Page 13 of House of Marionne

“Thank you, Grandmom. He was—”

“You haven’t been addressed to speak, dear.”

My insides twist. This is not how I pictured this going. I’m making a fool of myself. She doesn’t seem to like Jordan very much, but I’m not sure she likes me any more.

“Thanks to Abby, you look well.”

I start to speak but nod and smile instead.

“You may go,” she says to Jordan, and sits, somehow without bending her back at all.

Jordan starts to speak but moves to the door instead. He passes so close I expect us to touch. My breath hitches. But he grazes past me with room to spare and opens the door before turning back. He stares, piercing and sharp, his eyes gilded daggers that could cut right through me. My toushana flutters. Does he know? I shift in my seat and try to avert my gaze. But can’t.

“My apologies to you, madam,” he says. “Welcome to House of Marionne.” He folds at the waist, his suspicion still fixed on me, before slipping out the door.

“Now.” Grandmom pats a cushion beside her and I sit. “Let me get a good look at you.”

Her stare bathes me in curiosity. She pulls at my clothes, grazes my hair. Every spot she touches tingles. She glances at my hands, and I flinch. They ache. In seconds, they could turn to ice, burn through all her nice things. Out my secret. I stuff them in my pockets and try to settle. After a moment, she sits back in her chair.

“What brings you here?” she asks. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

In a rush, I tell her almost everything. How we’ve moved around often because Mom’s work is always changing, not because we’ve been living on the run. I skip the stuff that happened in the forest and the Dragun on my tail. And explain that my mom told me she had some things to take care of days ago, left me at our apartment, and hadn’t returned. The lie stings. I punctuate my explanation with smiles, the right inflection, enough truth, like I’ve always done. But her face is as stoic as stone as she listens. I smooth my clammy palms on my pants to warm them. I only need her to buy it for a few hours.

“And where is Rhea . . . your mother?”

My chest tightens. “I don’t know.”

“She has a way of making herself seen when she wants to be. Well . . .” She slaps her legs, before standing. “Season has already started,” she says more to herself than me. “But you’re my granddaughter, you can slip in and play catch-up. We have lots of work to do.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t think you’re going to be on my estate idle, do you? You will enter induction for the Order.” Her eyebrows kiss as if to ask how I could have expected anything different.

“I didn’t need—”

“Did you not come here because you’ve nowhere else to go?”

“I did, but—”

“And I am saying, dear, you are welcome. But you will prove you’re Marionne in more than just name and earn your place, like everyone else.”

“No, no. I wasn’t—” I blow out a breath. “I’m sorry. This is very generous. I wasn’t sure where to go, so I came here.”

She lifts a teacup from a silver-plated tray to her lips, sipping slowly, and I realize I have a fistful of chair cushion. She stands and walks to the window, her cup clinking against its saucer.

“What do you think your mother’s last words to me were, Quell?”

I shift in my seat, reminded of the fine linen beneath me. The obstinate wealth, an entirely different life Mom would have had at her fingertips.

If it weren’t for me.

“I don’t know.”

“Take a guess.”

“ ‘I love you, but I have to go?’ ” That seems sort of nice, maybe.

“She said nothing,” she says, flinching a smile. “Left like a thief in the night. I tucked you in that evening. You liked me to read this story about a bear who lived in secret in the basement of an old house.” She chortles. “So I read it twice. You insisted.”