Page 27 of Fortress of Ambrose (House of Marionne #3)

Twenty-One

Yagrin

Yagrin looked for Nore in the crowd, but he couldn’t find her so he set his sights on Headmistress Oralia. He hustled against the crowd toward the stage, where Litze had disappeared behind the curtain.

“Excuse me.” He shouldered his way through.

“Urgent business, please step aside.” He wasn’t familiar with Litze, but he’d worked alongside a few from the House, enough to know that acting confident went a long way with a House of performers.

The arts weren’t hobbies to them. It was a way of being.

Everywhere was a stage. Every day was a chance to play a different role or be a different character. No one was less trustworthy.

He found Litze backstage, wiping off her lip color in a mirror.

“Well, this is a surprise. My second visit from the Perl family in a week. The last time I saw you, you were running around in diapers. Yagrin, is it? The eldest Wexton brother.”

Yagrin’s body went cold.

“Your cousin Adola was here.” She scrunched her brows too tight to appear confused. Litze was making it clear she had relationships with key people. It was also a question—did he?

“You knew, I presume,” she said.

“Of course.”

She smiled, then opened her arms to greet him with a hug. “It’s good to see you.”

Yagrin leaned into the faux gesture of familiarity. He had no memory of meeting this woman formally. She may have attended a ceremony at his House at some point. But they’d never talked one-on-one.

“I wish I’d known you were coming. I would have welcomed you with all the fanfare our House has to offer.” She hooked her hands. “We could have put on a performance of The Lies We Tell. You know the play?”

He did. It was a tragedy where two brothers fought each other vying for power until they ultimately killed each other. Warning or threat?

“Not my type of show,” he said. “I rather like Death Flower.” The play was about a paranoid queen who killed all her children for fear of a prophecy that said her fellow blood would one day replace her. Only to be killed by her mother, who was her closest trusted friend.

Litze was stoic. Then she smiled suddenly. Her House was full of performers, but Litze Oralia was the master of them all. “Your aunt is well.”

“Are you telling me? Or asking?”

“I’m asking. I haven’t spoken to her in some time since we stopped regularly meeting. I’ve been meaning to check on her. Your cousin said she is ill?”

Goose bumps raced up Yagrin’s arms. Jordan swore Adola’s heart was pure.

But this didn’t look good. His aunt wasn’t sitting on her hands at Hartsboro while the world devolved into chaos after she failed at stealing the Sphere’s magic.

Even if her being sick isn’t a cover story, she would be planning something to take advantage of all this chaos.

That appeared to involve Adola running her errands, acting on her behalf. He felt sick.

“Walk with me. Tell me what brings you here. To feast your eyes and indulge your senses? Because if that is what you want, you’re in the right place.”

“No.” He was tired of speaking in code. He wasn’t his aunt, and he wouldn’t be placated with Litze’s niceties. “I’m working on putting things back right with the Sphere. To do that, I need your help.”

“You know I love to help your family. Such honorable people.”

He sneered.

“Nore Ambrose and I need to speak with you somewhere private.”

Litze stroked the back of her neck. “Nore? I’ve heard she’s very elusive.”

“She—”

“You know…” Litze roped her arm into his. “Before we get into anything serious, please allow me to welcome you to Begonia Terrace right. We put on a whole dance for your cousin.”

Yagrin’s annoyance ticked. She was delaying. He chose his next words carefully.

“I am hoping to get back to work soon.”

She shrugged, her cheeks rising as if he’d just complimented her hair. “The world is perpetually falling apart. Inside these walls, we don’t take part in the chaos. Life is too short, and art is too beautiful.”

“Are you saying your magic has been unaffected?”

She batted her eyes. “There have been challenges, but it will all sort itself out.” She patted his shoulder. “Everyone is so quick to get themselves in a knot over things. History tends to repeat itself, Yagrin. And you know who survives? Those wise enough to get out of fate’s way.”

