Thirty-Nine

Jordan

I lead Quell into the Dragunhead’s office. This may have been a mistake. If I can’t convince him to allow us to track the Sphere together, Beaulah will get to it first. How will I ever look at myself in the mirror again? He has to see reason.

“Let me do the talking,” I whisper to Quell as she shuffles past me, then sits.

The Dragunhead’s gaze doesn’t leave her. But, interestingly, there is more curiosity in it than anger. I slide to the edge of my seat. “Sir—”

He raises a hand to silence me. “I want to hear from Miss Marionne directly.”

I smooth my clammy hands on my pants.

“You’re a highly sought-after target.” The Dragunhead leans back. “I’ve sent multiple Draguns to hunt you down on the word of my Dragunheart here, and it appears you outsmarted them all.”

“I have no interest in being captured,” Quell says.

“And yet you’re here.”

She tenses beside me.

“Tell me,” the Dragunhead goes on. “Why did you leave Chateau Soleil?”

Quell stops twisting a fraying hem on her shirt and stares at me with a question in her eyes. Why haven’t I told the Dragunhead about her binding with toushana? Because I’m a fool, that’s why. Quell fidgets. Don’t tell him. I stare intently at Quell, wishing she could read my thoughts. Her pulse picks up.

“At Cotillion I bound to the toushana inside me,” she says, white knuckling her chair. My grip tightens on mine. The Dragunhead doesn’t move. But the creases in his expression have smoothed. He’s not surprised.

“So the rumors are true.”

“What rumors, sir?” I ask.

He hasn’t ever mentioned hearing anything about Quell.

“If this made it to my ears, I know it made it to yours.” My neck flushes with heat. He’s never going to trust me again. “And yet you didn’t bring her in for sentencing. She’s not even cuffed. You’re requesting to allow her more freedom, more opportunity to evade us. This surprises me, Mr. Wexton.”

“I brought her in here uncuffed because—”

Quell’s gaze burns my skin.

“I trust her with this task.”

The Dragunhead grazes his knuckles under his chin. “First you want to delay Yagrin’s sentencing and now you want me to allow you to gallivant around the globe with two fugitives. She should be in the Shadow Cells.”

“Sir, Beaulah Perl has been planning to steal the Sphere’s magic for some time. I believe she was at Quell’s Cotillion to recruit her and offer her safe haven.”

Quell’s jaw clenches, but the tightness burning in my chest—her chest—shifts to sadness.

“If she gets to that Sphere before us, she could drain the innards and lose them.” My heart rams in my chest. “For all we know, she could have concocted some twisted way to alter the Sphere’s magic to affect all of us. You cannot put anything past Beaulah Perl. You have to—”

“Let me be clear,” Quell cuts in. “I’m going to find this Sphere with or without your approval. You won’t detain me alive. So make your decision quickly.” She flexes her fingers.

I watch the Dragunhead for some indication of how upset he is that a person bound to toushana is sitting in his office instead of a cell. But he drums his fingers on his desk, watching her more with curiosity than irritation. His body language is unreadable.

“He is asking me to believe that you have no ulterior motives and will honor your word to help us bring Beaulah Perl in to answer for this very serious allegation. Someone who just gave you safe haven. You can see how I’m struggling with that, can’t you?”

“I don’t care what you believe. You’re wasting my time.” She stands.

The Dragunhead shoots up from his seat, too.

“Quell, we had an agreement,” I say, refusing to stand and let this situation escalate any further than it already has.

The Dragunhead’s hand curls around his hip to his sheathed fire dagger.

“Quell.”

She leans across his desk. “Beaulah Perl offered my mother safe haven, too. Then she fed her to her dogs. Either get on board or get out of my way.”

The air in the room drops to a chill.

Beaulah killed her mother.

A hurricane of my own feelings blows through me. My gaze hits the floor.

The Dragunhead’s glassy stare moves beyond our conversation. “That is grave news, Miss Marionne.” The warring emotions burning through her finally make sense.

The Dragunhead’s attention is still somewhere else.

“Sir, Beaulah is the greatest living threat to this Order,” I say. He lets out a giant sigh. “The fact of it is, I cannot track the Sphere quickly without the help of a Darkbearer.” I can’t believe my ears. “She is the only one of them I trust.”

“And what sort of guarantees are you expecting for Quell after she’s done what you asked?”

Quell’s heart rams in her chest and I feel it like a dagger in mine. Despite her tragedy, she is still wrong for binding to toushana and defying the rules of this Order.

