A whole day rushed by since passing Second Rite, and I spent it in session after session. Things are only getting busier. Moonlight glints on the polished floors by the time I’m two turns from my door, where I spot Jordan with an armful of long, rolled papers and envelopes.
“Here to congratulate me again one-on-one?” I haven’t seen him since the reception yesterday.
He glances over his shoulder as we step inside my room and find Abby’s bed is tidy. She’s still out, apparently.
“I don’t get why you’re allowed in the Belles Wing after curfew.”
“I’m technically not an inductee.” An uproar of chatter in the hall spins him on his heels, and he closes my door quickly.
I side-eye him. “What was so important you’d break a rule?” I tease.
He unloads all but one of the bushel of posters in his arms, setting them on my bed. Then hands me a stack of envelopes, letter after letter with my name on it.
“What is all this?” I flip, tearing a few open. “Invitations? To social events.” One is from the Tidwell Committee. “Oh, I wonder if I can give this one to Abby. She was hoping to go to that one.”
He takes the envelope, opening it. “That’s not how this works.” He reads the invite aloud. I and a guest are invited. I groan and plop down on the bed.
“If one more person thinks of something else I have to do to induct in this Order I’m going to scream.”
“That is not how most respond to an invite to the Tidwell, you know?”
I take the invite and set it aside with the others, turning my attention to the long, rolled scroll. “And what is this?”
He stretches it out across my desk, and it’s filled with petite renderings of streets and buildings.
Tiny letters at the bottom indicate that it’s a map of New York City. Similar to the one Grandmom had the cartographer redo; landmarks, buildings, and streets are all twisted and intersecting. “Does Manhattan really have streets underneath buildings?” I peer closer.
“These . . .” He taps four spots on the map labeled tablinum, including a block of buildings that appear to have an ice-skating rink between them. “ . . . are places members can meet securely in the city.” He stretches another map, this one of Los Angeles. “It’s the city, but with our world grafted underneath.”
“Do I have to memorize all this?”
“Yes.” He unrolls more maps. “You have to know where’s safe when you travel. You won’t be hidden behind the walls of this estate forever.”
I search his eyes for knowing.
“And here I thought you came to my room to celebrate with me,” I mutter. I let the map curl in on itself. “It’s been a long few days. Could we, just for tonight, not talk about exams or daggers or any of that stuff? Be really good friends hanging out instead of mentor and mentee?”
“We can.” His lips thin.
“Oh, come on, today was a victory for you as a mentor, too.”
“I suppose,” he says, agreeing, but with hollow enthusiasm. “Well, let’s get going, then.” He reaches for the doorknob.
“I can’t go like this!”
I grab a pair of jeans out of my closet and a shirt with satin buttons down the back. “I have to change.”
“Right, I’ll wait outsi—”
Laughter flits outside the door, whoever’s in the hall very much still there.
“Just turn around.”
He turns, and I wrestle with my unruly dress straps, trying to slip out of my clothes. Jordan shifts on his feet. “I’ve been thinking about what you said.” He pulls at his pocket. “About my being an orphan.”
I still.
“There’s some truth to that. It got me pondering maybe home is not a place you can touch and feel but a . . . perspective that defines you. A way of seeing the world. Robert Jordan warred with it when he arrived in Spain.”
I’ve lived in more places than I can recall. But for some reason here at Grandmom’s—where I have to keep so many secrets from everyone—feels more like home than I’ve felt anywhere. And I’m not sure that it’s the walls and sparkly chandeliers. The having a place to sleep and being safe from Beaulah. It’s something else.
“Do you know what I mean?” he asks.
“I do. More than you know.” My stubborn strap finally gives, and my dress slips from my fingers, puddling at my feet on the floor. The space between us shifts, and for the first time it’s like we are the same song.
He exhales, his shoulders slanting down.
“Hemingway. You consider that reading?” I ask, shoving a leg into my jeans.
“And you say I’m the snob,” he says, mirth between his words.
“All book people are snobs in our own way.”
