Page 14 of Fortress of Ambrose (House of Marionne #3)

Eleven

Nore

Nore could feel the lurking dead gaining on her and Yagrin as the gates of Chateau Soleil came into focus. She kept looking back. And each time, Yagrin eyed her warily. Others only saw the dead as oddly placed shadows or looming dark clouds unless their eyes were trained.

“We’re almost there. Relax,” he said, as if he could tell she was a knot.

When their feet found the paved path to the gates of Chateau Soleil, the dead stopped. She rushed to the iron wall around the estate, with Yagrin on her heels. She expected them to continue their pursuit, but the dead lingered at the edge of Darragh Marionne’s property.

“What is it?” Yagrin asked, gazing up at the trees to try to make sense of the shadows.

“Do you know how we get in?” she asked, ignoring his confusion. The more she told him about the dead, the closer she got to the truth of why she was so willing to help find the Scroll. She didn’t need him putting any dots together.

She studied the perimeter of the estate.

The Chateau was nothing like she remembered.

The gate spindles were taller than she recalled and overgrown with thorny black roses.

Right up on the gate, she could hardly see the mansion behind it.

She gave it a nudge, and the world darkened more, like a storm cloud had moved in.

More dead had arrived. She could feel stares on her skin.

They circled like hungry sharks, but they still didn’t move past the estate property line.

The dead might have found a way to leave the Ambrose grounds, but they couldn’t cross onto another House’s property.

She tried to exhale, but the knot in her shoulders cinched.

Who knew what her brother was doing, how he was able to stretch magic to influence their ancestors?

How had he gotten them to leave Dlaminaugh in the first place?

“Nore?” Yagrin gazed right past them. “Are you alright?”

“Just worried we won’t get inside.” She tugged on the knotted vines around the gate.

The thicket of roses shifted.

“Watch out,” Yagrin said with an outstretched arm.

Her body felt rigid, then it ached, at the warmth of his arm against her.

She stepped aside, creating a generous distance between them.

It was difficult enough to keep her memories at bay without him so close.

Dark magic coiled in his hands, and her heart skipped a beat.

She’d never seen him actually do magic before.

And she’d only ever seen a small drip of the magic from her fingertip twice—once when her mother poisoned her and the next time when she accidentally disintegrated her gloves at Darragh Marionne’s tea party.

Toushana sprang up in the air from his palm like a snake charmed by a song.

“Never been around a Dragun before, I see.”

She straightened. “Ambrose doesn’t put out many Draguns. The few we have on security are kept on the perimeter of the grounds. Any protection we need, the ancestors provide.”

Shapeless shadowed bodies shifted restlessly on her periphery, and her pulse picked up.

Yagrin eyed their general direction warily before raising a brow at her.

“Spoken like someone who really loathes their house.” The branches swallowing the iron gates grew at the brush of dark magic.

Their spiked stems slithered around the iron, thickening, tightening.

Dark flowers deepened their blossoming, and new sprouts appeared.

The gate grew harder to see as the plants took over it.

Yagrin scowled. Nore kept an eye on the hovering dead, watching them as if they were on the other side of a glass that wouldn’t shatter.

A voice cut through the brush.

“Closer, so I can see you clearly.” The voice was familiar. Like Darragh Marionne’s but with a higher pitch and a rolled r.

“Closerrrr.”

Yagrin approached, and a warning stuck in Nore’s throat. Darragh was dead. These were her black roses. She was superstitious about them. Goose bumps rose on Nore’s skin. But the voice? Audior magic.

Yagrin reached for the gate.

“Wait!” But before he heard her, the roses coiled around his wrist. The thorns had him bound to the iron within moments.

“Do something,” he forced out, trying but failing to fend off vines now wrapping themselves around his chest.

Nore scrambled, trying to remember all she could about the roses.

Darragh was the only person she knew who held to the old wives’ tales about them.

Nore pulled at the dregs of her memory. She’d studied up on them in order to harvest a few for the bouquet she left for Darragh in apology at the end of last Season. Cutting them was no easy feat.

Death.

