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“Okay?” I urged when she didn’t answer right away.

“Okay, okay. I’ll go find Cici. But whatever this activity is—” Felicity patted my petal-embroidered sleeve. “—it’d better not ruin your dress.”

I waited until she’d hopped down and scampered off before finally turning back to Quinn.

“So…” I touched my throat, as if I could steady the words as they came out. “Are you my fellow pre-elite? You’re part of this, too?”

I already knew the answer, of course—unbeknownst to her, I’d spied on her with Rodhi and Dazmine last year—but it would probably look suspicious if I didn’t ask questions. I wasn’t supposed to know what I was walking into, after all.

“Yes.” Quinn had half-turned away from me, but paused with a look back. “Listen…” She hesitated, the side of her face flickering in candlelight. “I don’t know what the hell you did to get the Good Council’s attention, but this isn’t something you can just twirl and prance your way through like usual.”

Twirl and prance? When did I ever do that? Besides my dancing with Felicity a few minutes ago, anyway, which was a rare occurrence, thank you very much.

Quinn’s mouth tightened, as if she could sense the protest on the tip of my tongue. “This is a serious privilege, Rayna. Don’t fuck it up.”

Oh, I planned to. As soon as she led me out this door, I planned to bolt before she could lead me to Mr. Gleekle and this so-called initiation ceremony. I could hide out in the jungle until Coen returned, and then… and then…

Would he risk touching me to Walk me to the ship? Or would he falter, so consumed with his fear of hurting me that I’d be stuck on this island after all?

My breath quickened as Quinn led the way out of the alcove, back into the heart of the party where everyone was still drinking and dancing under the string of instruments above our heads. Felicity had made it to Cilia on the other side of the room, but I didn’t allow myself to glance her way lest she catch my true emotions breaking through my expression. I simply followed Quinn to the front door.

Run away and Coen will come for you, I told myself. Even if Quinn tried to stop me with her powers, I had my own to fight back with. The last thing I wanted to do was use Mind Manipulating against her like her mother had, but if I could just make it to the jungle, I had Wild Whispering to protect me. And from there, Coen would come for me.

He had to come for me.

Then Quinn opened the door, and my plan wilted right before my eyes.

“Ms. Drey!” the president of the Esholian Institute said with a too-wide, pleasant smile, standing just outside. “I am so glad that you could join us tonight.”

CHAPTER

18

RAYNA

My eyes darted past Mr. Gleekle in a frantic attempt to find a way out of this, but he wasn’t alone.

Standing in a perfect semicircle behind him were more than a dozen other students, most of whom I vaguely recognized as the ones Rodhi, Dazmine, and I had spied on last year. There, on the leftmost side, was the boy who’d been branded with Element Wielding in that strange stone basin in the jungle, causing fireballs to shoot toward the sky. He’d looked so nervous back then, but he wasn’t now.

Now he and all the others held broad stances, hands curled into fists or fingers flexing as if prepared to use their powers against me at any moment. They didn’t have little red dots in the center of their brands, but they looked so much like the Good Council that chills scraped over my skin despite the muggy warmth outside.

These students… they wanted to be elites after the Final Test.

And if I tried to run now, they’d obliterate me as if they already were.

A click behind me made me jump. Quinn had shut the mansion door, cutting us all off from the din of the Object Summoner party until only the faint, thumping undertone of music remained. Without glancing at me, she strode down the stoop to take her place among the semi-circle behind Mr. Gleekle.

“Well, shall we?” Mr. Gleekle asked in a carefully cheerful voice, his spectacles winking in the starlight that spilled through the clouds above.

No. Please no. I don’t want another magic. Don’t want to lose control of myself and turn into a monster.

Of course, I couldn’t say any of that out loud, so I unleashed the breath caught in my throat. Tilted my chin up. Grazed my fingers along the dress Felicity had made, feeling the knife sheath around my thigh.

“Yes,” I said, trying to match his cheerful tone.

It was then that Quinn caught my eye from behind him. Her lips moved imperceptibly, and I lowered my blockade long enough to hear her blazing thoughts repeating her earlier statement: This is a serious privilege, Rayna. Don’t fuck it up.

Was she really that smitten with the Good Council now—the same girl who’d once claimed that the elites needed to remove the sticks from their asses—or was she trying to warn me? Probably the former, but I cleared my throat anyway.