Twelve
Quell
Adola is silent as she escorts me from Beaulah’s private quarters. We pass a series of paintings, a few with an artistic take on a starry night sky over a sandy beach. The nights when my mom and I were in bed at the same time, we’d whisper about living close enough to the ocean to hear it and feel its salty, cool air on our skin. Did she remember that, too, when she walked this hall? The familiar ache pulses with an acute new pain. It’s one thing to imagine where she was. It’s another to walk the places she did, see what she saw, breathe the air she did, and know that she stood here and thought of me, too. I speed up to keep with Adola. We stop at a bedroom inside the main house.
“I want to stay in the guesthouse your aunt mentioned.” Where my mom stayed. That’s the first place I want to look around.
“Mother said to find an available room in the family’s private wing.” She dangles a brass key. Beaulah wants to keep me close. I swallow.
“Well, tomorrow I need you to show me where the guesthouse is.”
“Whatever you’re up to, keep me out of it.” She shoves the key in the door.
I’d hoped to be done twisting her arm.
“I wasn’t asking.” Part of me crumbles at the way her nostrils flare. She doesn’t want to get in trouble; I remember feeling like that. Wanting to please my Headmistress. But I saw the fear of death in her eyes when we crashed Beaulah’s party.
“Whatever your real reasons are for being here,” she says, “Mother is very perceptive. You won’t fool her for long. And I can’t afford to be caught up in any schemes.”
I feel sorry for Adola, but if she won’t cooperate, I’ll bury the knife deeper. “I saw how nervous you were when your aunt told you to perform in front of everyone.”
She hesitates.
I knew it. Either she can’t do dark magic or she can’t do it well. And her aunt has no idea. I turn to walk back toward the party.
“Wait! Quell, please. Where are you going?”
“I thought I’d tell Beaulah how we met tonight. And maybe mention that you might not be the heir she thinks you are.” It says a lot that Beaulah hasn’t already figured it out. Adola’s skilled at wearing masks. So was I, at Chateau Soleil. It’s exhausting to constantly look over your shoulder. Guilt cinches my stomach. Adola could probably use a friend who knows what that pressure feels like. But I bury the feeling with thoughts of my mother.
She balls her fists. “Please just come inside the room. I’ll get you a map of the grounds and show you to the guesthouse tomorrow.”
Adola’s very helpful under duress. But as I follow her back to my room, her sullenness bites at me. She closes us inside.
“Mother will probably send you attendants in the morning.” She won’t meet my eyes, and I’m reminded of a girl desperate to hide a black diadem. Returning guilt nicks me in the ribs. And this time I can’t ignore it. I sigh.
“Adola, I don’t have to be your enemy. Is it that you don’t know how to draw toushana to yourself or that you aren’t good at it? Whatever it is, I can probably help you.”
“No.” She puts more distance between us, but I can see her hands start to shake.
I whisper, “How bad is it? Do you not have magic at all?”
“Of course I have proper magic,” she spits. She raises her chin, her diadem gleaming.
“But you’re not good at drawing the dark kind?”
She huffs.
“Let me help you.” I cross my arms, waiting for her to fold.
“I would never accept help from someone like you.” She tosses the room key at me. I’ve never seen someone look at me with such disgust. “I’ll meet you here after breakfast to go to the guesthouse.”
She rushes out.
Abby was so nice to me when we met. I lied to her, kept secrets from her. And I still do. My only friend who hasn’t betrayed me. And now I’m blackmailing Adola. Ugh. Maybe I am a terrible person. My toushana rolls around in my chest. I flip a switch, and sconces flicker to life alongside a fire that is already burning. The room is huge, trimmed in dark colors with red and black accents. An oversized four-poster bed is painted with faux cracks. There is a sitting area, a vanity, and several wardrobes. Moonlight streams through wide windows over an antique tub in a connecting bathroom.
Cologne sits beside the sink. It smells of sandalwood and vanilla, and the hair on my skin rises. Thoughts of Jordan come to me in a rush and I drop the bottle. It shatters on the floor, filling the whole room with the scent of him. Without my thinking of it, toushana pours out of me, and I smooth shadows across the glossed floor until the mess is gone and all that’s left are a few scorch marks on the marble. No, there’s no way. I back out of there and close the bathroom doors, searching the rest of the room for proof that I’m wrong.