“What you do with her afterward is not my concern. You’re a fair judge.”

Her heart hammers harder. I avoid her gaze.

After a long silence, he says, “I can see how this could be an opportunity, Quell, to use all that dark power to accomplish something helpful. But I can’t give you that chance. I’m sorry.”

“Sir!”

“Enough!” The vein at his jaw pulses. “There are cells full of safe house inhabitants waiting for burning. Any number of them could have the poison in their veins! Why do you insist on working with her?”

His question unsteadies me. “Beaulah killed her mother. And that’s good fuel.”

“Judging by your reaction, you just learned that.”

I swallow.

“Maei,” he says in a raised voice, and the door to his office opens. “Lock down Headquarters, all exits and entrances sealed, until Mr. Wexton and I finish this meeting.”

My heart skips a beat.

“Take Miss Marionne to the waiting area, please. If she gives you a hard time, do whatever you need to have her restrained.”

Quell rises, seething. I take advantage of the moment to hold the door open for them. “I’m going to fix this,” I whisper to her. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I trusted you.”

“Trust me now. We are walking out of here together.”

Worry knots through her, and it feels like a thick chain linking together in my chest. I close the door behind Maei and Quell. The Dragunhead lights a cigar and paces, his skin still flushed. “I lost my temper with you. I apologize.”

“I brought you an impossible request. But it’s our only hope of saving this Order. If she dies now, we are at a loss.” The words are bitter. “We need her. Just for a time.”

His back is still to me when he says, “I can’t go along with something like this in front of her or anyone.”

I cease breathing.

“I’m having a guards’ meeting tonight, on the hour of the shift change. The cells will be unguarded and your brother’s might malfunction. And, son, you have a weakness for her.” He takes a long pull of his cigar. He cups my shoulder. “Destroy it or she will destroy you.”

I open my mouth to respond, but think better of it. I thank him again and exit the office. I have it in hand. Quell is a means to an end. Someone I will use. The way she used me. The crowd in Headquarters has thinned. The red light glaring above the doors flickers out, signaling the lockdown is over. I find Quell flipping through the file folder on Francis’s grandfather along with Maei’s notes on the Sphere.

Her mother is dead.

I reach my desk and she gawks at me as I stare back, speechless.

Her mother is dead because Beaulah killed her.

Words claw their way up my dry throat. “We’re all set to go.”

She gathers the papers nonchalantly, as if there isn’t a chasm of pain gaping in her chest.

“Jordan, did you hear what I said?” She is resolute. Still, the urge to say something, anything about her mother, bites at my lips.

“Quell, about—”

“Don’t.” She’s like glass: hard, but fragile. And now that I know what Beaulah’s done, I can see through her clearly. “I said we’re going to start in Aronya. It has a tall mountain peak and clear skies, and it’s fairly remote, so we should be undisturbed.”

I let the urge to say something about her mother go.

Why Aronya? I almost ask. But we’ve thrown enough daggers today. If we’re going to work together, she is right: we have to trust each other. A little bit. Quell’s gaze moves past me to someone entering Headquarters. She tenses beside me as Charlie rounds on us, and I can feel her heart pounding. His skin is blotchy and pale and his stare is glassy. He looks like death. Yani is with him. Charlie struts toward us, as bullish as ever. Angry bruises are all over his hands. He catches me staring and stuffs them in his pockets.

“I see you’ve chosen your side, Dragunheart,” Charlie says.

“Charlie,” Quell mutters, and shadows shift between her fingers. I step between them.

“Charlie, do you really want to do this here?”

“No, not here. Not yet.”

Maei clears her throat.

“You surprise me.” He addresses Quell, and I can feel her shake with fury behind me. “And after all the bonding we did.”

I shove him in the chest. “Leave.”

Charlie throws his hands up, smirking as Maei gathers a stack of files and hands them to him before retreating back into the Head’s office.

“Let’s go, Yani,” Charlie says. “Duty calls.”

“Yani,” I say.

She turns at the sound of her name, and a fire I haven’t seen in her in a long time has returned.

“You’re choosing the wrong side.”

She grabs me by the jaw. Then she gazes between Quell and me. “I’ll take my chances.”

Once the door closes, I try to slow my raging pulse. This isn’t good. This isn’t good at all.

“I despise him almost as much as that witch he serves.”

“She knows.”

“That girl?”

“Beaulah. I don’t know how, but she knows that we’re onto her. Which means she’s onto us.”