himself, other people, and other objects.

An unnaturally large scope of power. And I had three of them. No wonder these faeries hated me.

Jagaros peered sideways at me with a huff. “You need to learn to control the emotions on your face, Rayna Drey.”

“What?”

“I know you’re feeling guilty even though all these powers were forced upon you. And my warriors don’t hate you. They just don’t trust you. But you’re also forgetting what I told you on your first day in the Uninhabitable Zone.”

I raised an eyebrow, sort of hating how well he could read me when we’d hardly seen each other over the last year. “Which is?”

Jagaros kept his pupils on the flashing of fish down below. “Our natural powers may be more limited than a synthetic enhancement of magic, but they run so much deeper. For instance, a Wild Whisperer at your Institute wouldn’t be able to sense one of their soul-bound animal friends approaching from ten miles away, but Kanuk can. And so can I when I take his form.”

He’d barely spoken the words out loud when I heard the quiet padding of feet from over my shoulder. I turned, tangerine juice running down my wrist, to find a massive white tiger prowling up the walkway toward us.

It was Jagaros, but not. The form he took outside the Uninhabitable Zone, I knew instantly, but not the faerie king of old himself. There was something a little more casual and indifferent about the creature who came to a halt on its haunches before us, tail swishing, eyes flicking off to the side.

“Hello,” I told the tiger nervously.

He lifted a paw to lick himself with a rough pink tongue. “I have no interest in pleasantries right now. Only fish.”

Kanuk rolled his eyes, finally catching all his tangerines and ripping into one of them. “Do you have a singular ounce of patience within you, cat? I told you we’d go catch some fish together this evening.”

Despite the exasperation he pushed out, there was an unmistakable affection leaking from his words. Soul-bound, Jagaros had called their connection. He was right. Even though I loved Felicity and Willa with all my heart, I wouldn’t be able to sense their locations or thoughts without Mind Manipulating to enhance my Wild Whispering.

I snuck a glance at Jagaros, who was back to gazing down at the ponds, more curious than ever about his own power. Mine is similar to Shape Shifting, he’d told me, except my change is effortless and permanent until I decide to change again.

Although he might not be able to shift anything other than himself, he wasn’t exerting himself right now like Lander would have to if he turned into an animal. Eventually, Lander would run out of energy and pop back into his original form.

Jagaros, it seemed, could stay like this for the rest of his life if he wanted to.

“Do you ever take another form besides this one and the tiger’s?” I asked.

“No, but he should,” the tiger answered in his stead. “It’s quite aggravating to see my own face scowling so much.”

“Took the words straight out of my mouth,” Kanuk said.

Jagaros scowled at them both. I bit down on a laugh as he grumbled, “I can only shift into that which I have brushed shoulders with. After that, the form becomes a part of me, like one of many masks that I can slide on at will. But it is risky to change forms, Rayna Drey. The body I don doesn’t control me, but it does influence how I feel, how I perceive the world. When I am the tiger, I wouldn’t think twice about eating all your little mice and bird friends.”

“Hey!” I gaped at him. “You told me you’d never dream of eating Willa!”

“Because when I’m in that tiger form, I dream about much larger meals,” Jagaros replied. I wrinkled my nose as he continued. “And when I’m this, I find myself with an inflated ego just like my idiot brother.”

“Not my fault I’m the finest specimen of the last five centuries.” Kanuk shrugged and finished off his tangerine with a lick of his fingers.

Jagaros shook his head. His eyes flitted to my hair and eyes and freckles before he looked away just as quickly. “No, I may have used my power generously once upon a time, but now I stick to these two forms.”

There was something else, something hovering just beyond the reach of his words. So many secrets he had, this ancient male. I folded my arms over the balcony railing and rested my chin against the soothing tune of the vines.