He chortles. “Actually, I’m not a huge fan. My parents never liked my take on some of the classics.”
“My mother was so consumed with”—surviving—“other things, she never even talked to me about school. It was always just, ‘don’t get in trouble.’ ” I stand there, staring, hugging around my bare skin, realizing I’ve never been this open with anyone.
His chin tugs over his shoulder as he waits for me to say more.
“I’m still—”
“Sorry.”
“Almost done. No peeking.”
“I would never.” He rolls his shoulders. “Unless . . . you want me to?”
My skin flushes as I shimmy into my pants and zip them up. I unbutton as few buttons as I can and toss my shirt over my head. “Ready.”
“You look really nice,” he says, when he finally turns around.
I twist my shirt around my finger as his gaze traces me. Heat flares up my neck when I pull myself to my senses and reach for the door. But he holds it shut and closes the distance between us.
“Until the coast is clear.” He leans against the door, listening, his body brushing against mine. He indicates my bare shoulder, where my shirt is slipping from the top few buttons being undone.
“Oh.”
“May I?”
I pull my hair over my shoulder and put my back to him. His touch grazes my skin, every spot kindling a warmth inside me that lures like a cozy fire.
“You really should reconsider some of those invitations,” he says, feeling for the next button on my shirt.
“I have no desire to go to any ball besides my Cotillion.”
His fingers trail down my back and it makes me want to lean in closer to his touch. I close my eyes, but all I can think about is how gentle and careful his touch is. How I could skip this celebration altogether and instead lie here with him, talking about books all night. I clear my throat. “Are you almost done?”
“Two more. And that’s a shame,” he says. “It’s good to get a taste of society before you’re thrust into it. See what it’s like rubbing elbows with Unmarkeds as if you’re not hiding anything at all.”
“I’m sure I can hide things just fine, thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” His breath warms my neck as he does the last couple of buttons. Bumps race across my skin. “I’ll be at several of them. It’s expected of me, and I do what’s expected of me.” He finishes with my shirt, and I turn to face him, my foot stumbling over his. I fall against him and he catches me, holding me for a moment against his hard chest. His expression is stoic, but his breath rises and falls quickly.
“Sometimes I think about doing what I want instead of what’s expected of me.”
There is no space, not a single breath, between us.
“And what do you want, Miss Marionne?”
I listen for footsteps, but the hall is dead silent. Fearing I’ve been too honest, I push off him gently and grab the doorknob. “Let’s get going.”
The night gusts with a chill, and Jordan and I walk close as we round on the Tavern.
“You really couldn’t think of anything else you’d like to do?” he asks.
“Hey, you had your chance to weigh in.”
Our arms graze as we walk. I hold mine as still as I can, expecting him to put some distance between us before it swings past me again. But he doesn’t. So neither do I.
“I have to officially declare my specialty.”
“I assume you’ve chosen Cultivator.”
He and Grandmom, I swear. “Am I that predictable?”
“It makes sense for you.” His fingers twitch, reaching in my direction as they dangle between us.
“What if I don’t want to make sense?”
His brows kiss, my humor completely lost on him.
“I’m still thinking about it, if you must know. And I wanted to know more about your magic. I’m still intrigued.” Why your magic looks so much like toushana . . .
He moves away ever so slightly but stays silent.
“When you pushed magic into your dagger, was it blindingly bright like that?”
“You’re asking if my magic is as strong as yours?”
“No, not exactly.”
He straightens. “Then what is it you want to know?”
We walk a few more paces in silence before Jordan stops steps from the Tavern. He faces me and his whole posture oozes his discomfort.
“I’m sorry if I’ve asked too much.”
“No.” He takes my hand, his fingers playing on my palm, and a hummingbird takes flight in my chest. “My blade did shine bright like that.” He traces circles on my wrist. “But my magic is far stronger than anything you’ve ever felt.”
“How do you know?” I ask, stoking a flame I might be dancing too close to.
“Because.” He expression softens. He sighs. “The Dragun work I do requires I summon dark magic.”
I snatch my hand away. His magic didn’t just look like mine. It’s the same as mine?
