Page 28 of House of Marionne

The bird’s wing tips gray first. Then its feathers fray as if withered with age. He starts his descent, struggling to keep himself up on the wind until he’s flying, falling more like, straight for the ground.

“He’s going to—” My teeth dig into my knuckle.

He pummels the lawn. Someone yelps. Dexler gathers us around his feeble frame. She rolls the dead bird on its side, horror etched on my peers’ faces. “Know the cost of the mysteries you wield, or you too might pay a price you hadn’t bargained for.”

A shiver runs down my spine as we return to our seats.

“To begin, Electus, what is your charge?”

That’s me. “Emerging one’s magic,” I say, ready this time, in unison with the others who haven’t emerged. “Rich is the blood of the chosen.” The words send a wintry echo through me. My toushana flutters. Quiet, I urge it. Please.

Primus and Secundus complete their recitations and I glance at the others who haven’t emerged, trying to glean what they’re doing. One spots me watching, and I force myself to meet her eyes. She looks me up and down as Dexler drones on about what we’ll be doing today. Her shoulders hang. Her chin rises. I know that look. She wants nothing to do with me.

I fight the urge to shrink in my seat, and focus on Dexler.

“We’ll be working with a different kor today.” She points at the sun overhead. “Hence the change of venue. Anatomer magic requires understanding how organisms function, how they grow and change naturally. Similar organisms will have similar anatomical structures, making them easier to transform. Changing from person to person is vastly easier. But we are a cut above the rest, we don’t settle for easy, do we?”

“Here.” The blonde next to me tosses me a spare notebook and a pencil.

“Thanks.”

“Shelby . . . Duncan.” She offers me a handshake, but a question glints in her cerulean eyes.

“Hi.”

We shake. “Secundus, fifth of my blood, Anatomer candidate.”

Nigel Hammond morphing into the Dragun who is after me unfurls in my memory.

“You can shift your face.”

“If I was basic, sure. With enough practice and a bit of their blood, I can mimic voice and personality, too. I can become anyone. I’ve almost mastered one person so far. But I still don’t have this animal bit down yet.”

“You’re a Secundus, so you must know Abby, my roommate.”

“Yeah, we were both here last Season. We’re on track to finish together.” She pops her gum. “If she can get it together that is.”

“I’m Quell Ma—”

“Marionne, I know. Everyone knows.”

My cheeks warm at her response, the exact sentiment unfamiliar. Being talked about isn’t new. But the curl of her lips, the way she doesn’t smile at me so plastically this time makes it hard to look her in the eyes. A robust diadem studded with pale blue stones rises out of her head, setting off her eyes. Abby’s was much smaller than Shelby’s. But something tells me everything about Shelby is grand.

Say something else. Don’t be awkward. “Nice to meet you.”

She blows another bubble until it pops. “You, too.”

“Do you mind telling me.” I point at my head. “How the emerging thing works?”

She rolls her shoulders back haughtily, as if it wasn’t already painfully obvious I’m the new girl. Marionne only in name, Grandmom pegged me right. But I will show her.

“I just haven’t caught up yet,” I say, trying to make my words come out more certain than they feel. “My mom didn’t do any of this, so it’s a bit new.”

“Sure thing.” She leans in for a whisper as Dexler wanders between the aisles going on about something I am almost sure I should be listening to. But I can’t help but hang on Shelby’s words.

“So emerging is the easiest Rite if magic is strong in your bloodline, which, I mean, for you it is, duh.”

I can’t help but smile. It’s tempting to think I could be a member of this Order, a wielder of what Grandmom called the greatest mysteries of this world.