Fifty-Five

Jordan

The Sphere hangs in the air, bobbing above the ground like an angry storm, splintered with endless cracks. It’s a wonder it has held up this long. My grip on Quell tightens. The world is silent; these buried mountains are suffocated by a blanket of snow. But everyone here can probably hear my thudding heart. We may have held back a dozen of Beaulah’s Draguns, but two dozen more are sprawled out across the graveyard. Behind us, the angular, architectural wonder that is Dlaminaugh is eerily silent, as if the entire House of Ambrose is sitting behind their stone-and-glass walls, watching. The last time I visited here, I was a boy, traveling with my father. But seeing this place, feeling its mysterious aura, even from a great distance, is impossible to forget.

“Relocate,” I mutter.

“It won’t yet. Not until it’s been attacked,” my brother says. “And if strong enough magic is lassoed to it, it won’t be able to move, even then. That’s how I cracked it.”

My heart thuds when I see Quell listening. I look for some indication that she’s let this idea go. That after last night she’s learned that I do trust her. I could never see her as a monster. But her plan is reckless. She knows nothing of the innards, magical composition, the fickle way it reacts with oxygen. A million things could go wrong. I only want her to see reason. I consider reaching for her, but her expression is ironclad.

“Wait here under the trees, please,” I say to her. “It’s far enough away, with plenty of cover. It should be fairly safe.” But she pulls away from me, her expression darkening, before I can finish.

“I’m sorry.” She grabs my necklace and tugs. Time and motion seem out of balance as the chain snaps. Our late-night talks, the way we slept tangled up together, the way it felt to tell her the things I haven’t told anyone rush through my mind like some kind of fever dream. Before I can form words, she dashes off down the hillside toward the Sphere. And it feels like a part of me goes with her.

“Jordan,” the Dragunhead says, and his voice spins me around. He’s running toward me. “You’re here. I’m so glad you’re here.” He jabs a thumb backward. “Ambrose won’t come out. I’ve asked and Isla will not come to the gate to speak with me. Whatever happens here, we are on our own.” His gaze falls to my chest. “Where is your pendant?”

“Quell.” A rush of heat surges through me, and I clench my fists. “But Beaulah…”

He grabs me by the shoulders. “Where did the girl go?” He looks past me to the impending doom, and something shades his expression. Beaulah’s forces move, surrounding the Sphere. It’s happening. I look for Quell but don’t see her.

“We have to let Beaulah get far enough in her plan to implicate herself. She is going to shatter the Sphere.” My heart thuds. I swallow.

“And so is Quell, it seems,” the Dragunhead says.

My chin hits my chest. How do I hide her intentions? How do I protect her now? But she’s out in the open, defying everything we’d planned. He responds, but I don’t hear a word he’s saying once I realize I don’t see my brother.

The Dragunhead shakes me. “You take care of Beaulah; I’ll apprehend the girl.”

Just past him, in the distance, Quell skirts past Duncan’s forces, going around their perimeter, which is clever since everyone’s attention is on the Sphere. I should have seen this coming. Word spread our world is fracturing, and every rat from the corners of the Order has come to make their claim on it. I look for House of Oralia, but there is no sign of them. I watch the other Houses. No one moves—like they’re at some kind of standoff. Marionne has dozens in plain clothes. It appears Darragh just grabbed as many members from her House as she could.

And then there’s Duncan, with much smaller numbers. But even from here, I can see daggers swirling with flames in their fists. Their attention is not on the Sphere, not on Beaulah, but on House of Marionne. Darragh is a dead woman.

One of House Duncan steps forward and the silence on the hillside somehow grows quieter. My heart thuds. All at once House Duncan lower to their knees. And raise their hands.

Things happen very quickly.

Shadows ribbon through the air to them, connecting with their hands. They all slam both hands of dark magic together and bury them in the snow.

The ground rumbles.

From their hands, a crack rips across the ground, right in Darragh’s direction.

The air rings with shrieks. People shove one another out of the way. Darragh steps aside, glaring not at Duncan but at Beaulah Perl, whose House has linked hands and formed a circle around the Sphere. Duncan huddles again, doing something else. Pressure builds in my chest, but I can’t tear my eyes away from the impending chaos. The Dragunhead doesn’t move beside me.

“How do I protect the Sphere?”

The seconds are ticking by like hours when something dark is flung through the air at Darragh and her House. It hits the snow and explodes. Ash and snow, broken bits of earth, shoot through the air. And in a radius around everything the toushana bomb touched, the ground blackens. My heart stumbles. Toushana. Duncan’s using dark magic. They’ve allied themselves with Beaulah. As if they’ve learned nothing from their past. I look for Quell but don’t see her. More explosions rain from the skies.

“Go to Beaulah!” The Dragunhead shoves me forward.

My body responds before my words can. Darting across the snowy graveyard is like navigating a minefield. Darragh Marionne marches toward Beaulah, dodging explosions. Black thrashes in her hands and my throat goes dry. She has toushana. Quell was telling the truth.