“I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t want you to look at me like that.” He rakes a hand through his hair.
“I’m surprised. That’s all.”
His teeth pull at his lip as if there’s more he could say. I take his hand this time, determined to find out more. How do Draguns control it?
“Isn’t that dangerous? Toushana?” I whisper.
“Toushana is mature dark magic that lives inside a person. It flows through them like other magic. What we do is a bit different, the essence of toushana, but not the whole. The aroma of it, a whiff. Like using the steam from a pot instead of the water itself. We summon it from outside of ourselves, use it, and then chase it off. It doesn’t stay with us. Which requires a fair bit of . . . managing. So yes. It’s quite dangerous.” He shrugs uncomfortably as I consider pushing harder and him shutting down.
“It’s getting cold out here,” I say. “We should go inside.”
He tosses his coat over my shoulders before kicking his heel on the cobblestones. The ground opens, and we descend the stairs into the Tavern.
“Ma-Ri-Onne! Ma-Ri-Onne!” The bar is full of familiar faces and several new ones greeting me in a rush of revelry. Casey and crew shout over the crowd, drinks in hand. I spot a few other faces among the bustling energy shoving me to and fro.
“I heard that your exam was wild.” It’s Mynick, Abby’s beau. “This one’s on me.”
I toss back the kiziloxer and offer Jordan half of it, but he turns up his nose.
“Come on, we’re here to have fun.” We move through the crowd, and I’m jostled by the revelry. Conversations pull at me from every direction, some in admiration, others in curiosity. I smile and the urge to look at my shoes is distant and unfamiliar. The attention doesn’t grate like I expect it to, and greeting people doesn’t curl like bile in my throat as it used to.
“Could I have a picture?” A rosy-cheeked Electus with a wooden circlet on her head poses in front of me before I can respond.
“Thanks!” She rushes off, tittering to her friends about me being “so nice.”
“I’ll be over there,” Jordan says, and just like that, he’s drifting through a parting crowd before I can stop him. I sip my drink and wade through the swell of people bubbled around me, taking in their whispers behind hands, their overeager smiles. I loosen the coat around myself and inhale a sharp breath. Maybe this wasn’t the place to let loose.
“The heir has arrived,” a bleary-eyed Shelby says. “What’s up, girl? Haven’t seen you in a while.”
Someone with Shelby tugs at her, but she shrugs them off. Shelby pulls at a blond tendril and pops out a hip, her hand placed firmly on it.
“What do you mean?”
The crowd tightens around us.
“I’ve just been busy. It was . . . harder than I thought, getting past Second Rite.”
“Oh, is that right?” She turns to the crowd. “The heir isn’t immortal, ladies and gentlemen. If you poke her, she bleeds!”
Her words lasso my insecurity and pull it down, down like an anchor, my gaze falling with it.
“Oh gosh, girl. I’m kidding!” She shakes my shoulders. “I’m just giving you a hard time. Rikken, another round to celebrate! Seriously, I’m kidding. I stopped by to congratulate you at your reception the other morning, but you looked busy.”
I take a sip of my kizi, and a hand touches my hip.
“If you’ll excuse us,” Jordan says to Shelby. “Dance with me?” He offers me his hand, and I take it. He pulls me away from the prying crowd, from a drunk Shelby, to the dance floor.
“Thank you.”
“Rethinking your choice of celebration yet?”
“Shut up,” I tease, and that gets me a smile.
Ballroom dancing isn’t the only kind of moving Jordan can do, apparently. We move in that way our bodies instinctively know how to. Pressed close. People stare, but I ignore them, playing the part, grafting myself into the Marionne-sized shoes I’m supposed to fill as perfectly as I can. Music pumps through the bar, and I feel it pulsing through my body. I move with it, ignoring the stares, trying to forget what Jordan just admitted to me about Dragun work. The shouts drown out after a while. The last weeks of my life play like a reel in my head, but I let myself go, imagining myself free of all of it.
“I can practically hear your thoughts spinning.”
