Page 17 of Fortress of Ambrose (House of Marionne #3)

Thirteen

Quell

The address from Audubon takes us to a winding cement drive in the middle of nowhere.

Jordan surveys the surroundings before pushing the stable gate open.

Knox leads us inside. High noon sun beats down overhead, and by the time we spot an actual house, I’m dripping with sweat.

The boarded-up shack is a ranch-style one-story with a dilapidated roof and a horse stable and barn behind it.

The address matches the rusted numbers beside the door. Knox stops several feet from it, and I do, too. Jordan starts to approach, but I urge him away.

“Stand here, beside me.” I point to the windows with their curtains pulled. “They’re watching.”

Nothing happens for some time. But Knox doesn’t move, so neither do I. Finally, the door opens, and out steps Willam, all nearly seven feet of him, in worn jeans and a plaid shirt buttoned all the way to his neck.

“Willam!” I start toward him but realize his eyes are narrowed beneath his wide-brim hat. He hangs a shotgun, barrels open, across his forearm, slipping a bullet into each hole.

“Willam, it’s Knox. I’ve gotten her out.

” I clear my throat and give Jordan a warning glance to not even look his way.

But Willam’s hard glare doesn’t leave Knox.

If he doesn’t let us in, if we don’t get access to their Healers, if this doesn’t work, Jordan is out of options.

The Sphere’s toushana is out of options. I am out of options. “Willam—”

“Hush, girl,” Knox says, sitting taller in her chair. “She is telling the truth. They got me out of the Cells.” She moves toward him.

Willam snaps the shotgun closed and points the barrel at her head. Then mine. Then Jordan’s. When the gun is back on Knox’s face, I notice the windows on the front of the house have jutted open and gun barrels are pointed at each of us.

“Willam, follow protocol,” Knox says.

He flinches, and I’ve never seen the tall, stoic giant look so mean. “Where were you for the last equinox?” he asks her.

“I was with you in the kitchen after one of the twins had just broken their ankle.” Knox leans toward the gun barrel.

The knot at Willam’s throat bobs.

“We spent the whole night icing it down and trying to calm the hounds,” she says. “When the sun rose, we realized the hounds weren’t yelling because they were worried about the twins.”

He lowers the gun.

“They were hollering because a nasty badger had gotten ahold of one of the puppies.”

He swipes at his red eyes and folds over her in a hug.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

He hugs her tighter, and Jordan stuffs his hands in his pockets, looking away.

“What did they do to you?” Willam inspects her.

“I’m fine.”

He glares at Jordan, who sticks out his hand. “I’m Jordan Wexton, thirteenth—”

“We can explain everything,” I say. “Inside.”

“He’s not coming in, Quell,” Willam says, eyes pinned on Jordan, who has taken his hand back.

“Let him in. Put him in the safe room,” Knox says. “The way we’d do any visitors.”

“Respectfully, in your absence, this safe house is run by me now,” he tells Knox before turning to Jordan. “Your kind aren’t welcome here.”

“This is ridiculous,” Jordan says. “I’m no longer your enemy. I brought you Knox. That has to count for something.”

“You’re also the soulless monster who captured her.”

Jordan’s nostrils flare.

“There is only so much I can do,” Knox says to me, and my heart sinks. “I’ve been out too long.” She heads inside, and with her goes any hope I had of this going smoothly.

“You must listen. Jordan has absorbed the entire Sphere’s magic. It’s inside him. My magic. Everyone’s! But it’s killing him. We have to get it out.”

“Is your memory that short, girl? I don’t care about the Order, the brotherhood’s prize pony, or magic. I care about the people between the walls of that house. You can come in. But he stays out.”

“Sir—” Jordan starts.

Willam raises his gun.

“Shut up, Jordan,” I say. “Please, we have nowhere else we can go. You can’t just leave us out here to die. The magic is killing him. Isn’t this a place where people—”

“It’s not personal, Quell.”

“It is personal!”

“I’m sorry, Willam,” Jordan says.

“You were doing your job; I’m doing mine.” He turns his back on us and disappears inside with Knox.

I march toward the stables at the back of the property. “Come on.” When we’re alone and out of sight, I tell Jordan, “They have no reason to let you in.”

“I understand that. But I loathe the Order just as much as they do now. Our interests align.”

“To know so much, you know so very little about some things. Jordan, you could never hate the Order as much as they do. Look around.”

