Page 33 of Fortress of Ambrose (House of Marionne #3)

Twenty-Six

Quell

I’ve been waiting in the corridor outside the healing office since Jordan disappeared inside with Zecky. I need to know if he’s okay and if we can move our focus to getting the magic out of him finally.

I haven’t seen Jordan since he stormed out of the talk with Willam yesterday evening.

I gave him his space, sleeping in the Belles Wing, unable to even enter the private family-only third floor of the estate for fear the memories would drown me in grief.

Or worse, anger. But I held my ground with Willam.

I meant what I said. Show you’re on our side, then we can talk.

And apparently it worked. Because just as I was fending off questions about what to do when one of the twins fell from a tree they were climbing, Dexler let me know we had a visitor.

It’s well past midnight when Jordan exits the room.

I unfold myself from a blanket and chair, stretching my stiff limbs.

“Jordan.” The edges of his face have sharpened. The shadows that hood his eyes are deeper or darker or something. It’s only been a little over a day, but it feels like so much longer than that. Like a chamber of my heart hasn’t been pumping. The procedure the Healer did took a toll on him.

“Quell.” The air between us crackles with tension, and it pulls at me like a tether. I want to go to him, hold him, touch him. “I think I’m alright.” He slips a card into his pocket and sways, catching himself on the banister.

“Are you sure you’re alright? Did it go okay?”

“I would really like to sit down in fresh air.”

“Of course.” I lead us down the stairs and out to a garden bench beside the conservatory and rose garden. He settles back in his seat timidly and exhales.

“Can I see?”

He lifts his shirt. His smooth skin has only a slight bruise. “The wound is gone.” He doesn’t meet my eyes.

“We can focus on getting it out of you now,” I say.

He doesn’t respond. Instead, he stares at the rose garden.

“Now that you’re mended,” I go on, “we need to give Willam an answer about opening a new house. We could use their support.”

“I don’t recall saying we needed help beyond this.”

“How could you still think that after tonight?”

“I’m not going to just hand over the Order to them, Quell.”

“No one said that! Why does your mind jump to the worst possible scenario?”

He looks at me as if to say, Have you seen where I grew up? “I need sleep, I think. I’m sorry.” He grunts, pulling his shirt down.

“What happened in there?”

He sighs.

“Nope, we’re beyond keeping secrets. You said so yourself.”

The green in Jordan’s eyes darkens. I lace my hands together in my lap to keep from touching him.

“I did what you said. I tried using it.”

“And—”

He jabs a thumb backward, and I turn in my seat to look at the Gents Wing behind us. A section of the estate is caved in.

“Is that your room? Jordan. What came over you?”

“I don’t know. I visualized myself using it like I would proper magic, and then I blacked out.”

My heart stutters. My magic’s never done that…

“The Sphere’s magic inside me isn’t working for me like it worked for you. Something is off, I don’t know. And then there’s what the Healer said.”

“The first time you use it—”

“I know you think you know, but, Quell, I’m telling you the sheer volume of magic pumping through my body is hitting me differently. I can’t explain it.” He tucks his elbow at his side. “It’s not your fault. I don’t mean to sound harsh.”

“You don’t sound harsh. You sound frustrated.”

“I am.” He walks, meandering, restlessly. I’ve never seen him this out of sorts. This out of control.

“What did the Healer say?”

“That toushana is driven by emotion. That what it urges me to do is what I want to do, deep down.”

That makes so much sense. My toushana has always urged me to protect myself, even when I didn’t have the courage to.

“Vandalizing this estate, my toushana lashing out to hurt you—” he says.

“No, Jordan. The damage to your room was on purpose. The magic lashing out was spontaneous. I bet the toushana is restless, that’s all. I really believe that.” He settles back on the bench beside me, and I slide closer to him.

But he slides away. “I’m not sure what you believe is enough anymore. I fear I won’t be here to protect you from whatever’s ahead.”

“You can’t say things like that. If nothing else makes it out of this mess, you and my magic will!”

Jordan’s brow creases, and I realize I have been too honest. I allow silence to settle between us. I toss him a bag of candy that I found in the kitchens.

“What about you?” He tears the bag open. “Are you doing better being back here?”