He stiffened. The truth wasn’t working. Litze was as slippery as an eel. He knew how to deal with her type.

“You know, I would love a tour of the grounds. I’m sure Nore would love it, too.”

Litze brightened. “Have you two been traveling together for a while?” She nudged him in the ribs and called over a server carrying a tray of fluted glasses.

“We have. It’s been nice. How about tomorrow for the tour? It is getting late.”

“We have a gala tomorrow afternoon. Some of the most renowned graduates are traveling here from all over the world. I’d love for you both to attend. We’ll welcome you properly. And afterward, I’ll give you the tour myself.”

“You’re so gracious, to receive with no notice,” he bit out. “We look forward to it.”

“I will have a garden house prepared for you and Nore.”

“Separate garden houses, please.”

“Oh? Alright.” She shoved both glasses into his hand. Then she pinched his jacket, which was well wrinkled and a bit dirty. “I’ll send Vestisers to your rooms in the morning to assist.” She was playing a role that he wanted no part in. The blue in Litze’s eyes darkened as she beamed at him.

He knew very little about this estate, its layout, its secrets. But they’d have to figure out how to find the Scroll themselves. Quickly.

Yagrin found Nore white-knuckling a glass beside Drew Oralia.

Drew was the child of Litze’s estranged sister, who resided in an isolated cottage at Begonia Terrace.

Rumors were that Litze’s sister had a devious secret on Litze, and that’s why Drew was adopted to be heir.

Others said Litze cannot have children. Yagrin had never met Drew, but he knew they reached out discreetly to the brotherhood more than a few times to get their mother some much-needed help.

Drew was always dragged along into their mother’s antics and likely tired of it.

What Yagrin didn’t understand was why Nore was so nervous next to them.

“Drew Oralia, pleased to meet you in person,” he said.

“You look like you could use a bath.” Drew sipped from their glass.

Yagrin forced himself to smile. “Nore, shall we?”

“She’s having a drink with me. What is he, your security?” They sneered.

“He’s my—” She looked at him.

“Date for the art gala tomorrow.” That would raise far fewer questions. He held out his arm to Nore. She roped hers around his. Her eyes looked as if they were about to pop out of her head.

“That’s why you’re here,” they said to Nore.

“If you want to bury your head in the sand, you’ve come to the right place.

My aunt’s determined to behave as if nothing’s happening.

As if the world falling apart is some great show, and she’s waiting for the final curtain to drop so she can applaud and go back to business as usual.

” Drew scoffed. “It’s disgusting. And not smart.

But what do I know? I’m just her heir, with nothing to do until she croaks.

” They tossed back their full glass. “Have fun, eh. I intend to.”

Someone who was a spitting image of Litze but at least a few decades older waved at Drew to come over.

“I think they’re trying to get your attention,” Nore said.

Drew told them goodbye and went in the opposite direction. There was a nasty family feud there Yagrin didn’t want any part of. He led Nore out of the reception on his arm as they waited for a concierge to take them to their rooms for the night.

When the coast was clear, she howled at him. “Date? What are you doing? And where were you?”

He explained how after they’d separated, he decided to find Litze. And how her evasiveness was unsettling. How she might be working with Beaulah. Nore took her arm from around his. The warmth of her closeness leaving him felt like being ripped from underneath a blanket.

“We have to be here through the gala tomorrow, at least. It gives us time to snoop.”

“Figuring out our way around here is time-consuming.” She chewed her lip.

“We’re going to have to rub elbows. Drew warmed up quickly.

I’m hoping that means they’re an oversharer.

Maybe they can help.” She tapped her cheek.

“Every conversation is a canvas. Every new day is a bar of music waiting to be composed.”

He watched her, perplexed.

“If that’s the game, we have to play it. Otherwise, we’ll stick out. We have to blend in, playing our own roles.” She drummed her fingers on her leg. “Yes, this plan of yours to act like we are going to the gala as a couple is a good one, I think.”

