Page 45 of Fortress of Ambrose (House of Marionne #3)

Thirty-Eight

Nore

Marching toward Dlaminaugh across the bitter winter snow felt like being escorted to prison. She’d never been safe between the walls of her House, but especially now.

Her brother’s plan to shove her heart in the ancestors’ glass box had failed to kill her.

But Ellery still wanted her dead.

Somehow he’d manipulated magic to allow the ancestors to cross other thresholds. She needed the Duncan piece of that Scroll more than ever now. At least she and Yagrin would be on the same page about that.

The ancestors glided along before her as if charting her course.

As if they knew if she had a moment to decide her future for herself, she would turn around and run.

She was several steps faster than her mother and Yagrin, despite her hesitation to come back to this glass-and-concrete estate of horrors.

The box with her heart was covered in a dark fabric and wedged in the grip of one of the shadowy figures, hardly perceptible, blending together like a half-told truth.

Drew’s bravery haunted Nore. The way they stood up to her brother. The way they dared to stand for something even if it defied everyone’s expectation. She was marching back into her home as a fraud. If they knew, they’d probably turn her over to her brother.

Draguns stood sentry on either side of Dlaminaugh’s concrete gate.

With the rumors she’d heard about the brotherhood, she was surprised they hadn’t abandoned their posts.

Their stares slid to her mother first, then to her before hitting the ground.

She had to believe there was some way out of this mess—stuck in the exact role she’d been avoiding her entire life.

If she had a heart, it would have cracked.

She spotted the gravel path that wound around the estate to her cottage. She veered toward it, and the world darkened. Her body hit solid air as the ancestors blocked her detour. The only path that was clear was the path forward—to the shiny, opening glass doors of House of Ambrose.

She marched inside, where a long line of House members, students, maezres, and staff waited rigidly to receive her. She stopped. And Yagrin nearly stumbled into the back of her. How did they know?

Maezre Tutom, her governess when she was small who was determined to help her acclimate to magical studies the last time she was here, waved at her.

But Nore couldn’t move. Another woman who was older than Nore but not quite as old as her mother approached.

Her dark hair, pinned under a servant’s cap and dull silver diadem, fell beside her face as she curtsied.

She quickly shoved it back in place. Nore recognized her as one of the maids always at her mother’s beck and call.

She couldn’t recall her name. Caisely or Paisely or something.

But she realized this maid would now be her shadow.

“Headmistress,” she said. “I’m Ainsley, and I’m here for whatever you need. Head Maid Maura Shoom retired, so I’m lead now. I trained closely under her, serving your mother for the last ten years. And before me, my mother served your mother and the late Porsha, your grandmother.”

“How—” Nore’s voice cracked. She cleared her throat. “How did you know I am to become Headmistress?”

Ainsley blinked. “Mr. Ambrose.”

“My brother?”

“He told us that he and Headmistress Isla were leaving to change House leadership. He instructed us to wait for their return. Then you arrived. Is your brother alright, ma’am?”

Her heart fluttered. Her brother could rot in the deepest pits of hell.

She didn’t want this. She didn’t want any of this.

Her entire life, she’d never been good enough for this role—magicless her.

Now the whole House watched her arrival, staring with expectation gleaming in their eyes.

She still didn’t have magic they would find admirable.

When would she be done living a lie? She bit the inside of her cheek just to feel something.

“They’ll only know you’re terrified if you hesitate,” Yagrin whispered into her ear.

She shrugged him away, with her eyes forward.

The ancestors slipped inside the building, billowing along the ceilings like smoke.

She took a step. They inched along. She took another step, then kept going, her fists full of the skirt of her dress.

She avoided every face she passed as the long corridor took her wherever the ancestors intended her to go.

Ainsley stayed close. The shadows shifted when they rounded on the Hall of Discovery, and it hit her.

My heart has to go into the vault, sealing my fate.

She’d almost been foolish enough to be comforted by the ancestors’ presence guiding her home.

But they weren’t protecting her; they were keeping her accountable to her word.

