Eleven

Jordan

I can’t remember the last time I got such wretched sleep. My brother’s in jail. And I put him there. The trace on Quell is silent and the Dragunhead wouldn’t be argued with, even after I brought Yagrin in. Thankfully he wasn’t too furious. I told the Dragunhead I ran into my brother while out doing my job. My stomach still sloshes at lying to him. Again.

I tuck the vial of Sun Dust he gave me into my shirt and double-check the image Maei messaged me late last night. She’s buzzed me for updates on the hour, every hour, since. The image is blurry, but the blackened orb is hard to miss, hovering over a sandy expanse of desert. The last I saw it, it was covered in webs of cracks. Now each crack has spread into a million tiny ones, and it’s a miracle the Sphere is still holding together at all. We’re running out of time.

The tip came from a member who spotted it while vacationing, but by the time Draguns got there in the morning, the Sphere was gone. So the Dragunhead sent me here instead to get answers from a Sphere expert. Two days of cloaking to get here has my magic stiff. I flex my fingers and tuck the photo away, but my heart seizes in my chest as I imagine the Sphere’s matter bleeding out. And all that would mean.

Me without magic.

The Order in shambles.

Memento sumptus. If it’s all lost, then what was any of the sacrifice ever for? My fingers find the jagged scar on my chest as I walk toward a concrete box of a house up ahead. It’s nestled in a field beside a natural spring and looks just like its description in the report. The smooth slate walls, without windows or doors, blend in with the cloudy sky. An overgrown garden eclipses most of the house from view. Blink when passing and you could miss it. Francis Clemon Hughes III, the oldest living Dragun, lives inside. And he’s the best at sun tracking the brotherhood has ever known. Better than my brother, and that’s high praise. Sun tracking was the only thing Yagrin ever did right.

“Are you sure someone lives in there?” Yani asks.

“He’s a ’Roser,” Charlie says. “This is some trick.”

I listen with all my senses. “He’s in there.” If this guy knows anything, he’s going to help us.

“When did he retire? And why?” Most Draguns serve until death.

I check the file again. “It doesn’t say. Check the surrounding area for evidence of anyone else here,” I tell them.

“We’re literally in the middle of nowhere,” Yani says, feeling for her blade. “You were always so cautious.” Halfway around the world. Two hundred miles from the closest village and a half day’s walk from the nearest road.

“We follow protocol. I’ll look for a way inside.” Circling the perimeter, I find every side of the building is covered in sprawling vines and wild plants. There is no break in the foliage or indication that Francis has left this cube at all.

Charlie rejoins me. “Nothing.”

“Same.” Yani unclips the fire dagger at her waist and slices at the tangled weeds that crawl up the sides of the residence. We’re going to have to get more aggressive.

“Form up. We attack on my say.” I signal for the ready, on my count. And summon the chilled shadows. Cold rushes at me and I grab hold of it, a fistful of toushana. We unleash the destructive magic on the structure all at once, darkness slamming into its hard walls.

Nothing happens.

“Again!”

We pull magic to our bodies, harder, and the world darkens around us. We thrust a cannon of thrashing darkness to assault the block of cement. Shadows slam into the slate surface and vanish. Few things can withstand toushana’s deadly touch. We try again. And again, until my vision blurs and iciness creeps from the tips of my fingers into the bones in my hand. But nothing changes.

“Enough.” When I release the toushana and push it far away, it takes me several blinks before my head feels right again. I walk the perimeter again, surveying for any damage I might have missed. There is no time for delays; every second we’re behind is another second Quell gets ahead.

“Persons and purpose?” A voice from nowhere unsettles the birds in the trees. Charlie and Yani meet eyes. She falls back to figure out where the Audior magic is coming from. “Name your persons, state your purpose.”

“I am Jordan Wexton, Dragunheart of the Prestigious Order of Highest Mysteries. We are here on official business and mean you no harm. I summon you out of your house by order of the Dragunhead. Refuse to comply and you will be charged.”

Silence.

Yani elbows me, then clears her throat and raises her voice. “Sir, pardon my companion. He is new on the job and a bit too eager.”

I glare at her.

“What he means to say is, we’ve come to visit from Headquarters,” she says in a honeyed tone. “We have a few questions for you about the Sphere.” She finishes with a gentle inflection and a kindness in her voice that is the furthest thing from genuine. It’s sickening to be reminded of how I believed the best about her, when we were younger and she had fooled me. And how I didn’t learn my lesson with Quell.

A single wall of the house shifts. Tiny beads of condensation form on its solid surface until the cement barrier on one side of the house vanishes, melting into swelling droplets before morphing into a hazy mist. A withered hand cuts through it.

“Inside, quickly,” he says, stretching his veiny fingers.

His heart beats calmly, and through the haze, his expression gleams with earnestness. I take his hand and he pulls me through a wall oscillating between states of matter. I shiver at the feeling of slimy tentacles slithering all over me. Yani enters next, and after a moment, Charlie dashes through, tucking his phone away. Once we’re all inside, the wall hardens.

“Francis.” He offers his hand again, this time to shake. But I’m stilled, taking all of him in. A bone mask, tinged yellow and eroding at its edges, seeps back into his skin. He waits, hunched, his back bowed with age, but his stare sharply lucid. His gaze moves to my pendant.

“Jordan.”