“I try not to think about it.”

“Quell, you are technically a Headmistress. You’re going to have to face that eventually.”

“I didn’t ask to be.”

“But you are. And that’s not going to go away until you deal with it.”

I stare out at the rose garden, ruminating over Knox’s words about my grandmother’s garden when she learned my mother wasn’t returning, when she was worried we’d likely be killed.

“I feel like I have to have answers about the future of this House,” I say. “That’s the worst part.”

“It’s suffocating. Having the Sphere’s magic inside me comes with this pressure like I’ve never felt before. No decisions I come up with feel quite right.”

I exhale, hearing him put words to everything I’ve been feeling. My grandmother is dead. Knox thinks I’d make a good leader. I show up here, and Dexler makes it clear she’s been waiting for me to come and take charge. All they’re doing is derailing me from what I came here to do.

“It’s like always being torn between impossible options,” I say.

“Yes.”

“And feeling like a horrible burden on everyone. An heir whose magic cost her mother and grandmother their lives.”

“Where someone is going to get hurt or be disappointed either way. It’s so isolating.” Jordan settles back against his seat. “You must have felt so alone here before.”

I rub a rusted spot on the bench over and over. “You must feel so alone now.”

“I’m never truly alone anymore, thanks to your stubbornness.

” He winks at me, and sun shines in my soul.

“I’m sorry I never really saw you,” he says, turning to face me fully.

“I didn’t know what it was like for you to live this way.

But I’m starting to understand. Dealing with a fraction of this chaos inside me is so much to bear. ”

“Funny, after the time I spent with Beaulah, I feel like I should tell you the same thing.”

“You don’t owe me understanding. You don’t owe me anything. I just regret I didn’t have the heart to see when we were here last time.”

“What use are regrets? What you see now is what matters.”

“What I see now scares me, Quell. Even though it feels right.” He glares at the damaged Gents Wing building.

“Maybe you see what you focus on.”

Our gazes lock, and the questions about my grandmother, the lingering wounds over my mother’s death, the endless worries about Jordan’s life and magic melt away.

He stands, holding out a hand as if he’s asking me to dance, and my heart skips a beat.

“Maybe you’re right.” Loving me comes with a steep cost. But that is not what I see when I look in Jordan’s eyes.

“Let’s see if I can manage to do this.” He pulls at the Sphere’s proper magic, and the air ripples like water around him. The sound of wind rustling trees shifts to the gentle croon of a violin. “No touching. But we can pretend.”

I bite the smile at my lips as I hover my hand over his.

He floats his free arm around my body without touching me.

His back stiffens, and the light in his eyes returns as he steps to his left.

It reminds me of our first time dancing.

I follow, sliding to my right. Picturing the sparkly ballroom around us in all its glamour.

Then I slide back, then forward. We turn in the dance.

It’s a bit stumbly at first, but we find our rhythm as we did the first time we danced.

He extends his arm to turn me, I spin and bend backward, imagining he is holding me.

I spring back up and dance again toward him, stopping so fast he catches me at the waist for a breath before pulling his touch away. I savor the feeling.

We dance to our self-made music. And I pretend he holds me close to his chest.

We laugh though nothing is particularly funny. And I imagine being curled up with him.

We smile until our cheeks hurt. And I tell myself I could do this forever.

When the sun rises, we collapse back onto the bench, still a breath apart, but I feel closer to him than I have in a long time.

It’s not the dance I would have chosen. But it is the dance I needed.

There is a song my heart sings, and only he seems to know the words.

And I want to hear him sing it over and over.

If that’s what love is, then maybe when you love someone, sacrificing for them doesn’t feel like a burden.

Jordan eyes a card in his pocket. And as we sit in silence soaking in the sunrise over the rose garden, my mother and grandmother come to mind.

I cross the grass to the latched garden gate.

The tangled black roses rotate in my direction, their petals folding under themselves, blooming more radiantly. Jordan is beside me.

“Why do the roses follow me? And why did she dig them all up and replant them?”

When I take the gate lock in hand, it shifts into gold dust. The chains fall to the ground, and the garden’s gate swings open.

“Jordan, I need your help.”

“With?”

“We’re going to dig up this garden.”