Six

Jordan

The entire way back to Headquarters, the fate of the Order hangs over me like a guillotine blade.

As the glass doors of Wexton MidCenter Hotel swish open, I hurry inside. If the Sphere bleeds out, magic as we know it is done. Then what was it all for? The years enduring my father, surviving Beaulah. The raids, the body counts. It’s all meaningless if our world ceases to exist. My fingers find the commissioning coin in the slip of fabric at my collar, and I hold it tight in my fist.

“Afternoon, Mr. Wexton,” says the concierge. “Can I prepare the penthouse for you?”

“No need, Joel, but thank you.” I unfurl the scarf that wound around my neck thanks to the overly chummy Chicago wind. I summon an elevator going down, but one going up arrives instead. Guests shimmy out, then more fill it back up, and I wedge myself in a corner, unable to scrub the Darkbearer descendant’s boldness from my mind. Our world is in danger.

She did this. The girl with the perfect poise and soft brown eyes. Who spent her short time near the Order defying every rule that holds it together. So much power and yet so disloyal and reckless. If she’d never bound with toushana, my brother wouldn’t have anyone to use to exact his revenge.

“Which floor?” someone asks.

“Eighty.” I turn the talon-shaped key in my pocket. The elevator climbs, and with each stop, it empties. Thinking of Quell summons memories I’d like to forget. The way she effortlessly commanded the attention of every room she entered, her crooked smile and her mouth tipped to the side, especially when she was nervous. The feel of her hair tangled around my fingers. The way I wanted that long night we spent practicing for Second Rite to last forever. We’d stayed up until morning, swapping stories and joking about how the maezres all seemed a bit too uptight.

I let the wall hold me up; my neck flushes with heat, and shame burns my chest. That sugary grin she wore the first time I let her have a green candy, all it took for me to share that seemingly small part of myself. Despite all my insistence she be perfect, the thrilling moments she allowed herself to not care about the Order, her last name, or any of it. When we danced. When we stayed out past curfew. When she’d discovered whatever crimes she believed her grandmother had done, all she wanted was to run away from everything with me.

My heart turns like a stone in my chest. Nothing seemed to matter to me either when I held her. Not the Order. Not my family. Not my magic. Not my past. The thought sickens me.

And now she’s out there with my brother. Roughing it together, relying on one another to survive, learning more about each other, trusting each other for months while trying to destroy the Sphere. My jaw clenches. They’re both going to pay for their decisions, but especially him. Hunting them down is the only thing that matters now. The Dragunhead has to reassign me.

Once the car is completely empty, I press my talon key to the button panel, and a black button with a talon sigil appears. I slip my key in and the elevator plummets.

Its doors open and the glass entrance to Headquarters gleams in front of me. I skim past the security barriers with a flash of my talon coin, my mask seeping through and hardening on my skin. The center of Dragun operations is an underground maze of offices and tunnels that run beneath the city. The sterile lobby is sparsely dotted with furniture and people. Draguns, readying for the day’s assignments, hustle in every direction, daggers at their belts, file folders in their hands, coins at their throats. I wave to a choice few. There’s a single desk in the lobby: a second security barrier of sorts that my talon key won’t get me past. I march toward it. My shoes clack against the glossed floor, but each step feels like a quake in my chest. He is going to listen to me.

Even though I’ve worked for the Dragunhead for only a few months, I’ve done what he’s asked of me exactly how he’s asked it, exceeding his expectations. My second raid I flushed out a safe house suspected to house Darkbearers in Oralia territory and found a basement full of enhancer stones and boxes of compacts full of transport powder. I confiscated it all and then I found their supplier and brought him in, too. I’ve proven myself quickly. My stomach sinks and my pace slows as I realize that doesn’t always matter…It wasn’t until I could perform certain magic flawlessly that my own father was willing to have a conversation with me one-on-one. And it took even longer before he would bring me around anyone he knew. But the Dragunhead strikes me as much more reasonable.