“Just thinking about what we talked about outside. You didn’t do the best job of making it sound uninteresting.”
The music slows.
“Thirsty,” I say, leading him to the bar, and signal the bartender.
“Rikken, a kiziloxer and . . .”
“A water,” Jordan shouts overhead before slapping hands in greeting with someone he knows.
Rikken fills a glass. “Fresh meat, glad to see you in here at a normal time of night.”
I go cold all over.
“What’d he say?” Jordan nudges me.
“He said . . . uh . . . would you like a soda?”
“Water, I said.” Jordan nods, and Rikken gazes between us, stare narrowed at my blatant lie. He slides me a glass and I pull Jordan away from the bar.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” I walk toward the back of the lounge area and fall into a couch around the karaoke stage where it’s less crowded, more quiet, my mind still whirring at Draguns using dark magic. Jordan joins me.
We’re sitting, comfortable in the silence, as a masked singer onstage belts into a microphone, when I spot Mynick heading our way.
Jordan groans.
“What?”
“Ambrosers. They’re all the same. Arrogant know-it-alls.”
The irony. Mynick joins us on the couches, glancing at his watch.
“That friend of yours is going to make herself sick over Cotillion. She said she’d be here an hour ago.”
“Good luck with that, Abby is swimming in preparations. She’s down to a couple weeks, I think.”
“Twelve days.” He sighs. “And I can’t escort her. Did she tell you?”
“She’s pretty disappointed.”
“I mean, you’re the heir and all,” he goes on. “Maybe you could put in a good word.”
I feel Jordan tense beside me at the suggestion of rule-breaking.
“So!” I say, before he can open his mouth. “Looks like your training is going well.” I gesture at two fresh inked marks on his arm.
“Right, thanks.” He pulls his sleeves down. “I’m surprised to see you in here,” Mynick says, apparently determined to resurrect Jordan’s scorn. “With what’s going on with those Perl girls.”
I sit up. “Perl girls?”
Mynick’s eyes widen. “You don’t know?”
Jordan faces him.
“Neither of you know, wow.”
“Out with it, Ambrose.”
“Two debs were supposed to show up for Second Rite yesterday but never did. Their parents haven’t seen them either. It’s all everyone’s talking about. That and the heir to House Marionne birthing the sun itself out of her blade at exam.”
The green in Jordan’s eyes darkens. Two girls from the Order are missing. The fear I felt the first time I met a Dragun twists in my stomach.
“Is there anywhere they could have gone?” I ask. “Maybe there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.”
Mynick shrugs. “Didn’t mean to be the bearer of bad news. Congrats again, Quell. I’ll see you around.”
Jordan stands, and just like that the soft parts of him are jagged. “I have to go.” He grabs his coat.
“Jordan, are you okay?”
“This happened in my House. I should have known about it.” His green gaze is as gray as steel. “I should be out there—”
“I’m sure Headmistress Perl has people looking into it.”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“I’m just saying it’s not your fault.”
His stone expression leaves no room for argument, so I let it go.
“I need to prepare to help, whatever might come. I should ready my magic,” he mutters.
“Manage . . . that thing we talked about, you mean?”
“All these questions about my magic . . .”
“Jordan, I—”
“You’re obviously trying to make a case for”—he lowers his tone—“life as a Dragun, and I won’t let you. I’d never do that to you.”
“I thought you were proud of your duty.”
“I am.” He buttons his coat.
“I was just—”
“I have to go, Quell. I’m sorry. Can I walk you back?”
“I’m fine. I hope the girls from your House are okay.”
He squeezes my hand. “Cultivator, right?”
“Right.”
“Good night.” He turns to go, and I try to settle back on the couch, but the mood has passed. The news of Beaulah’s girls going missing stinks. I don’t like it. The Tavern vibes around me, oblivious.
Jordan’s last words dig at me, souring the dregs of the night. I shiver, remembering the way Beaulah’s Dragun who stopped me at the convenience store glared with murder in his eyes. Draguns use a form of toushana to kill. They’re in charge of protecting the Order’s secrecy. It makes sense. And I’ve never seen anything more destructive than this poison in my veins. But how does Jordan “manage” it, as he called it?