Bombs stream through the air, and I run faster.

Eruptions of darkness and wails leave my ears ringing.

My nose stings with the scent of burned earth.

I pull at the cold, trying to summon enough toushana to cloak closer to Beaulah. But the mist that floats toward me scatters, pulled in every direction by the battle. I urge my feet faster, dashing past bleeding, decaying bodies ornamented in blush and gold. The hillside reeks of death. Yagrin, where are you?

Those who don’t have weapons shift them out of whatever they find on the ground. The violence only seems to roil the black matter inside the glassy orb, making its waves crash harder. Below it, Beaulah stoically watches the mayhem she caused. Yani, Felix, and the rest of them are rigid by her side. I look once more for my brother, but I run smack into Charlie. Or some hollowed-out version of him, no more than skin and bones. His hand thrashes with toushana and I reach for mine again.

“I’m not your enemy, Charlie.”

“It’s looking that way.”

I try to charge past him but he shoves me back, hard. My arm burns as his magic tears the fabric of my shirt. He’s so fragile, he loses his step. I grab him by the shirt and throw him to the ground.

“Stand down!”

His ripped shirt reveals a purpled body with a sutured cut at the meeting of his ribs, black at its seams.

“What have you done?”

He scrambles backward, trying to get up, and winces.

“Jealous? That she could make me into what you will never be.” He spools shadows in his fist, and they do not come from the world around us. They come from inside him. I swallow. Somehow she’s bound him to toushana.

He tries to stand, but whatever experiment Beaulah has done to him has overwhelmed his body.

“Magic is eating you from the inside,” I breathe, unable to stomach the words. Unable to accept what I’m seeing. This is Charlie, my mentor, the stand-in uncle who taught me the way of things when I arrived at Hartsboro. He took me on my first raid and made sure I didn’t get hurt.

When he manages to get to his feet, I don’t have the heart to stop him. He’s done more damage to himself than I could ever do. He will be dead in days.

“Out of my way,” I say.

He widens his stance.

I step forward; he reaches for me. And I bury my dagger in his belly, in mercy. He slumps over my shoulder, and I hold him, tears pricking my eyes. I lower him to the snow, close his hollow stare, and force myself to keep moving.

That’s when I spot Quell. She’s almost made it past the other Houses to the Sphere. Her clothes are a mess; she must have had an altercation with someone on the way. I don’t know what to do. Do I go after her? Or do I go after Beaulah, who’s watching the chaos from beneath the Sphere, her Draguns formed up beside her? Waiting. Watching. As Quell darts around their perimeter, Beaulah’s head follows her. And an eerie feeling slithers around my throat.

They’re waiting.

Waiting for Quell to break the Sphere. Beaulah was never going to do it herself. Having Quell do it was her plan all along.

“Quell, don’t!” But she’s too far away to hear. The sights and sounds of clashing bodies dull, and all I can hear is the thud of Quell’s heart. I clutch my chest, wishing the trace worked in reverse. Wishing I could get her attention faster.

“Quell!”

I dash across the graveyard, between Duncan and Marionne’s bloodbath, and shout for her until she turns in my direction. Her body bleeds dark magic as she prepares to direct it to the Sphere. I dodge bodies slamming into one another. When she gets within shouting distance of Beaulah, she comes to a sharp halt. I catch up to her. But her magic whirls violently around her, shadows swallowing her like a swarm of locusts. I can’t get very close.

“Quell, stop!” I plead. “Don’t do this. Beaulah’s played you. This is a suicide mission. This is not what you are!”

Beaulah watches greedily. Her Draguns could be statues, standing around the Sphere.

Staring at Quell on the edge of demise makes my soul feel like it’s being ripped in two. “Maybe, for you, everything between us wasn’t real. But it is for me. Somehow you are both heart and darkness, which should be impossible! But defying the impossible is what you’re best at. Please.” Don’t leave me to fight for freedom in this world alone.

Quell shakes her head, her cheeks stained with tears. “If I don’t do this, Mom died for nothing.” She rotates her arms together and casts her magic onto the cracked Sphere like a net. Shadows hook onto its glass surface, and the orb shudders. Beyond her, Beaulah’s mouth bows in a smirk. In the distance the Dragunhead races toward us. She has minutes.

Quell tugs downward, pulling on the tether of her magic.

The orb hits the ground, and the earth quakes. The black matter inside the Sphere is shaken up. When the matter settles, it churns in a counter-clockwise motion, growing slower and thicker with each rotation. My brother appears out of nowhere and joins Quell’s side, unleashing his magic. Beaulah wants this. She’s played them both, using their hatred of her to manipulate them into doing exactly what serves her purposes.

“No!” The Sphere’s innards harden into a sludge.

“Get out of the way,” the Dragunhead shouts.

“Sir, give me a minute—” I spin just as the Dragunhead’s dagger slams into my chest.