“There you are!” Abby waves a paper in front of my face as I return to our room, before I lose the fight against bawling my eyes out. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I snatch the paper from her and gasp at its swirly letters announcing she’s been cleared for Cotillion. A satin ribbon is cinched across its center, embellished with a jewel.
“Headmistress Darragh Marionne is commanded by the Council of Mothers of the Prestigious Order of Highest Mysteries to summon Abilene Grace Feldsher to an Afternoon Presentation Party at Chateau Soleil’s Annual Magnolia Ball, on Saturday, the second week of June,” I read. “Your invitation, already! Where’s the rest of them? This is only one. I want to come!”
“It’s only a sample. Duh. You have to prepare your own invites for your guests. But Headmistress formally sends one to each of us officially inviting us to be presented for membership.”
“This is so exciting. Did you tell Mynick?”
She deflates. “Yes, but Headmistress would never let an outsider escort me.” She perks up. “At least I’ll get to go to his. His House doesn’t have the same stuffy rules as Headmistress Marionne.” Abby slaps a hand over her mouth. “No offense! Please don’t tell her I said that.”
“Oh, Abby, I’m so happy for you!”
“But that’s not the best part!” She shakes me by the shoulders.
“No?”
“My name’s been circulating society, finally now that my Cotillion date is set, and look!”
She shoves a stack of envelopes addressed to her in every color into my arms. “I’ve been invited to all of these!”
I scrunch my nose.
“Can you believe it?” She flips through the envelopes. “The Chadwell Ball, Senator Beaumont’s Summer Soiree, the Rose Ball, and is there one for the Tidwell?” She flips faster, gets to the end, then frowns. “They have real swans there. It’s usually at some swanky hotel in New York City or on old man Tidwell’s wine country estate. Swans, Quell! And they let you drink real champagne. Nobody asks your age.”
I’ve never seen Abby so excited about anything. She throws herself on the bed beside me. “Quell, there are ‘the rich’ and there are ‘the wealthy.’ The wealthy live in an entirely different world. A world that because of the Order”—she gestures at the opulence around us—“we fit in.” She shimmies the envelopes at me.
I laugh at the ridiculousness. “You’re serious?”
“The world is opening up to me. It’s my time to experience all of it. What use is magic to me if it doesn’t help me have the life I want?”
We serve magic, it does not serve us. Jordan’s words trickle through my memory.
“Doesn’t your family have, like, two homes? I would guess those stones in your ear are actual diamonds. What’s so impressive about going to dances with stuffy people?” I try to stifle the laugh, but it slips out.
“Four homes.”
“See!”
She rolls her eyes and loops her arm in mine. “My deda was brought here as a baby with nothing. He scraped together what he could and worked his way up to becoming a lawyer. He met my grandmother. She was a nurse at the time. Sometimes I lie and say she was a doctor, but don’t tell anyone.” She elbows me. “They did well. But then my dad got my mother pregnant before he finished high school. And around the same time, he showed signs of magic. Deda was ashamed of him. He and Grandmother took me and kicked him out. But then my father entered induction here, and everything changed. Quell, my father moved into this fancy gated neighborhood shortly after he debuted. I don’t know how, he hadn’t even gotten a job yet. He proposed to my mother with a fat rock literally the day after his Cotillion. Deda used to say my dad had gotten into drugs or was running with a bad crowd. He wouldn’t let me go live with them until he realized that wasn’t true.”
“I thought your dad was a banker.”
“Yes, now. Someone in the Order set him up with the position. But between you and me, he’s home more than he’s at his office.” She whispers, “He has framed degrees on his wall from colleges he never even went to.”
My eyes widen.
“The Order takes care of its own. It’s like a golden key that unlocks access to . . . options. You’re a Marionne, you must know what I mean.”
My skin turns to gooseflesh. “It was a bit different for me since I didn’t grow up here.”
“That’s what I’m saying. Because I grew up with Deda, I saw both sides of it. And I know which side I intend to land on.”
“Your parents must have money set aside for you.” Isn’t that how rich families stay rich?
“It’s not about the money, it’s the experiences, the circles you run in, the way people look at you.” She folds her legs under herself to face me more properly.
I shake my head, unsure what to say.
“I mean, what, do you suggest I not use the privilege my position affords me?” She folds her arms.
I can’t picture a future as gilded as Abby imagines for myself, but she is my friend and I want her happy. “You deserve everything you can imagine. I’m happy for you, Abby, really.”
“This one is tonight!” She shows me the invite before rushing to her closet. “I wish you could come with me.”
My stomach sinks.
“But you haven’t passed Second Rite, so you can’t.”
I exhale. “Rats.”
