Page 76 of Fortress of Ambrose (House of Marionne #3)

Sixty

Quell

When Jordan disappears down the basement steps, I watch until he comes back up, without Ube.

He was rash. Maybe I should have pushed harder to stop him or get in the way.

But when Ube admitted stealing the diadem, hurting Dexler, and knowing what the Dragunhead wanted from Zecky, it was hard to hear much else.

Jordan detours to the Sunrise Corridor to meet Erla, and I dash down the stairs.

If Jordan sees me challenging him this way, he’ll be heartbroken.

I’m not sure how much more his heart can take.

But in my gut, I believe there is more to Ube’s deception.

The relationship between him and his sister is strange.

She is a mouse around him. But also bluntly disloyal.

The others don’t have much to say about him.

He was close with Zecky but so quick to switch loyalty and help Jordan.

And now he throws his life away to steal the diadem for the Dragunhead?

None of this adds up. And if he dies, the truth dies with him.

The hall is dark, but Ube’s yelling can be heard from the bottom of the steps. I find him locked inside a utility closet. Weak shadows thrash in my palm when I draw magic to my fist. But it’s enough to decay the door open.

Ube gapes in fear. His voice is raspy from yelling. He struggles for words.

“Not here.” I drag him down the hall, farther out of earshot of the basement stairs, inside the maezre storage room.

“Why?” he manages.

“That is the first thing you say?”

“I am cursed with a deep need to comprehend.”

“I want the truth you plan to take to your grave.”

His nostrils flare.

“In exchange for your freedom.”

He meets my eyes for the first time since I found him. “You’ll let me go?”

I’ve thought through it a few times. If the Dragunhead is counting on Ube to bring him magic or Jordan, he has failed on both counts.

My guess is he will run instead of going back to the Dragunhead empty-handed.

Ube on the run doesn’t hurt our cause at all.

Him dying with secrets is the greater risk.

“I will lead you out of here myself tonight.”

“What do you want to know?”

“What is it between you and your sister? Are you protecting her?”

Ube groans. “My sister is complicated. She prides herself on honor. I told her there is no honor in business like ours.”

“And what sort of business is that?”

“We sell secrets. Information is our currency.”

“Who is our?”

“Everyone here from Zecky’s neck of the woods. We observe, collecting insight, and sell it to the highest bidder. In your case there is one bidder, and he can pay by guaranteeing us life.”

I go cold all over.

The Dragunhead.

“Except my sister.”

Ube is such a good liar. I can’t tell if this is true or if he’s saying this to protect her. “So the Dragunhead is paying you for secrets on us?” I fold my arms.

“You misunderstand. I didn’t know the Dragunhead was interested in hiring us until his messenger told me. I haven’t taken it to the group yet. But this is what we do, sell secrets.”

“His messenger?”

“Yes, she tried framing me, knowing that we were working together. But two can play that game.”

“Who?”

“Yaniselle.”

I steady myself. “Your people up there would willingly help a mass murderer? The Dragunhead is a monster!”

“When you live as we have, it no longer matters who the monster is. It only matters that he doesn’t treat us like we are one.”

I can’t form a cohesive sentence; so many thoughts are converging in my head at once. Everyone here was about to be offered a chance to spy on us for the Dragunhead, so Ube says. But he’s the only one who actually has. He and Yani.

“I need proof of Yaniselle’s involvement.”

“You said if I told you the truth, that was enough for my freedom.”

I close the distance between us, swelling the shadows in my hand. “I lied.”

Ube puts distance between us. “I don’t have proof.

She mentioned it casually as we worked on a trial extraction.

She knew who we were and what we do. She asked if I was available to hire.

She said she could guarantee our freedom if I’d pass information to her for the Dragunhead.

She insisted that betting on you and Jordan was foolish, when the Dragunhead has other Houses behind him and an army of Darkbearers. ”

I choke on nothing. My heart rams harder.

“I asked what information she wanted,” he goes on.

“And she said to get to know you as best as I could and pass on anything, even the seemingly inconsequential, to her. She had me write notes of your behavior. I’d pass those to her during the day.

