House of Marionne

He holds out his hand and I consider my blade but tuck it away. My legs, scratched and worn out from the scuffle, feel like lugging lead. I stagger and he steadies me with a rough shake before wrapping his arm tightly around my back, pulling me to him. I stiffen against his hard chest as he leads me through the gate, wincing as his closeness presses against my wounds. A sprawling house not unlike a castle gazes down at us, lit up like a star in the distance, a blanket of rolling green between us and it. Like a manor in a world all its own.

“Hold on to me,” he says, pulling me along faster. But the pain radiating all over my body sharpens and I can hardly keep up. He latches my hand on his arm and my heart thuds in my ears. His grip on me is somehow both gentle and tight. Closer to him the fabric at his throat is easier to see. What I thought was bare fabric is a stitched image of a hooked claw, a replica of the one the gate guard had on the coin at his neck. However, his is sewn in black thread. A talon . . . Not a cracked column. I try to exhale but can’t because nothing about his hold on me says I’m safe.

“I’ve done nothing wrong. Where exactly are you taking me?!”

His grip on me tightens, his jaw working. “Do not let go of me.” It isn’t a request.

The world spins around us, and in moments, we’re at the foot of the estate where pointed arch columns line the front. Along its stone triangular pediment, the name marionne is etched. My insides slosh. My name. Beneath it is some sort of symbol, a fleur-de-lis and talon wrapped in words in a language I can’t read. I catch a glimpse of myself in the window, and despite my bloodied clothes, I tie up my hair and dust off my freckled cheeks, but my hands sting, chafed from the pavement.

He pushes open the doors, tugging me along inside. The ceiling towers above, a masterpiece of gold leafed rosettes and crown molding like in the fancy castles I’ve read about in history books. Arches appear to be ripped right into it, reminiscent of an old, haunted church. He leads me through the entryway, past a maze of portrait-lined paneled walls, to a grand foyer where a giant sphere hovers midair like a black moon. Tiny speckles shine like constellations inscribed all over its glassy surface. Beneath them, darkness swirls violently.

“What is tha—” I reach to graze my fingers along its low-lying belly as we pass, but my hand goes right through it as if it’s no more than an illusion. I rub my eyes, warming all over with awe.

He pulls me along, and I fidget in his grasp. “I can walk just fine on my own.”

He holds me tighter. Music croons between a pair of towering carved doors as we pass. I crane for a glimpse inside. Bright lights illuminate an audience arced around a stage, some wearing masks, others with gold or silver tiaras on their heads. On the stage, a girl dressed quite fancily raises a dagger high above herself. I gasp.

“Eyes ahead!” My captor snatches me along before I can see more.

We go up one grand staircase, then another. Next, a long hall. Sweeping windows gaze out to a speckled sky hung over a sea of grass and sculpted plants. My wet shoes squeak, skidding on the polished floor. He urges us along faster, my mouth gaping, head swiveling at it all. How could a place so dangerous be so beautiful?

“Wait here,” he says as we approach a pair of guarded double doors. He speaks briefly to a guard who also wears a talon-marked coin at his throat. The guard eyes my injuries with disinterest before letting us inside.

On the other side of the doors is a sitting room where fire crackles in a fireplace next to more tall windows swathed in fine fabric. I ball my hands into fists and exhale, grateful my fingers are warm, my toushana quiet.

A chandelier hangs from ornamental molding, giving everything a warm glow. The ceiling is so high, I have to tilt my head all the way back to see it. My mother grew up here. The wedge of guilt that’s burrowed a hole in my heart widens. I took her from all this.

“Headmistress Marionne will be out in a minute,” the Dragun guarding her door says. I squeeze my key chain, noting the tick of a pendulum clock on the wall. My captor puts the entire room between us without a word to me, irritation set in his jaw as his mask retreats back into his skin. Indoors, with better lighting, I can make him out fully. He perches in a corner of the sitting room like a Roman statue, broad-shouldered, looming like a god, perfect and poised. Pretty, even. Sculpted cheekbones and long lashes set off his deep green eyes. His nose curves ever so slightly upward above a pair of full lips that appear permanently puckered. He’d look as if he was pouting if it weren’t for his cutting, broody glare. It’s sickening how gorgeous he is. I smooth my threadbare shirt and finger the holes in my jeans that aren’t supposed to be there, which only makes them worse.

