Forty-Eight

Quell

I wake the next morning with a stiffness in my limbs. The ice in the tub has melted, but the water is still cold. I tighten at my center, feeling the spot where my toushana slumbers.

Answer me.

A cold sensation in my bones shudders like a boulder that’s never been moved. Then it rolls through me and pressure gathers in my chest. I sit up in the water as the quake shoves through me. When I reach for my magic, it answers, and shadows thrash in my palms. I let out a sharp exhale, but an ache buried inside me twists. What use is all this magic if it couldn’t save my mother?

I drag myself out of the tub. I scrub myself dry, wishing I could rub hard enough to get rid of the stain of grief. I sit on the vanity’s stool and wade through the sadness, because I have to let myself feel it. After some time I pull myself together, trying to focus on why I’m here. I need a closer look at that pendant on Jordan’s necklace. Thoughts of my mother recede to the hollow, hidden place inside me where I bury them.

When I open the door to the bathroom, my clothes from the trip are laid out near a window left ajar. They smell like fresh lemons. The bed looks untouched.

“Jordan?”

The deck outside stretches from the bedroom to the bathroom, but the only sign of him is a muddied pair of shoes. This is my chance. If he changed, maybe he took his pendant necklace off? I slip into my clothes before flipping through his things, looking in the room’s every nook and cranny. The wardrobe is full of cobwebs; a small bag he carries is tucked inside. I tear through it, looking for some trace of his pendant, when I spot a note on the bedside table.

Stay put.

Lying down on the bed, I watch the fan spin. Jordan’s obstinance got me to this room, to that bath. He is technically the reason I feel so much better. He even washed my clothes by hand. Who does that for someone they don’t care about? How does the mission mean that much to him? My gut says it doesn’t. That he is lying to himself. But even that is a choice.

I bury my face in a pillow, trying to think of something besides the look in his eye when he coached me through pulling away from that stone. But no matter how hard I try to not picture his green eyes, they are all I can see. He held me on that beach as if I were the only thing in the world. It felt real. It felt good to believe for a second I wasn’t alone. I vent my frustration into the pillow.

None of this should matter. He is a means to an end. Brooding over a boy who might still care for me, but wishes I were dead. I’m an idiot. Hate is safer. Because hate I know what to do with. I fill my thoughts with the Dragunheart pendant instead. It’s small, but if it can expand like the stones in the cave…I look for the file on Francis to see if any of the notes mention the red stone, but the only note I find says it was a prominent part of the process used to create the Sphere’s casing. My tongue pokes my cheek. It might work.

Sun crests the horizon outside my balcony window by the time I am done rummaging through the notes I made from the file. And it hits me: we won’t even find the Sphere if I don’t keep an eye on the number of sunspots so we don’t miss the next flare. Holding the balcony doors ajar, I toss a bit of Dust in the air. The glowing speckles suspend in a hazy cloud between my line of sight and the sun. Cold needles prick behind my eyes, keeping them open. The haze of nothingness suddenly pops with dots of color; a few at first, then a surge of spots almost all at once. I count up to forty-three before I lose track. I finally allow myself a blink and when I open my eyes the dots have gone. The last time I checked there were a little more than a dozen spots. It’s doubled.

I look for my shoes. I have to find Jordan and Yagrin. A flare is imminent. We have a couple of days, maybe—no more.

The inn’s lobby is full of people waiting to dine, and the explosion of chatter stops me in my tracks. It’s morning again, which means the island is open to visitors. Magic is hidden. I check myself in a mirror. My diadem is tucked away.

From the hall, I scan for Jordan and garner a few stares. My grip on my skirt tightens when I spot someone who, from far away, looks a bit familiar. I crane for a better view and my heart stumbles. The gentleman’s unkempt hair, piercing blue eyes, and devilish smirk are unforgettable. Felix. Shelby kissed him in the forest outside Chateau Soleil one moment and he turned her into ash the next. He converses with a lady who twists pearls around her finger, listening intently.

Felix hasn’t looked up. But another scan of the room sends my heart racing. Across the parlor, Mynick and two other men are being escorted to a table. There are silver coins being turned mindlessly in several people’s hands all across the dining room, coins sitting on a table here and there, and a few bold Draguns with coins at their collar. The walls close in as I reconsider every person’s wardrobe. Black, there’s so much black with hints of red and the occasional embroidered column on a sock, the hem of a sleeve. Beaulah’s Draguns. Everywhere.

I’m backing away when a firm hand finds my lower back and urges me along. I smell him before I see him and the flutter of my heart calms. He leads us into a stairwell and jams the door.

“Were you seen?” Jordan asks.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. I came to tell you the number of sunspots is increasing quickly. A flare is imminent. Then I saw Felix!”

“And many others.”

“How many?”

“Two dozen. Maybe more. A war is brewing.”

“Are they following us?”

“Perhaps.” His jaw ticks. “Or Yagrin’s not really on our side.”

“That’s not it.”

“You don’t know how much of a screwup my brother can be, even on accident.”

I fold my arms. “You shouldn’t talk about him that way. If you want to be frank, the most logical leak in our trio is you. Because I certainly have no love for Beaulah, and I know Yagrin hates that woman.”

“The audacity, that you think you know my brother better than me.”

“You know him, but you don’t see him. Funny, the way he talks, it sounds like he thought that was changing.”

His mouth hardens, and I can feel him tense beside me. Then his shoulders sink. “Look, drop this. None of us are working with Beaulah.” Something like regret glints in his eyes. “I don’t know how Beaulah figured out we’re here. The concierge may have recognized you even though we didn’t give your name. She has eyes everywhere. If they’re here, they’re either planning to follow us when we catch a flare to the Sphere or stop us. We need to adjust our plans.”

My toushana nudges me. “We can damage their numbers…”

His brows crease.

“If they try to follow us when we catch a flare to sun track, neither of us will be able to stop them. There are too many of them. If we want to make out of here with an advantage over Beaulah, we have to do something drastic.”

His expression darkens. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

“We attack them before they attack us or get in our way. We can wait until they’re asleep and do it.”

“You want to raid my own brotherhood? Me, the Dragunheart.”

“Jordan, you said yourself, like Charlie, they’ve chosen their side.”

“We take an oath, sealed in bone and blood, unto death.”

“And yet they are here. Marching for Beaulah to steal the Sphere’s magic.” I hate when he does that. When he gets too scared to actually do something. Our back is up against a wall, can’t he see that? I’m getting to that Sphere before Beaulah. Without dozens of her Draguns following me.

He sighs.

“Have them arrested, send them to the Dragunhead. We have to do something to get rid of some of them. There are three of us!”

His knuckles scrape his jaw. “They’ll deny it. We can’t prove they are here with treasonous intent. Our hands are tied.”

I unleash a cloud of shadows before siphoning it back into myself. “No, they’re not!”