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“Morning, Mr. Wexton.” She hooks and rehooks a button on her sweater between fidgeting with the amber brooch on her scarf. Hot or cold, she always wears the same long blue skirt, a button-up, and some variety of sweater, its pearl buttons a complement to her silver-studded diadem. I eye the clock hanging high on the wall. Maei eyes me. Something happened earlier. They’re probably out there hunting the Sphere as we speak.

“I need to see him, Maei.” I step around the desk.

“I’m sorry, he’s in a meeting that cannot be interrupted.” She places herself between me and the door. That pen of hers may as well be a sword, the way she stands sentry. “We don’t burst in on the Dragunhead without notice.”

“How much longer?” I ask.

“It shouldn’t be much longer, sir. If you want to wait at your desk, I can come get you.” Her gaze darts to the doors behind her. This is a meeting I’m not supposed to overhear.

“Thank you.”

She smiles, but her pointed features only make her look more severe. “We don’t burst in on the Dragunhead,” she mutters over and over, more to herself than me.

The immediate corridor off the lobby opens to a glass-encased room with rows of desks. Plaques line a back wall. I shed my sweatshirt from the raid onto my desk and slip on my House coat. I pace, watching Maei through the windows; she’s still muttering to herself.

Minutes pass, but it feels like hours. A few stragglers wander in but leave with no more than a head nod. The trace on Quell and Yagrin is quiet. Where are they now? How much closer? Maei’s pen clicks faster as she shuffles and reshuffles papers on her desk. An hour passes. There is still no twinge in my chest from them.

I return to the lobby. “Maei, this can’t wait.” I shove past her and push open the doors.

“Please, sir, we can’t just burst in,” Maei’s voice pecks at me, but I’m already inside. The Headmistresses of the Houses sit around the Dragunhead’s desk. All but one: Darragh Marionne. Beaulah clears her throat. I avoid her gaze. Litze Oralia offers a tight smile while Isla Ambrose stares stoically. My father fills a chair in the corner of the room. The knot in my shoulders squeezes. He should be taking his mandated hiatus for his health—or whatever reason I told the Dragunhead as an excuse to get rid of him. As if he can read my mind, he uncrosses and recrosses his legs. He doesn’t matter. None of them do. Not if the Sphere shatters and magic is lost.

“Jordan?” The Dragunhead’s brows cinch.

“I’m sorry, but it’s urgent.”

“I apologize, sir,” a frazzled Maei says, clicking her pen nonstop. “I—I asked him to stay put.”

“She did. But this shouldn’t wait.”

“How urgent?”

“We have days, I would guess, at best. We need to reprioritize.”

“Well, Council, I’m afraid we’ll have to pick this up later,” he says to the Headmistresses. Then he tucks his lip in thought. “Jordan, give me a moment to close this up.”

I nod.

“A private moment.”

I glance at my father, who’s staring smugly for some stupid reason, before backing out of the room and parking myself beside the doors. Maei doesn’t even try to woo me away from them this time.

“Sorry, Maei.”

“He doesn’t like that.” Her brows draw together over watery eyes.

“I’ll make sure he knows it’s not your fault.”

“I’ve heard your concerns and made notes of everything.” The Dragunhead’s voice is low and a bit muffled. I lean in to make out the rest of his words. “If the rumors of the tether are true, we will not be rash. Dissolving a House must be done carefully.”

House of Marionne. It’s unfortunate. I’d had such high hopes Marionne would be different when I arrived there as Ward. But I saw Darragh’s true colors this summer when she wanted to hide Quell’s secret. The tethering rumors don’t help her seem any more innocent.

“We don’t need you, Sal,” says a voice I know all too well. Beaulah. “The Council has the authority to make this move on our own.”

“You need Draguns, unless you want war between the Houses; therefore, you need me.”

“She must be stopped,” Beaulah urges.

The irony of Beaulah pushing for this. I trace the six gold virtue pins—valor, discretion, honor, sacrifice, duty, and loyalty—that trail down my lapel, and a nauseating earthy scent hits me. A tradition unique to House Perl, and yet Beaulah defies half the virtues with the secrets she keeps. My thoughts move to my cousin Adola, and my heart sinks.