He catches me staring and his edges sharpen. Something’s under his skin. And that something, I suspect, is me. A knock at the door makes my back straighten. A girl with a petite frame and face enters, carrying a tin case. Dark hair curtains her warm expression. She wears a simple dress in a breathy fabric, and on top of her head is a thin silver tiara: coils of metal and stringy bits of silver stacked on top of a headband. It shines radiantly as her head moves, the silver bits catching the sconced candlelight. It’s dainty and elegant, much like her.

She gestures at my arm, slick with red. “May I?”

I nod and set down my bag. For several moments, she works sharply focused over my wounds, smoothing her fingers over the cuts along my arm until they are new again. I glare at my hands. I really am broken.

My side cramps in pain as she finishes up with my arm. I wince, leaning on my other elbow, which is dug into a chair cushion that looks fancier than anything I’ve ever seen, let alone owned. The girl pulls her hair back into a bun. When she leans over my wound fully, I can see that her tiara is not sitting on her head—it’s coming out of her head. I swallow my shock.

“Does it hurt?” I ask.

“Me?” Her brows touch.

“Yes, I mean the—” I gesture at her tiara.

Her cheeks dent with tiny craters. “Oh, you’re serious? No, of course not.” She works her magic around my wound as if she were pulling apart delicately small invisible threads until the skin on my arm is all healed. “This must all be so new to you. You can only see diadems”—she indicates the thing I called a tiara—“and masks if you have magic in your blood.” She smiles. “Still, I can hide it at will, if I choose.” Her diadem disappears.

“Whoa.”

“It takes a little bit of control to learn how to do that.”

I gaze up again at the show of magic arced above her head. “Wow!”

She blushes. “Was there anywhere else you were hurt?”

I lift the edge of my shirt.

“Okay, this one might sting a little.” She cuts a glance at my captor, the Dragun, who picks dirt from his nails, his expression still rigid with annoyance. He could be a piece of furniture in this ostentatious sitting room with its silk lined walls and paneled wood. His mask, the one he shed outside, sits on his nose again, glistening in the sconce light.

My skin tugs and I brace for the pain.

“Hey,” the girl says, pressing my shoulder down. “Try to relax. Here.” She sticks out a hand. “I’m Abby, Primus, second of my blood, Shifter candidate, healer type.” She dips her chin.

“Quell, uh . . .”

“You’re a Marionne, yes?” she asks, tossing a glance at the guarded double doors. “I heard.”

I nod stiffly.

My captor purses his mouth in disbelief.

“There have been five Headmistresses since this House’s inception,” she says, not seeming to notice. “Which means magic can be traced back that long in your bloodline. So you’d say sixth of your blood.”

“Right.”

She grins and for some reason, I do, too.

“Nice to meet you. I should have you all fixed up in a few.” My shirt has worked its way back down, and she moves it out of the way. “Try to breathe normally, okay? The magic works better when you’re relaxed.”

“Thanks.” I force an exhale and set my eyes on anything across the room other than my skin being put back together. Books line the far wall secured in glass cabinets, affixed with a fleur-shaped padlock. I search for meaning along their spines. But other than a talon or fleur here or there, none of the terms or symbols are familiar.

“Almost,” Abby says, and I glance back at her work.

The slice of red flesh zips closed, and I inhale through my nose, swallowing the nausea back down.

Creases hug her eyes as she cleans up the blood staining my clothes and limbs. “There. Good as new. Could you put in a good word for me with Headmistress Marionne about how I’ve done?”

“Sure.”

She thanks me three times, before gathering her things and disappearing behind the double doors we came through. Just myself and my captor now. Feeling stronger, I rotate to face him. He stares into the roaring fireplace. I slip my hand into my bag and feel for my dagger, keeping my eyes on him and the door.

