Page 68 of Fortress of Ambrose (House of Marionne #3)

Fifty-Four

Nore

Nore ripped her covers off in the middle of the night. She pulled her robe on and walked to the window. The gate was closed. There were no fresh footprints in the snow. Yagrin still hadn’t returned.

She ventured into the hall and paused, waiting for her shadow of death.

But the ancestors didn’t come. She descended the stairs to the lower floor and exited her estate.

The snow chilled her toes, despite her shoes.

By the time she got to Yagrin’s quarters, she couldn’t feel her face or her hands.

She knocked at the door and twisted the knob.

It was unlocked. The room was in disarray, with clothes all over the floor. But he was not there.

She wanted him back. She needed him back. She left his room and made her way back across the snow. Had something happened to him? Yagrin could take care of himself, but Ellery had become someone she didn’t recognize.

When she approached the doors of Dlaminaugh’s main building, she froze, realizing there still weren’t any dead swarming around her. The ancestors weren’t outside her door. They weren’t hovering outside the building either. She gazed around her in every direction, but didn’t see a single one.

The toushana inside Nore twinged, like a shard of glass stuck between her ribs.

She pushed the door open and found the estate dimly lit. A huddle of Electus occupied a circle of lounge chairs.

“Excuse me,” she said to them.

“Headmistress! Sorry, didn’t see you there,” one said, a simple white mask bleeding through their skin.

“Have any of you seen ancestors looming around here?”

“The dead haven’t been in this corridor since noon, Headmistress,” a round-faced girl with dark bangs said. “I’ve been here working on Anatomics since then.”

“There was one outside during the lesson earlier in the graveyard. Remember? You mentioned it when we were using the diffuser stone.”

“Right.”

“One?”

“Yes, one.”

Nore’s mind whirred. She thanked them and excused herself, when the girl with bangs cleared her throat. She stood up from her study chair now, showing off her gray dress, which was cropped at the shin. There was blue stitching along the bodice in leafy patterns.

“I hope it’s alright,” she said. “I did the changes myself. My mother’s Oralian, an expertly trained Vestiser.”

Nore watched the girl turn, showing off the nice movement of the fabric. She ran her fingers across the detailing. But what caught Nore’s eye was the erectness of her posture, the slight pucker to her smile. She was proud.

“It’s the prettiest dress I’ve ever seen between these walls,” Nore said.

“I was thinking of dyeing the tips of my hair to match the detailing.”

“Only if you save some of that dye for me, too.”

She curtsied. “Yes, Headmistress.”

“Nore. Please call me Nore. I’m a handful of years older than you.”

“Respectfully, age doesn’t make a Headmistress, intellect does.”

“What is your name?”

“Lauren, ma’am.”

“And who is your lead maezre?”

“Maezre Ogle. I’m sorry if I’ve offended you. I only meant that you were chosen before it is custom, which means you must be wickedly sharp. And from what I’ve seen, you have a refreshing way of thinking about things.”

Nore felt a lump rise in her throat. She’d never stood in these walls and heard such kind words about herself.

And certainly not like this now. When she was hardly worthy of the role she had.

It was a facade. It was all a facade. Except she had recognized the brilliance in Winkel’s push to be bold.

She knew what it was like to feel like you were dancing to a humdrum melody stuck repeating the same step.

Something as simple as color brought fire to her soul.

“It takes cleverness to recognize it. I am going to tell Maezre Ogle you’re very impressive and he would be wise to keep an eye on you.”

She beamed. “Also, my understanding is the ancestors thrive under the moon’s light.

So they are most present at night. But the last three nights I’ve studied here, the halls have been more vacant each time.

Maybe they moved back outside?” She hugged around herself.

“Having them around all the time indoors is taking some getting used to.”

“They won’t hurt you.” It’s me they’re after if I disobey their request. “Don’t worry.

” Nore thanked Lauren again and left them all there.

The estate was large, and she hadn’t roamed its every nook and cranny since she was very young.

The dead had to be around there somewhere. She was going to find them.

Perusing the halls of Dlaminaugh usually felt like walking a brutally fragile tightrope.

