The cafeteria is too crowded, so after we grab our food, I ask about checking out a glass building just past the gardens.
“The conservatory is off-limits, so we should have privacy.”
“Then how can we get in?”
He dangles a ring of keys, and I remember he oversees security.
The conservatory is a tapestry of flowers and herbs. Delicate white flowers cover plots on the ground, and winding greens hug its windowed perimeter. Above, light pours through its glossed windows, the sun chasing away any lingering chill of morning. We stop near a pair of stone benches next to a fountain of a mother and two girls hugged against her legs.
I settle on the seat with him but not quite next to him. I need my head on straight if I’m going to get through this lunch without raising his suspicion. Distance is good. He pulls a bag of colorful candies from his pocket and pops a green one in his mouth.
“You’re going to eat that before your actual food?”
He bites into his lunch. “There, happy?”
“I was just asking. It’s weird, right? To go from sweet to savory like that? I don’t know.”
He gazes off in the distance somewhere. “We weren’t allowed sugar growing up.”
A laugh that’s more shock than amusement spills out. “Wait, are you serious?”
He pulls another bag of candy out of his pocket and shows me two more in his leather satchel. He pours candies into his hands and I expect him to offer me some, but he doesn’t.
“I’m not actually hungry yet either.” I pull my dagger out of my bag and pile the twentysomething stones I have next to it. I don’t have time to waste.
He glances up at my diadem. “You know, I’m not sure if I’ve said it, but you’re very impressive, Quell. Your level of ability is quite rare. It’s been incredible watching you come into your magic.”
“You have a funny way of showing it.” I pluck one of the smaller stones from the pile and ease it onto my dagger.
He looks off again, and it’s like he’s somewhere else entirely.
I slide my hand over my blade and summon warmth to my fingertips. The teal stone bubbles down into the dagger without too much trouble. I grab another. “How can you tell?” I ask, trying to bring him back from wherever he’s run off to.
“I can sense it. Are you feeling more ready for the exam?”
“I’ll be ready. I’d actually like to get out of here as fast as I can.”
That swivels his head around, back to me.
“What?” I ask, pressing another stone to my dagger. This one melts in slower than the ones before it, but it still goes, the metal shimmering yellow once finished. I grab a couple more.
“I can’t imagine itching to leave this place.” He parts his lips but closes them again.
“And why is that?” I ask, unable to bury my curiosity.
He lets the silence swell before speaking. “I’ve been groomed to be a Dragun since I was very young.” He faces me, and for a moment I consider scooting closer to him. “My House is run a bit different than things here. The training is more rigorous, for lack of a better word.”
“Did you have to go there because your aunt is Headmistress?”
“Partly. But we also live within her territory. Sola Sfenti illuminated the magic in me for the first time when I was eight. And my father handed me over to Headmistress Perl right then,” he says more to a flower nearby than me.
“As a kid?”
“In my House, that’s how it’s done. To honor the Mother of Magic and the children she lost we commit more time to mastery of magic, not just study. Much was sacrificed to shepherd magic through the centuries, and the Mother of Magic paid a lot of that cost. Her children and their children lived their lives on the run. Can you imagine?”
I look away. “That sounds awful.”
“If you look at history, whispers of magic have incensed every ruler since the beginning of time. And for what? So that they could dabble in it, play with it like a toy to put on a shelf once they’re bored of it? In my House we start priming prospects for magic six years before the rest of the Order does. One year in honor of each of the Mother of Magic’s children. Headmistress Perl inspects children in our territory around age ten, and if they show the potential to access more than one strand of magic, she takes them in right away to help their chances of becoming a Dragun.”
“Like you live with her? As an orphan?”
“Sure.”
“You call her Headmistress, not Aunt.” Perhaps they’re not close.
“And you call your Headmistress by her title as well.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
“I’ve known what I would do for as long as I can remember. I can’t imagine coming here as you have later in life. That doesn’t sound ideal.”
I stare at the Dragun, trying to see the boy behind him. There’s a wariness that carves the angles of his face that I hadn’t noticed before. A deep sag in the set of his shoulders. I hadn’t really thought about how where he comes from likely hangs his posture and sures his steps, as so much of where I’ve come from has etched my path into stone. He slips another green candy into his mouth.
“I wish I had known about this place.” The truth slips out, and it seizes my heart. His expression crinkles as if he’s sifting through my words for treasure.
“So it’s true, then? Your mother’s departure from here was more than a sabbatical?”
I flinch. “Is that what people say?”
“I’m just trying to understand you, what your life was like.”
He takes off his coat, offering it to me. I’m not cold, but for some reason I take it, considering the earnestness in his expression. There’s only honesty there.
“Forget I asked. What are you thinking of specializing in? Cultivator like Headmistress?”
“I haven’t thought past debut, to be honest.”
“You’re serious?”
My chest tightens, and I see the stern-faced Jordan who towered over me just yesterday. The Jordan whispering in the halls with Beaulah. And yet.
