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Yes! Not born immune, but… The girl hiccupped. Those little red dots they ink into the center of our brands once we’re in—they grant immunity.

A pause. My heart thrummed as I absorbed this information.

Last year when I’d gone through Coen’s memories, I’d learned that Dyonisia’s power was conscious. It wasn’t inherently fatal no matter what. She could decide who to kill based on the type of magic someone had, and seemed to target other fairies with powers of their own while sparing any human with one of the five branded magics.

Why would the elites even need immunity, then? Coen couldn’t Walk directly into the prison because of his faerie blood, but the elites were all humans.

Unless…

Fuck it, I need another drink, the first voice interjected before I could finish my thought.

A door banged open from down the hall. I had one second to take in the sight of the three pre-elites before I dove behind the statue out of view.

Their footsteps drew nearer. My blood pounded in my ears. If they saw me hiding here, they’d recognize me, maybe even realize I’d been eavesdropping. And pre-elites were so ruthless that I had no doubt they’d attack if so.

Play dead. That’s what Billy the opossum would tell me.

I dropped to the floor next to the two snoring girls. Laid my head on the nearest one’s shoulder, drew my blockade tight around me, and began to snore too, most of my face and hair bathed in the shadow of the statue.

The pre-elites neared and passed, their actual voices whispering about how lame the party was and whether they should just go home after another drink.

I cracked an eye open just in time to watch the three of them disappear down the spiral staircase.

My heart ticked to a slower rhythm. God, that had been close. And maybe not even worth it, because I wasn’t sure what they’d just said even made sense.

Unless, that thought of mine from earlier whispered again, Dyonisia’s antipower isn’t as controlled or precise as we initially believed.

Maybe her milky mist was conscious to a degree, but she couldn’t quite keep constant tabs on every single person in the prison. And if her antipower kept the exiled ones locked up, she’d need a way to ensure her elites could walk in and out as they pleased.

I shook my head and scrambled to a stand. It didn’t matter if the pre-elites were right or not. It didn’t even matter if I could make sense of it or not. It was still information Coen might find useful, and since he wasn’t here…

Hurrying to a random door a few statues down, I pressed my ear against it. When silence was the only thing that greeted me, I opened it and slipped through.

Inside, the room flickered with light the moment I stepped past the threshold. I jumped, but it was just a candle on a nightstand, evidently fueled with Element Wielder magic to make it light up in someone’s presence.

Hardly daring to exhale, I snuck to a desk and slid out the drawer to find a pen and piece of paper.

Fabian had just started teaching me how to enchant objects the way he’d enchanted his letter to lead me to the abandoned classroom once upon a time. While I couldn’t quite grasp the ability to do so after a period of initial dormancy like he’d done, I’d been surprised to find how easily the basic version came to me. I’d already sent some coins and clocks soaring all the way across campus. All you had to do was imagine the person or place you wanted the object to make it to and shove.

Pen in hand, I laid the paper on the surface of the desk.

Coen,

The Esholian Institute is growing restless. They think the ‘king’ is killing the elites. Dyonisia might be losing a bit of loyalty among the pre-elites, too. They say the red dots in the center of the Good Council brands grant them immunity to her antipower.

I paused before I folded up the paper. Maybe Coen was on his way to the ball right now, and this letter would flutter straight into his hands. In that case, I wanted him to appear at my side knowing what my answer was.

And I want to go to the temple with you, too. Neh vi otla niemperra.

-Little Hurricane

There. I kissed the paper, folded it up, and imagined Coen so fiercely that my heart strained within my ribcage. Then I opened the room’s window and used my Object Summoning hands to shove the letter out into the night sky.

It fluttered off toward the jungle like a misshapen bird. Toward Coen, wherever he was.

Maybe I would have spent the rest of the evening staring out after it, wondering when it would reach him, if the door hadn’t flung open behind me.

“What the fuck are you doing in my room?” a voice asked.