“You’re such a bad liar.” She snorts. “But enough about me, how was honing today?” She works her magic over her dress, adding detail to the corset and fiddling with the hem before laying out a matching pair of shoes.
I bury myself in my pillows, groaning. For a second I’d almost forgotten my own nightmare. I unfurl myself from my covers. It isn’t going to get any easier.
“There was this Dragun there from House Perl. He gave a demonstration.” I shiver, loading up my bag with anything I might need. “He was a creep.”
“Draguns are like swarming sharks. More of them around isn’t a good sign.” She fiddles with the dress, holding it up against herself in the mirror. “I wonder if it has to do with the Sphere. My parents still have their panties in a bunch about the Sphere cracking. Is this dress too much for tonight, you think? I don’t want to overdo it.”
“It’s perfect. But don’t add any more jewels. It’s already a bit over the top sparkly.” She holds her hands up and the magic buzzing around her fingertips dissolves. “Do you think it’s true Draguns dabble in dark magic?”
“No one knows how they do what they do.”
I nod my head and latch my bag closed. “I really should get to honing lab.”
“Good luck getting a table at this hour.”
“What time is it dead, usually?”
“Hard to say. The stoners like to wander in there at like two a.m.” She laughs. “Maybe try during dinner while everyone’s eating.”
I put my bag back down. I can’t exactly go to a crowded lab and get anything done.
“I’m not the best person to give honing tips because, alas, I wasn’t great at it. But you can talk to me if it’s stressing you out.”
“No, I’m not spoiling this day for you. I want to hear about all the things and help you get ready for your very first society ball.” I don’t get the big deal, but my friend is excited, so I am thrilled for her. I notice a stack of oversized parcels in a corner half opened with fabric spilling out. “What is all that stuff?”
“Samples my parents sent. They’re flying in a whole host of Vestisers from all over. I need to narrow this down from, like, two hundred samples to, like . . . thirty.” She rolls her eyes. “My mom is a lot. She didn’t debut, so this is big for her.”
“Why not?”
“She could see diadems and stuff, but her family didn’t know anyone in the Order until my dad finished, and by then it was too late.” She shrugs. “So she and my dad were all over me when they realized I had a shot. Deda still refuses to come anywhere near this place.”
Why? I wonder, but Abby keeps talking. The itch to get moving tugs at me.
“Are you listening?”
I nod.
“I was ready to quit a year ago, but she refused to let me. She said I’d be here every Season, May to August, as long as it took. I didn’t burst her bubble and tell her you only get two. You know how hard it is to get a private prep school to let you out of school months early to ‘study abroad’?”
“I went to public schools. I don’t think they care very much.”
“Lucky. Anyway, now I’m glad, of course.”
She loops her arm in mine. “So you’ll be by my side for all the Cotillion planning and everything, right? To help me fend off my mother at the very least. If I have the excuse of hanging out with the Headmistress’s granddaughter, she’ll back off, I’m sure.”
I really should be spending every free second I have working on my dagger. And trying to get control of my toushana.
“Sure,” I say, still not quite certain what exactly I’m signing up for. But it feels like the right thing to do. I check my watch before dumping her mountain of samples onto her bed. “I think we have some time to sort through these.” I plop beside her on her bed. “But by dinner I have to get to lab. I have three enhancers to fold into my dagger by morning.”
She squeezes me and I warm all over, not with magic, but something else just as foreign and special.
The lab on the basement floor of the estate is as silent as the dead when I descend the steps. Inside are tables like the one in my room. I ease the door closed and lock it. For good measure, I drag one of the tables and barricade the door. I don’t know how ugly trying to fold in this Purifier Enhancer is going to get, but I can’t have any surprise visitors. I set my bag down and center my blade on the stand. The stones in the bottom of my bag glisten at me.
Here goes nothing.
I start with the red one, setting it on the blade, and slice my hand over it. Magic prickles in my palms, then gushes in a rush of granulated warmth like tiny particles crawling beneath my skin. The stone brightens, then bleeds into the metal. I exhale and repeat the process with the green one, which takes some repeated swiping motions to get to meld in completely. But it eventually goes.
I reach for the blue one, and I’m cold in an instant.
It doesn’t want me to touch it.
My toushana rolls around inside, and I hold the spot where the chilliness throbs, imagining I can subdue it, hide it, shove it out of me. I pace, then try again, reaching deeper into the bag, my fingers grazing the glassy stone. Bitter cold magic crashes over me, and I stagger at the sheer force of it. Toushana expands in me, and I can feel it slinking through my body, dragging itself along with icicled claws, bone by bone, from my trunk, up to my chest, then through my arms. A spur of warmth flutters in me, and the cold strikes at it like a snake protecting its nest. The heat disappears.
