Sixty-Four

Jordan

The Sphere’s innards are waning. Its glassy surface is half-empty. Halfway to destruction. Halfway to the end of magic as we know it. I have to get what’s left of the Sphere’s matter inside something. Beaulah holds on tight to the gleaming red stone full of shadows. She eyes the Sphere. I glance at it; still emptying. I don’t know how much magic that stone can hold. But every bit that doesn’t evaporate is magic we can hold on to—and figure out how to build on. If I just had something strong enough to put it in.

“I’ve already thought of five different ways this ends. You’re still trying to figure out one.”

She’s bluffing. Like Draguns…“People remember the burning.” I circle her. I need that stone or some other vessel for a new Sphere. Something that will keep magic intact and the Headmistresses alive. Quell alive. “Your magic isn’t particularly strong. You’re not bound to toushana. The only real power you have is fear. But that’s broken.”

She stiffens.

“I see you clearly.” Words I’ve buried my entire life force their way out. “You take children and preach to them about all the magnificent things they can do, while coaxing them into desperation for your approval, warping their sense of who they are. You’re all the same—you, the Dragunhead, and my father.”

“You father would be dead if it wasn’t for me. This whole House would be gone. It was my blood, sweat, and cunning that rebuilt this House. So puff your chest out at all the skills you have. But remember, you owe everything you are to me. I own you, little boy.”

I used to tell myself that I worked so hard because I wanted to make the House proud, to do my duty, to shine as a Dragun, to be selected as Ward. But I was working for what those things would save me from: their judgment. Now that it doesn’t have a hold over me anymore, I can see Beaulah more clearly.

“You use your position to make others cling to you. Because, without your power over others, you are no one. And if you are no one, what were all the starving years for? The poisoning of your father and sister so you could scare your mother away and become heir? It means nothing if you become nothing.”

She reddens.

“Yes, I know. I’ve always known.” My father told me once, when he was drunk, in that short window of time when he didn’t hate me and I thought that was the same as loving me. He went on about how she kept him fed when he was an obedient little brother, helping her slip the poison into their food little by little for days. I buried the memory with everything else, remembering it only when my brother forced me to stop running from the past.

Her glare flicks to the Sphere, its darkness evaporating into mist. I eye her stone.

“My cousin couldn’t be more unlike you. The House she runs will be great. And it’s about time you got out of her way.”

“You talk of Adola like you know her. I raised that girl as mine.”

“I’ve learned that knowing someone and seeing them are not the same thing.” I am close to Beaulah now. So close I could reach out and touch the stone in her hands. A familiar face lurks distantly behind her.

“I see you,” she goes on. “A has-been who’s just lost everything he’s spent his entire life working for. All because of a girl who sunk her claws into you.”

“Better her than you.”

She steps closer to the Sphere; I block her path.

“When this is all over, before I let the light leave your eyes, nephew, you will beg me. Dear Mother, you’ll say, please have mercy.”

“You’re delusional.”

“Ha!”

“Because the person you discount most is about to wrap his hands around your throat.”

Yagrin grabs our aunt from behind in the choke. Her eyes are moons. He squeezes, rushing toushana into her. She drops the stone and claws at his wrists, trying to speak, but her speech comes out as a sputter. Her body begins to stiffen as the choke works. Beaulah Perl’s eyes darken with fear for the first time I’ve ever seen. I dash for the stone. It’s so large, I need both hands to lug it to the base of the Sphere’s opening and use it to stopper the hole. But the moment the black matter inside the Sphere crashes against it, the stone cracks and breaks into pieces.

No…no, please.

Felix, Yani, and several others appear. I glance at the Sphere; its thrashing matter looks exactly how I feel inside. Half-empty. Half of magic, gone. I call to my magic, and it answers in a quiet thrum. I try again, but it’s even weaker than it was before, the Sphere emptying—magic disappearing—taking its toll. Yagrin fights off another Dragun, holding Beaulah as a shield. The world frays at its edges.

I must do something. The totality of magic, both forbidden and proper, rides on this decision. Oh my goodness, that’s it.

A stone is too easily possessed.

Beaulah’s freed herself from Yagrin. She and the Draguns barrel toward me. I have seconds. I snatch up a broken shard of the red gemstone and unsheathe my dagger. I’m done trusting others with magic.

I press the tip of the blade into the chest wound that Abby just healed. It reopens. I hold the broken gem near the Sphere’s opening. The dark innards rise like a charmed snake, as if magnetically drawn toward the stone.

When its innards nearly touch the stone, I shove it into my chest.

And the Sphere’s magic follows.

A siphon of darkness streams through the air, from the Sphere into the gash in my skin. I burn all over as magic fills me. Slowly, at first—then my body convulses and my blood pumps harder. My body oscillates from warm to cold and then cold to hot. Blackness dents the edges of my vision as my body drinks in the Sphere’s magic with a rabid thirst. The Sphere’s level plummets. My body writhes. My bones shift. I hold still as the world bleeds of color.

When the final drop of matter falls from the glass, I shudder and collapse.

The last thing I feel is cold.

A bloodthirsty cold.

All over.