Page 2 of Shadows of Perl

“Three minutes,” I tell him.

He slides me a fold of the paper and taps a tiny byline.

I don’t recognize the name, but I skim the article; it’s a blur of meaning. Some Houses are restructuring their leadership, lengthening term limits for Headmistresses, refreshing their security protocols.

“This means nothing to me.”

“This article is written by Amelia Brendalin. She usually covers entertainment and gossip. But she’s written the top story this week.” Octos flips to the obituaries and points to some guy. “Frank was young and healthy, the hotshot headliner at the Daily, but now he’s—”

“Dead.”

He nods and it sends a shiver down my spine.

He shows me his notepad, where he has written in block letters the message he decoded from the paper.

H E K N E W T O O M U C H

“The dead guy knew too much about what?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

Worry carves Octos’s face. I try to find some concern for this reporter I’ve never met, for this Order that has never accepted me. But the only thoughts that come to mind are how my mother and I were forced to live our entire lives on the run because of my toushana, and how my grandmother—Headmistress of House of Marionne—was binding débutants to her House in servitude. How the boy who I let see pieces of me that I’d never shared with anyone found out my dark secret and betrayed me to my witch of a grandmother.

“I don’t care, Octos. About any of it. We finish my training. Then I find my mom.” If Abby doesn’t find her first.

His mouth parts, but he closes it when we see the street empty. I stand, buttoning my coat.

“The park is clear. Let’s get this over with.”

Lincoln Park is an oasis of trees and a natural clearing in the otherwise concrete desert of Washington, DC. The rustle of leaves accompanies our footsteps as Octos and I slip through the barricade. There are no buildings or residences inside the park’s gates. Only tiny outhouse structures, monuments, and objects that I could disintegrate in a blink.

I think about the last note I got from Abby weeks ago. I’ve read it a hundred times. Nothing to report. I’ll tell you the minute I get eyes on her so that you can come meet us. I honestly thought Mom would be easier to find. That she would be waiting nearby, waiting for the streetlights to turn off. A lump rises in my throat and I can’t force it back down. I pick up my pace, hustling through the park. To prepare for this moment, Octos would not let me use my magic for days.

“What’s the test?”

He points toward a clearing farther ahead. I ready myself, inhaling deeply. Toushana reawakens, buckling in my chest like a block of ice cracking open. Suddenly I can hear a bird assembling a nest, tiny branches scraping against one another as they’re fitted together. Earthiness from yesterday’s rain grows more intense and I can smell it, stronger than anything else. Octos’s heart beats calmly next to me. My heart thuds against my ribs.

“How are you so calm?”

“Calmness lends itself to a clear mind. You should try it.”

“I’m perfectly calm,” I lie.

He gives me a knowing look. The trace. He’s worried Jordan will sense me and find us. Before my life fell apart at Chateau Soleil, before we fell apart, Jordan broke off a piece of his kor and put it in my chest, connecting us forever. It allows him to sense any intense emotions that I feel and see where I am so that he can come to me. At the time, the trace was to protect me.

If he found me now, he’d kill me.

Jordan is a fully fledged Dragun.

And his one job is to execute toushana-users, like me.

Jordan. My fingers snap to the lump in my inside pocket, where there’s an old Debs Daily clipping from early fall commemorating a new flock of Draguns. Jordan was spotlighted. He glared at the camera; a round coin minted with a talon was pinned at his throat. Even in black-and-white print, his eyes were depthless, and his edges were more razor-sharp than I’ve ever seen them. Regret tugs at a knot in my chest. I never imagined we’d end up this way. Octos watches me with interest. My toushana is volatile and dangerous, yet somehow it’s easier to control than my feelings for Jordan Wexton.

“Just up ahead,” he says.

“I’m not so sure the trace works the way it’s supposed to anymore.”

I have had a roller coaster of emotions these last few months, and Jordan hasn’t shown up once.

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