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Dazmine folded her arms with a spark of triumph in her eyes. “If you’re going to be talking to a cat, you need a Wild Whisperer.”

“No,” Terrin said immediately, stiffening.

She gaped at him. “Don’t you no me.”

“You’re on the run from the Good Council,” he growled. “The last thing you need is to go back into that dome, closer to the fucking Good Council. Again.”

Ignoring him, Dazmine shifted her glare toward me instead. “I just fell on my ass about fifty times in the last hour because of this damn ship rocking. It never stops rocking and I’m sick of it. So if you’re taking him back to the island—” She jerked a thumb at Terrin without looking at him. “—then you’re taking me, too.”

“Don’t do it,” Terrin warned me. “She’s a menace. She’ll only make your life harder.” Something else lurked beneath his tone, graver than he wanted to let on.

I considered Dazmine. We didn’t know where Jagaros was or how he’d react to our plan yet, but if I’d learned anything about leading in the past year, it was to accept help when you needed it. And we sure as hell needed all the help we could get.

“Alright,” I said. “But on one condition.”

She uncrossed her arms. “What?”

I knew I was about to sound like a massive hypocrite, but we couldn’t have anything jeopardize this mission. I nodded at Terrin.

“Whatever you two have going on, fuck it out of your system or get over it. I don’t care which one.”

CHAPTER

11

RAYNA

“I can’t believe you just said that.”

“What?” I blinked through my groggy vision until Felicity’s affronted face swam into view, morning sunlight highlighting the monkey as she hung over my bed.

“I told you to get up because you’re going to be late to class, and you told me to go suck a banana. I don’t even like bananas!”

“Late to… oh shit!”

I bolted upright, my gaze snagging on Emelle’s sleeping form across the room, her mouth agape as she drooled into her pillow. Cilia’s bed was empty, her cover rumpled and pillow still indented—she must have just left.

Grabbing my own pillow, I chucked it across the room at Emelle. “Hey, Melle, wake up! We slept in!”

Coen must have slept in, too, for I didn’t feel his dark, fathomless presence in my mind, but Emelle’s birds were pecking at the window per usual, and Willa twitched her whiskers at me from the top of my nightstand.

“Does this mean no time for breakfast?”

“Sorry, Willa.” I hopped out of bed, throwing open my dresser drawers and tearing out the first outfit I saw. “I’ll bring you extra treats tonight… Emelle!” I threw another pillow at her until she shot upward with a grunt.

“Huh? Oh, no.” She rubbed her eyes, blinking heavily, just as Felicity plucked the outfit from my hands and held it up against me.

“Here, let me help you. I designed this one to be a cute little crossbody, but it has a lot of laces in the back that need to be tied into bows. You’re horrible at tying bows, by the way.”

“Oh… thanks?”

“You’re welcome,” Felicity said cheerfully.

Five minutes later, Emelle and I were racing down Bascite Boulevard, across the arched bridge, and into the Wild Whispering sector, toward Mrs. Wildenberg’s classroom in building 3E. Like usual, she had the class gathered outside the front door, speaking in a warbling tone about the upcoming lesson, and didn’t seem to notice Emelle or me skirt to a stop on the edge of the crowd.

Someone else, however, did. Standing in the back beside Gileon and that ever-present rhinoceros beetle, Rodhi leaned over and whispered out of the corner of his mouth, “You two must have either had a really rough night or a really good one. I can’t tell.”

Rodhi had his own secrets, and I trusted him with mine. But at the risk of other ears listening in, I whispered, “Just… upset about the whole Wild Whispering magic dying out and all that. Stayed up late worrying about it.”