Page 115

“Which breeds fear. Fear breeds desperation.” Jordan’s jaw clenches. “Did he say anything else?”

“Just that he believes the Council and the Dragunhead have it in hand.”

“This is useful intel. But don’t run off from me like that again.”

“I think I’ve proven I should have a longer leash.”

“I’m keeping it short for your own sake.” He steps closer and heat rushes through me. “Nothing is going to get in the way of you sun tracking that Sphere.”

“My entire focus is on sun tracking.”

He walks away and I swear I hear him mutter, “She’s lying.”

* * *

Jordan refuses to let us stay near the harbor. Instead we hike up the mountain and watch as the little city bloats with patrons milling around like worker bees. Once we’re settled, Jordan leaves me alone to stew. I recline against a rock and let it hold me up. From this vantage point the shoreline is a dot in the distance. The horizon is ocean in every direction.

I stand. “I’m going back into town.” It’s a little early, but hiking back down beats sitting up here. Staring at a stupid beach. Jordan tears himself from whatever he’s spent the last few hours doing and joins me.

“I’m going alone.”

He eyes the shore. I walk off, and though I expect to hear his steps behind me, I don’t.

“You have an hour,” he shouts. “Don’t make me come find you.”

I flash him a choice finger in response.

When I reach the village at the bottom of the mountain, shops eclipse the view out to the water. The central artery of the retail district, appropriately named Main Street, is sparsely littered with people. I head toward a quaint pink building with a swinging sign that reads Betty’s. The clock on a tower chimes six times in succession. Then suddenly the colors of Main Street shift and sharpen. Shades draw up in windows, and the letters on shop signs transfigure. A shopkeeper dusts her Shifter magic across the windows of Harbor Reads bookstore; each of its grand windows transfigures into a doorway with stairs heading in hidden directions. Myrtle’s window front shop is now Misa Memorabilia, every inch of its walls covered in stickers, magnets, and tees. Graffitied on the side of a building is a burning fleur-de-lis, my grandmother’s House sigil. I walk faster. The farther I go, the more the air fills with cinnamon and spice: pastry shops appear where there had been boarded-up doors moments before.

Every several paces is a flickering lamppost with huge flames. I give them a wide berth, gawking at every kind of store imaginable. A dagger polisher. A swath of Vestiser boutiques. Flower crafters. Cartographers. Street artists and their muses, crafting portraits with nothing but their bare hands. A conglomerate of stationery needs. Jewelers. A smelly forge. And that’s just what I can see.

The next person I pass boasts a magnificent ruby-red-and-silver diadem. For a moment, I imagine letting go of the tightness at the meeting of my ribs and showing my own diadem. My heart twists. The real Misa, where Knox’s family was from, was a place for everyone. I skim for any sign or hint that this could be the same. But when I stop to read the signs hanging on the lampposts, I have my answer.

KEEP THE TOUSHANA AWAY

I almost trip over an elderly couple, arm in arm at a bistro table. The one thing I’ll miss about Hartsboro is that I didn’t have to hide there. My insides urge to release my toushana, nestled beneath my ribs. That entire part of my body is as cold as death, and it’s reassuring.

“Quell!” The whisper comes from an alleyway between two shops. Out pokes Liam’s head.

“What are you doing?”

He hops in stride with me. “I’ve known him longer than you have. He’s not as clever as he thinks.”

I smirk, then remember I’m annoyed with him and frown instead. “I don’t forgive you for lying to me.”

“You don’t have to forgive me. You just have to help me bleed the Sphere. I know that’s what you’re up to. You see I was right all along, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Quell, it’s me.”

“Precisely.”

We walk a full block in silence.

“You know, I was thinking, we could tell my brother our real plan. Try to get him over to our side, now that you’re on board, too. He’ll do anything you say.”

I guffaw. “Hardly. And we are not planning anything. I am locating the Sphere. That is all.”