Yani whispers, “What is he, like, five hundred?”

“He’s probably one of those immortality-obsessed ’Roser weirdos,” Charlie whispers back, loud enough for me to hear.

Thankfully, Francis only blinks, not seeming to notice. “Sal finally picked someone.” He holds on, still shaking my hand, drinking in every inch of me. I can’t help but notice that his frayed long-sleeved shirt and threadbare pants do not conceal his concerningly spare frame. Fading tattoos cover the backs of his hands. There’s a simple kitchen: no mirrors, decorative tile, or painted walls. In true Ambrosian style, it is as gray as the floor and ceiling. The most colorful part of the house is the mantel lined with urns, each with their own style of markings. Beside it is a kneeler for praying.

Francis drags over a stool and an overturned pail. As I sit on the stool, my foot unsettles crushed plants wreathed around a blanket on the floor. After his career, why would he choose to spend his life alone, here, like this? He offers Yani his bed as a seat.

“I’ll stand,” she says.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from Headquarters?” He smiles, but there is only weariness in his expression. His pallid skin barely holds on to his bones.

“Wait, wait.” Francis rushes to the kitchen to hastily fill a few cups with water, and another with yellow liquid from a separate pitcher. He returns with a tray. “Forgive me. I haven’t seen another person in more years than you would believe.”

“By choice,” I say, perplexed by this legendary Dragun I’ve read, studied, so much about, for years.

“Still so green.” He offers us the tray of drinks. I take the glass to be polite but run a finger along my jawline. Charlie and Yani catch it, lowering their cups. Never can be too careful.

“We’re here about sun tracking,” I say.

Francis’s smile fades. “I thought Headquarters had questions about my work on the Sphere. My tracking days are done.”

I try to not let my surprise show. Francis’s reputation precedes him. I check my notes a third time. Son of a war vet. His family was very poor before the war, and worse after. Magic was his ticket to a new life. They immigrated to the States and rose swiftly in the ranks of Ambrose. He was recruited by the Dragunhead before he finished Third Rite. He discovered House of Duncan’s illicit toushana practices and single-handedly brought the House down, exposing the truth: that Headmistress Duncan was trying to use toushana to mine gold. He is a legend. Sun tracking extraordinaire. There is no note about him ever working on the Sphere.

“What sort of work?”

“My great-great-papa and his men designed the Sphere’s casing. Natural talent for certain types of magic tends to run in a bloodline. So the Dragunhead brought me in once or twice to locate it.” He shakes his head. “Never again.”

I slide to the end of my seat.

“The Sphere has grown dark, Francis.”

Francis furrows his brow. “Dark how?”

“The matter inside is blackened and the casing has cracked.”

He shoots up from his seat. “Impossible.”

“You think we’d be here if we were lying?” Yani scoffs, rubbing the handle of her dagger. Charlie watches.

“Come back with us. You have to help save it.”

“Save it? You don’t want to be anywhere near that thing if it bleeds out.” He straightens an urn on his mantel. “Papa and his whole team died to make that Sphere. Creating a casing to hold the magic of so many took a precise balance of hardness, density, and elasticity. The freshest minerals, the proper number and type of bones, barrels of blood stored at a precise temperature for a set number of days during a certain phase of the moon.” His gaze darts between us, then away. “They had to use strong magic to break these ingredients down.”

“They used toushana.”

He nods.

Yani and Charlie share a glance.

I suspected that from the color the Sphere’s taken. “But how?”

“They drew on the shadows, all at once, and shut their collective proper magic inside the Sphere. But toushana touched the ingredients, you see, infecting them. So dark magic ended up inside the Sphere, too. All is fine when the matter is clear. The proper magic is balanced.”

“But that’s all changed.”

“Think about it. All that magic has been held inside the Sphere, churning, refining its concentrated power, for hundreds of years. It’s blackened now. The toushana is winning. The Sphere cannot break. It will wreak havoc on not just the Headmistresses but the world as we know it.” He grabs my wrist tightly. “Whatever you do, green boy, the matter inside the orb must be contained.”

“Come with us. Let’s track it down. The Dragunhead has plans to fortify it.”

He gets up and paces. “That I can’t do. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t understand,” I say roughly. “The situation is dire and you know how to help, but you’re going to turn your back? What would your papa think of you?”

“If his affections were that fickle, I’m not sure I would care what he said.” Francis sighs. “Your passion is inspiring. The Order leadership hasn’t had that fire in some time.” He stops walking and looks around the room, patting his pockets. “If you’ll excuse me just a minute.” He exits through the wall.

After all the years he’s given to the Order, the years his parents and theirs gave to magic, he would dishonor all of it with a single decision. Someone with his expertise would shirk the blatant call to duty. If I have any say, he is going to help. Magic is on the line.

“I don’t like this,” Charlie says.

Yani doesn’t say anything, looking at me with unease.

We wait for some time, but Francis still doesn’t return.

“Grab some of that stuff he’s drinking. I want to test it and some of these crushed plants around his bed. Both of you, wait here.” I approach the wall, and it shimmers translucent, when Yani grabs my wrist. Then she eyes her hold on me before snatching it away. “Sorry.”

“Stay here.” I step through the wall, round the house, and find Francis’s body face down in the dirt, bleeding from a singed gash in his back. And ice cold.