“Quell, what’s happened?”
I rock back and forth, trying to erase the last few hours. I hug myself all over, tears rushing harder. I can’t stay here anymore. I’ve pushed past any reasonable reason to make it work. Even if she doesn’t discover my secret, even if I finish, I can’t be the heir to a monster.
“Quell, please, you’re in so much distress.”
I don’t look at him. I can’t move. He joins me on the ground in the dirt and puts his jacket around my shoulders.
“What happened?”
The words forming on my tongue don’t make sense.
“So many deaths.”
He shakes me and I startle. I meet his eyes and throw my arms around his broad shoulders, wondering if they’re strong enough to hold the weight he’s asking me to put on him. The world sways. He pulls me tighter to him.
“Whatever it is, I will fix it.”
“You can’t.”
He pulls us apart, smoothing my face with his hands.
“Try me.”
“Jordan, my grandmother . . .” I choke on words that want to come out. That want to be told so I don’t have to carry this horrid burden on my own. “I think she’s responsible for all the missing members.”
He narrows his eyes in disbelief.
“I found death registries in a locked cabinet in her room.” My voice cracks. I can’t believe my ears. The next words come out mixed with sobs, but I’ve opened this well now and I can’t turn it off. “Nore. The two girls from your House. And hundreds of others. I don’t think it has anything to do with toushana.”
I look for shock or anger or something in Jordan’s expression but find neither.
“She just announced that Nore—” Jordan stands, his lips thin with doubt.
I pace. “We have to get out of here. Leave with me. Let’s just go anywhere, we can find my mom and sleep in the woods for all I care.”
I stop and he hugs me tighter. “There has to be an explanation. I know Headmistress Marionne to be a woman of great moral fortitude.”
I wrap myself in his words even though they reek of foolish optimism. I know what I saw. He strokes my hair and I try to slow my pulse, but the ache in my bones rises, threatening. I pull away from him, just in case.
“If this is true,” he goes on, “she can be held accountable.”
“No, Jordan, no one is going to hold Darragh Marionne accountable.”
“We can’t leave.” He scrubs a palm down his face. “Dear Sfenti, I pray you are wrong about this.”
“I’m not!”
His mouth bows with skepticism. “If you’re right, the Order needs us now more than ever. You see that, don’t you?”
“I didn’t come here to get into a war with my grandmother.”
“There’s a way things are done. We honor the Order, Quell, at all costs. Listen to me. Do you trust me?”
“Listen to me!” I reach for him, but the ache in my bones spasms and my arm goes cold just as he grabs it. Fear shudders through me at Jordan holding on to my arm as my toushana burns through me with frigid chill. I try to pull back but his grip on my arm tightens, his stare widening.
“Let me go.” I snatch away and put distance between us, hoping I was fast enough. Hoping he was distracted enough to miss the abnormal shift in my body temperature. But his expression is frozen with something I’ve never seen in him.
Devastation.
My heart stops.
He knows.
“Quell?” he whispers.
I glance at the door. Running would never work. “Please,” I utter, vulnerability shattering every urge of reason. I chill entirely, my toushana taking over fully, drowning my will to fight. A lump rises in my throat and my heart rages as I stumble back to put more space between us. But there’s nowhere to go.
His eyes flicker with knowing. He can feel me panicking. There’s no way I could deny it even if I wanted to. A tear steals down my cheek. “Please, anything. Just say something, Jordan.” My voice is as broken and weak as I am.
He shakes his head and rakes a hand through his hair, pacing.
“You . . . lied?” He grasps for words, his throat bobs, his eyes glassy. “I . . .” He shakes his head. Then his nostrils flare. “I thought you were different. I thought . . .” But he chokes on the next words and turns his back to me.
“Jordan.” I chance reaching for him, grabbing him with my cold hand. But when he turns, his pained expression has hardened to a glare. His chest heaves, but his brows draw together, unable to hide his grief, his eyes a watery sea. He stares at my hand on his arm. I snatch it away, stepping backward.
He steps toward me.
And I can feel the distance between us closing like a crush on my throat. His edges harden, anger mangling the hurt in his expression. And the chill in my bones seizes me, not from my toushana but from bloodcurdling fear.
He steps toward me again, and fear prickles my spine. Jordan’s mask bleeds through his skin and his jaw clenches. I look for some glimpse of the boy who held my hand. Who gave me green candies and saw more in me than, at the time, I saw in myself.
But that boy is gone.
Only a Dragun stands before me now.
“Jordan, please.”
He meets my eyes for the first time since our touch, but in his gaze is a ghost of the person I knew, hiding beneath a veil. Dying an excruciating death.
He’s going to kill me.
The space between his breaths shortens.
“I only did it to protect myself. All of this was to—”
His lip quivers as he summons his magic. Black dances on his fingertips.
“Jordan, I love you. And you love me!” My voice tears and his gaze falls. “I know those are big heavy words, and it’s confusing and feels wrong in a way. But it doesn’t change that you do. You love me, Jordan Wexton, I dare you to deny it.” I fight out the words between tears. “Please don’t do this,” I breathe.
Jordan looks away once more.
Before his hand closes around my throat.
And the world disappears.