At the desk, Maei, the Dragunhead’s secretary, signs for a crate of fire daggers, clicking the pen on her clipboard before standing to greet me.

“Unload in the warehouse?” the shipper asks. She sends him off with a nod. The Dragunhead’s grand office doors, ornately carved with each House’s sigil, loom behind her.

“Morning, Mr. Wexton.” She hooks and rehooks a button on her sweater between fidgeting with the amber brooch on her scarf. Hot or cold, she always wears the same long blue skirt, a button-up, and some variety of sweater, its pearl buttons a complement to her silver-studded diadem. I eye the clock hanging high on the wall. Maei eyes me. Something happened earlier. They’re probably out there hunting the Sphere as we speak.

“I need to see him, Maei.” I step around the desk.

“I’m sorry, he’s in a meeting that cannot be interrupted.” She places herself between me and the door. That pen of hers may as well be a sword, the way she stands sentry. “We don’t burst in on the Dragunhead without notice.”

“How much longer?” I ask.

“It shouldn’t be much longer, sir. If you want to wait at your desk, I can come get you.” Her gaze darts to the doors behind her. This is a meeting I’m not supposed to overhear.

“Thank you.”

She smiles, but her pointed features only make her look more severe. “We don’t burst in on the Dragunhead,” she mutters over and over, more to herself than me.

The immediate corridor off the lobby opens to a glass-encased room with rows of desks. Plaques line a back wall. I shed my sweatshirt from the raid onto my desk and slip on my House coat. I pace, watching Maei through the windows; she’s still muttering to herself.

Minutes pass, but it feels like hours. A few stragglers wander in but leave with no more than a head nod. The trace on Quell and Yagrin is quiet. Where are they now? How much closer? Maei’s pen clicks faster as she shuffles and reshuffles papers on her desk. An hour passes. There is still no twinge in my chest from them.

I return to the lobby. “Maei, this can’t wait.” I shove past her and push open the doors.

“Please, sir, we can’t just burst in,” Maei’s voice pecks at me, but I’m already inside. The Headmistresses of the Houses sit around the Dragunhead’s desk. All but one: Darragh Marionne. Beaulah clears her throat. I avoid her gaze. Litze Oralia offers a tight smile while Isla Ambrose stares stoically. My father fills a chair in the corner of the room. The knot in my shoulders squeezes. He should be taking his mandated hiatus for his health—or whatever reason I told the Dragunhead as an excuse to get rid of him. As if he can read my mind, he uncrosses and recrosses his legs. He doesn’t matter. None of them do. Not if the Sphere shatters and magic is lost.

“Jordan?” The Dragunhead’s brows cinch.

“I’m sorry, but it’s urgent.”

“I apologize, sir,” a frazzled Maei says, clicking her pen nonstop. “I—I asked him to stay put.”

“She did. But this shouldn’t wait.”

“How urgent?”

“We have days, I would guess, at best. We need to reprioritize.”

“Well, Council, I’m afraid we’ll have to pick this up later,” he says to the Headmistresses. Then he tucks his lip in thought. “Jordan, give me a moment to close this up.”

I nod.

“A private moment.”

I glance at my father, who’s staring smugly for some stupid reason, before backing out of the room and parking myself beside the doors. Maei doesn’t even try to woo me away from them this time.

“Sorry, Maei.”

“He doesn’t like that.” Her brows draw together over watery eyes.

“I’ll make sure he knows it’s not your fault.”

“I’ve heard your concerns and made notes of everything.” The Dragunhead’s voice is low and a bit muffled. I lean in to make out the rest of his words. “If the rumors of the tether are true, we will not be rash. Dissolving a House must be done carefully.”

House of Marionne. It’s unfortunate. I’d had such high hopes Marionne would be different when I arrived there as Ward. But I saw Darragh’s true colors this summer when she wanted to hide Quell’s secret. The tethering rumors don’t help her seem any more innocent.

“We don’t need you, Sal,” says a voice I know all too well. Beaulah. “The Council has the authority to make this move on our own.”

