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“Beaulah made you feel safe, cared for. Then she turned on you. Is that what happened? You think because you have dark magic you’re safe.” I chuckle dryly. “You’re still weak. Because you don’t even begin to understand what you’re capable of. And by the time you do, I’ll make sure you’re dead.”

Thirty-Six

Quell

Jordan’s eyes swarm with shadows, and it’s like staring at a ghost of the person he once was. Still, I can’t help but search for that boy I used to know. The one I loved. The one who showed me where to find my magic and how to believe the best about myself. Who held my hand and taught me to dance. But there’s an emptiness to his glare, as if a whole part of him that used to exist has been ripped out. Not going to lie—after the last few hours, part of me envies being able to exist that way.

“What did Beaulah do to you?” he asks again.

And again, I ignore him. He doesn’t know about my mom, and I can’t bear to hear those words come out of my mouth once more. He wouldn’t care anyway. “You mean, what was I going to do to her? How much detail would you like?”

His gaze traces me. First my clothes, then my head, where my diadem is, then the bruises on my hands. Finally, he meets my eyes and I can hear the patter of his heart speed up. He glares, but those viridescent moons swim with desperation. I lean into his blade at my neck, calling his bluff.

“Afraid of actually having to use that knife?”

He white knuckles its handle. “Go on, lie to yourself. You’re good at that.” A stranger hovers over me, clinging to duty to the Order as if it’s all he has left.

“I see nothing has changed,” I say.

“Everything has changed.”

“And yet you’re errand boy for another model citizen in the Order. Hope this one doesn’t disappoint.”

His jaw clenches.

“You hate me because I see through your mask.”

“I hate you because you exist.”

Partly true. I did break his heart.

He brings the fire dagger closer to my face. Magic, still weak, flutters in my hands. The blade’s heat is warm, and part of me wonders what it would feel like to touch the fire and let it consume me. To shake this deep nothingness that aches in my chest. But my toushana writhes in me, and the only thing that I can think about is severing Beaulah’s head from her body. I draw in a breath, balling my fists, and my magic seeps back into me.

Something he said a few moments ago piqued my interest. He’s right: losing power is a reality Beaulah fears more than death. But he wants to bring her in and allow the Order to lock her up or something. Handing over her fate to the Order is far too generous.

“What makes you think she can even get the Sphere’s power?”

“She’s been collecting Darkbearer descendants. I suspect she is trying to learn about their connection to toushana, steal it, and somehow put it in another person. So she can use those loyal to her even more lethally.”

His words lasso like a noose around my neck. Me. That’s what she was doing in our experiments? All this time, I’ve just been part of Beaulah’s collection.

“She is vile, like my grandmother.”

He lowers the blade, sheathing it. “We agree on one thing, I see.”

“How is the magic in the Sphere connected to the magic in all of us?” I circle him, pondering. Beaulah needs more than just justice. I want her to feel seething fury when she becomes powerless. She needs to know the pain of loving something more than life itself, and losing. I try to think past my revenge for some idea of what’s next, after she’s dealt with. But there is only bleakness beyond it.

“It works similarly to the trace,” he says. “We’re bound.”

“If the Sphere drains, we lose our magic, I know. But if she takes the power for herself, what happens to us?”

“Depends on what she does with it. As long as magic is contained, it concentrates its power, keeping it stable for us.” Something dark shades his expression. “The Sphere’s casing was supposed to maintain the perfect equilibrium to keep magic in balance. But it’s blackening on the inside. I’m not sure if that’ll make it easier or harder for Beaulah.”

“What’s causing the blackness?”

“Too many of your kind out there using toushana.”

I think of Knox, Willam, and the others in safe houses. Knox wouldn’t let me stay in the safe house unless I agreed to abandon magic completely.