Yagrin and Isla whispered behind her, and she bristled with irritation. She glared at them and hardly recognized her mother. Isla’s hands were linked, worry lines carved her face like a pumpkin, and there were tears in her eyes.

I am so sorry, Isla mouthed.

When they reached the vault, Nore held up her hand to the wall behind the glass, where she’d opened it so many months before.

The wall rippled, and her hand dipped inside.

The dark bundle the ancestors held emerged from the shadow it was in and was thrust into her hands.

Nore stepped through the rippling wall and set the glass box with her beating heart down without looking around, keeping her gaze turned toward the exit.

Then she dashed back out. The ancestors swarmed around her before vanishing in a haze.

On the wall behind her was a message carved by the dead into the plaster with something sharp.

Always Watching

She tried to slow her breath.

She recognized some of the faces in the audience of Ambrosers, who’d followed them to the Hall of Discovery. There was pride in some of their expressions. One girl’s chin raised, books tucked tight to her chest.

Nore smoothed her clothes.

“They’re waiting for you to acknowledge them, ma’am.” The tiny voice was Ainsley’s. Her maid. “Was there anything you wanted to say?”

“No, there’s nothing I want to say.”

“Then you must say that. It’s tradition for a new Headmistress to address the House when they take over.”

Nore’s heart must have returned because something was lodged in her throat.

“Perhaps at coronation?” Ainsley suggested. “Once you’re more rested.”

Nore nodded, still unable to find words. Her clammy hands slipped against each other as she clasped them. Yagrin moved beside her.

An odd feeling came over her. An unsettling twist in her gut and a deep sense of mourning for the child she was.

This was the future she was reared for. She’d marveled at it when she was very little, before she realized she was different.

And now it was meaningless, completely void of anything that actually mattered.

“Breathe in for four, out for six,” he said, sensing the hold her anxiety had gotten on her. She did it, and the tightness in her chest began to unwind. She hadn’t felt like this since—dark memories tried to haunt her. She shoved them away.

Her mother was still among the crowd. Anger reddened Nore’s cheeks.

She was not the nervous, fidgety daughter her mother mistreated.

Wasn’t she the Headmistress of House of Ambrose?

Becoming Red, being who she wanted with Yagrin, had ignited a fire in her to bury those anxious parts of herself, once and for all. She stood straighter.

“It’s been a long journey and an even longer few weeks,” she said. “I will address you at coronation. Get back to your studies.”

“Tomorrow,” her mother announced from across the hall. “Coronation tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow, right.” Nore paled and rushed off.

“Nore?” her mother called, hustling to catch up with her as the crowd dispersed. Yagrin stayed close but silent. And as much as she wanted to shoo him away, she didn’t.

“I can stay and help you prepare.”

“Why is it tomorrow?”

“House laws. In the case of a Headmistress taking over in times of conflict, coronation is fast-tracked. Or in your case, when you’ve already taken part in other ceremony sacraments, the process must be completed immediately—the first sunrise after.”

My heart is in the box, she means.

“Right now, you’re like partly Headmistress until the ceremony. As much as we wear gray, we like to keep things very black-and-white.”

She would be thrust into this whether she wanted to or not. She looked at Yagrin, and in his golden-brown eyes, she could see into his soul. It longed for her. She felt sick.

Her mother touched her arm. “There are certain preparations that a mother could be helpful with.”

“I can manage myself.” Nore left her mother there, but her maid and Yagrin stuck to her heels.

The trio halted at the door to the Headmistress’s private quarters.

“Ma’am, all your mother’s things have been moved to her new quarters. I can show you around, if you’d like? Privately.” Ainsley looked from her to Yagrin.

“Please don’t call me ma’am. I am Nore. Just Nore.”

“Yes, Headmistress.” Ainsley curtsied.

It was a partial victory.

After many suspicious looks, Ainsley closed Yagrin and Nore inside her new room.

Nore exhaled. She could not feel love, but her memory seemed to be working just fine.

And she knew how she should feel, being alone with him finally.

It was a relief she didn’t have to hide.

Yagrin watched her with his back against the door.

She busied herself surveying the furnishings.

She’d seen her mother’s room a handful of times as a girl, and it was just as cold as it always was.