After a quick lunch, which I eat by myself back in my room, and a short study period, I hustle to my next session. As I enter Etiquette in the Grand Ballroom, I stuff my hands in my pockets. There are fewer students than the last class, and it doesn’t appear that we’ll be using much magic here. The rotunda towers with a domed ceiling. Slender windows draped with sweeping fabrics flutter at the glossed floors. Long tables decked in floor-length tablecloths run along the center of the room with tall-back chairs on either side. I set a foot forward, determined to do as well as I did in Dexler’s. I should be able to manage eating “properly” even if it does involve way too many spoons.
Heads turn my way, but I keep mine down and find my name on a tiny card atop a gold-rimmed stack of plates. No one else is in a seat, so I blend into the small crowd.
There isn’t a single familiar face among the dozen or so others. No Shelby, no Abby.
“Oh, excuse me,” someone says, trying to squeeze into a back spot against the wall, away from the buzzing clusters of cliques. It’s one of the girls from Dexler’s who also hasn’t emerged.
“You’re the Marionne, right?”
The Marionne.
My toushana flutters through me, nudging my insecurity. As if even it knows the very idea of me here, in this world, is preposterous. More heads turn our way at the mention of my surname, and I fight the urge to look at my shoes, to shrink away. I force my head up. You’re not invisible anymore.
“Yes, that’s me.” The words are foreign in my mouth, but I chew them up and force them down. I am a Marionne. Grandmom and I share blood. I clasp my fingers behind me, hoping my mannerism reads normal and not suspicious.
“I’m Rose,” she says, something shading her expression. “This is a lot, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. How long have you been here?”
“Since the very end of last Season but it was too late then to really do anything.”
Something about what Shelby and Abby said made it sound like it happened quickly for everyone. She must read my mind because irritation sets her jaw.
“How’d you do with the oleander?” I ask, trying to change the subject. She looked a lot more confident in Dexler’s than I felt.
“I managed to pull a leaf out of my dirt. No flower, though.”
“I’ve heard it takes practice.”
“Hoping so.” She smiles before letting out a long breath.
“Have you—”
“Did you hear”—her interruption startles me—“how nice the Moonlight Mixer was?” She pulls at the threads of her embroidery. “It was at the Wexton Regency. In New York, you know?”
“I, uh . . . no.”
“The Season’s opening ball is always unforgettable, but I heard this year’s was especially decadent. Everyone who joined the Order last Season got an invite to kick off things this year, rub elbows with society’s elite.” She smiles but it tremors, then fades. “My parents made an appearance. My sister. But I of course couldn’t go, not yet. They’re always harping on me about finding a respectable man in the Order. Magic should marry magic, you know?” She scoffs.
“Oh?” A better response escapes me.
“But how exactly am I supposed to do that if I can’t get this thing to grow out of my head!” Her cheeks ripen with frustration.
“I’m sure you’ll emerge and get invited to one soon.” I offer the best smile I can muster at the awkwardness.
She exhales a disgruntled sigh. “Well, it was nice to meet you.” She moves away and I exhale. When the doors to the ballroom open, a gentleman in a dapper suit with a short coat and longer panels in the back enters. A sturdy black tie sits at his neck.
“Cultivator Plume,” the crowd says, bowing and curtsying. I copy and move through to the front to hear better.
“Good afternoon.” Plume gestures widely before folding his lean gangly frame at the waist. He moves like air, gliding closer to us, each step perfectly poised. The twist in his hips would put Mom’s strut to shame. He is the epitome of elegance. “Well, we’re missing a few, aren’t we.” He surveys the group, hands on his hips, then glances at his watch just as the doors behind him open again. “Ah, there we are. Please, find your name, take your seat.”
I rush to the seat labeled “Marionne.” But when a face dents my peripheral, I still, registering Jordan as one of the latecomers Plume was referring to. I press back into my chair. Why is he here? He’s not in the slacks and top like the others. Instead he’s in a tuxedo like Plume. One of the perks of being a graduate, I guess.
He crosses the room along with two others, both with statuesque diadems. His shoulders are squared, stomach in, and the table flits with whispers and fawning smiles. Whether or not he notices, I can’t tell. His eyes find me as if he can hear my thoughts, feel my panic from yards away. I try to scrub the shock from my face and fix my glance on the plate in front of me, counting the ridiculous number of utensils and glasses. There are so many plates!
“Good afternoon, Miss Marionne.” The chair beside me slides back and I feel Jordan’s presence. I make the mistake of looking at him. His chiseled jaw hardens, etching the sculpted hills beneath his eyes. Craters in his cheeks soften his brooding expression. He is beautiful, criminally so.
“Do you have an answer for me yet? This morning didn’t seem like the proper time to ask.”
“And now is? I’m trying to focus. But I can’t with your—”
“My . . .” His brow rises, and the insistence in his gaze pulls my chin over my shoulder to look squarely at him.
“Your questions.” I still have no explanation for why I could see through his cloaking. My toushana flutters in warning the longer he stares. I warm my hands between my thighs, garnering a few quizzical glances.