But a photograph in a tiny frame on the fireplace mantel crushes my hopes. It’s Jordan, riband slung across his chest, arms roped around others beside him. This is his room. Adola did this on purpose. There is no way I’m sleeping in that bed, even if Jordan hasn’t slept in it for years. It’s the principle of the matter. I consider sleeping in the armchair beside the roaring fire; my limbs yearn for a night of proper rest. Too cramped.
So I peel back the covers begrudgingly. His sheets are the softest silk linen. And the bed makes me think of him in ways I wished it didn’t. I climb inside, unable to resist. Nothing about this place or the people here is completely as it seems. I need to remember that with Beaulah. And Adola, too. I should have learned that lesson with Jordan already.
I toss and turn, but despite my exhaustion, sleep doesn’t come. Every square inch of this room is like staring into a nightmare. I close my eyes but see him, so I keep them open until my eyelids become heavy. By the middle of the night, I can’t stand it and I get up. Somehow the scrap of Debs Daily announcing Jordan’s promotion finds its way into my hands. I hold it up to the framed portrait on the mantel. A younger, smiling Jordan poses in front of an old historic building. Deep creases hug his bright green eyes and a smile. Joy, frozen in time.
Something fractures inside me, and it feels like there’s a gaping hole in my chest. A hole I’d thought my toushana had filled.
That Jordan…I miss him.
The framed picture is a sharp contrast to the one of Jordan in the newspaper where, even in black and white, shadows wrap around his eyes. There is no happiness in his expression, only anger. Which, because I know him, is caused by pain. How did we end up here? I never let myself cry over him after everything went down. Yagrin and I left right away. Then there was the safe house, a million things to busy my mind. But here…his scent is still faintly here. It breaks me.
It was never supposed to be this way.
I can hardly breathe between sobs. I blink quickly, hoping to push the tears away, but it doesn’t help. I miss the boy I glimpsed behind the mask. When we snuck through the kitchens and stole cake. The care he took when he transfigured an entire beach just so I could study. When he looked at me and saw something that only my mom ever has: worthiness. It felt so real. He felt so real. So safe.
I sit and let the wall hold me up, hugging my knees until my chest aches. Then I curl up right there on the floor and cry until my eyes are dry and sleep finally takes me.
I’m disturbed by rapid knocking at my door. I unfurl myself from my covers on the floor. Morning sun shines through the windows. I smooth my puffy, swollen eyes in a mirror before unlatching the door. Adola hurries inside wearing a dark, breathy frock, diadem shining as if it’s been freshly polished.
“Are you ready?”
“This is your idea of a joke, putting me in Jordan’s bedroom?” I manage, voice heavy from the night before and such little sleep.
Adola flashes a surly grin.
“If you want to keep me on your good side, you won’t mention him. Ever.” I throw the key at her. “And get me a different room.” I retreat to the bathroom to scrub the pain of Jordan Wexton and me off my face for good.
The grounds of Hartsboro are alive. Off Season for the Order runs from fall through late spring, when everyone is usually back at home, attending regular school. But the halls of House of Perl are full of débutants and maezres hurrying in every direction, dressed for lessons in simple black dresses or pants, robust diadems arced over their heads and masks sloped across the top halves of their faces. I even spot a few Electus who haven’t emerged.
“The off Season is busy at Hartsboro,” I say to Adola. I hadn’t imagined so many eyes around. That will make sneaking to the guesthouse trickier than I expected.
“It’s Trials week. And we’re a close-knit House.”
“Are there classes in session?”
“Trials are at night. So maezres offer a few enrichment sessions to busy guests during daylight hours.”
“I’ll get a copy of the schedule from Beaulah.” And assuage any concerns she might have about my being here and give myself an idea of when the halls will be empty. House of Perl has its fidelity on display, with more tapestries, House crests, Latin inscriptions, and plaques filled with original writings from people whose names I don’t recognize. Somewhere I hear a chorus of recitations of House history.