“How’d you do it?” He stuffs a hand in his pocket, his back still to me.

“Excuse me?” I tighten the grip on my dagger.

“Seeing me as I was cloaked. How?” He twists in my direction. His jaw clenches like the words are rot on his tongue. I scowl at the man who attacked me, then dragged me in here like a criminal. He shifts his posture and the light from the window cuts across his face. He isn’t affiliated with the Dragun after me and yet he dragged me in here as if . . .

“You thought I was trespassing?”

He tilts his head in agreement. Flecks of blue glint in his green eyes, and they remind me of a lake lapping a grassy shore. Heat rises on my neck.

“Well, I’m not.”

“That remains to be seen.” He turns his back to me dismissively. “The estate doesn’t receive unsolicited visitors when Season is in, as a security measure.” He is silent a moment. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

I rotate away in my chair, and to my great relief, the door to the Headmistress’s suite clicks open. A woman whose skin suggests she’s no older than twenty-five glides in.

“Grandmom?” I stand.

Her hair shines like polished silver, swooped backward and pinned in an updo, held together by a pearl comb. The diadem on her head is much taller than Abby’s, not unlike a crown. It’s encrusted with pearls and pink gems in a variety of sizes, all blindingly glitzy. Chunky stones are pressed to her ears, and matching ones hug her knuckles. The corset to her gown is shiny like silk, woven with a fleur-de-lis pattern. She is majestic.

“Quell.” Her voice is soft and warm. A smile is pressed into her velvety skin.

I stand, hands clasped, not quite sure what’s appropriate to do.

“Close your mouth, dear. You look like a trout.”

I snap it closed. She moves toward me, and I’d swear she’s gliding on air.

“Jordan,” she says, addressing my captor. “This isn’t how we welcome guests here.”

“It’s my understanding she wasn’t invited.”

Grandmother’s nostrils flare, but her tone comes out measured. “Yes, but this is my granddaughter.” She faces him fully, and his mouth parts in disbelief before he snaps it closed and it hardens.

“And,” Grandmom goes on, “I would have liked her greeted properly. You might have debuted from your House, but you are still a Ward of mine until the end of summer.”

His glare hits the ground.

I pull at my shirt. A Ward as in this isn’t his House. As in he could know Draguns outside of the ones here. The Dragun after me . . .

“ . . . you will abide by our way of doing things or find your duties overseeing security on these grounds revoked.”

His cavalier posture stiffens, arrogance rising off him like steam. “You would do that? You would—”

“Do I strike you as a liar, Mister Wexton?”

“I . . . No, Headmistress.”

“You might not be under my direct authority, but this is my House.” Her stern demeanor melts back into a smile when she turns to me. “After all, we wouldn’t want to give her a bad first impression, would we?”

“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.”

I have literally no memory of this. My throat thickens. A picture of little me on her lap pries its way into my memory. I replace it with one of dead magic bleeding from my hands.

“Afterward, your mother and I had a nightcap as usual. And then the next morning, she was gone.” She pauses and the silence hovers like a guillotine. “She pretended.”

I gulp.

“She lied.”

I flinch.

“Despite all I’d given her, shown her.” Her lips purse. “Would have given her. She took everything from me.”

I look around at the scroll-armed furniture, the blanket of green outside. How is she the one with the short end of the stick? Grandmom must read my mind because her smile deepens.

“Don’t be fooled by things, Quell. She took from me what no one could buy. My legacy. A daughter to love. A granddaughter.”

A chill sweeps over me. “Family.”

“Exactly.” Grandmom’s lip trembles for a split second, her composure cracking.

I hadn’t thought about it like that, what it must have been like for Grandmom. I can’t imagine just not seeing Mom again. Without a goodbye. Mom lost all this because of me. My grip slacks on the metal key chain hooked on my fingers.

Grandmom sits back down beside me, closing her hands around mine. I hesitate at her touch.

