Page 47 of Fortress of Ambrose (House of Marionne #3)

Thirty-Nine

Jordan

The church clock bells chime again in the distance.

Tippets Square thins of tourists as emergency personnel arrive to deal with Mynick’s body.

Quell’s eyes burn with worry. She is wary of trusting this extraction plan with Zecky’s safe house team.

But I will make sure there is nothing to fear.

I will make a world that is safe for her, even if I have to burn this one down with my bare hands.

“I need your help,” I tell her, fighting the urge to comfort her with a kiss and promise this will be over soon.

Abby watches us, and Yani eyes the box where the diadem is.

“Just Quell,” I say. “We’re going to round up everyone inside. They know the procedure. They are the sharpest magical minds I’ve seen. If they can do the procedure once, they can refine it to make it safer and do it again.”

“You want to take them prisoner?” Quell asks.

“Do you have a problem with that?” Yani asks.

I pull Quell aside to the church steps to speak alone. “We can ask them to come along. But if they refuse…” Toushana stretches in my chest. “They will come anyway.”

“Jordan.”

“There’s no time to debate this. Do you trust me?”

“With my life.”

Her words stoke the flames to my fire. I must be careful with her trust. Honor it, protect it, while not betraying my own instincts. She is teaching me how to love all of her. I hope I am not so wretched now that she can’t do the same for me.

“Are you with me?”

Quell looks at Yani before answering. “I am.”

The labyrinth underground rings with chaos.

Its main artery, where we agree to gather, is full of people scurrying down its several hallways with panic.

Quell takes the halls on the right, and I take the ones on the left.

Yani agreed to stay outside and watch for the Dragunhead. Quell insisted Abby stay with her.

It takes longer than it should to empty two dozen rooms of people and essential things. At each new room I open, I am met with wide eyes of fear. As the hall swells with people, I urge them along faster, directing them toward the entryway.

Quell is waiting there with a throng she retrieved from the rooms she emptied.

Mothers, children, young, old. A mother holding her small child attempts to dash out, to escape, shouting something in Latin too fast for me to understand.

Toushana rears up in me when I grab her by the arm, but I make sure my hold on her is gentle.

“Please, I am not here to hurt you. I am here to help free you.”

She snatches her arm away. “I am free.”

“There is a very dangerous man who could be outside at any moment. He will not spare anyone here to get to me and that girl.” I indicate Quell. “We are taking you somewhere safe. Please cooperate, for your daughter’s sake.”

The little girl in her arms watches a shiny button on my shirt. I pull off the silver circle and hand it to her. She grins. The mother settles. Everyone packs into the foyer of the underground lair like sardines. Still no word from Yani or Abby.

“They don’t like this, Jordan.” Quell joins me.

“Because they don’t understand what’s happening. They’ll see.”

Worry has carved a space between her brows. “They may not. You’re disrupting their lives, ripping them from their home.”

“Don’t you mean we?”

“Yes. I’m just saying, tread carefully.” There is tenderness in Quell’s gaze.

That’s why she deserves the world. She is everything this Order needs.

I long to touch her, to lace my fingers between hers and press our heads together, to inhale and breathe her in.

But I am not sure how much harder my magic will pull on hers since toushana is all I have left.

When every room is emptied, there are half a hundred, maybe more, gathered.

How many of them have healing Shifter magic or some other magic?

How many have toushana? Are there Darkbearers in this room?

I skim their eyes for malice, but all I see is fear.

A little fear is good. Their actions will show their true colors soon enough.

For now, safety.

“I am relocating this operation somewhere safer,” I announce.

“We’re moving you all to House of Marionne.

Chateau Soleil is an estate in the southern quadrant.

But there are walls around the property that should provide better protection than you have here.

There you will have more space to roam, meals around the clock. You can be done living like this.”

“We’re pulling down the walls between our worlds,” Quell adds.

Heads swivel in every direction. Some exhale. Others glare. But when I spot Ube and Erla side by side in the crowd, my heart hiccups. Several of those staring at us have heavy-lidded red eyes.

“Is it true? Is Zecky dead?” the mother with the small child asks.