“You need Draguns, unless you want war between the Houses; therefore, you need me.”

“She must be stopped,” Beaulah urges.

The irony of Beaulah pushing for this. I trace the six gold virtue pins—valor, discretion, honor, sacrifice, duty, and loyalty—that trail down my lapel, and a nauseating earthy scent hits me. A tradition unique to House Perl, and yet Beaulah defies half the virtues with the secrets she keeps. My thoughts move to my cousin Adola, and my heart sinks.

My father exits first, and I straighten, suddenly realizing my wristwatch needs a good polish.

“Have a good day, Mr. Wexton,” Maei says, offering my father his coat and hat. He snatches his things, says nothing to her, and instead turns to me.

“So this is how we interact now?”

Dirt has somehow wedged itself in the rimmed crevice of my watch, and no manner of picking is getting it out.

“You’ve changed,” he goes on. “Since going to Chateau Soleil as Ward. I hardly noticed it at first, but it’s glaring now that Darragh Marionne’s poisoned you with weak values.”

Anger flickers in me. I count the incomplete set of pins at his chest. Five, not six. I stroke my loyalty pin—the one he doesn’t have—and his nostrils flare. He isn’t worth a response.

“Or is this new attitude about that girl?”

I whip out the fire dagger wedged in my waist belt and my father flinches. Then I keep picking at the stubborn dirt in the seam of my watch. “You should say thank you to Maei for your coat and hat.”

He scowls. “You will need me one day, son.”

“Yes, to follow orders. Get back to your hiatus and be sure to notify Maei when you arrive home.”

Before he can fire off a response, the Headmistresses exit in a barrage of chatter. I slip inside the office and shut the door. The Dragunhead is a spindly, thin man with long gray hair in fraying waves down his back. He sits at his desk, bony hands steepled. The fine trim of his coat, bearing colors and symbols from each House, and the gleam of the stone in his brotherhood ring sharply contrast with his glum posture. With the Headmistresses gone, the sternness of the Dragunhead’s dark gray eyes softens.

“A day of grave news, I’m afraid.” He meets my eyes. “But what about you, son? Is everything alright? You’ve mentioned before that you and your father didn’t get along, but…” He lights a roll of peckle leaf and takes a puff. “Are things getting out of hand?”

The knot in me tightens. I’m not here to talk about my father. “He is a leech in our Order. He just happens to have a powerful sister.” I sit in one of the open chairs at the Dragunhead’s desk.

“He is also your father. He’s served the brotherhood for decades. Some might say he paved the way for you to rise quickly and shine so much. He, not your aunt, gave you your endorsement.”

“Because I was the best candidate.”

The corner of the Dragunhead’s lip curls up. He takes another puff.

“And it makes him look good. I’m not going to pretend to condone his self-interested behavior. He doesn’t serve this Order; he serves himself. And that doesn’t work for me.” Admitting the truth unravels the knot I’ve become, and I sit up taller. “I had his endorsement, but if I were bad at the job, you wouldn’t have me here, giving me more responsibility. I’ve shown you time and again who I am. That is why you keep me here. Sir.”

He considers me; his crooked smile unfurls something warm in my chest. He pulls out a small velvet box from his desk. “Before we go on, let me hear this urgent news.”

I tell him everything: how during the raid I felt my brother and Quell, but when it was finished, the remnants of the trace were gone. “They are tracking the Sphere aggressively. And I’m worried that they’re very close.”

“Why her?”

I swallow. “What do you mean?”

“Why is your brother tracking the Sphere with Darragh Marionne’s granddaughter?”

Because she has bound to toushana.

I shift in my seat, and the memory of Quell’s dagger slamming into her ribs plays on repeat like a broken record in my head. It’s stolen my sleep for months. And yet…I haven’t been able to form the words. To say what she’s done aloud to anyone. Rumors swarming about Darragh Marionne’s most recent Cotillion have made their way to the Dragunhead’s ears, but he’s dismissed them as just that, because the stories are conflicting. And I haven’t said anything to the contrary. My neck breaks out in a cold sweat.

