At the sight of the bird, Uraza, however, leaped skyward with a gleeful and rather threatening growl. The banana-colored bird shrieked. Just before the leopard slapped her paws together, Abeke grabbed her tail. The leopard’s leap was brought up short with a yowl.
Uraza spun. For a moment her teeth were instinctually bared and menacing.
Abeke’s heart stopped.
Then the leopard realized it was Abeke’s hand on her tail. Her lips lowered. She gave Abeke a deeply wounded look. The bird flapped away.
“I apologize,” Abeke said. “But that was someone’s spirit animal!”
One would think a Great Beast would understand why it wasn’t right to eat someone else’s spirit animal, but with Uraza, sometimes the beast part outweighed the great part.
“Maybe we should do this,” Abeke told Uraza, holding out her arm as a request. All spirit animals had the ability to enter a dormant form. If Uraza chose to enter it now, she would become a tattoo on Abeke’s skin until they got to training. And tattoos had never eaten anyone else’s spirit animal.
But Uraza was tired of being cooped up. She considered Abeke’s outstretched arm for one long moment, and then she turned and stalked down the hall.
Abeke didn’t press the issue. They were going to be late. As she hurried down the hallway after the leopard, various Greencloaks waved and greeted her by name. Abeke felt bad that she couldn’t return the favor, but they all knew her more than she knew them. All four of the newcomers at the fortress — Abeke, Rollan, Meilin, and Conor — were well-known. The four kids who had somehow summoned the Four Fallen.
Uraza made a curious trilling sound as she leaped down a circular stairwell in front of her. At the bottom, both Abeke and Uraza hesitated. They faced two identical halls, each with plaster-white walls and exposed timber ceilings. Only one led to the training room.
“Uraza?” Abeke asked. Uraza’s violet eyes darted from the floor to the ceiling, her long tail thrashing slowly.
Suddenly, Abeke didn’t think she looked so much like a leopard deciding which way to go. Instead, she looked like a leopard about to —
Uraza lunged. She was a muscled blur of gold and black as she pushed off the wall. A thrumming, heart-chilling growl burst from her. For one moment, Abeke just thought, What an amazing animal!
Then she realized that Uraza was on the hunt. The leopard’s unlucky prey crouched on a notch in the plaster wall. It was a small, squirrel-like animal with pink feet, a striped back, and large eyes. Abeke thought it was a sugar glider.
Uraza thought it was delicious.
“Uraza!” Abeke snatched for the leopard’s tail again, but missed. The sugar glider leaped toward the opposite wall. As it flew, its tiny limbs stretched out from its body. There was skin webbing between all its legs, making its body into a furry sail.
Uraza pounced. The sugar glider darted out of her way. The two of them careened down the hall. The sugar glider soared onto a side table. Uraza knocked the furniture over. The sugar glider scrambled up a tapestry of Olvan, leader of the Greencloaks. Uraza clawed the fabric from the wall. Tatters of Abeke’s dignity fluttered to the ground.
Helplessly, Abeke ran after them. She managed to get ahold of Uraza’s back leg, but the leopard tugged free easily. Abeke was left with a handful of black and yellow hairs.
The chase hurtled on. The three of them crashed through the hallway into a small eating room Abeke hadn’t seen before. People filled the benches. Abeke took the long way around the diners as the sugar glider and Uraza tore across the long table. Plates flew. One man got a faceful of his oatmeal. Another diner shut her eyes against an onslaught of fruit.
Outrage had just been added to the breakfast selection.
Abeke felt the Greencloaks’ eyes. She wanted to shout: It’s her fault, not mine! But she knew what their responses would be.
It is up to you to control your spirit animal.
Can’t you control her?
This is your responsibility!
This is your failure.
Maybe you don’t belong here after all.
There was no time for her to apologize or clean up the damage. She panted after the animals as they darted and clawed through several twisted hallways and a large room full of chairs, ending up in a foyer with an arched doorway on the other side. The sugar glider was making panicked, pitiful noises that sounded like a squeaky rocking chair.
Abeke was gasping too. Back in Nilo, she could track animals for hours without feeling she had taken a breath. What was this castle doing to her?
“Uraza,” she said, grabbing a stitch in her side. “We are supposed to be here to save the world . . . so save your appetite!”
This made Uraza pause. The sugar glider had just enough time to hurl itself to the safety of the chandelier. Both Abeke and the sugar glider breathed a sigh of relief.
Uraza circled below, but the chase was over.
Now, Abeke thought with dismay, we are really lost.
Being lost wasn’t the worst consequence either. Being late was. Not because it came with a steep penalty — her instructors were fairly understanding. But she knew her tardiness would only deepen the problems between her and the other three kids. They had begun their training together, while Abeke had still been in the clutches of the Devourer. She was not only the outsider, she was the suspicious ex-enemy. She could only imagine what they thought she was doing right now — spying somewhere in the castle. Sending secret messages to Zerif, the Conqueror who’d taken her away after her Nectar Ceremony. Letting Uraza eat someone else’s spirit animal.
She had to get to that training room.
Maybe there was someone inside that arched doorway who could help her find her way. Even if the room was empty, there was something tempting about the curved entry. Although it surely led to another room, something about it felt as if it led to the outside instead. Abeke couldn’t quite explain the sensation to herself.
Cautiously, she pushed the door open. Inside was a dim room she’d never seen before. It was cluttered with musical instruments, mysterious pieces of art, and mirrors. There was a pile of drums as tall as Abeke, a piano-like instrument the size of a dog, and a bin full of flutes and recorders. A portrait of a girl smiled at her from one wall, while a mural of a man leading dozens of unfamiliar animals through a field covered another. The room smelled like dust and wood and leather, but also, to Abeke’s delight, like the outdoors, though, again, she couldn’t explain why.
A single man stood inside, partially turned away.
It was possible his spirit animal was in its passive state, but Abeke realized quickly that she wouldn’t be able to tell. Apart from his face, every inch of visible pale skin was covered in tattoos: inked mazes, circles, stars, moons, knots, stylized creatures. The mark of his spirit animal wouldn’t stand out from the rest of the designs all over his body.