Page 29 of House of Marionne

“Go on.”

“Emerging happens by using a lot of magic in a short period of time. Because magic—”

“Strengthens with use,” I recall.

“Yep, and you’ll be using it all day for the next several days. Completing First Rite proves that your magic is strong enough to be useful to the Order. Don’t sweat it. At most it’ll take a few days.”

“I see, okay, thanks.” If using magic is what gets me to emerge, then using magic is what I need to do.

“Ready?” Dexler chimes, something green blooming in her hand. She passes out bunches of grass and jars of dirt. “Transfigure these items into a fresh Nerium oleander bloom. On my desk by the end of class.”

Everyone around me seems to know what’s happening, including Shelby, so I follow her lead. I pour the dirt on my stone and arrange the grass around it.

“I missed what she said. I have to grow an oleander flower?”

“Watch.” Shelby shows me a seed. “Seed to flower is a natural path of change. But magic is wielding the unnatural.” She turns back to her two ingredients. How is this going to bloom into a flower? I watch, intent to not miss anything. Shelby traces circles in the grass, her expression suddenly very focused. The air around her fingers ripples and the grass dissolves into the dirt. Then she tugs at her pile of earth, pulling up. Out of it blooms a white flower.

“Wow. So you made the grass behave like a seed?”

“Exactly. Give yourself a break. It takes a little time to catch on.” Smile lines hug her eyes, and I settle in my seat a bit more comfortably. I thank her and leave her to her own work before smoothing out my dirt again.

My fingers creep with a sudden chill, and I shake it off, shoving my toushana down. Warmth. I reach for anything inside me that feels hot. A tightness in my stomach ignites like a flame, and I imagine it growing. Heat streams up my body in a sudden puff of air, and it feels like tingly granules fluttering all through me. I set my mind on changing the grass to behave like a seed, its dewy surface cold to my fingertips. The air around my hand ripples and the tiny blade of green dissolves.

My heart thuds in excitement. I pinch a bit of dirt, and the bud of a stem grazes my fingers. I pull on it, and suddenly everything in me goes cold, chasing away the magic roaring in me properly. I shove my hands between my thighs. On my desk is a puny excuse for a flower. I breathe, in through my nose, out through my mouth, until the chill in my fingers ceases.

“Not bad, Miss Marionne.” Dexler wanders over.

“Thanks, Shelby helped.”

“Now, with me, again.” Dexler cups her hand on my shoulder, and we repeat the lesson a few times with her magic bolstering my own until the flower that I pull from the dirt is much longer.

When she breaks our touch, she staggers.

“Cultivator Dexler, are you all right?” I steady her as she sways.

“I’m fine, don’t worry. All magic has a cost. The one Cultivators pay is quite high.” She snatches a clear-stoned ring from a box and slides it onto her finger, blowing out a breath. “Now, you, madam, must keep up that good work. You’ll emerge in no time,” she says before turning to Shelby to survey her work. “Flawless, Miss Duncan, as usual. Such a keen sense of touch and solid oration.” She turns the ring on her knuckle. “That and your knack for teaching. I wonder, have you ever given any thought to cultivating?”

“Actually, Headmistress and I—” Shelby blushes, and their words drone on into the distance as I keep practicing. By the time session wraps, I have managed to pull three flowers out of my dirt, but none with full leaf and stem.

“Not bad for your official first day,” Shelby says, tossing her things into her bag.

“Thanks.” I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, finding it a bit easier to look my peers in the eye.

Maybe I can do this.

TEN

After a quick lunch, which I eat by myself back in my room, and a short study period, I hustle to my next session. As I enter Etiquette in the Grand Ballroom, I stuff my hands in my pockets. There are fewer students than the last class, and it doesn’t appear that we’ll be using much magic here. The rotunda towers with a domed ceiling. Slender windows draped with sweeping fabrics flutter at the glossed floors. Long tables decked in floor-length tablecloths run along the center of the room with tall-back chairs on either side. I set a foot forward, determined to do as well as I did in Dexler’s. I should be able to manage eating “properly” even if it does involve way too many spoons.

Heads turn my way, but I keep mine down and find my name on a tiny card atop a gold-rimmed stack of plates. No one else is in a seat, so I blend into the small crowd.

There isn’t a single familiar face among the dozen or so others. No Shelby, no Abby.

“Oh, excuse me,” someone says, trying to squeeze into a back spot against the wall, away from the buzzing clusters of cliques. It’s one of the girls from Dexler’s who also hasn’t emerged.

“You’re the Marionne, right?”

The Marionne.