“It’s cold.” I look ridiculous, especially in here. Like coarse wool next to fine silk. Jordan’s expression narrows in thought at me, and I grip the sides of my chair.
Plume claps along the others who are too slow to get into their seats. Then he raises his glass toward the room, and it quiets. “I do not allow swine at my table unless it’s on a plate.”
My hold on the chair slacks at session starting, thankful to look anywhere else but at Jordan.
“We have a few Electus with us today, I see. So I’ll do a quick refresher. You’ll need to work hard to keep up.” He eyes me and Rose, who’s across the table. Her brows jump at Plume addressing us directly. She’s a ball of nerves, too, and even though it’s for a different reason entirely, it’s comforting to know I’m not the only nervous wreck here.
“Look at the person to your right,” Plume orders us newbies. Rose stares at someone who came in with Jordan. “If you have questions,” he goes on, “they will help you keep up.”
Seeing Jordan for the second time, I allow myself to really look. His eyes are darker today than usual, more blue than green. It’s what I imagine gazing out at the sea would be like on an overcast day. He watches me as I watch him, lowering his gaze at first, then raising it above my head where I was anointed. He meets my eyes. The urge to look away bites at me, but I hold my head still as Cultivator Plume’s instructed. I can’t afford to mess anything up.
Jordan looks at me as if he could look through me, our gazes dance around each other, and my insides do weird things. Please let this be almost over. But Plume goes on about how surviving debut is not an individual activity. How we will need help and must ask.
“Your nose does this thing when you get flustered,” Jordan says, enjoying the apparent discomfort staring at him brings me. “It crinkles.”
Plume weaves through the room, stopping from time to time to adjust a fork or slightly shift a plate.
“You’re making fun of me.”
“I’m . . . observant.”
“My discomfort intrigues you.” I scowl.
“Your dishonesty, more so.” He rears back in his seat knowingly, and bile bubbles up my throat. I put as much space between us as I can.
Plume pauses beside us. “Your place at my table,” he says to the session, “like your position in this House, is earned.” Plume circles the table and grips the back of Rose’s chair, and her eyes about pop out of her head. I would try to mouth some consolation, but I’m dealing with my own crisis over here.
“As my mother used to say,” Plume goes on, “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of my kitchen. The standards do not lower, you meet them or you leave. Some of you will dismiss etiquette as if magic is the only thing that requires practice. And you will be sent home. Those who recite place settings and meal courses until they haunt you in your sleep, who use correct posture so consistently that lying down at night makes your back ache, who dance until their feet are full of sores . . . will have the privilege of staying.” He cocks his head, chin tilted up. “It’s not my job to keep you here.”
The room explodes in conversation, and chairs scrape the floor, pulling to the table as Plume’s reminder sinks in.
“He’s weeding people out,” I mutter, hugging around myself as best I can in these stilted chairs. Jordan is quiet for once.
“Headmistress entrusts me to prepare you to be fit to dine with kings. To move like royalty. You will not embarrass this House. And you will not embarrass me!” Plume glances at me, then at Rose. The table is a tapestry of expressions, from humdrum to terrified. “With that, let’s get today underway.” Plume claps. “Servers. Knives.”
We have at least two per person on the table already. And another tiny one too dull to really slice anything. We need more?
Butler doors sweep open on the far side of the room, and an army of serving staff marches toward us. Most balance hors d’oeuvre trays on their hands, but a few hold a bouquet of thin, short scalpel-like blades. I glance at Jordan, my helper for the day, and open my mouth to speak. But think better of it.
“You have a question.” He shifts, careful to keep his posture erect.
“Nothing, I mean, no.”
After Plume grabs his napkin, Jordan moves his own to his lap in one smooth motion, a swan on ice, controlled and elegant. He raises his brow in challenge.
“You think I’m not up to it.” I bite my tongue too late. The last thing I need is more heat from him. Head down. Mouth closed. That was the plan.
He leans across the space between us. “If you’re here for the reason you say you are,” he says low enough so only I can hear, “then what I think doesn’t matter.” His words hang in the air over me like a guillotine. I close my eyes to soothe my angst. But all I can picture is his pointed stare. The way he tries to see through me.
“Others use powdery concoctions, but cloaking is imperceptible. Do you have an explanation for how you saw through my cloak?” he asks, breaking the silence as he pricks his toasted hors d’oeuvre with his fork.
I can’t ignore him outright and make him more suspicious.
“No, I don’t.”
His jaw clenches. But before he can open his mouth, a server with a knife nudges me to lean forward.
“What are you—” I watch in utter shock as he affixes a blade to my chair, pointed at my back. Jordan watches, pensive.
“There we are, Miss.” The server moves on to the next chair, skipping over Jordan.
I sit back a bit too much, and a sharp point digs into my spine. I huff in frustration, my chest rising and falling, telling a secret I’d like to keep private: I’m terrified of doing this wrong. And Jordan knows it.
I straighten and ease forward in my chair. The blade is there, but just barely, and as long as I don’t slouch, it won’t nick me. Which I realize is the point. I set my focus straight ahead, ignoring Jordan’s brooding. I think of Mom, delayed for some reason in meeting me here. When Grandmom reaches her, I will have good news to share about my performance here. I will not fail. Too much is on the line.