“Jordan?”

“I’m not sure.” The lie stings and the shame burns. Maybe I am my father’s son.

“If the Council is right about their suspicions,” he goes on, “Darragh Marionne has attached her graduates to her House with a tether.”

“That’s what Quell wanted everyone at Cotillion to believe.”

“Some old, perverted strain of dark tracer magic, sounds like.”

“Darragh Marionne is squarely Sfentian, sir. That House doesn’t know the first thing about dark magic.”

“If the rumors are true, perhaps her beliefs have shifted from what you once thought. And I’m hearing from the Council she’s erased the recent Cotillion from the memory of all those in her House.”

“I wouldn’t put much past her, but that is hard to believe.”

“You’re saying Darragh is innocent of tethering her graduates? Amassing an army?”

“I’m saying I’ll believe it when it comes from someone who is not a habitual liar. Or someone who doesn’t have a vested interest in seeing the fall of that House.”

“Beaulah.”

I incline my head. “However, I will admit that Darragh Marionne and Beaulah Perl have both shown me that they see the rules of this great Order as flexible.”

“Do you support dissolving the House?”

My heart squeezes, pumping faster. We’re already down one House since House of Duncan dissolved. Replacing Darragh seems to be the best option. But there are no easy answers for a House without heirs.

“That is not a decision I’m prepared to make, sir.”

“Perhaps not now. But—” He parts open the velvet box, and inside is a heart pendant on a silver chain made of the brightest red gem I’ve ever seen. It’s encased in silver and inscribed with each House sigil. The Dragunheart’s lavaliere.

“It’s more beautiful than described,” I breathe. The stone was forged into a heart shape and given to the Dragunhead’s second-in-command. The last Dragunheart died over a decade ago. The Dragunhead hasn’t selected a new one since.

He twists the pendant in the light and its red hues ripple, deepening and shimmering beneath its glassy surface.

“Stand, Jordan.” He rises, too. His gunmetal mask, trimmed in black, bleeds through his skin. “I’ve been waiting for the right moment. And I see no better time.”

Breath sticks in my chest and I can’t feel my knees. I force myself out of the seat and stand still, my mask hardening on my face.

“Your raid went flawlessly. The target was Kix Vorgsiv, a descendant of a Darkbearer line we didn’t have on our radar. But with some convincing interrogation, we’ve uncovered an entire nest of them, hunkered down together at a safe house near Sacramento. I am very proud of you—not just for this raid, but your leadership these last few months.”

“Duty doesn’t require credit.”

“And that is precisely why you’re getting it.”

I don’t have words, so I nod.

“It’s odd, isn’t it?” he says, detaching the necklace from its box. “For generations, we’ve protected thousands from being hurt by those with toushana. But our nickname comes from the killing we do, not the saving. It’s the burning that people remember.”

I ponder a moment, thinking of the guy we apprehended at Yaäuper. “Is it that strange?”

The Dragunhead listens intently.

“Our power is not in our command of toushana, but in the fear we strike into others. We want them to remember it. It’s the only thing that keeps them from banding together and trying to overthrow this place.” My thoughts move to the girl, the outlier, who fears nothing.

His mouth slides into a satisfied smile as he gestures for me to stand in front of him. “It is my job to be of sharp intellect, sage wisdom, and swift decision. But I am not perfect.” He cups my shoulder and it feels like the weight of the world. He ropes the heart necklace over my head. “This fourth day of November, I hereby name you Dragunheart of the Prestigious Order of Highest Mysteries.”

I steady myself on the desk as the world blurs through my tears. I’ve done it.

“Nothing compares to this honor, sir.”

He dusts off my shoulders, pulls out a handkerchief embroidered with intertwined leaves, and polishes each one of my pins. “One day you will rise to the Head and have to find a new Heart. Keep your eyes”—he taps my chest—“and your heart open. Can you do that?”

