Chapter 4

On the day of the Moon Selection, everyone wore the cloak of their branch.

Mine was the oldest. My grandmother said old cloth carried the scent of family, and the Moon Well would remember. I did not know whether it would, but I remembered how her hands shook the entire time she fastened my collar pin.

Sabine bumped into me before we entered.

She apologized with an innocent smile. But the moonstone case slipped from my hands and hit the ground, and the cracked shard rolled into the cleansing basin beside the Moon Well. Black mist bloomed across the water, and the alarm bell tore through the plaza.

The ritual master raised his staff at once. "Contamination alert. Candidate, step away from the Moon Well."

Rowan stepped forward faster than anyone. "Someone who can't even keep hold of her moonstone shouldn't continue the test."

I looked at him. In that instant, the fog at the old hunting ground, the document at the Youth Council, and my mother's name on last night's tablet all came crushing back against my chest. I wanted to argue, but my throat felt sealed in ice.

"I'm requesting a replacement stone and a retest."

"There's no precedent for that," Rowan said. "This isn't the place to prove you're brave."

Low laughter stirred around us. My fingers curled inside my cloak and brushed the promise ring. In the past, whenever I was afraid, Rowan would take my hand and say he was there. Only later did I understand that when he said he was there, he usually meant I should stay quiet and follow the path he had chosen for me.

The black mist in the cleansing basin churned once.

[The door is breathing.]

My head snapped up. The Moon Well was not accusing me. It was afraid.

"Give me a quarter of an hour," I said.

The ritual master frowned. "You're in no position to set terms."

"She does."

Cassian's voice came from the guest stands. He wore no glasses that day, and an unfamiliar silver crescent was embroidered on the collar of his black formal coat. The entire plaza went unnaturally quiet, and even Gideon rose to his feet.

He did not explain anything on my behalf. He only walked to the edge of the Moon Well and looked at me through the black mist.

"Elara," he said, "what do you hear?"

I wanted to say I did not know. But at the training ground, he had told me that what was truly frightening was not hearing something—it was hearing it clearly, then pretending there was nothing because that was what everyone else wanted.

So I stepped closer to the Moon Well and did not touch the broken stone case.

I laid my palm on the cold rim and closed my eyes.

The black mist held Sabine's silver-bell laughter, the essence drawn from me, and a thin line running from the cleansing basin into the earth. Deeper still stood an enormous door. Behind it, something raked the stone wall with its claws, over and over.

When I opened my eyes, the ritual master had already signaled the guards forward.

But Cassian raised a hand. His voice was quiet, yet everyone froze where they stood.

"Let the moon answer her."