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I hadn’t forgotten Dyonisia’s claim that I’d be a good recruit for their pre-elite system, where Mr. Gleekle pulled individual students away for a second secret Branding. For me, that would actually mean a third Branding…and judging by how the exiled ones had handled multiple magics, neither Coen nor I thought it was a risk worth taking.

As soon as Mr. Gleekle sought me out and gave me a date for my recruitment, Coen would have to finally face me in person to steal me away before a third brand could touch my skin—before too much magic made me turn into a monster, too.

I shuddered and closed my eyes for a moment, trying to refocus on our current predicament rather than future worries. Mr. Gleekle hadn’t approached me yet. I still had time. Coen still had time.

And until our time was up, I’d be right here with my friends, fighting from the inside out.

I opened my eyes again. Next to me, Rodhi was leaning back in his chair, and a thought scratched at the back of my brain.

“Wait, Gil. Did you say Mrs. Smetlar’s interrogating the centipedes?” I glanced at Rodhi. “Where’s Ms. Pincette?” As our Spiders, Worms, & Insects instructor, she was much more qualified to deal with the arthropod community.

Rodhi shrugged, his arms splayed across the back of his chair.

“She’s away.”

“Away?”

“You know. On vacation.” He tossed me a wink that told me his favorite instructor was most definitely not on vacation. “But she’ll be back by the Branding tomorrow.”

I smothered a smile at the thought of Ms. Pincette leading her own secret rebellion among the arachnids of the island. Maybe she and Rodhi were getting closer to taking over the Good Council’s spiders on Bascite Mountain.

Wren, however, scowled. “You’re such a stalker, you know that, Rodhi?”

“And yet,” he sighed dreamily, “Ms. Pincette’s never asked me to stop. So if it’s not unwanted, is it really stalking?”

Wren narrowed her eyes. “If she did ask you to stop ogling at her, then, you’d do it?”

“Yes,” Rodhi answered immediately. “I’d have to rip out my own eyeballs, but yes, I’d stop in a heartbeat.”

“Oh, gross.” Emelle wrinkled her nose. “We didn’t need that mental image, Rodhi.”

“What? I think I’d look good with a couple of eyepatches, don’t you?”

“Actually,” Gileon said with his mouth full of casserole, “you wouldn’t be able to look at all.”

It took the rest of us a few moments of silent blinking, but then we all burst out into fits of laughter. As Rodhi and Wren launched into a sudden joke war, I shoveled down the rest of my dinner, my mind drifting to Coen.

Wondering where he was right now.

Wondering when he’d be back.

Wondering if he was okay.

And wishing, once again, that we shared a bond strong enough to tell me.

CHAPTER

5

COEN

I was bleeding all over the seventh floor of the royal library.

“For fuck’s sake,” I murmured, looking down at where that guard’s spear had grazed my skin. In the moment, I hadn’t felt more than a sting. Now, pain throbbed where the tip of the spear had torn off a chunk of my flesh, and blood dripped from the wound in steady, thick, dark globs.

Oh, well. I deserved some kind of dent on my body as a reminder of what I’d done. And a little scratch like this wouldn’t kill me. Ever since I’d matured as a faerie, my bones and skin seemed to mend more easily, so I’d just have to ask a healer to wrap my torso when I got back to the flagship.

First, though, I needed to utilize my last day in the library and get back to Rayna with the right book.