Page 139 of House of Marionne

The walk back to my room is cloaked in dread. I can’t stop thinking about Nore. Did Beaulah get to her? Is that why she didn’t show the other night? Should I have told Jordan? But how would I have explained being so obsessed with Nore in the first place? My pulse picks up. But I blow out a breath. Calm, I have to stay calm so Jordan doesn’t pop up on me at the wrong time. That has to be my entire focus. I fall into my bed and bury myself in the covers, wishing I could wake up again and find out this has all been a terrible dream.

The first full day with no news, I manage to make it to Latin and work on my Cultivator specialty. But sensing magic in others is so much harder than it sounds. It doesn’t help that I’m majorly distracted by Shelby shooting daggers at me all through class. I still don’t know why she was slated to debut but didn’t or why she is being so mean.

The session ends, and despite an invite from some Secundus to hang, I spend the rest of the day in my room, hoping for some word from Jordan. Some news of what is going on outside the gates of Chateau Soleil. Abby’s empty bed taunts me. I should write to her.

The next day with no news from Grandmom or Jordan, I do one session of etiquette practice before retreating back to solitude. It’s the people who make this place feel like home. And right now, those closest to me here are all gone. My thoughts spiral at the whirlwind of silence, my panic trying fiercely to take hold.

Once the fifth day has passed with no word from Jordan and only a glimpse of Grandmom before she is off again, the thought of even getting out of bed makes it feel like the walls are closing in. So I don’t leave that day. Or the next. The sun rises and sets for days. The only thing that keeps me sane is sitting in my room working on my magic with no questions or stares, or people I have to pretend in front of.

I’ve locked myself in like a cage.

Because I can’t imagine a world outside of it where I am safe.

* * *

A week or more passes before Dexler comes knocking on my door.

“Quell, dear, there’s a call for you from Abby, your old roommate.”

I untangle myself from bed.

“It came to me because I guess she knows you’re in my sessions. It’s in my office if you’d like to take it?”

“Yes! I would.” I stick to her heels until the phone is in my hand.

“You are difficult to get ahold of,” Abby’s voice comes through, and it warms me like a sun peeking through the clouds.

“It’s so good to hear from you. I’m just dying to hear some news. Everything is so bleak.”

“I know what you mean. When I heard about Nore Ambrose, I was with a patient and accidentally snapped her bone in half.”

“Oh, geez.”

“It’s getting so strange out here. The things I’m hearing. The Sphere has everyone wound up. Everyone is desperate to do something, anything, to fix it.”

“I’ve heard similar.” I glance at a watchful Dexler and bite my tongue. “But you’re okay?”

“Homesick, but yes. I can’t believe I have to be here an entire year.”

“You said you’d love it.”

“I do . . . I just, I miss Mynick and you, Deda’s lectures, and even my mother, if you can believe it. No one’s had time to visit.”

A disturbance breaks out in the hall, and Dexler peeks her head out of the door.

“Jordan’s gone off to find Nore,” I whisper. “He thinks it was an inside job.”

“That’s so scary. It’s like everyone’s accusing everyone these days—” She doesn’t finish. The noise in the hall grows, thundering like a stampede.

“What’s going on?” I ask a pinched-face Dexler when she slips back inside.

“The search has ended,” she says. “Headmistress is back. She’s called a meeting.”

“Abby, I have to go.” I hang up and follow the crowd streaming into the foyer. Grandmom stands behind a podium, and the room is packed with my peers and a smattering of concerned parents.

I’m too nervous to sit, so I hover in the back. Please be good news.

“Nore Ambrose has been found, alive,” Grandmom says.