Once we were locked in our rooms, it grew harder to spy on you.

Then when there was news of the ball, she told me to get the diadem from your room and leave it in Sunrise Corridor.

Then she turned on me, framing me for the job she told me to do! ”

“And you didn’t say that in the ballroom in front of everyone because?”

“And blow the whistle on my people’s knack for spying? That reputation remains our best-kept secret and everyone’s most secure source of income. Besides, Jordan wasn’t going to believe anything I said. I was a dead man when Yani spoke up.”

“And now you’ve just traded their freedom for yours.”

He shrugs. “There is no honor in this business, like I said.”

“One last question.” It’s been needling me since we were locked in the ballroom. Jordan said the Scroll’s pieces were found and probably used centuries ago. What does that mean? “Do you know anything about an Immortality Scroll?”

“A what?”

I repeat myself, and he stares, earnestly bewildered. “Never mind.”

“Well, then, let me out. Unless you were lying about that, too?”

“You’ve failed the Dragunhead. I’m sure he will punish you better than I ever could.”

Ube doesn’t say a word as I sneak him back upstairs, through the broom closet corridor, and into the Secret Wood. I point west.

“Out here? You want me to just—”

I draw on the shadows sleeping in my bones. “Now.”

He runs, and I watch until he is a dot in the distance. I was right. Yani is the traitor, but the deception goes deeper than I realized. How much of what Ube said is the full truth? That everyone inside would help our enemy given the chance. That no one believes in the new world being built.

A reckless part of my brain urges me to race after Ube. To escape and hide away. But those days are behind me. So I loosen the tightness in my chest and release my diadem. I run my fingers across it, savoring the spiky parts and smooth jewels. Then I blow out a breath and hurry back inside.

I sleep on the events of the night and rise before the sun.

When Jordan discovers Ube is not in the basement, I feel his rage all the way upstairs.

As he interrogates the maezres, I rush to the dorms, find room sixteen: Yaniselle’s, and summon the darkness to open her locked door.

I need proof of her betrayal to show Jordan.

Her room is dark. Her bed is neatly made up, her entire space impeccably tidy.

I pick through a few stacks of books beside her bed.

Then I thumb through a journal. This one has worn paper and stained pages.

The dates are old. More than a few years.

I read a few words, and my stomach curdles—letters between Jordan and Yani, from when he was a Ward and she was interning in Alaska.

I toss it aside, my magic slipping out and leaving its leather cover burned to a crisp. Oops…

I open her closet and pull out a few of her things, holding them against myself, wondering if it would be easier if I were more like her.

She thinks like him. They’re trauma-bonded from what they went through at Hartsboro.

I only got a sample of what they endured for many years.

When I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror, the regalness of my diadem shines even in the poor lighting.

She is gasoline to his fire. I am sand.

I spot her virtue pin box on her dresser open, a full set of pins. But it’s the outside of the box that gives me pause.

It shines.

Its woody, oily stench confirms my suspicion.

This was recently polished.

Half an hour passes. I’ve turned Yani’s room upside down, but there is no evidence she is working with the Dragunhead. I’ve stripped her bed and overturned her drawers. I did a number on her closet and even shattered her mirror.

It’s like when she returns, I’m hoping it turns into a fight, a reason for me to kick her out.

Or perhaps it’s something more sickening: feelings that should be beneath me but that creep up like sudden bile.

I shove her things out of the way of the door before opening it, making no attempt to put her room back together.

Let her find it. This is my House. You meddle with my things, I meddle in yours.

Beside the door, I notice the honing table covering some kind of paneling in the wall.

I push it aside and find a trick cabinet, disguised to look like wall.

Inside the secret storage are extra pairs of clothes, a few journals, and envelopes banded together.

My pulse drums as I thumb through the pages and open the envelopes.

But what I find inside makes my heart stop completely.

A series of correspondence with House of Perl.

My eyes race across the first one.

Yani,

Understood. I won’t say a word.