But this time she admired the way the towering ceilings had new inscriptions in Latin along each doorway.

The glass walls that wrapped around the estate provided sweeping views in nearly every direction.

Tonight, everything glowed beneath the moonlight.

This place was magnificent. She wandered, awestruck, allowing herself to imagine ways she could change things if she wanted.

She stopped abruptly on the first floor near the kitchens when she spotted shadows.

Not nearly as many as the usual few dozen who stuck to her side and roamed the halls.

There were ten or so ancestors slinking back and forth past a window that led to the ice gardens and graveyard.

She called to them. But they didn’t acknowledge her.

They were fixated on something outside.

She pressed her nose to the glass. The night was silent. The ice garden’s sculptures of the gods were hardly discernible from the fresh blanket of snow.

“What is it?” she said, watching the foggy glass for a response. But the dead ignored her. At least she’d found some of them. Maybe more would be visible come morning. She almost turned to go when something shifted in the forest. She wiped the window with her sleeve and peered again.

The trees were swaying.

And they glowed with the faintest light.

“The trees,” she asked the dead. “Do you know what’s going on with the trees?” She watched for a written response.

Their silence made the hair on her arms rise.

“Well, I guess I’ll just have to find out for myself, won’t I?”

When she opened the door, icy air hit her face.

The dead followed her. In some twisted way it was a relief.

She crossed the courtyard, which ran through the garden, watching the rustling branches in the distance.

When she reached the edge of the garden, she had no clearer vision of what was happening; her mind raced as she stared at the trees beyond the graveyard.

She shouldn’t be out here alone.

There was only one person she could talk to about this.

Nore’s fist hit her mother’s door, and Isla answered by the third knock. She was fully dressed, with a scarf on her head.

“Can you hear them?” she asked. “The dead.”

“No. But I can’t find more than a dozen of them.”

“You can’t hear that?” Isla held her ears. “They’re somewhere, humming somberly. I was a Cultivator, but Audior magic was my sharpest gift. It never left me fully. I thought that’s why you’d come. That maybe the gift was strong in our line.”

Nore held her tongue. Her mother couldn’t help but wish some kind of magic on her. The débutante Lauren’s words were like a blanket, the hug from a friend she hadn’t realized she needed.

“Come with me. You have to see this.” She took her mother by the arm before she could disagree. But when they reached the window where she just was, the dead were gone. Nore pointed at the trees, still shuffling.

“Could it be wind?” her mother asked. But Nore pulled her mother outside into the cold.

“Something is in that forest.”

Her mother straightened her glasses and walked the length of the courtyard, stepping down onto the stone path that led to the ice gardens. Nore followed.

“That area used to be a graveyard as well. But it was uprooted and the trees were replanted forever ago.” They followed the path through the ice gardens, and Nore pulled her robe tighter over herself as she passed the gods’ glassy stares.

The grave headstones on the ground were arranged in perplexing patterns around the gardens.

She began reading the names. None of the last names were Ambrose.

“Who do these graves belong to?”

“Those close to the family.” Her mother fidgeted, moving closer to the building.

“Such as?”

“The priests’ extended families. Star pupils. Heir sires. Please, enough of this nonsense.” She glanced at the forest. “Back inside.”

Nore had always assumed the graves’ names that didn’t share her surname were from outstanding débutants or something.

“It’s stopped.” Her mother pointed at the still trees. Closer now, it was easier to see that the patch of unsettled trees were younger than the thick forest behind them, several feet shorter, baby trees against the taller conifers. The glow flickered before disappearing.

“We should really get inside,” Isla said, rubbing her arms.

Nore watched the forest. Then she studied the names on the graves.

Her mind was firing, trying to make connections and sense of things that didn’t feel connected.

But a nagging at her conscience persisted.

Heir sires meant her father’s name was here.

Kendall Dorset. The Kendall with no record at the school, no name in the Hall of Shame.

She uncovered the faces of the headstones in the ice garden to read each one.

There was a connection between the dead and her mother’s secrecy about her father.

“Nore, it’s cold. What are you doing?”