The roses were supposed to attract death and allow whatever living souls were close a chance to get away. They could not be damaged by magic. They were territorial and took over any other plant nearby. They were aggressive. Competitive. He has to appear defeated.

“Yagrin, prick yourself. Draw blood.”

He watched her with a wild expression, sweat slick on his brow. He worked the dagger from his pocket and nicked his arm. Red pooled at the seam of his skin. It will work. The writhing roses encircled his limb near the cut, then stilled.

Yagrin panted. “Now what?”

She dashed to him, snatching the tiny blade from her sleeve and slicing him free. His clothes were riddled with rips and red skin underneath. She smoothed her thumb over the long cut, where blood drenched his sleeve. He sucked in a breath at her touch.

“I’ll be alright.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to grab you like that. I couldn’t think of another way.”

“Don’t apologize to me. Don’t ever apologize to me.” He wrapped a rip of his shirt around his arm.

“It needs pressure.” She gestured to take his arm in her hands.

He met her eyes, and she could see the battle behind them.

The curiosity he had about her, the way he enjoyed her company, the way she made him laugh.

Her hand hung there, waiting, until he gave her his arm.

She held it against her body, savoring the warmth of him against her.

“How do we get in there now?” he asked.

She tried to answer but realized since she’d taken his arm, she stopped breathing. Tears welled in her eyes. Her chin slid over her shoulder to hide them as she applied more pressure to his wound.

“I can help.” A voice came from the other side of the gate. “Down the far end,” it said. “There’s a break in the foliage.”

Nore was rigid, looking for the trick of the roses again. But the blur of a body moved beyond the gate. There was an actual person talking to them this time.

“Who’s there?”

“There isn’t much time. We must get back inside. This way!” The voice trailed away from the main gate and into the landscaping surrounding the estate. Yagrin pulled his arm from her grip, and Nore felt it like a tug in her chest. She’d missed holding him. Touching him.

When the sound of footsteps over crunching leaves stopped, so did they. A hand stuck out between the gates where the shrubbery was thinnest. Through the bars she could see an older woman with gray hair, dressed in all black. Over her face was a mourning cloth embroidered with a fleur-de-lis.

“I’m Maezre Dexler.” Her voice was dry. “You are Nore Ambrose, and this is our former Ward’s brother, I assume.”

Yagrin’s brow knitted.

“The rumors in the Daily are true, then,” she went on. “About the chaos that’s happened at your House with the Sphere, Miss Ambrose. The late Headmistress sent a message, heralding your bravery. You’re wanted everywhere, you know?”

Nore blinked. She was a fugitive? They were a team of fugitives. People who knew her name knew what she’d done!

“Quell sent you?”

Nore opened her mouth, but Yagrin set a hand on her arm. She fought the urge to move closer to him. To lay her hand on top of his. Instead she froze and savored the feel of him again. The gentleness, his comfort. His willingness to trust her. It all was more than her own mother had given her.

“Yes, she did,” Yagrin said. “Your Headmistress requires you to help us locate a particular item here on your grounds.”

Nore bit away a mischievous smile at the well-placed lie. It was more of a stretch of the truth. And judging by Dexler’s softened expression, it was working. They made a good team.

A colorless stone glowed on her ring as Dexler pulled a brush out of her pocket.

She rubbed the round Retentor stone in circular motions against the gate, and the magic sealing the gate vanished.

Then she swapped her ring for a beaming purple-jeweled one before shifting the gate’s spindles to a thin, bendy material. She parted them like strings.

“Please, come.”

Yagrin stepped through first. Then Nore. Something sharp grazed her skin as she slipped between the branches, and a cut appeared on her arm. Once they were both on the other side of the gate, Dexler shifted the gate to its rigid state and pulled back the black sheer draped over her face.

“We can get that mended for you inside.”

Nore covered the wound, watching Dexler closely. Her brother had friends everywhere.

“It’s fine.”

“As you wish.” Dexler’s wrinkly skin was pale, and dark circles rimmed her eyes. She held her hand to her heart. “We’d hoped the intrusion was our new Headmistress. But at least she sent someone.” She took a big breath.

“What’s wrong?” Nore asked, unsure how to read her nervousness.