“Yes, sir. I can do whatever needs to be done.” I blink and see a freckle-faced girl with eyes brighter than the sun on the back of my eyelids. Then I picture my magic closing them forever.

The seconds tick past like hours as I sign a few papers Maei needs to formally announce my position. An interview with Debs Daily is set up, and before I realize it, it’s late. The Dragunhead settles at his desk and spills brown liquid into a short glass.

“Sir,” I say as he offers me a drink. “I would like to locate Quell and Yagrin personally.”

“Protecting the Sphere is more important than bringing a pair of rogues to justice.”

“It took my brother months, but he’s found the Sphere before. I saw him crack it with my own eyes.”

The Dragunhead stills. “Your brother did this? You hadn’t mentioned that before.”

“My apologies. It was in the report. I assumed you knew.”

“And the girl?”

“She wasn’t with him then. But she’s with him now.” My heart knocks against my ribs. “I will assemble a team immediately and find them.”

“No. You will focus on the Sphere. I will get you a record of coordinates of its last dozen sightings, some Sun Dust, and my best brains on sun tracking. We will put everything we have behind you on this.”

It’s not enough. We’re not equipped. Yagrin can track the Sphere so well because he studied it intensely for years. Quell is bound to toushana. She will be able to track the Sphere faster than any of us here. If I tell him that, he’ll know I’ve kept something from him. The ruby pendant shines on my necklace. I allowed her betrayal. He’s my brother. It should be me.

“Sir, trust me on this. If the Sphere cracks, magic is gone.”

“I’m well aware of what’s at stake. But Jordan, you are my new Dragunheart and this is of the utmost importance.” He leans forward. “The balance of power in this Order is hanging on by a thread. I need you, my best Dragun, on this. Not tracking your brother and some girl.” His mouth quirks. “I know you will always put honor and duty above family, but not everyone does.” He rears back in his seat, clasping his hands. “You will protect the Sphere by finding its location. I’m assembling a team of engineers who can hopefully enhance its existing defensive mechanisms.”

“But—”

The Dragunhead picks up the pendant on my chain, and I can feel the Order, our future, Quell, slipping between my fingers. “Make finding the Sphere your one and only mission. I will put a team on hunting down your brother and the girl. But I need my best man protecting the Sphere. Find it, keep it safe at any cost, while I prep the engineers and sort out this House of Marionne mess. Are we understood?”

“Yes, s—”

My heart squeezes as a wave of fear—fear that is not mine—skips through me. I sink into my seat, feeling for the source of the tightness. The Dragunhead’s talking, but the world in front of my eyes shifts. I can see Yagrin running furiously, looking over his shoulder. I stand.

“Jordan? Are we clear?”

“I—yes, sir. I need to go.”

His brows dent. “Very well, then.”

I thank him again, exit his office, and barrel my way into the elevator and up to the hotel lobby. I hold the sense of Yagrin’s location tightly in my mind until I’m in an alley. It’s not disobeying orders, not technically. If the Dragunhead knew Quell was bound to toushana, he’d understand. This is how I protect the Sphere. I have no choice.

“To Yagrin,” I whisper, and Headquarters disappears.

My feet slam the hard ground, and I inhale the cold night air. The dark thicket of trees rings with the patter of footsteps. I hold still, listening. They are here somewhere. Chills scratch all over my bones as I cloak, the toushana disintegrating my body into shadowed pieces. Gusting through the trees, I hover along as a cloud of darkness until I spot him. Yagrin runs as if he’s almost out of steam. His long dark hair is slick on his head, and his rain-soaked clothes stick to his body. My head begins to throb as the cloaking magic begs to be released. I hold on tighter, scanning the forest for long brown curls. But there is no sight of Quell.

Yagrin suddenly halts and glares in my direction, his red mask sloped across his face. I urge my weight to the ground until my feet are firmly planted and I am whole again.

He pales. “Brother.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s not here, Jordan. I’m at this alone.”

Yagrin’s racing heart simmers beneath my skin.