He walks the rest of the way in silence. We reach the barn, where two horses graze.

“You have to show them who you are. Tell them about what happened to you at Hartsboro.”

He’s silent.

“People learn a lot about a person by their battle scars.”

“And you’re so sure about these people because?”

“Because I’ve lived with them. They are caring people. But very protective because they have to be.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not wrong, Jordan. Not about this. This I know.” He has to prove he is not for the Order anymore. He has to prove that he will do whatever he can to help everyone. “This is what loving me means.”

Jordan stares at me so intently it makes the leaves outside stop rustling.

It quiets the chirps of birds and brightens the light streaming through the barn’s windows.

This isn’t how I wanted this to go, for him to have to recut his wounds to prove he’s worth taking a chance on.

I have a fistful of my clothes when Jordan steps toward me.

The air between us buzzes, and my gaze falls to the spot below his chest, where his shirt hangs oddly because of the rotting flesh. His gaze follows mine.

“You’re asking me to bare my soul to people I hardly know. I’ve seen horrid things in houses like these, Quell.”

“Jordan, I’m right about this. I would not risk this.”

“Your magic?”

“Your life. I will do everything I can to change Willam’s mind, but you have to be all in.

” Without touching me, his hand follows the curve of my cheekbone, as if there is an invisible barrier between us.

His distant hand trails down the slope of my jaw.

I close my eyes, imagining the warmth of his touch.

Longing for the way it feels. When I open my eyes, he has crossed the barn and settled on a wooden bench beside a heap of hay.

“Can I at least get a pillow?”

I enter the back of the house through a mudroom with bare shelves and squeaky-clean floors.

Willam has to understand holding the world together means Jordan’s life is the priority.

Inside, four are gathered around Knox. Rein, who had a hugely swollen belly last I saw, hands a bundle wrapped in blankets to her, and the tiniest little face emerges from its folds.

The twins, who have grown so much in the last few months, sit on the carpet, fishing out various rocks to show Knox.

Kedd watches from the doorframe with a grin.

Willam gestures for me to join them, offering me a drink.

“It’s good to see you back.” His sloped posture and sideways smile have returned.

“It’s good to be back. This is the most home I’ve had anywhere. I only wish—” My chin hits my chest. When they offered me a place among them, I insisted on leaving to find my mother. And she’s gone. I turned my back on them. But I had to. “I needed answers. And I got them.”

“There’s some peace in that, I know,” he says.

The words that come to mind send a quake through my chest.

“Where are the others?” I ask, realizing there’s no noise coming from other rooms or the kitchen, where they would typically be finishing lunch. Knox and Willam cared for over a dozen at least in the safe house we were in before.

“Gone.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We were dwindling every day at one point, waking up to more cold beds. I’m not sure where they’re going or why. I just hope they’re safe. It does not sound kind out there.” There’s a heaviness in Willam’s voice that sounds a lot like grief.

With so much uncertainty in the world and no organized brotherhood, some probably see an opportunity to strike out on their own and see what the big, scary world outside is all about.

“You did the best you could for them while you had them.”

“Where is he?”

Jordan. “In the barn.”

“He has to go by curfew.”

“I need to talk to you about him.”

“Knox!” Dimara dashes toward her. I haven’t seen her since she learned of Yagrin’s betrayal and that the safe house was being relocated because of it. She had been furious with me, yelling across the dinner table.

“You’re back,” she says to me. “Who said she could come back?”

Kedd, still hovering in the doorway, folds his meaty arms and shrugs. The twins shrug as well.

“Knox brought her home,” Rein says, fixing her blouse. “Please don’t upset things.”

“I’m the one at risk of upsetting things?”

She doesn’t even know about Jordan yet.

“Dimara.” It’s Knox who speaks this time. “Willam tells me that you’re getting quite good at that pirouette you’ve been working on.”

Her bright eyes shine when she throws her arms overhead and demonstrates.

“It really is good,” I say, trying to broker some peace. Dimara ignores me, and I consider it a win, leaving the living room to find Willam. He’s in the kitchen, brooding beside a bay window that overlooks a sprawling lawn and, in the distance, the barn.

“I am grateful you were able to get Knox back to us.”

“I know.”

“But bringing him here does give me deep concern for your and Knox’s judgment.”

“I know.” That is only fair. “There is so much that has happened. You don’t understand. The world is a disaster, to put it lightly.”