My mouth is still wide open. Dexler squeezes my shoulders.
“Don’t be so surprised. You’re a Marionne. Magic is strong in you.”
I can access real magic.
I can access real magic!
It blew around in me like a vicious dust storm and fought off my toushana, I felt it. Excitement wells in my eyes. Maybe I’m not entirely broken.
“Very good.” Dexler folds her arms. “Dare I say Headmistress will be ecstatic to hear it.”
It’s then I notice no one else in the session has managed to transfigure their fabric and bone to muscle yet. Cultivator Dexler’s lips are pursed with the tiniest curl at the end. She’s impressed. A weird feeling rolls through me. A smile tugs at my lips.
“All right, time.” She passes out textbooks, pulling the class’s attention back to the front. But I’m still reeling from what all this means.
“Who recalls the Second Rule of Natural Law?” Session moves on, hands shooting in the air.
“Magic strengthens with use,” the girl with the blue eyes says, her book parted in front of her.
My ears perk up.
“Precisely, Miss Duncan,” Cultivator Dexler says.
I sit up in my seat, flipping to the page they’re on.
Dexler goes on as I find the text on the page.
2nd Rule of Natural Law
Magic strengthens with use.
When you bind to one sort of magic, it dulls your ability to reach other sorts of magic.
Wait. I raise my hand.
“Yes, Miss Marionne?”
I check the page again. “Does this mean that as I use one type of magic, it becomes easier to reach?”
“Precisely. When—”
I raise my hand again, and the session appears relieved to get back to their side conversations.
“Yes, Miss Marionne, another question?”
“Let’s say I have an affinity for . . .” I check my book. “Necrantics. If I hone that magic, then try to transfigure sound one day, I won’t be able to?”
“After you’ve bound, likely not. Once you bind with a certain type of magic, the others become extremely difficult to reach. They become atrophied, so to speak. Think of your magic like a piece of clay you mold,” she goes on. “Once it takes shape and hardens, it cannot be remolded. So practicing your magic molds your clay. Binding hardens it.”
“Binding?” I ask. “Third Rite, you mean?”
“Yes, Third Rite is Binding, when you are presented at Cotillion in your gown to the Order, officially welcomed into membership.” She smiles at that part. “Your signature then transfers from the Book of Names to the Sphere’s glass where it stays for the rest of your life.”
I chew my nail completely off, my mind spiraling down a well of what-ifs. So if I keep practicing this warm, proper sort of magic, like I did here today, strengthening my ability to reach it, I can bind with it and bury my toushana forever? No . . . no way . . . I must be misunderstanding.
She returns her attention to the rest of the group. “Secundus, choose your magic specialty thoughtfully. You’ll be stuck with it forever.”
Heads nod, but I stare, blinking, stuck on her last words.
“Turn to page twenty-nine,” she goes on. A collective groan rolls through the room and she raises her volume. “And copy down all twelve uses of acacia leaves. Secundus, you will also do a one-page analysis of the two magic specialties that you are most interested in.”
Books slap open. I don’t move, white knuckling my seat, as if I could hold her very words in my grip. The weight of them sits on me like a brick on my chest. I can lean into the sort of magic I did here and bind with it, getting rid of this poison in my veins completely! I steady myself on the table, reminding myself to breathe.
Did Mom know about this? She couldn’t have. I glimpse the bone, still wrapped in shreds of muscle. I felt that other magic so strongly. It was different from the icy urge that haunts me. Everyone scribbles in their journals. Hope wells up inside me. The running, the hiding, the shadows. My chin hits my chest. We didn’t have to live like that. We don’t have to. We won’t. Not anymore.
Session finishes and I’m outside Grandmom’s private quarters in minutes thanks to the map I grabbed from my room. Her maid lets me in. Grandmom is stirring a cup of tea, under a blanket by the fire.
“Good to see you, dear.”
My insides are tight. I must do it now, before I second-guess myself. Yes, if the Order finds out about my toushana they’ll kill me. But they won’t. Hiding my truth is something I’ve done my entire life. I can do it here for as long as it takes to complete the Rites. This is the only way to put this cursed existence behind me. And it keeps Mom out of danger—away from me—until I’m no longer a risk to her. Wouldn’t anything else be like treading quicksand?
Grandmom gestures to the chair beside her. “What brings you—”
“I’d like to enter induction, complete the three Rites, and become a member of the Order. If you’ll still have me.”
She sets down her cup. “You’ve come around?”
I nod and her cheeks swell.
“You’re my granddaughter. Aristocracy is in your blood. Of course I’ll have you.” She flips through the Book of Names and pulls a pen from a wooden box and puts it in my hand. I hold it firmly, my heart ramming in my chest.
“Right there, beneath the others.”
I sign and the ink thickens on the page.
“Once you complete the Rites, the Book will absorb your name and inscribe it on the Sphere, alongside the thousands of others, cementing your membership.”
I struggle to move, equally certain and terrified of what I just decided to do.
“Aren’t you thrilled, dear?”
My heart is in my throat. “Very much so.”
She grabs me by the wrist uncomfortably tight and pulls me to her writing desk. “One more small matter.” She takes my hand, and before I can snatch it back, she pinches the tip of my finger. She rubs her thumb and forefinger together and pulls backward, as if tugging an invisible string, and out of my skin comes a drop of blood.
“Ow!”
She blows on it, watching with wide eyes. After a moment, she exhales and drops it in a vial. “Now, there we are.” She writes someone’s full name on an envelope and drops the blood sample inside it before slipping it into an outbox on her desk. It disappears. “Mrs. Cuthers will get that all filed away. Welcome home, dear.”
“Thank—” My pocket glows. I pull out my key chain.
Grandmom takes it from me. “I haven’t seen this thing in years.”
“It’s Mom; I think she’s trying to get me.”
“Yes, I know how it works, dear. I procured it from a reputable Trader myself.”
She did? There’s so much Mom never told me. So much I still don’t know. Grandmom sets the key chain on her desk. “I may be able to reverse trace the key chain’s magic to locate your mother, if you don’t mind leaving it with me for a bit.” She gazes out the window, her back to me. “Would you like that?”
“You would do that?”
“Of course. After all, we have much to update her on, wouldn’t you say?”
“I guess so.” Guilt tugs at me, and I can almost see Mom’s worn expression. She’s sacrificed so much for me. An ugly, undeniable truth that I’ve shoved back down time and time again rises like bile in my throat.
The safest place for Mom is out there away from me.
I glare at my hands. I have to get rid of this poison. She would say my plan is too dangerous. But I know in my gut, I can do this. I was so good in Dexler’s. I can’t put her in danger anymore, not when this option is right in front of me. I blow out a big breath. Away from me, she is safe. When we’re back together, she, too, will have a life. I didn’t have a choice when we fled before, but I do now.
I have to do this.
To free both of us.