An idea strikes me, and it’s so, so foolish. I’m out the door before I can talk myself out of it. I’m going to follow him.
Jordan stops in the forest farther than I’ve ever ventured. Thin tall trees, some towering, others in piles on the forest floor surround us like a burned building caving in on itself. There isn’t a glimmer of the Chateau or the way to the Tavern in the distance. Like we’ve wandered to a part of the forest swallowed in darkness that has been altogether forgotten. Dying bushes of flowers in every color curl into themselves and their withered petals litter the ground.
I hook my hands, careful to stay out of sight, watching Jordan navigate through these woods with knowing. He moves like the wind, in a blur of black fog. I follow, sticking from tree to tree, leaves shuffling under my feet as quietly as I can. A deep cold presses in on us. The air tastes of cedar and smoke. Until suddenly he stops and gazes in every direction.
In front of him is a thorny bush with red blooms. He glances around once more before stroking the bush’s petals. Then he inhales and stretches his arms wide.
He exhales and tendrils of wispy dark magic appear in his hands, thrashing violently.
I press so hard into the bark in front of me, it scrapes my knees. He shudders, fog suddenly at his lips, and my legs threaten to go out from under me. I blink, but he is still there, holding his wrists together, pointed at the branches beneath him. As the plant crumples in on itself, rotting, leaf by leaf, the writhing wisps of magic in Jordan’s hands slow, more deliberate and controlled. When he finishes, the bush and every other one near it are decayed piles of ash. He exhales. Jordan shakes out his hands, then flexes his fingers, rolling his shoulders. His expression has darkened, his mask bleeding through his skin. He hunches forward, turns in on himself, and cloaks, disappearing in dark fog.
I stumble backward, forcing down a dry breath.
I gape into the nothingness of the night, trying to put words to what I just saw. I claw at the roots of my hair, scrubbing a palm down my face, blinking a thousand times.
This . . . this is how he manages it.
Using it, feeding it, to keep control.
And he does it here in the dark distant forest where no one would ever notice. I glare at my hands. I have so many questions. If we could just talk about it, if I could ever trust him like that, he could save my life. I let a tree hold me up as I realize what I have to do. If I’m going to maintain control, I can’t keep fighting it off, denying it air.
I have to use my toushana.
I swallow. The only time my toushana has ever really listened to me was when I destroyed the lab table. As if it suffered of a thirst that had just been quenched. Afterward it did as I asked, listened when I commanded it, which was to lie quiet.
Could this actually work? The woody scent of damp moss fills my nose as I step out of my hiding spot. The silent woods are wreathed in fog, and I follow the pine-needle-covered paths around and through the litter of broken trees. I manage to find a few stumps splintered or covered in fungus. Here goes nothing . . .
I call to my toushana, and a chill like death answers in a breath. I lay my icy fingers on the stump and its hard exterior crumbles into blackened sand. I work my hands up and down its long trunk, glancing over my shoulder every few moments, listening hard. As my cold, dead magic rushes out of me, insatiable, the tension in my shoulders eases, like a much needed release.
The sky is somehow darker by the time I finish. I fall to my knees, but my chest is lighter.
“A secret part of the woods,” I mutter, a soft smile pulling at my lips as I catch my breath. That’s what this place could be for me.
I scatter the evidence until the ashes mix with the deadened leaves imperceptibly. No one will even know I was here. I reach for magic again, this time the proper one. And the ache that lives in my side is hardly there, my toushana so sedate I can’t even sense it. Instead, warmth unfurls in me, and I play with the leaf of a plant, shifting it into a paper flower.
This is what I have to do.
I try to exhale but can’t. Using my toushana on purpose risks strengthening it, because unlike Jordan’s, mine is inside of me. My chest tightens, and I clutch it, determined to stay calm. I have no choice.
I will let my toushana satisfy itself in secret if that’s what it takes.
Until Cotillion.
Then this cursed life will finally be behind me.
