Page 18 of Shadows of Perl

“Here and there. Wherever I can find.”

Her brother made her face him. “You can run from the Order, Nore, but that’s not the same as escaping it. Come home and make your case to Mother. I will back you up.” There was an earnestness in his eyes. “Remember, she wants something from you.”

“Yes, an heir.” She felt sick.

“We can use that as leverage.”

We. She elbowed him affectionately. He was such an idealist. He didn’t know the harshness of their mother’s love the way she did. He hadn’t been held down for days without food, without water, as Sun Dust was rubbed into his skin until he felt like he was on fire. He was the Ambrose son who’d discovered six new uses for enhancers before he was fifteen. He commanded awe from their House like a star performer onstage. But he didn’t realize that beyond the stage lights everyone else was sitting in darkness.

He was onto something, however.

Nore’s mind whirred. The key to getting what she wanted was showing the other person she had what they needed. She knew exactly what Darragh needed.

And Nore was the only person who could give it to her.

Five

Quell

My toushana rages in me with each step. I hold Mom’s key chain tight in my fist. There is no explanation for Octos to have this, unless…The thought lodges in my throat, urging each foot faster until I’m running through the forest. He will answer for this.

When I reach the edge of the forest, I can see the safe house on the hillcrest in the distance. With scraps of wood nailed to the windows, it’s a fortress in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by farming fields. Knox’s van and Willam’s truck are parked side by side, and Heeler, their mutt, is tethered to a tree, yapping. I creep close to the house. The side door creaks open and I hide, pressing into the whitewashed siding. Octos and Willam make a beeline for the truck. The two of them lug crates of grains and frozen bags of meat inside the house.

“Attaboy.” Knox hangs by the open door and tosses Heeler something before taking a stern glance around. I lean into my hiding place, easing out a slow breath. Heeler sniffs the bone, then barks harder in my direction. Knox grabs the last bag of groceries from the truck.

“Where’s the girl?” she asks Octos as they head inside.

“She was outside in the field, reading,” Octos says, covering for me. My jaw ticks.

Knox glances at the faint glimmer of sun. Once the locks on the house are closed for the night, no one’s allowed in until morning.

Shadows can’t hide when Sola Sfenti’s watching, Knox had told me once before.

Shadows…Draguns, she meant.

Though no one has outright told me, safe houses seem to be for people on the run from the Order. I watch as Octos casually answers more of Knox’s questions, his hand tucked in his pocket. But none of his covering for me does anything to calm the burning anger simmering beneath my skin. I turn Mom’s key chain in my hand. How long has he had this? Toushana tugs in my chest; the cold bleeds into my core, spreading through my limbs, and wraps all over me like an icy blanket. He’s going to tell me why he has this. Or I will make him.

When they disappear inside, I walk to the front door and twist the knob as I was taught. It resists. Locked. Always locked. Then I twist it five more times in snappy succession to signal those inside that I’m not an intruder. I race around the back to the kitchen door. On the way, I make sure to kick up some dirt on my pants’ legs and bottom so it appears I was actually doing what Octos said. Lace curtains flutter before the door swings open.

“Octos said you were reading. Where’s your book?” Knox asks, holding the door open just so, lodged against the wheelchair she always sits in. Her legs, amputated at the knee, are folded underneath her.

“I was reading the clouds…not a book.” I slip Mom’s key chain into my pocket. “Got all dusty, lying out there.” I smile.

“You shouldn’t be out there alone.” She peers past me before widening the door just enough that I can slip inside. Knox runs things here. Nothing happens without her say. Even her trips to get groceries are meticulously planned, never the same market twice in a row. Sometimes she and Willam, her main helper around here, will drive an entire day to find a place to shop. And they always buy so much, enough for that month and plenty extra to store.

Inside, Knox corners me with her wheelchair. The pendant she always wears around her neck gleams. Her kinky white hair is in thick knots down her back. She studies me with glacial blue eyes, stark against her lush, dark skin. Her gaze snags on my heart. Always on my heart.

The first night I showed up, I said exactly what Octos told me to say: that I was a friend of his and had nowhere else to go. I said nothing of my magic. And she didn’t ask. She locked me in a room with a small bed and sat outside the door. For ten days and ten nights. I was fed, given water. No one was unkind. Eventually, Willam came and laid out the rules of the house. Gradually, I was allowed freedom to roam during certain hours. I was assigned chores, and by the one-month mark, when Octos finally showed up, I was as free as the dozen or so others living in the house. This safe house is actually one of the few places in my life I’ve felt safe.

I clear my throat and she moves out of the way. The kitchen swells with bodies helping to unload the groceries. Knox watches me, so I pitch in, but I can’t get Octos’s betrayal out of my head. I put away a sack of potatoes and slam the cabinet door too hard. Everyone in the kitchen freezes, watching me.

“Sorry.” I shove the last bag of dry beans into a trapdoor in the back of the top cabinet and leave. Down the hall are two small sitting rooms, one bedroom, and a bath.

Octos is nowhere in sight.

I climb the stairs, each footstep heavier than the one before it. There are four rooms upstairs and an attic with a slew of beds. I stop on the second landing and poke my head into the first bedroom at the top of the stairs.

“Octos?”

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