Outside Grandmom’s door, I squeeze my key chain. It glows in response. I exhale and unfold the map Grandmom gave me. Room twelve of the Belles Wing, on the second floor, has a circle around it.
I hurry down the grand stairs and into a sconce-lit hall lined with glass display cabinets. In the first, a gold diadem speckled with radiant gems much more regal than Abby’s or Grandmom’s shines beneath spotlights. headmistress claudette marionne, inaugural headmistress, house of marionne, 1874, the plaque reads. Beside it, in another display case, is a satin sash with frayed edges coiled like a snake, embroidered with the same fleur and talon symbol I saw on the front of this building. Its plaque boasts of someone else with my name that I don’t recognize. Next to the sash is another. And another. The long hall is full of a dozen or more silver or gold diadems, some with tall spires, others with different shapes entirely, all encrusted with brilliant stones. Each as uniquely extraordinary as the one beside it.
I shove a fingernail between my teeth and wander deeper down the hallway, salivating at a world, a life, a history I should have known. The next case stills my steps. Unlike the other diadems in golds and silver, this one is blackened. I ball my hands into fists, reminded of the destructive secret coursing through my veins. Where the others are polished, their regality on display, the metal on this one is bent in several places and scuffed. The glass is cold against my skin as I squint at its plaque, where a sun is etched. The center of the sun is colored in.
This relic, valiantly retrieved by legendary Sunbringer Elopheus the Dawn, was won at the last known conquest against Darkbearers during the Second Age of Vultures. circa 1287 ce
“Won?”
“Yes,” a low voice says, so close that I startle.
“Jordan.” My heart hiccups, and the scent of him wraps around me as I turn to face him.
He’s changed clothes. The top two buttons of his tuxedo shirt are undone, and a bow tie hangs around his neck, dangling on his chest. He stuffs something small and colorful in his tux pocket.
“That diadem was torn from the skull of a Darkbearer. They say the ghosts of Elopheus’s victims still haunt the territories he razed.”
“Darkbearer?”
“Night Bleeders, Death Walkers, Sons of Darkness, Dysiians. The names have changed throughout history. But they’re all just another name for toushana-users who would pillage villages, torturing Unmarked. Elopheus once slew an entire hideout of Darkbearers in a single night. By himself.” He breathes a laugh. “Can you imagine?”
“No, I . . . I can’t imagine.”
“This was centuries ago.” His expression sparkles with awe. “They’re all gone, of course.”
“And the Sunbringers? The ones who . . . hunted these . . . toushana-users?” My nails dig into my palm.
“Dragun was a nickname at first. The burning. The stories say the stench of Sunbringers disposing of Darkbearers, to make sure the toushana in them was dead, could be smelled as far as the next village over. The name just caught on after a while. But no . . .” He fingers the talon symbol at his throat. “We’re still very much around.” His eyes narrow. “You’re nervous.”
“I’m . . .” I glance both ways. Then back at the map. “Um, a bit lost, is all.”
“Belles Wing is that way.” He points.
“Did you follow me here?”
“I might have.” Hard lines frame his inquisitiveness. “Is that a problem?”
“Hiding in shadows and attacking people are your specialties, I’m gathering?” The sass slips out as I put more distance between us.
“I was making sure you knew where to find your room.”
No, you were spying on me because you don’t trust me. The flickering hall light catches the specks in his eyes, making them shimmer. I start in the direction of the Belles Wing.
“You’re being inducted, aren’t you?” Jordan asks to my back.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but that’s none of your business.” I walk faster.
“Everything here is my business.”
I stop, his words slithering over me. “You’re a Ward. A visitor.”
“I am Jordan Wexton, Secundus, thirteenth of my blood, Dragun candidate, House of Perl.”
I scrub my expression of whatever it might show and turn to face him. His mask seeps into his skin and his tousled hair is a sharp contrast to his tidy tuxedo.
“I don’t need help to my room or your history lessons—”
“Don’t you though?” He steps closer, but nothing reminiscent of genuine concern glints in his stare. Only suspicion.
“Get back to your party or whatever you’re dressed for.” I walk away from him, but he reappears in a cloud of dark fog in front of me, arm to the wall, a barrier in my path. His chiseled body hovers over me. I inhale, but there is no woodsy scent of paneled walls, oiled mahogany. Only him. Vetiver and olive trees. Vanilla and sandalwood. My heart patters. Just get rid of him.
“What do you want from me?”
He steps closer, his posture unyielding like that of someone who isn’t often told no. I hold rigidly still. He can’t see me panic.
“A truthful answer to my question. How did you see through my cloak?”
Words stick in my throat.
“Perhaps some sleep will loosen your tongue.” He gestures toward the adjacent corridor. “Room twelve is that way. Rest well, Quell Janae Marionne.”
I hurry down the hall to a gold-plated number twelve plastered to a door, grateful for more distance between myself and Jordan. I twist the knob open, and Abby stares back at me with one eye open and pinned hot rollers in her hair.