The rest of class is six more courses with instructions on everything from how to bring food to my mouth, to how to fold salad around a fork, sip soup from the side of the spoon, and even how long to chew. Jordan, whose every movement is graceful and perfect, keeps an eye on me off and on without a word. My hands are achy, but not yet cold. At least my toushana is behaving.
Finally, a server takes dessert away, and my lower back throbs, but I hold myself still.
“And poached pears in a red wine reduction for our last.” Plume motions for the waitstaff to return.
A plate is set in front of me, but I can’t imagine eating another bite. Not because I’m full, because my gut is swimming with anxiety with Jordan looking at me every time I look up. No one else commands his attention as I do.
I detach my hand clamped tight on my chair and reach for the fruit, but a sharp twinge of chill stabs inside my fingers. I snatch them back. Please! Not here. By some gift of the universe, the cold actually flees.
Rose’s wrinkled stare unsettles me. I offer her a smile, and she seems to buy it. I’m almost tempted to slouch in relief. Almost.
“You’re not going to eat that with your fingers, are you?” Jordan asks.
“Of course not.” Um, yes . . . yes I was. With the chill gone I slide my fork down the side of my plate and find my audience is still eyeballing me. He won’t be sitting next to you forever. Just eat the damn pear and get out of here.
“Small slices, as you go.” Plume moves through the room, adjusting wrists, bolstering others’ ability to remain rigidly poised with his magic.
I grab my knife.
“Your wrist should hardly bend and be held gently, with your index along the top of the handle.”
I hover my wrist above my plate, bending it back and forth until it’s just so.
“Secundus, you should be helping your peers without them asking,” he says to one of the girls who came in late with Jordan. She’s in a conversation with another while Rose is holding her knife with both hands like a sword over her plate. I tighten my posture and glance at the door, then the clock, sweat slick on my neck as the ache returns, creeping from my arms into my hands.
I grab the knife with iron-willed determination, but my bones pinch with a stronger ache. I toss it back down. Clang. Heads turn my way. I smile timidly, and they return to their conversations. I’m making a fool of myself. I rub my hands vigorously to create some friction, some warmth, and the ache flees.
Again. I pick up the knife and Jordan watches intently. His knife is poised daintily in his grip, a finger resting on its spine as if it was a bird perched on his fingertip.
“Lower,” he says, indicating the angle of my knife. Though whether he wants to help or is just doing it because Plume suggested, I can’t tell. “Your wrist is bent too much.”
I relax my arm and press the tip of my knife to the pear and slice it in half when my fingers are suddenly languid and loose.
My toushana tricked me; it’s right there, a sudden, painful throb in my hands. I drop the knife before it has a chance to react with the metal. It hits the plate, and I swear it rings louder than someone slamming cymbals.
The room goes silent. My heart thuds, blood pooling in my ears.
My toushana burns colder.
I clench my hands.
Even the windows seem to glare in judgment. Plume clutches his chest, horrified.
“Miss Marionne,” he barks. “Absolutely not.”
Somewhere, someone snickers.
“I—I’m sorry, if you’ll excuse me.” I push back from the table and try to stand, but the tablecloth catches and the whole thing tugs. “Oh my god.” Glasses fall over, and the table swims in ice water and sweetened tea.
My glass rolls toward the edge of the table. I reach for it but quickly realize I can’t touch it or anything, not while my blood is running cold. I yank my fingers back, and it dives off the table edge, shattering on the floor. Jordan pops up from his seat but isn’t able to get out of the way in time. His lap is soaked and everyone, including Rose, gapes at me.
“My god,” Jordan huffs in exasperation, pulling out a sopping envelope from his pocket. He shakes it out, but judging by his smeared name on the front, it’s too late for that. “Could you be any more of a disaster? And to think . . .” He shakes his head, his expression still scrunched in horror.
The room spins in motion, everyone standing and inspecting their clothes. A few glares fly my way, but I couldn’t possibly feel any smaller. Voices and footsteps ricochet off the walls as people move around the wreckage. I back away, itching for some shadow to slink into. Some place to not be seen. How will I ever do this with this poison inside me? And Jordan breathing down my neck? This is impossible. I glare at my icy hands. I have to get a handle on this. Think. This isn’t exactly the first impossible thing I’ve dealt with.
Jordan scowls, water dripping from him all over before he storms off.
“Are you all right?” Cultivator Plume stands over me now, the tone of his frustration softened. “Your teeth are chattering.”
“I’m fine.” I hold my cold hands tighter to myself.
“All right, well, go on and get out of here,” Plume says. “Clean yourself up. You can reach out to your mentor about anything else you would’ve missed. He’s done this all before.”
“My mentor?” I freeze.
“Yes, your pairing wasn’t just for today. Jordan will be your guide for the duration of your time here to ensure you debut. You’re expected to work closely with him to—”
“I have to go.” I rush out the door, and I could swear the walls are closing in. Working with Jordan will only ensure one thing—I end up dead.