“We’ll cut through the Instruction Wing,” she says, taking a sharp right at the hall ahead. We pass beneath a banner boasting the House slogan: Memento sumptus. Remember the cost. “The guesthouse is behind the main house.”
I stuff my hands in the pockets of my dress, remembering the gaping nothingness I saw in the wall of trees behind the estate last night. Adola leads me down a long corridor of classrooms; one has a heavily bolted door.
“The forge.” She indicates the room at the end of the hall.
“A forge for?”
“Magical armor.”
I shake my head. I’ve never heard of magical armor. But she doesn’t offer more information. We walk the length of the estate, passing the study and common areas before finally slipping outside. A manicured lawn stretches out before us, ending abruptly at a line of trees. Workers are setting up a series of raised platforms. With them is a Dragun, checking his Order-issued phone.
“More festivities tonight?” I ask.
“Sure, you can call it that.” Adola’s arm moves across her body, and she grimaces as if she’s sick to her stomach. Beyond the tree line are wooded acres so thick, it may as well be nighttime inside them. The Dragun breaks from the crowd and jogs with a slight limp toward us. I recognize him: Charles. Fatigue shades his heavy eyes, as if he didn’t sleep a wink last night either. Adola greets him, but he watches me with curiosity.
“You’re much feistier than I expected.”
The Dragun coin at his throat taunts me. Jordan.
“Charlie, please let my aunt know that the platforms for Trials are the wrong size.”
His expression softens when he looks at Adola, before his brows furrow. “She won’t be happy about that.”
“Tell her quickly, please.”
His eyes find me again, lingering for a moment on my diadem, and he flashes a satisfied smirk before he hustles back toward the main house.
“That should buy us some time. I love Charlie like an uncle, but he is Mother’s pet through and through. He can’t get a whiff of what we’re doing.” Adola picks up the pace.
“What are these Trials I keep hearing about?”
“Would you walk faster? We’ve already been seen once.” She hurries across the field before slipping beneath the wooded canopy. When I join her, the sun hides from us and the woods become a cone of silence. No hint of a guesthouse. We follow a well-worn path deeper into the forest.
“Trials are how we earn virtue pins,” she finally says. “Accolades specific to our House. Perls are ambitious, if nothing else, and the easiest way to garner favor with my aunt is to have a decorated collar. A complete set is six, and earning all is very rare. My cousin—”
“I know.”
She smirks.
“And the heir to House of Perl has how many?”
That wipes the smile off her face. I don’t suppose Beaulah Perl is happy about that either.
“The guesthouse is just up ahead,” she says.
The hidden abode is two stories, with a steeply pitched roof and the same number of small windows on each side. Its navy-blue painted siding would be hard to see in the shady forest if it weren’t for the overgrown greenery clawing its way up. The wide porch creaks as I hurry up the steps, relieved to be closer to some answers. My mother was just here. The thought tightens a knot between my shoulders. I hold the door open but Adola’s taken off, back toward the estate.
Inside is a cozy living room, and beyond it a kitchen and another sitting room.
“Hello?” I give the common areas a quick walk and listen for any hum of heartbeats, but the guesthouse is quiet. I hurry down the hall of bedrooms and check the first room, twisting its knob, but it doesn’t give. Toushana seeps through my skin, disintegrating the door handle. Beaulah may know I did it, but if I find a clue to where Mom could have gone, I’ll be out of here before Beaulah can question me. I give the door a firm push and it opens.
The room is filled with personal belongings. The bed is unmade and a pile of dirty clothes are on the floor. I close the door quickly and try the next room. And the next. Each locked room is filled with things and reasonably disheveled. None of the items belong to my mother, from what I can tell. Still, I carefully check every single room.
When I twist the knob on the last one, it opens easily. The room is bright and inviting, with a sprawling rug; a large, freshly made bed; and an empty closet. There is a layer of undisturbed dust on the dresser. My heart squeezes. This could have been hers.
