Page 35

He bit his lip, nodding. “Ahh. Right. Of course.”

Emelle stood on tiptoe, trying to see over the heads of our classmates in front of us… an impossible feat, at her height. “What is Mrs. Wildenberg saying?”

Rodhi shrugged. “Something about the root system of the jungle. She probably wants it to strangle us, knowing her. I’ve only met one old lady crazier than this one, and that’s—oh, here we go.”

Mrs. Wildenberg had turned and started hobbling down a narrow lane between buildings, toward the Arboretum. Two by two, the class followed, though we didn’t stop in the Arboretum itself.

Shit. I’d been hoping we would meditate today, so that I could ask the trees where Jagaros was. Instead, Mrs. Wildenberg led us deeper into jungle territory, where we treaded through a shallow stream, trying not to trip over ferns as the ground began to squelch underfoot.

For a moment, I thought we might be headed toward the same crocodile swamps Mr. Conine had led us to on our first day of class two years ago.

Toward the place Fergus Bilderas had died.

My heart pounded against my sternum. I’d strapped my knives to my thigh as usual, and now they burned against my skin as images flashed through my mind.

The marshes blooming with blood as the crocodiles tore into Fergus’s body.

Garvis, laying crooked on the ground with my blades imbedded in him.

Kitterfol Lexington’s head rolling off his shoulders, thunking to the ground.

My fault. Every death—be it friend or foe—was my fault in some way, and the muggy air condensed, thick in my lungs, and my head swam, and—

Mrs. Wildenberg angled right, away from the swamps.

“Come on, Rayna,” Rodhi murmured, hoisting me by the elbow to help me up a cleft I’d nearly tripped over. He glanced at my face, brows knitted in concern, but didn’t ask me any questions. Emelle didn’t ask questions, either, but she took one look at my face and grabbed my hand.

Gratefully, I held it for the next half a mile or so, my heartbeat slowly setting into a normal rhythm until the trees thinned out and Mrs. Wildenberg stopped.

“Ahhh, here we are!”

She turned, her jowls lifting in a smile, and gestured at the wide expanse of smooth muck spreading beyond her, ringed by many bald cypresses in the distance—not a marsh, but a barren stretch of glistening wet land without other plant life.

“Quicksand!” Mrs. Wildenberg exclaimed happily, clapping her hands.

Several of the class backed away from the mudline’s edge, everyone stepping on each other’s toes in their haste to retreat, but she didn’t seem to notice. In fact, our Language of Plants instructor merely smiled at the quicksand like it was just a cute little feature of the land.

“Now, contrary to the scary stories you all probably heard as children, quicksand can’t actually pull you under… under normal circumstances.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Rodhi said under his breath.

“Luckily,” Mrs. Wildenberg continued, “I was able to get an Element Wielding instructor to alter the density of this particular patch so that it can suck us under.”

“And why the hell would you want to do that?” Norman Pollard exclaimed before he brought a fist to his mouth, evidently remembering too late that it wasn’t the wisest thing on the island to curse at an instructor.

Mrs. Wildenberg didn’t appear to hear him anyway. I was beginning to think she’d lost her hearing long ago, because she merely pointed a gnarled finger at the quicksand. “Remember, a buzzing hum intervened by loud and frequent clicks. In you get!”

By the orchid and the owl, was she really going to make us do this? One glance at the cypress trees in the distance told me their branches weren’t long enough to reach out and save us no matter how much we called for them.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Mrs. Wildenberg asked when nobody moved.

Yes, she was really going to make us do this, then.

With a jolt, the frontmost Wild Whisperers stepped out into the quicksand, moving at a sluggish pace as soon as their feet hit the sludge. Mitzi and Cilia went in next, followed by Norman and Pierson, their figures sinking beneath the surface. Rodhi cursed, Emelle whimpered, and Gileon wrung his hands as the line moved forward, until it was our turn.

“Told you so,” Rodhi said through clenched teeth, not bothering to lower his voice anymore. “Crazier than a hog-nosed bat.” And he jumped into the quicksand.

“Maybe we should have slept in a little longer,” Emelle said with a grimace.