Page 153 of House of Marionne

Backstage, he sticks to my heels.

“Quell.”

I walk faster toward the powder room before I have to go out there again for binding.

“Quell!” He re-forms in front of me. “You think you’re the only one who can see through people? What are you planning?” A raging war brews in his eyes. He doesn’t want to believe that I would do something so terrible—bind with my toushana. And if I am, he doesn’t know what to do. “Say I am wrong. Say . . . you’re going to do what Headmistress expects and put this behind you.”

I say nothing, but my heart rams in my chest, telling on me.

He sucks in a breath and stumbles back, and the boy behind the mask finally stares at me. I turn to get back to the ceremony before my name is called to do my binding.

“Quell, please.” Desperation crackles his words, and for some foolish reason, I stop and turn to look at him. “If you do this, it would fall to me. I’d have to—find you and . . .” A single tear streams down his cheek. I close the distance between us and smooth away the answer to any questions I had about what I mean to him.

“Quell, I—I love you.” The words break from his lips like a cracked bit of concrete. Brittle, hard, heavy. And true.

I relish hearing him admit it. I reach for him.

“I need you.” His thumb grazes my jaw, and his chest heaves with a patter as if the admission alone may shatter him into pieces.

“To your seats, everyone. If our débutants will make their way to their seats, we’ll start the ceremony and finish with our group dance, followed by a reception and guest performance by Audior extraordinaire from the class of ’15, the lovely Lomena.” The crowd applauds, calling to me, but I am frozen face-to-face with a boy who loves me. And just found the courage to say it.

His finger traces my face, and I turn into his palm, savoring its gentleness.

“I could find a way to amend the rules, I bet. We could be together, Quell. We can have everything we couldn’t before.”

I could have it all. In one swipe of a blade, I could do away with my past, erase my history. Forget who I am and become who they want me to be.

But that is not freedom.

Another tear forms on Jordan’s face, and for a moment I consider trying to get him to come with me. But his heart doesn’t want to be free of this prison, he wants me stuck in it with him.

I gaze back down the corridor at the audience decked out in jewels, expressions glazed with awe. They all deserve to know the truth. Binding with my toushana isn’t enough. I must tell them about the tracing tether.

If this world is made of glass, I will dance with a hammer in my hand.

Jordan’s fingers try to lace between mine, but I pull them away and press my lips to his, savoring his love, imagining I could fit it in my hand, take it with me in my pocket. His arms tighten around me, and I wish that I could hold on to this feeling forever. I break the kiss.

“I can’t live in a cage, Jordan.” I leave him there.

His composure breaks. And it’s the wall that holds him upright on his feet. “Where will you go? What will you do?” His voice cracks.

“I will dare to claim the sky.” I hurry toward the stage as my name is called.

Grandmom is there when I spill out of the corridor, and another débutant is onstage with their hands gripped on the hilt of their blade up against their chest. Grandmom waits as they exhale and the handle disappears. Their chest glows a moment. A symptom of the tracing tether. Applause follows and Grandmom’s gesturing for me to join her onstage.

“And now for a very special débutante, our last but certainly not least, my very own granddaughter, the heir and future leader of this great House, Raquell Janae Marionne.” Applause drowns my steps as I join her onstage.

I stand at Grandmom’s side as she hands me my dagger, and I look for some indication of the invisible tether around the stage, some tear of magic or ripple that shouldn’t be there. “If you’ll refer to your program, you’ll see all of Raquell’s distinguishing accomplishments, including the enhancers she’s infused into her magic. She also received the highest marks on Second Rite this House has ever seen.” Her cheeks push up under her eyes. “Raquell will be interning here as my understudy in Cultivating.” She turns to me. “Please raise your right hand and place the other on your dagger, then recite your oath.”

“By blood and trial, I swear to keep and protect the Order’s truth. To honor and serve and never divide. Should I desert the way of Rule, my brother’s blade should make me true. For service is for life, and a broken oath is only righted by death.”

“When you’re ready, you may bind with your magic to complete Third Rite.” She hands me my dagger. I glance out at the crowd, the generations of members, parents, grandparents. Histories and lineages. I am shattering it all because of one woman’s treachery. I force down the lump in my throat.

Some things deserve to be destroyed.

Let’s do this, I whisper to my toushana. I call to my magic, the one I trust. There is magic enveloping the stage. Show it to me. I hold my side, urging my toushana awake, and she unfurls from the place where she slumbers. Black curls from my fingers. Whispers swarm as darkness coils in the air like a plume of smoke, swelling until it encircles the stage, filling an invisible barrier Grandmom has bubbled around it.

“Your Headmistress has a tracer affixed to this ceremony,” I start, and the truth rushes out of me like unclogging a drain. “So that your binding is to not only your magic, but a tether to this House!”