I jerk backward and grip the wrist at my throat. It starts to blacken. I blink at the face attached to the arm trying to apprehend me. Headmistress Perl. She winces, releasing her grip.
“I know what you’ve just done,” she says, eyeing the shawl over my head, clutching her hurt hand. I put distance between us, keeping my hand raised in warning, and realize my fingertips are bruised. Whatever I did to her, I also did to me. But I’ll do it again if I must.
“You mistake me,” she whispers, glancing in both directions before handing me a note. “Alea iacta est.”
The die has been cast.
“If you ever need refuge,” she says. “My address.”
I glance at the paper before rushing off through the broom closet door, hoping to find Abby, Mom, and Octos waiting for me.
The forest is chilly under the moonlight. The shock of everything that’s happened hits me and I have to steady myself on a nearby tree. The trail to the Tavern cuts its way through the forest up ahead. Abby isn’t anywhere in sight. I realize my debacle cut the ceremony a bit short. My fingers prickle, yearning with a thirst stronger than I’ve ever felt before. I have time.
I dash toward the Secret Wood. I arrive, panting. How many have come here terrified and desperate to hide a secret they never wanted? How many died because they couldn’t?
A rustle in the leaves pins me in place.
“You said if I got you in to meet with Marionne,” a guy says, “you’d be on that stage tonight debuting as her heir.”
I creep along lower, careful to stick to the shadows, to see who’s there.
“And I tried. You told me you’d get rid of the girl that Headmistress Perl was after.”
I peer around the tree I’m hiding behind and see Shelby. And Felix.
“You could have tried harder to befriend her instead of letting your feelings get in the way.”
She shoves him, and I dig my nails into the tree that covers me.
“My feelings?!” Her voice cracks, and Felix pulls her into him.
“It’s all right,” he says. “Just calm down.” He peers around, and I press harder into my hiding spot.
“I feel like you’re clouding my judgment.”
He strokes her face, which is pressed against his chest. “Don’t talk that way. You love me.”
“I do, but this is about my House. How Duncan was to replace Marionne. And I was close, so close, like a daughter to her, until she came back.” She pokes his chest. “Darragh Marionne was grooming me!”
My eyes widen.
“Shh.” Felix pets Shelby but she pulls away from him. His jaw clenches.
“I mean it, Felix. What am I supposed to do now? I can’t go anywhere else. I want what was promised.”
“Darling.” He fingers her hair. “Calm, calm, it’s going to be okay.” He pulls her into a hug and she exhales, resting against him. “You’ll have everything I promised you, that and more. I just need time to think.”
She folds her arms. He lifts her chin, running a thumb across her lips. She turns her face away, but he tugs it back to center and she gives in to him, their faces joined in a quick kiss.
“You should’ve trusted me,” he says, smoothing away her tears.
“I’m trying to.”
He holds her face in his hands dotingly, then his expression hardens.
Shelby crumbles in his hands in a cloud of dust.
Felix kicks leaves over her pile of ash before vanishing on the spot. I stumble up and run, trying to scrub what I just saw from my memory. Once the trail to the Tavern and the Chateau are visible again I slow, panting, when I spot Abby.
“Quell?” She gazes past me with curiosity.
“You came!” I throw my arms around her, and a dam inside me breaks. Maybe I won’t be alone in this. Maybe I’ve not abandoned everything that mattered to me. But once she knows the truth, the full truth, she will probably hate me, too.
“Of course I came. You’re as pale as a ghost. Are you okay?” Her nose scrunches, eyeing my dress. “You debuted in black?”
“I’ll explain everything,” I say, and then I realize someone’s hovering behind her. Mynick.
“I hope it’s okay I brought him.”
I stuff my shaky hands in the pockets of my gown.
“Were you able to find Octos?” I ask, rubbing my arms, imagining I can rub away the horror I just witnessed.
“She was,” a voice behind me says.
I turn and sigh at the sight of him. I could hug him. “Thank you so much for coming.”
He nods, keeping a distance. Almost everyone’s here. I look for Mom through the trees, but don’t see her. Abby sets a hand on her hip, watching expectantly for an explanation for all this. I pull her aside.
“Abby, I don’t know about Mynick.” I tighten my hand on the shawl. “He’s not—”
“He came here with me. He broke the curfew rules. He’s in this with us. Whatever we’re doing. You can trust him.”
“You don’t know what I’m about to tell you.”
“If it’s a problem I’m here, I can go.” Mynick folds his tattooed arms, and I notice he has several more marks than before. Octos eyes him out of the corner of his eye, but whether it’s in contempt or admiration, I can’t tell.
“No, it’s fine,” Abby says to him. “It’s fine, right?” She presses me.
I can mention the tracing tether—that gossip will spread soon enough—but I have no idea how he’ll react to knowing about my toushana. If Abby insists on his being here, then I can’t tell her everything.