She pulls the door open wider. “Headmistress let me know you’d be rooming with me.” She dangles an envelope with Abilene Grace Feldsher scrawled across it and a fleur seal at its back.
“Wow, she’s fast.”
“Order mail. Dropped in an outbox with a full name and proper seal, and it will travel right to the recipient, wherever they are, instantly. Tracer magic at its finest.”
Inside, the room is oblong with two twin beds on opposing walls. Next to each bed is a door, one leading to a private bathroom and the other to a walk-in closet.
“That one’s for you.” She points at a tidy bed with a fluffed pillow, so nice it looks like it belongs in a magazine. Not something you actually sleep on.
“My roommate debuted tonight.” Abby plops onto her bed. “So she’s out of here.”
I raise a brow.
“She finished the three Rites,” she says. “Cotillion? Being presented to the Order as a member?” She spins in a circle, pretending to dance. I shake my head, full of questions.
“You’ll learn.” She smiles with a twinge of surprise.
Beneath a window on the far end of the room are two desks with an iron stand protruding from their center. A black-handled dagger lies on the stand on what must be Abby’s desk. My hand instinctively moves to the shape of my protruding dagger handle in my bag. She catches me gawking.
“Honing.”
“Huh?”
“Emerging. Honing. Binding. The three Rites.” She tosses her dagger, catching it with her opposite hand. “To be inducted into the Order you have to complete them all. But Second Rite is honing your dagger, and it’s a pain! Been stuck on it for two Seasons.”
Mom gave me her dagger. I swallow, unsure what all this means.
“Good luck.”
Her brow furrows. I set my bag on the bed, where I notice a stack of clothes with a note and a thin wooden tiara. I pick it up. Abby takes it from my fingers.
“First Rite is the easiest. Especially for you.” She nudges me with her shoulders, grinning. “Your magic is probably so much more refined than anyone else’s here. Being a Marionne and all.”
I go cold all over, not my toushana, just bone-chilling angst.
“Once you start, you’ll emerge in no time. But for now.” She sets the wooden tiara on my head, and I pull it off, dread slinking through me. I told my grandmother I wasn’t signing that roster.
I pick up the note on the stack of clothes.
Quell,
Forgive me for my haste tonight. To be quite transparent, Prospects are breaking their necks to be admitted here. I haven’t found myself courting someone’s interest in, well, ever. I strongly encourage you to explore the grounds, pop into classes, or sessions, as we call them here, if you like. Allow me to show you who you are, what you’re capable of. Much of the world’s mysteries are at your fingertips. Have a good sleep.
Warmly,
Headmistress
Tears well in my eyes. Underneath her title is a hand drawn fleur. She’s wrong about me. Whatever potential she thinks I have like Abby, and the others here, that’s not me. A part of me throbs with longing at the glimpse of a life, a secret magical life, I could have if I were like everyone else here.
“I am broken,” I mutter, words thick in my throat.
Abby keeps talking, but I’m distracted by a small booklet that was underneath the note from Grandmom. I unfold it and remove a Post-it on it that reads, Just in case. Inductees Rules and Responsibilities.
“What’d the note say?”
“Nothing.” I toss it and the rule booklet in a trash bin.
“Okay, well.” She slides off my bed and back into her own, turned off, I guess, by my lack of enthusiasm and small talk. I feel bad. She’s trying to make conversation. I blink and see a house swallowed up in flames. Why couldn’t I have been in my own room, alone? Alone, I know. Alone, I can do.
“Breakfast opens at six, sessions start at eight,” she says, painfully nice, despite my inability to reciprocate. “It’s still pretty early summer, so sometimes sessions are outside. The last month of season, it’s too sweltering for that. If we leave early, I can give you a tour. What time is your first session?”
I shift uncomfortably. The truth, that I’m sneaking out of here the minute Mom shows up, hangs on my lips. “I don’t have my schedule yet,” I lie. “But maybe I’ll check out some sessions in the morning.”
Abby wraps herself in blankets, turning her back to me. “Sleep well, roomie.” She turns off her lamp, and I climb into bed in my clothes. Fortunately, she is already snoring and doesn’t ask any questions. I bury myself in the blankets. My bag with the few things I brought is at the foot of my bed, and my key chain is beside me so I won’t miss its glow. My fingers are warm and the cinch between my shoulders eases some. My toushana is settled, thankfully.
I shuffle under the blankets, restless before deciding to pull out the page Mom gave me with the address. I realize a postcard of a beach is clipped to its back. The water on the picture is so blue it can’t be real. I settle down in the covers but avoid lying too flat. I don’t want to doze off. Mom’s going to be here soon. Guilt worms itself through me for the hard time I’ve given her over all of this. My toushana has ruined not only my life but hers, too.
Somehow, someway, wherever we go next, I have to make sure Mom is not in harm’s way.
