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The class burst into motion.

Panic frayed at my brain as I scrabbled at anything and everything in my vicinity. A bundle of tapered eucalyptus leaves. Violet petals. Spindly roots that looked like they’d been ripped from glory lilies. Tapered nettle stems.

Everyone was shouting at each other, trying to remember anything Mrs. Wildenberg might have said about the antidotal properties of plants in the last two years. Norman Pollard began begging a stalk of pennywort to tell him what to do, but the stalk of pennywort was dead, its roots already dried and shriveled. Someone else tried asking the scorpion itself, but it only rattled on about being hungry.

Wild Whispering wouldn’t help us right now.

So I looked up and barrelled into Mrs. Smetlar’s own mind.

Just like the only other time I’d been in her skull, I found myself in a nest made of bristled walls spiked with sticks and thorns. Mrs. Smetlar’s consciousness wasn’t tall or domineering like she was in real life, but hunched and shriveled. I shot past it, into the maze of her mind, trying to grasp at the information she was keeping hidden from all of us. Left, right, straight, over mounds of moldy feathers I searched, shoving past misty memories that played for me like wispy nightmares.

Nothing. Dimly, as if from another world, I could hear Emelle screaming as Rodhi gurgled. But Mrs. Smetlar herself didn’t know of any scorpion sting antidote.

No, the thing that echoed loudest in here was that moment right after she’d crushed Gileon’s beetle, when Rodhi had set a horde of spiders upon her.

This was revenge. This was murder.

I ripped myself out of her mind. The entire class had gathered around Rodhi, who was foaming at the mouth, his eyes rolling to the back of his head. Pierson Kaddor shoved some kind of gnarled tuber into his mouth, but Rodhi only continued to seize and foam, and we were losing him, and Fabian hadn’t taught me how to summon liquids like venom out of a bloodstream yet. In fact, he’d told me that many Object Summoners could never accomplish such a task, given that liquids tended to leak from our invisible fingers just as surely as they would our physical ones.

A frustrated shriek built in my chest. We were going to lose Rodhi to a stupid arachnid sting.

Arachnid…

Arachnid.

Ms. Pincette. I didn’t spend a second longer debating it. I shot my Mind Manipulating power out harder and further than ever before, casting a net over this entire floor of the Testing Center and rifling through all the minds until I latched onto our Spiders, Worms, and Insects instructor with a vise-like grip. I didn’t care about revealing my secret to her, didn’t care if this landed me in even more trouble.

If anyone could save Rodhi from the venom of an eight-legged arthropod, it was her.

Ms. Pincette, I panted. Her entire consciousness stiffened at my voice in her head. It’s Rodhi. Mrs. Smetlar’s trying to kill him. You have to come.

I relayed the entire situation within seconds and then rushed to Rodhi’s side.

His arms were still twitching, but I couldn’t hear him breathing anymore. Grabbing his hand, I held on tight, telling him to hold on just a little longer…

The door at the other end of the testing room burst open. Ms. Pincette swept in, a raging storm that even Mrs. Smetlar cringed away from. Her eyes went from Rodhi to the mess of herbs on the desks and floor and back to Rodhi. Something animalistic, something not quite human, seemed to flash within them.

“Get out of my way,” was all she said. More venom leaked from her voice than what a scorpion could possibly sting anyone with.

I released Rodhi’s hand. We all flew backward, pressing ourselves to the sides of the testing room to give her an open path, and she moved too fast for me to even make out which leaves and roots and petals she picked to grind together.

“Go to Mrs. Wildenberg’s testing room,” she told nobody in particular, “and grab me one of her teacups. Make sure it’s full. Now.”

Norman Pollard broke into a run. He was back within thirty seconds, by which time Ms. Pincette had made a paste that she dumped into the tea and mixed with her finger. It was only during that motion that I saw how hard her wrists were shaking, especially as Rodhi began to go motionless and quiet in the armchair.

She whipped around. Brought the tea to his foaming mouth. Grabbed him by the hair and tipped his head back to dump the contents down his throat.

Several heart-stopping moments beat through me. Silence reverberated through the room. The last time one of my friends had been dying, I’d tried to break into his mind only to find it empty.

I couldn’t do that again, couldn’t bear—

Rodhi’s eyes flew open. He gasped, then went predatorily still as he registered Ms. Pincette’s face inches from his, her hand still grasping him by the hair.

Slowly, a smile spread across his face. His voice came out raspy.

“I should get myself stung by scorpions more often.”

Relief coursed through me, so potent I had to double over a nearby desk. With a sharp exhale, Ms. Pincette released him and rounded on Mrs. Smetlar.