“He was sentenced to die for trying to steal the Sphere’s magic.” No use in lying to them. “I carried out the sentence myself.”

“He’s not a thief,” the crowd roars angrily. “You’re the criminal!”

Quell’s nails dig into my arm. My heart thuds, but before I can speak, Ube elbows his way through the crowd.

“I was there!” he shouts. “Zecky did try to steal the magic out of this man, which is all the magic that’s left in the world.

Zecky tried to make me help him, saying we were doing a routine procedure.

” He shakes his head. His sister’s eyes dart in his direction before her sad gaze hits the floor.

“I didn’t want any trouble. I am sorry, sir. ”

The room erupts in whispers. Ube is much less stoic now than he was when he was cutting into me. And humble. Was that the real him? Or is this? Still, his vote of confidence may be the boon I need.

“How’d you get the magic if you didn’t steal it?” someone yells.

“I can answer questions when we get where we are going. But we have to leave now.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” someone protests, and cold licks my insides.

You’re going whether you want to or not. But when I open my mouth, someone else speaks.

“I don’t see the point in staying here if Zecky’s gone. That means the work is gone, which means the money and food will dry up, too.”

“You’re promising a lot,” a younger girl chimes in. “What will you require of us in exchange?”

Chatter erupts, echoing the question.

“You’re going to help me save magic.” A collective gasp sweeps across the safe house. “You have the research, the skills, I’ve seen them.”

“Will we be paid?”

“Your pay is the honor of participating in making history. I’m also overlooking any of your past crimes.

” I can hardly swallow, saying that aloud.

“The law says you should all be killed for using dark magic here in secret. For operating in secret at all.” No one speaks.

Quell shakes her head subtly, and I worry I’ve gone too far.

But they should understand this is a mercy.

“If the Dragunhead found you here, it would end very differently. Ube, is that your name, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Are you a leader here?”

“No.”

“Maybe you should be. I saw what you can do.”

His sister looks at him. Ube doesn’t respond, but he pulls back his shoulders ever so slightly, standing taller, and it’s the final victory I need.

He joins me at the front to stand beside me.

Many follow him, including his sister, whose gaze is still pinned to the floor.

I look for Quell and expect to find her as pleasantly surprised as I am.

But she’s not engaged with the crowd at all anymore.

She stares into the distance at nothing in particular, somewhere else completely.

When we emerge from beneath the church, the body has been taken away and the square is refilling with tourists. The hair on my arms stands. Abby and Yani join the rest of us as I scan the perimeter.

Across the square, leaning against a lamppost, is a familiar spindly man with long gray hair pulled over his shoulder in a braid. He wears a fine coat covered in House sigils.

He tips his head in my direction.

My heart stops.

The Dragunhead.

I stagger backward and bump into Quell, who is giving out instructions.

“Quell.”

She stares quizzically, but when I turn back to the lamppost, there is no one there. I blink.

“Jordan? What is it?”

“I thought I saw the Dragunhead,” I tell her under my breath.

A divot creases Quell’s brow as she scans the area.

“It’s nothing. I must have imagined it.”

She eyes me strangely before taking another look around.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Navigating the city using the airports like Knox taught us makes getting the large crowd South much easier than I expect.

I watch closely for being followed, but the commute is smooth.

Seeing the Dragunhead still haunts me. If it was him, why wouldn’t he approach or do something?

Perhaps I did imagine it. The mood of travel is as riddled with excitement as it is with fear and mourning.

This is all new. Zecky was special to them. And I killed him.

I want to reassure Quell, but she seems to have moved on, laser-focused on getting to Chateau Soleil as fast as possible.

When we reach the estate, its overgrown hedges and walls of black roses have not changed.

Quell gets us inside easily enough. But she hasn’t spoken to me or Abby the entire trek back.

“Is something wrong?” I ask her as she holds back the gate’s spindles, allowing the crowd through.

“Later.” She hasn’t told me about anything that has happened. I don’t know how she and Yani linked up to find me or where Abby came from. I’m just relieved she’s alright.

As the last person comes through the gate, the black roses close behind us like a curtain. I’m about to say something to Quell, when she spots Willam outside and rushes in his direction with a look of fury on her face I’ve never seen.