Page 34 of Shadows of Perl

“Take me to your aunt. I want to talk to Beaulah privately. If you do that, your secret is safe with me.”

For a moment, Adola only blinks. She tosses me her long hooded coat to put on. Then she releases a ragged breath and says, “Fine. Follow me.”

Ten

Quell

Adola leads me out of the amphitheater to a servant’s entrance down a set of steep steps.

“We’re just going to walk in? That’s your plan?”

“The staff was given the night off. This is how I got out.”

I study her for some hint of dishonesty, but there’s no scheme in her eye. Still, this is the House of Perl heir. The same heir who played a humiliating joke on me the first time we met.

“I can cloak,” I insist. “Just tell me where she is on-site.”

“Tutum et perspicuum.”

My brows cinch.

“Cloaking isn’t possible on the grounds. People don’t pop up on Mother,” she says.

“Your aunt, you mean?”

“I didn’t misspeak.” She offers me a hand down the stairs. I follow her inside Hartsboro.

Hartsboro’s grand rooms and tall coffered ceilings remind me of Chateau Soleil. Where my grandmother’s estate glistened with gold and ornately carved accents, the inside of House of Perl has an understated grandness. A confidence. As if it doesn’t need to prove itself. It is statuesque without being overwhelmingly spacious. Luxurious, without being gaudy or glamorous, with sleek fixtures and accents that aren’t gilded or frilly. There is wood, stone, and brick instead of porcelain and marble. Suits of armor instead of sculptures. Plaques of history and portraits of prior Headmistresses line the paneled walls. And beside them is an engraved list of Never Forgotten names.

My heart knocks into my ribs when I spot the names of the two girls who were killed this past summer: Brooke Hamilton and Alison Blakewell. All thanks to my grandmother. My gut swims.

A hall of portraits portraying distinguished members of the House is the fanciest, with an impressive display of diadems, masks, and tiny gold pins. Being in a House again unsteadies me. I did the right thing at my Cotillion. I told the truth. Still, I can’t move, flooded with memories of walking the halls of my old home, certain a different life was on the horizon. Only to realize the little house on the beach, the life Mom and I imagined for ourselves, would be harder to grab hold of than I thought. Adola urges me to keep going.

That’s when I spot it.

A painting of Jordan, an enlarged version of that photo of him from Debs Daily. My fingers feel for the lump in my coat where the copy of the article sits tucked against my chest. His prim suit, cinched at the collar with his coin. His devilishly gorgeous face despite his hollow stare. His green eyes were a sunlit meadow, now they’re a field of ashes. Beneath the frame is a title: Dragunheart of the Brotherhood, followed by a starting year—this year—without an end date. I back away and bump into Adola. She grabs me by the arm, pulling me along. I go with her, but I swear I feel the portrait staring at me, squeezing my throat. My heart races. Every corner we turn sends a cold shiver up my arms, and I have to remind myself why I’m here. My mother was here. At Hartsboro. She could have stood in this very hall. I walk faster.

“Where is your aunt?”

“Her office, usually.” She creeps along, holding her arms tight to her body. “It is in the Dysiis Wing. We can’t risk taking the direct route.”

We pass through a formal dining area that’s longer than any room I’ve ever seen; its chandeliers are made of carved bones that are eerily realistic. Past it, the foyer opens up to a lounge, its furniture arranged around a projection of the Sphere. The matter inside the orb undulates, still blackened like the last time I saw it at Chateau Soleil, but its glassy surface is cracked like a shattered eggshell.

“What happened to the Sphere?” I gathered from skimming issues of the Daily that the Sphere had been attacked, and things in the Order are shaky. But the Order has never done anything but make my life a nightmare. I couldn’t care less what happens to it. The Sphere, on the other hand…I had no idea it’d become so fragile.

“Is it true what they say about if it bleeds out?” I ask.

Adola’s chin slides over her shoulder. “It’s worse.”

“Worse?” But she doesn’t elaborate. Magic gone for lifetimes. I nudge my toushana, and the coldness shifts against my ribs as I try to picture myself without toushana to keep me safe.

Yagrin used me to track the Sphere. He said he’d located it before. No one I know hates the Order more. Suddenly, I know who is responsible for the attack.

We turn down another long corridor and arrive at a room that smells like stale smoke and fresh leather. It is filled with chairs, a bar, and crystal game tables; bookshelves line the walls.

“Are they onto him—um, the person who cracked it?” Could more than Jordan know she had been on the run with him?

“I don’t know.” She runs her hand down the side of a bookcase before her fingers disappear in the seam. “But my cousin will find whoever did it. He’s the sharpest Dragun alive. And he was just promoted to second-in-command of the entire brotherhood.”

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