Page 6 of Fortress of Ambrose (House of Marionne #3)

Four

Yagrin

Nore strutted toward Yagrin with a satisfied smirk, hand clutched around something. She was smart. Long red hair. Soft-spoken but with angry eyes. When she focused intensely on something, she’d chew her bottom lip so hard it was often swollen on the right side.

“Well?” he asked. “Did you find out if he’s ever looked for the Scroll?”

The Immortality Scroll outlined the steps to achieve a one-use sort of magic for an endless life.

Even for someone who had already died. Her brother had a piece of the Scroll.

They needed to steal it back. Jordan wanted him to assemble the Scroll pieces to be ready to save Quell’s life if it came down to it.

But the other half was still somewhere. And that seemed easier to focus on finding first.

Yagrin was going to find the pieces of the Scroll, alright.

And steal them for himself.

Red will live again.

Jordan was doing just fine with the world of magic on his shoulders, he bet.

It was just like him to take the Sphere’s power literally into his own hands.

Yagrin didn’t care about magic or the world.

He just wanted Red back. If it meant stealing from his brother, so be it.

Jordan Wexton would be just fine. It was Yagrin who lived at the bottom of the barrel. No more.

But he and Nore had been searching for weeks and turned up nothing.

Nore agreed to help in exchange for kidnapping her mother from Ellery once the Scroll was in hand. The bargain had surprised Yagrin. She didn’t seem close with her mother. Over the last several weeks, she hadn’t mentioned her more than once, and when she did, her tone was rife with disgust.

Yagrin wasn’t sure stalking Dublin Kyn was the best idea either.

But Nore drafted a chart to explain the statistical likelihood that someone of Dublin’s reputation and experience would have at least researched where the missing piece of the Scroll could be.

All the endless research Nore’d done on Order territories and geography, the deep dive into archival maps in Unmarked history in case it was hiding in plain sight, had gone nowhere.

Yagrin didn’t need research. He worked on instinct.

A person’s actions revealed their truest desires, not their words.

And it was clear to him that Nore was desperate to find the lost Scroll half.

Almost too desperate…Either she feared what Jordan would do if she failed to keep her end of the bargain or she had ulterior motives. He cleared his throat.

But so did he.

They would be on the same team until they weren’t anymore.

Nore’s smile widened as she drew out the anticipation, and it ground his annoyance. Another reason he preferred to work alone.

“Out with it,” he demanded, reaching for what appeared to be a book in her hand. “What is it?”

“Stole it right from under his nose.”

He tried to take it from her, but she didn’t let go, raising a single brow.

“Can I, er, see it, please?”

She released it. Intellectus secat acutissimum was inscribed on its leather-bound cover.

“The personal discoveries of Dublin Kyn. How?”

She went on to tell him about how she made a deal with the tattooist to help her get them alone when the sky suddenly darkened. Nore grew pale, looking over her shoulder.

“Not here,” she said, taking the book and walking off at a quick stride. “Can you cloak?”

“Magic’s been funny since the Sphere broke. You have any transport powder?” he asked.

“I—um, no, I don’t. All out.” She hurried, leaving him there, and he had to hustle to keep up when she stopped several blocks away to find a discreet spot.

Lit-Tea-Rally was a quaint used-bookstore teahouse. Yagrin opened the door and stepped aside to let her through. A line stretched from the counter in a room full of books, bistro tables, and cozy chairs. But she skirted the crowd and stared out the shop window.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.”

His jaw set at the lie. Running around with an heir in the Order, what had become of him? When the sky began to brighten, Nore blew out a sharp breath and held her stomach.

“Would you like a lemon poppy-seed muffin? I read the heir of House Ambrose likes lemon.”

“You’ve read about me?”

“I’ve read about all the heirs, their families, their histories. It is part of Perl’s House studies.”

Nore hugged around herself. “I’m fine.” She skipped the line and traipsed through towering bookshelves to the back of the store near the historical section. He followed. She slid into a seat at a small table, and though the chair beside her was open, he sat across from her.

Yagrin knew he was selfish, but he wasn’t a monster.

