Page 162 of Fortress of Ambrose
I search the entire estate for over an hour. But find nothing, no indication of where the lab was moved to. I circle back to Abby’s office, but the door is open, and her things are disheveled as if she left in a rush. Dexler is still unconscious.
“I wish you could give me advice,” I say to her slumbering body. “I’m so sorry this has happened. I hoped…It wasn’t…You didn’t deserve this.”
Dexler was always so helpful. She was the first maezre to see something in me. She waited here and protected House of Marionne the best way she could, hoping I’d show up. When so many others left, she believed in me. “I’m really sorry. Somehow, I’m going to fix all of this.”
I dash out of Abby’s office, feeling a bit silly talking to someone who probably can’t hear me. And also feeling a bit relieved. I check the third floor for Jordan. Maybe he came to find me. But he is not there either. I am out of breath when I make it to the dormitories. But the entire wing is vacant.
The recently repaired walls have caved in. Blackened, rotting doors have been ripped out of their hinges. I nearly trip over heaps of rubble, trying to check each room to be sure no one’s there. My throat is dry as I race back toward the stairs to the ground floor. When I hear a whisper of voices, it sends my pulse racing with foolish hope. The faint sounds lead me through the foyer, past the grand ballroom, past the broom closet, and down the narrow stairs that lead to the basement. The voices disappear.
A shriek rips the air.
I run toward the sound.
There are shouts. Another scream. Something crashes. Someone wails.
Then Jordan’s voice shatters the silence.
“Enough!” he says again.
I follow his voice to the maezre storage closet where extra enhancer supplies and furniture are kept. When I push against the door, it doesn’t budge.
“Jordan! Erla, are you in there?”
The voices quiet. But there is another crashing bang. I pull all the magic I can muster to my hands and shove shadows against the door. It rots beneath my fists, inch by inch. When the hole is wide enough, I force myself through.
The storage room is set up with a table like the extraction lab. A tangle of wires runs between Jordan and several golden rings. The wires’ ends are frayed and broken, held in Jordan’s fist. He stands, seething, beside the table. But it’s what’s around him that chills me to the bone.
Everyoneis in metal restraining handcuffs, their wrists linked together. Mothers, children. Willam’s have been tied to rusted pipe. Knox’s arms are in cuffs in her lap, paces away from him. Erla is clamping a restraint on someone else.
“You shouldn’t be here!” Jordan says. “I madeevery arrangementto ensure you would not be here.”
“Jordan,” I manage.
“I caught two of them trying to replace the rings with this mask.” He holds up an ornate, polished full-face white mask. “They were going tostealthe toushana.”
“And destroy it,” someone shouts between sobs.
“Erla, tell her.”
“It is true. I uncovered the treason myself.”
“Endingall dark magic, includingyours! You see what I’m fighting against? They willstay herelike this as long as it takes, until I say!”
Two of them. And yet every person in this house is held against their will. “Jordan, you have to stop this. Because one is guilty doesn’t mean they all are.” That’s what the Order believed about toushana. Fear has turned him into the very thing he’s trying to destroy.
Shadows bleed from him. A haze of dark magic hangs in the air like storm clouds. Dimara cowers at Kedd’s feet, holding on to his legs.
“I tried to stop them, and then things get hard to remember.” He chokes on his words. “I lost control, Quell. And now we’reweeksbehind, if we can even salvage this at all.” He shakes the frayed wires. “I have failed you. I have done nothing but fail you over and over again. This is thelastthing I could do for you. I can’t even do this right!” He trembles with rage because it feels safer to him than fear.
“There is only a thread of him left, Quell,” Knox says. “It’s now or never, Headmistress.”
I see Jordan clearer than I ever have. The guilt he wrestles with, the anger he finds comfort in, the darkness urging him to act on his most desperate desires. Desires growing like weeds in a heart full of fear. He is responsible for this mess. No one else can be blamed for his actions. But I can’t stop running from the truth either—the future is in my hands.
I have to take control.And lead.
“The magic—” he starts.
“It’s not the magic, Jordan. Look around. This is allyou.” Force would break him. Maybe love can rebuild him.