Excellent. They were in agreement on a plan. Attend the gala as a pretend couple. Schmooze to learn more about the layout of the estate, find out what they could about an Ambrose relic being entrusted to the House.

“You do this thing with your lips when you’re thinking really hard, and”—he touched the skin between her brows—“you get a little divot here.”

She stilled at his touch. “You’re making fun of me.”

“No! I think you’re—” His heart stammered.

“Finish your thought.”

His stomach twisted. The words were there, jumbled around in his heart but clear in his head. He thought a lot of nice things about Nore. “It was nothing.”

“No, tell me. What do you think of me, Yagrin?” There was a glint of something in her eye; this was a real question she was asking. She genuinely wanted to know what he thought of her. His heart pumped faster.

His mouth was dry when he opened it. “I think you’re witty and feisty.

I think you’re strong and that you carry more on your shoulders than you like to admit.

I think you—” He swallowed. “You are the smartest person I’ve ever met in my entire life.

I still don’t understand how your neck supports a brain so big. ”

She chuckled, and it made him chuckle, too.

“There’s so much more I could say.”

She twisted her shirt. “Then say it.”

He swayed. “I think you’re exactly what the Order needs, but it’s too broken to recognize that. I think you are relentless and determined and loyal to your own values. And I think you want to be understood but have given up trying.”

She was closer to him somehow.

And now that the words were coming, he couldn’t stop them.

“I think you love your brother, and what he is doing is hurting you even deeper than you admit. I sense that you hurt about a lot of things and bury them in intellect. I don’t know, but I get the impression you’ve never truly had a close friend.

Just by the way we work together.” He stared at his feet because he wasn’t sure he could look at her and say the next thing.

“For so long I didn’t want to even wake up day to day.

I hated my family. I hated what the Order did to my life.

But there was a person once, who—” He laced his fingers.

Nore shifted on her feet.

“She used to tell me that each day was a new day. A new chance to feel something good.”

“Yagrin, I’m sorry.” Nore was so close to him now the ends of her hair grazed his arm as the wind blew.

“When I was a child,” he went on, “I used to curl up near the window when it stormed outside, to watch. The violent ones were enthralling. But the best part was when the buckets of rain stopped, the booming thunder quieted, and the winds died down. Everything became so calm.” He held his chest. He could still feel it.

“The cloudy sky would become this soft shade of gray. That’s what I see when I look into your eyes. ”

Breath stuck in his chest. “I’ve said too much. I’m sorry.”

Nore grabbed his hand. “No, you haven’t.”

He stared at her, and part of him ached.

She was alive, present, in the flesh. The other part mourned because her face wasn’t the one he wanted to see looking at him that way.

But it was complicated. He meant what he said about Nore.

He’d enjoyed being near her these weeks.

It made him feel things he thought were dead.

But if Red could live, his heart belonged to her and her only.

He owed Nore nothing, but he wouldn’t lie to her. She was special in so many ways.

He took his hand away and cleared his throat. It was awkward now. He was so good at making things awkward. “I’m assuming you didn’t see your brother.”

Of course she hadn’t. She’d have mentioned that first. Could he be any more obvious about wanting to change the subject?

Nore let out a big breath and said, “I hoped to dig for information with Drew, but they seemed more interested in what I was doing here. Tomorrow I’ll see what I can find out.”

“Does Drew seem honest?” he asked.

“I’d say so, given how they greeted you.” She smirked. The levity was nice.

“Are you saying I need a shower?”

She tucked her lips.

He threw back his head in laughter.

“When was the last time you took a shower?”

“It’s rude to suggest a lady smells. Shame on you.” Whatever else Nore said he didn’t hear. He liked her. He liked her a lot. And now he was consumed with his own imagination. Nore. Bathing. Rubbing suds all over her.

“We should get to the garden house.” He strode off. He would be taking a shower, a cold one.