“Sure, fine.” I explain what I found on Grandmom’s bookshelves, the Perl girls, Nore Ambrose, how Grandmom has fixed Third Rite, what happened at Cotillion. But not about my toushana. Once I’m done, Abby clings to Mynick in shock.
“So I’m . . . tethered?” Fear wells in her eyes.
“You are.”
Octos’s expression glints.
Mynick paces.
Abby nudges him. “I told her she could trust you.”
“She can. I was just thinking. It would be good to tell Headmistress Ambrose.”
“My grandmother told me that she lied about Nore being on sabbatical because she was asked to. Any idea who would ask her to do that?” My pulse ticks faster at still no sign of Mom.
I glance at Octos, who still hasn’t said anything, and I realize that gleam in his eye is ambition. Opportunity.
“So what are we going to do?” Abby asks, pulling at her sweater.
I crane for a view of some indication someone’s coming but see only darkness. “First I need to find my mom. Octos, I was hoping you could help with that.” My gaze falls to his sleeves, which are rolled all the way down today.
“She will expect that,” he says.
“Who?”
“Darragh Marionne. She can influence any of those she’s tethered to her House, whether they want to be or not. Including those who have gone on to become Draguns. I would wager she will circumvent the Dragunhead and have her Dragun graduates hunting you after what you’ve done.” His posture shifts with knowing, and he glances at my still-veiled diadem. “Outing the tethering secret, I mean,” he clarifies to a perplexed Abby. “I imagine they’ll expect you to try to find your mom.”
“He’s right. It’s what I would do.” Mynick pulls back his jacket, revealing a talon stitched at his throat, like the one Jordan wears.
“You were invited to be a Dragun of your House!” Abby slaps his arm. “When were you going to tell me?”
“I wasn’t. Until I was sure. I haven’t finished yet.”
Abby’s eyes well with tears. “How could you?”
They argue, and Octos steps closer to me, whispering under his breath.
“What you need to spend your time doing is focusing on getting control.” He holds up my bruised fingers. “Before you lose yourself completely. I can teach you.”
I trust my toushana, but I don’t know how to wield it with control. I need to in order to protect myself and Mom. He’s right.
“Abby, can you and Mynick look for my mom?”
She side-eyes him. “I will, but he can’t.”
“Abby, please,” he says. “I’m sorry. I’ll turn it down, okay? I—I’ll fail the exam or, I don’t know.”
“So you’ll do it, then?” I ask.
“Yes,” Mynick says emphatically. “If that gets my Abs talking to me again.”
“What about you?” she asks. “What are you going to do?”
“Octos is going to help me strengthen my magic.”
Abby’s brow dents.
“Since she won’t be able to hone her skills here anymore,” he says, veiling my secret.
“But what could he possibly know about magic? He didn’t even finish.”
“Take off your shirt, Octos,” I say. “Let them see you.”
He groans but pulls at his sleeves and slips out of his shirt. Mynick’s eyes widen. There isn’t an inch of skin not covered in tally marks. Mynick’s lips purse with something he wants to say, but only silence grows between us.
“So it’s a plan, then?” I ask.
Everyone nods in agreement, and I hug Abby tight once more, thanking her before they head out. At some point I need to come clean with her fully. That’s what a friend would do. But I don’t know Mynick well enough, and I can’t bear to lose her help if I scare her.
“Thank you,” I say to Octos once Abby and Mynick are long out of sight. “I’m truly in your debt.”
“I was glad to hear you thought of me again. I meant what I said, though. We need to get you more familiar with your toushana. You don’t know what you’re up against.”
“And you do, I suppose?”
“I know enough to be dangerous.”
He digs out a piece of paper from his pocket. “This is one of the last standing safe houses. I’ll meet you there.”
“You’re not coming with me?”
“I have to take care of something first. Cloak yourself. Traveling any other way at this point isn’t safe.”
I hadn’t quite expected to be going it alone, right away. To somewhere where I know no one. “How do I cloak?”
“Lean into your toushana, urge it to make you disappear. Set your mind on where you want to go. Your magic is stronger now that you’re bound. It should do the rest.”
I nod, replaying the instructions in my head.
“Any questions?”
“No, I think I’ve got it.”
“Festina lente.”
“Careful, I’ll be careful.”
“Good. See you soon.” Octos disappears in a cloak of black. I reach for my magic and she stirs, cold and sure. I hold the address firm in my hand and take a last sullen glance at Chateau Soleil in the distance.
I suck in a breath at how it’s changed.
What was once a sprawling palatial architectural masterpiece is decrepit and old. Lights don’t sparkle from its ramparts. Instead, they are battered and caving in on themselves. I blink, and it’s like a veil has been lifted from my eyes. But the realization bleeds through like a gushing wound.
This is what Chateau Soleil always was.
I can just see it now.
Thanks to my toushana.
I close my eyes and call to her, my only trusted friend, and she answers with an iciness that’s comforting. Take me. I mutter the destination, and the world disappears in a cloud of welcomed darkness.
