Fifty-Two
Nore
Nore’s heart thundered as she snuck through Dlaminaugh. The crowds from the ball had cleared the estate, but it wasn’t until the moon hung high in the sky that she dared venture out to find the journal’s circled coordinates in one of their graveyards. She walked along the balustrade of the staircase down to the first floor, watching for the occasional shift of a shadow that didn’t quite make sense with the light. She knew her ancestors were there. And after seeing her mother’s fear when she asked about the heart, Nore wanted more than ever to avoid them.
She dashed down the hall, past the labs, and through the Hall of Discovery, bridged between the buildings. The corridor looked untouched. But shrouded around its base, against the wall they had gone through just hours earlier, was a pile of black rose petals. Nore pressed one to her nose, but all she smelled was the lotion on her hands. The only person she knew with a garden of the strange flower was Darragh Marionne. She furrowed her brow and backed away, the journal tight in her grip. Was her mother still in there? If she wasn’t, where had she gone? I don’t care.
Nore hurried off but didn’t get far before she heard a pair of hushed voices coming toward her. She smoothed her clothes and tidied her hair as Maezre Tutom and her mother’s maid came around the corner, arm in arm. Her mother’s maid was pink from crying. The maezre’s expression was riddled with lines as well, but she looked more agitated than worried. She threw a glance over her shoulder before meeting Nore’s eyes.
“Maezre. Mrs. Shoom.” She curtsied, then noticed what had her maezre’s attention. A pair of Draguns with talons at their throat and sapphire rings on their knuckles were coming up the hallway behind them.
“Have you seen your mother, Nore?” one Dragun asked. He appeared to be the leader of the two. She’d seen him patrolling the grounds. Head of security, she guessed.
“I haven’t seen her since the ball,” she lied, avoiding Maezre Tutom’s insistent stare.
“No one can find her. She was last seen exiting this hall. She did not notify Mrs. Shoom her bedtime would be delayed. Also, the lock on her personal safe in her bedroom was found broken. The Dragunhead’s been notified.”
Her heart skipped a beat. Who would do that?
Mrs. Shoom tightened her grip on Maezre Tutom’s arm, who petted her hands.
“That is concerning,” Nore managed.
The Dragun’s glare narrowed as he stepped closer to her. “It is not a secret that you have no love for your mother. But by morning, if there is trouble lurking, you should at least behave as if you do.”
Nore’s jaw worked. “You are overreacting. She’s probably in her lab.” No, that didn’t make sense. She spent afternoons in lab. She bit her lip. Her improv garnered her a few quizzical glances. She took a deep breath.
“It’s our job to prepare in case she doesn’t reappear.”
“What do you mean, exactly?”
“Sovereign forbid, upon Isla Ambrose’s final breath, the heirship passes automatically to her next of kin in the line of succession. You.”
This prison was determined to keep her in.
“The House becomes yours; as Headmistress it would be your seat on the Council and your life tethered to the Sphere.” The lead Dragun eyed her warily but signaled for the others to depart.
Maezre Tutom pulled Nore closer and whispered, “The ancestors are angry. Everything hangs on your mother being found. Everything.” Nore glanced at the trick wall, where she knew the vault was. She didn’t know if her mother was still in there or had run off somewhere else. She had been so distraught over Nore learning about the glass box. She bit her lip. How bad would it be to mention that her heart was being held in a glass box? Could that help their searching? The last secret her mother had kept—about Nore being Unmarked—hadn’t seemed very serious, but Nore was dead wrong about that. “I’m sorry, I wish I was more help.”
Nore hurried off to Maezre Tutom, who whispered comfort to Mother’s wailing maid. The lead Dragun followed. She cut a left, then a right. But he stayed on her heels. Her brother intersected with them in the next hall.
“Mr. Ambrose, we need constant eyes on Nore.” It was the lead Dragun who spoke.
“I need a word with my sister. Alone.”
Her brother pulled her aside. “What are you doing?”
“Do you trust me?”
“I want to. But you are worrying me.”
Nore tried to hold her face still as stone, but her brother knew her too well.
He sighed. “What have you done?”
“If you want to know, come with me. Help me.”
“Nore, no.” He pulled her to a halt with a rough grip that was unlike him. “This has to stop. You’re the heir. You can’t—” He raked a hand through his long hair. “Tell me the truth, everything.”