I rummage through the dresser but the drawers are empty. Where are you, Mom? Dead, I can almost hear Yagrin saying, again, in my head. I slam the drawer shut. My mother is a survivor! I pull back the covers on the bed and feel beneath the mattresses. Nothing. I sift through linens in a trunk. Still nothing. I remove all the folded blankets, but the bottom of the trunk is empty. I’m tossing them back inside when a stack of crinkled papers tumble to the floor. Each item is a different color, and stained, with ripped edges. I faintly make out faded calligraphy and an envelope to match. The Ditmore. The Caldwell. Harvest Fest. Invitations to various balls. Addressed to various people whose names I don’t know. These were collected. Probably stolen. But who—
The door bursts open, and I shove the stack of invites down the bust of my dress.
“Hello there again.” Charlie smiles. Beside him is a portly fellow with flushed cheeks in a nice suit.
“You can’t be in here, madam,” he says. “All the guests are in sessions at the big house, so I stepped away. I’m sorry I missed you. I would have told you as much.”
I press my palm against myself to hold the invites in place. “I’m just looking around.”
“You’re a special guest,” Charlie says. “Mother wants you in the main house.”
“I wasn’t quite finished.”
Charlie doesn’t move. The suited man’s gaze darts between us. I swallow the urge to protest and escalate this, risking giving up what I did find. But as I leave, I turn to the suited man and ask, “How long has the guesthouse been so full?”
“With the prep for Trials, I haven’t had any open rooms for weeks.” He stares, apparently bewildered by my inquisitiveness.
That was my mother’s room. I follow Charlie out the door. I should’ve expected Beaulah would have eyes on me everywhere I go. She’s cautious to a fault.
When we’re outside, I stop Charlie, annoyed that my plans have been thwarted.
“You’re in charge of security on the grounds?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then who are you?”
“A trusted confidant.”
“Do you live here?”
“I do, most of the time. In the north wing. And all this matters to you because…?”
“Because I want to know who you are and why you have the authority to pull me away. Nothing I was doing concerned you. It was a vacant room.”
“Mother’s House. Mother’s rules. And your mother, Rhea…”
Hearing her name knocks the wind out of me.
“She’s no longer here. You could have just asked.”
“Is it wrong to want to see where she stayed?”
“Not wrong.” We start walking. “But it makes it look like you don’t trust us.”
“I don’t trust anyone.”
We walk in silence until we’re out of the forest.
“I met your mom,” he says. “She was real nice.”
I press the invitations hidden against me, digging my nails into my skin.
“I was bummed I didn’t get a chance to see her off. I was in bed sick as a dog, all day, the day she left. If there’s anything else you want to know, just ask.”
We don’t talk the entire way back to my room, Adola’s warning about Charlie fresh in my mind. I don’t trust Charlie or Adola, but if I had to pick, I’d pick her. I understand the pressure on her shoulders. I don’t know anything about this man or what drives him.
“Mother wants to see you at dinnertime in the cigar lounge,” he says.
I agreed to be her science experiment, so I don’t see a way around coming when she calls.
“If you want me to escort—”
“I can find it.” I offer a tight smile before disappearing inside my room. I didn’t even get a chance to look in the closet, under the bed, or in the bathroom. Who knows what I missed? I have to get back to that guesthouse when everyone, including Charlie, is distracted. I slip out of my shoes before pulling the invites out of my bust. Each is hard and well worn.
My mother never mentioned the balls she attended before she had me. She never talked much about life with Grandmom. But the one thing I do know is that my mom is careful: she only takes calculated risks. Collecting so many invitations from various people would not have been easy. Why would she do that? I flip through the invites again, looking for some kind of message or written note. But there’s nothing. Just papers that have long been trash.
I sigh and shove them back under my mattress. Then I sit and wonder: What are you up to, Mother? Where are you? What did you think of this strange place? Of Beaulah’s secret circle? Her penchant for toushana?
Did it scare her? What will she think of me?
The more I think of my mom, about the last few months, and the room I’m now forced to stay in, the heavier everything feels. I try to picture her kind eyes and summon some memories of her voice. And in my mind I hear what she always used to say: There’s good in you, Quell. You’re going to be okay. I lie down and close my eyes, but the tenderness of those words is drowned out by the events of the evening.
At least for a few hours I won’t have to feel anything.