But knowing helps us prepare.

I will let the Head know.

—Adola

PS. My aunt is very ill. Keep her in your thoughts.

“What are you doing here?” Jordan’s voice startles me. The letters fall to the ground from my shaky hands. Ube was telling the truth. It’s been Yani, a puppet of House of Perl, who is helping the Dragunhead.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, realizing Jordan is standing in Yani’s doorway. He looks like he hasn’t slept in a month. “Looking for her?”

“I’m looking for you. I know where she is. I spent the night watching Erla work. Only to wake up to Ube gone! These people could be hiding hi—”

“They’re not.” My heart ticks. “I saw him flee through the Secret Wood. He was too long gone for anyone to catch him.” I can’t meet his eyes.

It isn’t a complete lie, but it’s hardly the truth.

The real factor here is that Yani is behind it all.

And he can’t see that. She could be bringing the Dragunhead back here, for all we know.

“I stopped in to see Abby.” His gaze darts away from mine. “Afterward, I came looking for you.”

“How is Dexler?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Jordan!” It’s Erla, red-eyed from too little sleep. “Quell. Yaniselle is back with the stones.”

“She’s back?” I ask. “Alone?”

Erla furrows her brow but nods.

“Quell, I have to see to this, now. I’m sorry.”

“Jordan, she’s a traitor!” I shout, but he and Erla are already down the hall.

Frustrated doesn’t begin to describe the emotions rushing through me.

The events of the last several hours are like a slow drip in the same spot in my skull.

We are so close to doing the extraction, to freeing magic, and yet we are still so far.

Jordan went to see Abby, but doesn’t know how Dexler is? I hope she’s okay. When she wakes, she can probably help us piece together more of what happened and be sure no one else is involved. I have to be sure. It’s not just my life on the line anymore.

I make a beeline for the Healer office and find Abby writing furiously in some kind of folder. She startles, shuffles the papers on her desk, and hops up.

“Are you alright?” she asks.

“I came to see Maezre.”

She jabs a thumb backward to a room with a small bed, where Dexler is still unconscious. My heart sinks. “How is it looking?”

“Not good. Usually we’d see signs that she’s going to wake up within the first few hours, with the elixir I used. But I’m going to keep trying everything I can.”

I hug her. “Thank you for all you’re doing.” We hold the embrace. “Jordan said he came by.”

“Oh, yeah.”

I glimpse the papers she tried to cover.

Jordan’s name is all over them. I skim numbers that don’t make sense, hastily written annotated equations all over the page, in the margins, sideways.

There is a lot crossed out and underlined in red.

My head throbs, trying to make sense of it.

Abby breaks the long embrace. I grab the papers from her desk.

At the bottom of the page are words that are crystal clear: probability of survival: none.

“Oh my goodness.” The words fall out of my mouth, and I clamp a palm over my face to catch them. He’s going to die.

“Quell, I’m so sorry. His wound never truly healed.

I told him to tell you.” Abby apologizes again, but I don’t have words yet for my frustration with her for not warning me.

All this time, I’ve been trying to get magic out of him to save him.

When that procedure is most likely to kill him! I turn to go.

“Quell, please,” Abby says to my back.

That night, Jordan doesn’t come to my room.

I stay in my room, reliving every conversation Jordan and I had.

Each time it only riles up my frustration.

I dig through my grandmother’s library of books, reading up on any- and everything that could be remotely useful.

And when I find nothing, I burn through pieces of furniture just to feel good.

When I collapse into an armchair, I finally exhale.

Daylight outside fades to darkness, and it feels like fading hope that somehow this will all be okay.

That the future I want is still possible.

That I have to fight for it more before it slips through my hands.

I gather up all the evidence I have on Yani from her room and sort through it again, when a card is slipped under my door.

Dinner.

I want to apologize.

—J

I fold the note. I have to confront him. Tell him everything I know about Ube, Abby, and the procedure. But most importantly, I have to take the diadem with the Sphere’s magic away from him and remove him from power before he hurts anyone else.

Including himself.