So he’d done his best to keep his distance to avoid giving her the wrong impression while they worked together.

The nights she spent researching, he’d rest. Then they’d switch.

When they ate, they’d take turns, never opening an opportunity for conversation.

This girl would hate him by the end of their time together—because the minute they got their hands on that final Scroll piece, he was done helping her.

And he wasn’t sorry for it. Since when had anyone ever given consideration to what he wanted?

His father’s shadow loomed, the sting of his “love” still hot on Yagrin’s cheeks so many years later.

His aunt had left her mark, too, in bruises and canine bite marks all over his body.

He had been broken, beaten, and bred to be an assassin errand-boy for House of Perl.

He was resigned, at first, to do what he was told and steal in-between moments to live his life with Red.

That would be enough, he had told himself. Until the Order killed her.

But if Red could live… He forced down the lump in his throat. Maybe revenge wasn’t the only thing worth his life’s devotion. For once, he was putting himself first.

Nore reached for the journal. “You’re going to have to get closer.”

He hesitated but moved to the chair beside her. The smell of her assaulted him. Rubbery and plastic, with an undertone of florals. “You smell like…paint?”

Her face flushed.

“Didn’t take Ambrosers for the creative type.”

“I’m not your typical Ambroser.”

Yagrin’s lip twitched. A pair sauntered by, flipping through a stack of books. When the coast was clear, she pulled out the journal and set it on the table and they both reached to unlatch the strap at the same time, fingers brushing.

She snatched hers back. He did, too.

“Go on,” he said. With a twist, the brass hook opened for her, and his heart skipped a beat.

For once, thoughts of the Sphere bleeding out weren’t swarming in his head.

Instead he could see a nest of dark red hair shrouding a face bright with laughter.

He could hear her laugh deep in his soul.

A laugh that set his heart on fire. A laugh that once comforted like a hug but now haunted him like a ghost. In the Unmarked world, she wasn’t consumed with anyone or anything, other than what brought her happiness. She lived wild and free.

And she died because of me.

Yagrin tightened his fist as Nore opened the journal. She flipped pages, noting the dates on each one. The pages weren’t long entries as he expected, more of a smattering of one-liners. Some pages had sketches with a word or phrase next to it. And a date. Everything had a date.

He found a page with a sketch of a girl with large eyes.

Next to it was the word conundrum. And today’s date.

Nore peered over to see what he was looking at, her fiery hair grazing his arm.

It sent tingles through him. It wasn’t the same shade as Red’s, and Nore didn’t look anything like her, really.

But the touch was enough to send shock waves through him as he stood on the precipice of possibility that he could see Red again.

Nore pulled her hair over her shoulder. He cleared his throat.

“That one is from the tattoo shop,” she said. “He drew it while we were talking.” She turned the page and gasped. Scroll research. Nore’s mouth pushed sideways. Yagrin put some distance between them and blinked, staring at the words. The letters had been traced several times.

A simple title, in minuscule handwriting, inconspicuously placed at the bottom corner of the page. Like an afterthought. There were comments on the weather. Some doodles of a rose garden. The next several pages were mostly missing. Black and jagged as if they’d been burned out.

“There’s something here.”

Yagrin watched Nore trace a constellation drawn on the page. Each of its four corners connected to a sketch: Flowers. A wolf’s head. A book. And a drama mask. Her tongue poked her cheek.

“There’s some connection between the Houses and the Scroll. This means something.”

“Does it, or is he just an amateur artist?”

She slammed it shut. “We have to get him to tell us what it means.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“He did when he asked me to dinner.”

Yagrin didn’t know what he was expecting her to say, but that wasn’t it. So be it. “Where is the dinner and what time? I’ll make him.”

“You’re going to hurt him.” There was a lilt of surprise in her tone.

“He’s going to tell us what we want to know.”

“You don’t strike me as a violent person. There has to be another way.”

“I could care less what a little heiress thinks of me.” He pulled out and flipped the Dragun coin in his pocket. Just because they’d been working together for weeks didn’t mean she knew him.