“I want to live on the beach one day, near the bluest ocean, in a modest house with small windows. Like really small and square with little planters outside of them. It probably sounds like a silly little detail I know, but . . .” It’s the one I’ve dreamt of since I was little. “That’s just how I picture it. My mom and I—” Nerves buzz through me, fluttering for a place to land. “That’s where we said we’d move one day. It doesn’t have to be anywhere fancy. It just—”
“Has to have the tiny square windows. I got it.”
“You’re patronizing me.”
“I’m not, really.” His lips crack a smile, the second one today, and I have to look away to not smile, too. “I think it’s incredible that you’re inspired by where you want to be. I’ve never really thought of things that way.”
My turn. “And what about your magic? Maybe I should consider something like that.”
He puts away his candy, his mouth arced in amusement.
“What? I’m serious. You said be open.”
“You don’t choose this life, Quell. It chooses you.”
Dead end. Yet again. “So you always knew you’d come here? To my Grandmom’s House, as a ward?”
“Headmistress Perl dropped me off at the Chateau’s gate with my things at fifteen.”
“That sounds mean.”
“I won’t hear insults about my House,” he says sharply, but something else glints in his eyes.
“I didn’t mean . . . My apologies.” I let the silence balloon.
“My parents pushed hard for me to get the position; Headmistress worked tirelessly to prepare me. I have no regrets. I was eager to do my part.” He looks away. “Am eager to do my part.”
“Is it hard being away from your home for so long?”
“Home is where you make it. There are many things I like about Soleil.” His gaze finds mine and heat rushes up my neck.
I grab my dagger and start working again to do something with my hands. It might have started as a lunch, but neither of us are even eating, really, and I’ve told him more in the last several minutes than I’ve told anyone in my life. My hands work faster over the blade, grasping for something I actually can control, and I accidentally knock my bag off the bench. One of my library books from school spills out of my bag. Its tattered edges have been taped together. I grab it, and so does he.
“I love her,” he says, noting the author.
“I didn’t take you for someone into novels in verse,” I say, letting him thumb through it. “You seem like a pure action and adventure kind of guy, no offense.”
He hands it back before folding his arms behind his head, biting away what I think is a laugh. “I just love stories,” he says, more amused than he’s been the whole afternoon. “Historically inspired is my favorite.”
“Because it’s the best of both worlds,” I say, working another stone in. “It’s storytelling, but with bits of reality.”
“Exactly. What else do you like to read?”
We talk about our favorite books until the sun has started its descent. I work through my stones at the same time as he offers advice. He even laughs a few more times. By evening, I’m somehow sitting closer to him on the bench, when my toushana flares in my chest. I stand. This is foolish.
“Was it something I said?”
“No.” It’s all of him. The way he looks at me. The way we move when we’re together. The way he commands the darkness of his magic without it consuming him entirely. His control, his focus, the thundering storm that wages in his eyes. The way this conversation only makes me want to be here longer. Know him more. The boy who would kill me if he could really see me.
“Then please, sit back down.” He asked me to trust him when we danced, but his stare asks even more of me now.
My fingers prick with an ache, my toushana reminding me it’s awakening. I fidget over my dagger, and a ruby-colored enhancer on top of it slips off.
“I should probably go.” I pick up the stone—as the pain in my bones grows, my time before a flare-up shortening—and set it back on top of the blade. This will have to be my last one for now. I work my magic and the stone bleeds into the metal, which gleams a moment.
Then the metal grows longer.
I gasp and drop it, and the sound of it thudding against the dirt stops my heart. I’m up on my feet, watching in horror as my dagger contorts its blade, curving it to a point like nothing I’ve ever seen. The memory of my diadem growing from my head as black as death squeezes my heart.
I glance at Jordan, his eyes narrowing with intrigue.
Pink gems bloom on its handle here and there, and I can’t tear my eyes away. Something or someone says my name, but sounds blare in my ears as Jordan picks up the blade. Run. My toushana rears up in me unbridled with force, lassoing my feet to the ground. I can’t think. I can’t move.
Jordan holds the dagger out toward me, and I close my eyes, bracing for him to slice right through me. “Quell?”
I blink.
“Quell? Do you hear me?”
I blink again, and Jordan’s holding my dagger by the blade, offering me its handle.
“This is what I meant. That Amplifier Enhancer you just used is a finicky one. Your magic has to be really strong to get enough out of it to shift the shape of your dagger.”
I take it from him, turning it in my hands, staring at what I was sure was evidence of my brokenness. “I thought I’d ruined it and messed up my chances at honing altogether.” That’s as close to the truth as I can get with him.
“I haven’t seen a dagger this impressive since my own.” He marvels at the speckled beading up and down its grip. “It is stunning. You are stunning.”
I reach for words, but I have none, so I grab my things to prepare to go.
“You were about to work yourself into a fit, it looked like. I’m glad I was here.” He holds the door open to the conservatory for me to go through.
“I am, too.” I bite my lip. Silence lingers between us. I don’t know where to look or what to say. So I just walk away.