“You were never a good liar,” I say, looking around again, careful to not take my eye off him for too long. “I’m here under orders from the Dragunhead. For the sake of the Sphere and the integrity of this Order, I demand the truth. Where is she hiding?” I scan every shadowed crevice of the thicket of trees around us.

He clutches his chest, where the light of my kor disappeared so many years ago. “You’d sense her if she was.”

I look around again. The night is as silent as death. He’s right. She’s not here.

“Where is she?”

Yagrin folds his arms in that way he used to do when we were little, whenever he was determined to be as stubborn as a mule.

“Does she know what you are? Who you are? That you’re a manipulative, lying snake?”

“She knows what I tell her. And I tell her whatever I want.”

Anger licks my spine. “You backstabbing bastard.”

“Mad she ran off with me?” My brother throws his head back in laughter. “Of course she did. She wants to be around someone who’s not auditioning for Daddy’s approval.”

“I don’t give two shits about our father,” I spit.

“Who said anything about our father?”

“She’s smart. She’ll figure out that you’re lying to her.”

My brother flinches.

“She already has…” A smile tugs at my lips. “And she let you live?”

“You think she’s a killer.”

“Everyone is, under the right circumstances. She’s bound to poison. You’ve read the books. You know what they say. It’s only a matter of time.”

“She has more heart than you realize.”

“You don’t know the first thing about her.”

“I know she likes the cold. Her favorite thing is dancing. Though she pretends it’s not.”

I see red. “Shut up.”

“Her favorite color is blue. For the ocean. And one day she hopes to settle there with her mother. In a small house, with—”

I charge at Yagrin, knocking him to the ground. His mask bleeds back into his skin as I land on top of him. I pummel him in the ribs until he arches his back, rolls to the side, and throws me off. I slam the ground hard; my side is throbbing. Yags was never much of a fighter. But his fist connects with my gut and knocks the wind out of me. I manage to wrap my legs around his waist, tug him onto his back, and return the favor, straight to his jaw.

“Your left hook was always so weak.” He spits blood. “This isn’t about the Sphere at all. You want revenge on the girl who reminded you that you have a heart.”

I pound him with my right hook and he yowls in pain. “Better?” I pull him up and unclip the restraints from my waist.

He smooths the blood off his face with the back of his hand. “So you’re here to, what? Kill us?”

“By authority of the Dragunheart, second to the Dragunhead—” My side aches.

Yagrin’s gaze falls to the shiny ruby pinned to my chest and he sucks in a breath.

“You’re going to kill the girl you love, Jordan? And me, your brother?”

I clip the restraints on his wrists. Time in the Shadow Cells will do him some good.

“Enough of this. Listen to me.” He wriggles in their hold. “Like I listened to you all those years. The Order can’t be what it should. It can’t even be what it used to be.”

“If you want to make it to Headquarters at all, shut your mouth.”

“This is not us, brother. We protect each other.”

My grip slacks as I stare at those wide brown eyes that used to sparkle with mischief. When our father was the only villain we wanted to outrun. I can practically see the scrawny little boy he was—his tidy blazer, Mother straightening his bow tie just so—staring back at me.

“I protected you, you mean. But you’ve gone too far this time, Yags. I can’t anymore.” As I carefully place my hand on his neck to hold in the choke, an apology lodges in my throat. But the time for reconciling is behind us. My brother gets to choose his path. He won’t choose mine or anyone else’s. And I know my path.

“By the authority of the Dragunheart, second in the brotherhood—”

“Father and Beaulah couldn’t care less about you. They love what you do, not who you are. That’s never going to change. Quell is not your enemy. Letting yourself love her is the only hope you have to make it out of this with your humanity. The Order is broken, brother. Learn to face the truth for once in your life.”

His words lasso something violent that thrashes deep in my chest, and I grab him firmly in the choke. “Learn when to shut up. You’re under capture, to be delivered to the brotherhood for fair judgment.”

He doesn’t resist. With my free hand, I fire off a message to Yaniselle and Charlie.

Meet at dawn for your next assignment.

One criminal down, one to go.