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“Sorry if we stink,” Emelle said later that evening when we sat down next to Wren in the dining hall, dripping all over the chairs and floor. “It was water buffalo day.”

Wren waved a hand over her bowl of steaming butter bean soup. “At least it wasn’t piranhas.” She shuddered. “You’ll need a hefty dose of curare when Mr. Conine introduces you to them next year.”

“You know what?” Willa scurried out of my front pocket, down my arm, and onto the table; she and Felicity had been waiting for us all by the front door as soon as we’d made it home after class. “For my own happiness and quality of life, I choose to believe that piranhas don’t exist.”

“Easy for you to say when you live your whole life in the baseboards,” Felicity chirped quite cheerfully, then shoved a hunk of cheese in front of Willa before the mouse could respond. “I got you this, by the way.”

“Are you stealing from Cook now? Naughty monkey.” Rodhi threw himself down beside me and nabbed a piece of grilled pineapple from a platter in the center of the table. “Don’t you say a word,” he added when Wren lifted her eyebrows at his forehead, where a streak of brown had dried on his skin. “It’s not my fault I had to intimately learn where the word bullshit comes from.”

Emelle and I laughed. Gileon’s mouth lifted in a half-smile, but he didn’t say anything. My heart hurt for him. He’d been even quieter than usual since the death of Nuisance and our visit to the Uninhabitable Zone, but I had no doubt that he and Wren were doing the work Coen had assigned them in secret, as were Emelle, Lander, and Rodhi.

None of us had spoken to each other about it, though. Despite the clamor of our fellow Wild Whisperers around us, it didn’t feel safe to so much as breathe one wrong word under our breaths.

Which is why I used my Mind Manipulating power to nudge Rodhi now.

Hey.

He coughed and thumped his chest. God of the Cosmos, I forgot that you can do that. Give a man a warning next time, will you, darling? I could have choked on that pineapple… and that would have been a really lame way to die.

I clamped down on my snort. The leader of the spider wars can’t handle a little mind-to-mind talk?

The leader of the spider wars has a lot of shit to deal with right now, Rodhi corrected. And not just the kind streaked on my forehead. He smiled without looking at me, though. What’s up?

You know where all the instructors live, right?

Just the ones I love or hate, remember? Love Ms. Pincette, hate Mrs. Smetlar.

Right. I nodded down at my bowl of soup and took an inconspicuous sip. Do you have any particularly strong feelings about Mr. Gleekle, by chance?

The water buffalo had made me realize it was time for me to stop looking for our president in passing and start taking more direct routes. Such as his personal abode, wherever it was.

You mean the man who presses a scorching hot brand against every eighteen-year-old against their will every year and hands over hundreds of innocents to be tortured, all under the guise of protecting us from nonexistent monsters? Rodhi shrugged. Yeah, I would say I have a few choice words for him.

I took another quick sip of soup. Knew I could count on you.

Nighttime pulsed with sound around me. Nightjars churred out love songs, frogs croaked out to each other, and insects buzzed in my ear as I tiptoed along the arched bridge and made it to the Element Wielder sector.

I’d never been to this part of the Institute before, but there was no mistaking what kind of magic was used within and between buildings here. Scorch marks plastered brick walls, icicles hung from the edges of the roofs, and random mounds of rocks blocked my path, forcing me to take detours through smaller alleyways. The wind seemed particularly riotous as well, whistling and swirling around me as if it were used to playing with whoever traversed this labyrinth of lanes.

Finally, I came to the bungalow Rodhi had described. Nestled among spindly rubber trees, it was a simple, one-story structure with a pointed roof and firelight flickering past the windowpanes.

Sucking in a breath, I rehearsed what I was going to say as I walked up the brick path to the front door.

Hello, Mr. Gleekle. I’m having some trouble with my new magic. Do you know when my mentor will be here? I want to make sure that I’m in complete control so that I can help the Good Council to the best of my ability.

I grimaced. Even in my head, the words sounded staged, and I had no idea how I’d steer the conversation into a more… confidential direction. But I had to try.

Just as I raised a fist to knock on Mr. Gleekle’s door, a rustling of wings and a particularly shrill hoot caught my attention.

“Perhaps the face of what cannot be trusted is nothing but a sculpture.”

“Oh, hello,” I told the owl perched on Mr. Gleekle’s rooftop, then shook my head. “Wait, what?”

“Perhaps it is merely molded to replicate that which you must fight to keep you fighting in the wrong direction,” the owl said.

I sighed. The bird that my sector’s motto was based on always spoke in riddles and timeless wisdom, and I’d never quite gotten the hang of dissecting their meanings as quickly as Emelle could. Still, something about the owl’s tone made my fist pause mid-air. Like it was warning me of…what?

“Perhaps,” the owl continued, “the real face of danger is not the sculpted and molded before you, but the sculptor and molder behind your back.”