Taipan pulls her hands from the earth with a frustrated huff.
“It isn’t working!” she protests. Python smiles.
“I’d argue otherwise,” he says, indicating the small colony of mushrooms sprouting around her. Taipan glares.
“I could do that before,” she points out. “Without even trying. You’re s’posed to be teaching me to control it!”
Python shrugs. “Control is an illusion,” he says. “What you want is connection. Proper connection. And that comes with time. And patience.”
Taipan reddens. Sometimes, Python’s lessons are a painful reminder of a few years before, when she’d first discovered her power.
She’d been a strong Whisperer. Too strong. She shudders at the memory, at the cry of a boy—a friend—she’d almost trapped in the roots of a tree. She’d given in to her fear during her first,