“You coming back here is a dream.” She pats my arm. “And I intend to make you as welcome as she was. I do not coddle. I am firm. But there is always love behind my words.”

She plucks a book so thick it requires two hands from one of her shelves. Its gold-lettered spine glistens: Book of Names. She opens it and turns past countless blank pages to one with a handful of names on it.

“It’s our second chance.” She smiles, and this time it reaches her eyes. “Sign here.” She hands me a pen and indicates the next open space beside four other names, beneath the title: inductee roster.

“I . . .”

“House of Marionne was the second-ever-created House in the Prestigious Order of Highest Mysteries to oversee magical instruction of prospects in the southern quadrant.” She pauses, taking my silence, I gather, for my needing convincing. “There are four territories and thus three other Houses with their own Headmistresses who rule by Council.” She steeples her hands. I’m not sure her nose could rise any higher. “Houses are run like a magical boarding school, if you will. There are no school year semesters here. We have one Season from May to August where débutants are able to officially join our societies. Since its inception, House of Marionne has held its own study and exhibition of magic as a cut above the rest.” She rolls her wrist, unfolding her palm up. “Supra alios.” Then she snaps it beside her, before unrolling her fingers to lie flat, and I realize it’s some sort of official gesture. “Don’t worry, you’ll learn.” She smiles and it tugs at something giddy in me.

I slide to the edge of my seat, eager to hear more.

“Since Sola Sfenti unearthed the Sun Stones in the ancient days, the Order has done what it must to protect and preserve its magic. For centuries, there was nowhere safe to grow or study it. Hiding magic was the only option. Until . . .” Her lips curl in a clever smirk. “The world shifted, capitalism boomed, and Britain began to tout itself as a world power. Within those lavish shows of disgustingly acquired wealth, the débutante was born.”

“So the Order . . . magic has been around since forever?”

“If you don’t know true history, dear, you will learn it here.”

“History is actually the one class I never skipped.” The honesty spills out before I can tug it back, my skin tingling with excitement. I bite my lip.

“We attend all our studies here, the intriguing and the mundane.” She raises a brow, and I slink back in my seat. When she returns to my side, kindness has softened her expression, and I sit up a little straighter.

“We adopted the débutante concept, and of course put our own spin on it. But, Quell, those were the years everything changed for us.” She cups her hand over mine. “We’d finally found a veneer to exist in the world, one to cloak our wealth, excuse our exclusivity, one to allow us to safely, privately, study and grow our gifts.” She exhales. “That is . . . for those of us fortunate enough to be invited . . .” She pushes the Book of Names toward me.

Exclusive. Magic. Wealth.

I swallow. “I . . . I can’t sign that.”

Mom didn’t tell Grandmom about my toushana. Instead, she fled, choosing a life on the run. There has to be a reason for that. I scoot away from her on the couch. “I’m sorry it’s just . . . a lot, so fast.”

Insistence burns in her eyes, and I pull my bag strap closer to me.

“You understand there is magic inside you, dear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And it cannot grow without the careful guidance of a Cultivator. That doesn’t entice you?”

“I think I’m just tired.”

Her stare deadens, and my throat goes dry.

“Of course. Forgive me.” She slaps the book closed, her lips thinned. “You’re probably exhausted.”

“Yes.”

“Very well, get some rest.” She holds out her hand. “But I will require your phone. They’re not allowed on the premises. This is a place of the utmost privacy and discretion.”

“I—”

“Your phone, or I am afraid you will not be permitted to stay, dear.” She straightens and I dig my phone out of my bag, thankful I at least have my key chain. I hand it over, and my heart skips a beat. It’s like breaking off a piece of myself and giving it away.

“I’ll have refreshment and fresh clothes sent to a room for you. We’ll take up this conversation tomorrow, how does that sound?”

My fingers graze the spots on my arm Abby’s magic healed, and a tightness unfurls in my chest at what real magic can do. I shove off the futile thoughts and meet Grandmom’s eyes.

“That sounds good. Thank you.”

By morning, I’ll be gone.