I stuff down a scream, pushing past the pain, and close my hands around the blue stone. I blink and the world bleeds white, my insides so frostbitten they burn like fire. Let it go, my magic seems to whisper, my toushana edging me off a frozen cliff. But I tighten my fist. I have to do this. For Mom. For me.
I’m so cold.
A cold that sings like a lullaby from death’s own lips.
A cloud forms at my next breath as I summon all my strength to drag myself to the table, hoping I can browbeat this poisonous magic into letting me set the Purifier Enhancer on the blade.
Toushana rears in me. A scream rips from my throat. My insides quiver, but I picture Mom the last time I saw her and drag one stiff foot in front of the other. I lug my dead weight to the table, my toushana fighting to turn me to ice limb by limb.
I hover the stone over the dagger, and a stabbing pain rips through my stomach. My knees slam the ground. Victory hangs like a dangled carrot just out of reach. Up, I have to get up.
I steady myself on shaky legs.
Despite my bones feeling like they’re being pulled apart, I reach for the dagger, imagining it’s the doorknob to a beach cottage, with the Purifier Enhancer clutched tightly in my hand. The world sways from the throbbing pain. My hand is a breath away from the dagger. I grab the table to anchor myself, but my grip on its edge falters.
The wood in my hand turns to dust and the rest of the table collapses in on itself, shattering my hope with it.
I stumble to the floor, knocking into a chair. It grazes my chilled hands and blackens with rot. My dagger skids across the room, my hold on things spiraling out of control. The world drains of color. Sickness swims in me. My brain throbs as if it’s splitting in two. I tighten my grip on the stone and try to picture a weathered door with waves lapping outside its windows, but it’s buried beneath blinding pain. It hurts too much.
I drop the stone.
And curl into a ball on the ground, hugging my knees. Breathe. I inhale deeply, and the air fills me up like tight arms wrapped around me, a pat on the head. A reward for folding to my dark magic’s will.
I exhale and take another sharp breath in, my fingers warming. I flex them and rub my eyes as the world’s haze clears. I can’t survive my toushana, let alone fight it off. My stomach churns and a rush pushes up my throat. I’m on my knees, acid burning up and out of my mouth. I sob, a mix of tears and bile dripping from my lips. I can’t do this. I’m just not strong enough.
The handle to the door jiggles. “Weird,” says a muffled voice beyond it.
I try to pull myself up, but my arms are unsteady.
“Hello?” The handle jiggles again and I freeze. “Anyone in here?”
“Didn’t you say it was open?”
“I guess it isn’t. I don’t know. Try later.”
Their footsteps disappear and I fall to the floor, like a bird with clipped wings. Hot tears sting my face. Shadows taunt from the darkest crevices of my soul: Why am I this way?
“Please,” I mutter between tears. Someone, please, anyone, help me. I’d give anything, anything to get this poison out of me. I try to turn off my tears, but the more I push them down, the more they break free. I shake, sobbing until I have nothing left.
I don’t know how much time passes. My eyes are dry and swollen when I pull myself up. I don’t know what I’m going to do about honing, but I have to get out of here. Panic flits through me at the decaying wooden table I ripped into. I bite my lip, ruing the only thing that makes sense. As foolish as it feels, it’s the only sure way to get rid of this mess.
I glance over my shoulder at the door, shove out a breath, and call on my toushana. The cold answers instinctively, yawning from its moment of rest. I hold my side and I feel it shift, stretching through me, rushing into my hands as I rub my poisonous magic all over the table until it’s a pile of ash. My breath hums in me steady and even, a dirge of sorts. I’ve never been more focused, and yet I’ve never done anything so dangerous—using my toushana on purpose.
I take the chair in my hands and it collapses around me like a dropped bucket of sand. That’s about enough . . . I pace a few moments until the chill in my fingers slinks off, my magic finally obeying me for once.
I grab a broom from a closet and sweep the entire mess until the room looks as it was. I remove the barricade from the door and resituate the tables so it’s not obvious one of the tables is missing. The bile . . . I grab a towel from the lab sink, clean my face and hands, then scrub the floor. Back and forth, my knuckles white from the force, until the floor shines. I rinse everything and survey my work.
I was never here.
I exhale.
Cold prickles through me. It moves like a thread, coiling up my spine, my neck, and through my hair. Not consuming or grating, somehow gentle and inviting. My head feels dizzy for a second, and I dash for a mirror. My diadem twists, its rose gold coils lengthening, growing more robust and ornate. Gems bloom like budding roses against the metal on my head. I gape at my diadem, more statuesque than any I’ve ever seen, watching as my desperation fuels my doom.
Using my toushana did this.
It’s growing stronger.
