What on Aemos was she…?
But the floating Conduit worked in perfect synchronization with his companion, tossing out small orbs of Water aether to douse every flame, which in turn dispersed a fine, warm mist throughout the air around us.
“In order to maintain the right environment for the flora and fauna of Irros to flourish here, our groundskeepers have developed this unique method of dispersing heat and moisture into the air,” Ezra explained. “El and Addison often work in tandem to bring the mist straight up the gills of these majestic mycelium, where it can be most readily absorbed.”
How fascinating.
“Majestic mycelium?Is this man for real?” Laurel whispered, rolling her eyes.
“Hush, you,” I shot back under my breath. “This is interesting.”
As I watched the groundskeepers go back and forth with this synchronous little flow of Water and Fire, my fingers began to tingle. That familiar itch was back, the urge to emulate thearcana myself. I wouldn’t even need a partner, and the spellwork seemed simple enough…
I sighed heavily, clamping down on the impulse before anything could manifest.
Not now, Arken. Not here.
Most of the time, this secret of mine was manageable enough, but I still hated it. I hated having to shove my other Resonances down in public, severing what felt like such a natural connection to the elemental world around me. I hated having to hide something that seemed so harmless on the surface, but became something insidious, something dangerous when you stopped to consider the implications. I hated not knowing what itmeant, that I could do these things.
Huffing again, I tugged the Light towards me instead. I slipped my hands into my pockets to avoid drawing attention to myself, and let that familiar glow wash over my fingertips. Even without the shimmering visual feedback, I took comfort in the sensation of using at leastsomeof my Resonance, in feeling what was mine. Embracing the part of me that I didn’t have to hide.
“Oh, drats,” Scholar Thompson muttered to himself as we approached the third wing of the sprawling arboretum. “I nearly forgot. Before we proceed with the rest of the tour, are any of you arachnophobic? Don’t be shy, it’s a perfectly common fear, but if you don’t enjoy spiders… you might want to excuse yourselves now.”
“If you don’t enjoy spiders? Who the Helenjoysspiders?” Laurel whispered. “Also, did he seriously just say “drats”?”
“Will you leave that poor man alone? If you’re scared, you can always hold my hand,” I teased.
“I never said I was afraid of them,” she sniffed. “I simply tolerate their existence.”
“You say that now…” I mused, knowing what was to come next. “And for the record, I enjoy spiders.”
“You would.”
“It’s just about feeding time for our little friends, so they’ll be getting more active overhead as they leave the nest,” Scholar Thompson said, looking up, and my eyes followed suit.
“Holy Hel,” I breathed.
There had to be thousands upon thousands of strands of wispy, iridescent spidersilk draped from every corner of the ceiling. The thin, pliant cords extended down from the tops of every tree and mushroom cap to form various structures—tunnels, hammocks, makeshift ladders and webs of all sorts.
I started to lose focus on the lecture, finding myself hypnotized by the patterns in the silk and the way that glowing spores and droplets of dew seemed to cling to every strand, glistening like jewels, like berries from the bush. It wasn’t until that strange clicking noise from earlier returned and Laurel jolted beside me that I snapped out of the enchanted haze. The clicks and crackles were louder now. Much louder.
“Holy shit! What the fuck is that fucking thing?!” Laurel squealed, gripping at my bicep.
Ah. There it was.
“Language, Miss Ansari,” Scholar Larkin chided sternly. “But can anyone answer her question?”
Unlike Laurel, I had spent the whole night prior studying up on Irrosi biomes. Partially because I was excited for this, and partially because it was the only way I could evenattemptto get my mind off a certain guardsman after he’d walked me home.
“Latrodectus lustrae,” I offered as one of the giant, crystalline looking arachnids started skittering out from the nest. “Those are Astral Spinners.”
“Indeed! Very good,” Ezra said, breaking into a wide grin, as if a smidgen of class participation had made his wholedamn day. “This one is Elorei, one of our young adult female Spinners.”
Elorei was making her slow descent from the gills of the mushroom canopy and I watched in near disbelief that a single, thin thread of spidersilk could bear the weight of such a large, translucent carapace. Again, it was one thing to read about these things, but towitnessthem…
I found myself hanging on Scholar Thompson’s every word as he detailed the uses for their silk, how it was harvested, and the seemingly symbiotic relationship between the Spinners and the mushrooms themselves. To Laurel’s credit, she held back most of her snark for the remainder of the lecture… though she would still occasionally snort when my hand would shoot up, begging Ezra for more details.
What could I say? I just really liked mushrooms.