“Only if you’ll have my back regardless, like you said.”
“That’s an impossible ask.”
“It didn’t used to be.”
His mouth hardened and he looked past her. She couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t stop her. Or worse, enlist the Draguns to help him stop her.
“Sorry, Ell. I have to do this. For me.”
She ran away from her brother’s shouts, but he didn’t follow her. That was something, at least.
Daring shook his mane when Nore approached. She ran a hand down the crest of his neck and gave his nose a scratch. His hoof pawed at the hard ground. She dug out a treat and held it out on her palm.
“Today we go on our biggest adventure yet,” she whispered to him as she gathered his tack and grabbed a shovel. Daring’s ears twitched. “I’ll figure out a way to take you with me. You have my word.” She checked her map once more. The coordinates were on the westernmost graveyard on the sunset side of the mountains, miles away. If the Scroll was at those coordinates, she’d be free. Once the girth was tight under his belly, she slipped the reins over his head, put the bit in his mouth, and climbed on. She guided him out the gate and then rocked her hips forward. He took off. The wind whipped through her hair and her heart squeezed. She wasn’t a little girl or Red anymore, but in this moment, she felt as if she could be just as free.
Nore rode Daring hard across the estate, through the trails along the lake’s edge of the property, then down into the valley that rimmed their vast estate. By the time the graveyard came into view, Nore was sore. She sat back in the saddle and Daring slowed. Her nose and fingers were ice.
“Easy,” she said, gripping the reins with one hand and moving tree branches out of the way with the other. A tall fir was planted each time an ancestor was buried; there were firs all over the place. As they rode farther, the snow was cleared off an expanse of headstones, placed closely together. The pungent scent in the air grew sharper. Nore dismounted and led Daring the rest of the way. The forest shook, and then shadows shifted in the light. The ancestors had followed her here. As if they could sense her panic, their presence tightened around her.
“Come on!” She pulled Daring. He refused to move. But when she spun around, she saw what he was looking at.
Ellery appeared from the trees on horseback, light gleaming on the slick hide of his black stallion. He was always much faster than Daring. His gray gloves were dark with blood. Daring reared. Nore let him go.
“You followed me. Why?”
“I’m here to help.” Her brother’s stare deadened. He lifted two sealed pails from his horse’s pack and spilled the steaming liquid onto the icy ground before handing Nore a shovel with jagged teeth. “You’re here to dig up the coordinates. Get started.”
Nore took the spade, her mind full of questions, but when she jabbed the ground with it, and felt the anticipation of freedom thumping in her chest, any concerns faded away. Ellery watched, his arms folded, and Nore almost asked why. But if her suspicions about the magical malfunctions she had read about in the journal were true, he couldn’t help—because he had Anatomer magic.
“How did you know about the coordinates?”
“You’ve always hidden books in your stove. Once I found what you’d been reading, it wasn’t hard to deduce what you’ve been researching. Darragh Marionne was also seen exiting the estate. It wasn’t hard to put the two together. You’re helping her.”
“But that doesn’t explain how you knew where to find this spot.” She stopped digging and met her brother’s eyes. There wasn’t a hint of malice, but there was something she had never seen before in him. She didn’t have words for it, but her clammy hands slipped on the shovel.
“The legend of the Immortality Scroll is known, Nore. You’d know that if you were around this place. People have written about trying to dig up this spot. Keep going.”
She worked furiously until her muscles ached. He knew about the Scroll, but said nothing before. Why? The sun was fully awake when she shoved the spade in the dirt and hit something hard. Her brother watched and didn’t blink. She fell to her knees, her hands and legs numb, digging at the earth, clearing it so she could see what was underneath. Then she did, and her stomach curdled. Bones. Human ones. Beside them, an empty glass box like the one that held her mother’s heart. “The ancestors required Caera’s heart, too…” She stumbled up, an eerie feeling all over her skin. The dead around her hovered over the open grave, then explored inside. Chills raced up her arms as she paced, trying to force down a sick feeling.
Finally her brother smiled, and said, “Thank you.”
She blinked, not understanding.
“Have you ever wondered why Ambrose can push our strands of magic farther than any other House?”
He pulled a dog-eared book from his satchel and handed it to Nore. “Because the House has a pact with our dead—we give up the Headmistress’s heart in exchange for help with magic. With Mother missing, you, dear sister, are next.”