Page 48 of Fortress of Ambrose
“Which house is the main House?” But as the car rolled to a stop in the half circle drive where the three similarly sized houses sat, Nore noticed that above each pair of grand doors the thick vines had been trimmed away to reveal an engraving. Where she expected to see Oralia’s name, each house bore a word.
Corporeal.
Cerebvis.
Sensarus.
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Yagrin stepped out and opened her door. Perhaps he wasn’t furious with her. She was a mirror of his own hypocrisy. He wanted that Scroll for himself, too! He couldn’t judge her for her having her own motives.
The car drove off, and she pondered every bit of Latin she knew. Studying the dead language had its etymological uses.Corpuswas a root word often used for things relating to the body.Cereboften referred to the mind.
“Let’s get on with it. This one’s good enough.” Yagrin started toward the middle house,Corporeal. She stuck to his heels. They walked up a few short steps and stood before the door. She gazed around for some sign of security or something, but there wasn’t a soul in sight.
“Can you hear anything with your senses?” she tried to ask, but no sound came out of her mouth.
Yagrin tried to speak, but his mouth moved wordlessly.
Nore couldn’t hearanything, she realized. She watched the trees moving with no sound to the wind. She ground her boot in the gravel. Silent.Audior magic.
She felt around the door handle, grabbed it, and pushed. The heavy wooden door opened without a sound. They shared a glance before stepping inside. The hall was dark; warm lanterns swung from the paneled ceiling. They walked down the long hall until the foyer corridor opened up to a wide rotunda lined with doors. The room was larger than any ballroom at Dlaminaugh. It might have been larger than any room Nore had ever seen. There was a roped-off circle in the center of the room, but nothing was within it. A projection of the Sphere used to hang there, she realized.
Ding!
The sudden sound struck like a splash of red paint on a blank canvas.
Then she heard someone playing the piano.Well.She and Yagrin rushed toward the door where the music carried in. Inside was an auditorium with seats filled to the brim with people. And a stage where a lone person stood in a fine teal gown with a sparkly mask on their face, twinkling in the stage lights.
Their body swayed as they moved their arms in evocative motions. With every shift in their body, the piano music played; it was the onlysound she heard. Suddenly she understood. The Audior magic was in place so nothing could interfere with the exquisite performance.
She wasn’t really a music person, but the notes of the song took her heart on an adventure, filling it with sharp, short, low sounds, which made her feel nervous. Then the auditorium burst into a skitter of high notes. She thought of a bird shoved out of a nest, bobbing in the air, then spreading its wings for the first time. The tones were a melody that elicited a nostalgic ache. Audior magic—and all art in general—was not considered distinguished at Dlaminaugh. In their entire history, they’d only finishedoneAudior specialty. Art was looked down upon, but painting sang a song to her soul. So much so that she hid her brushes and colors in her stove.
Nore followed Yagrin along the back of the theater to get a better view. She couldn’t look away. He appeared to be as captivated as she was, staring at the stage as he wove between the rear of the orchestra section. He stopped suddenly, and she ran right into him. For the second they touched, she felt her heart ram with life more than it had in a long time. They resituated themselves as the music stole their attention.
This is good, Yagrin mouthed. Helovedmusic—the cello, especially. She of course couldn’t know that, so she just nodded back. When the music finished, applause boomed, the theater coming to life with whistling and shouting cheers. Flowers flew onstage as a petite blond woman with the strut of a Headmistress joined the Audior center stage.
“How aboutthatfor the future of magic!” Litze was every bit as colorful as Nore’d heard. She wore a chartreuse silk pantsuit with a turquoise riband across her middle. Her lips were painted in a hot shade of pink, and an equally bright colorful diadem set in silver shined above her head.
The applause roared louder and demanded an encore.
“We don’t want to wear them out, do we?” She hip-bumped the performer onstage and winked. Then she gestured for them to exit stage left before turning back to the crowd. “Pupils of top-tier marks, join us for refreshments in the reception area outside.”
The crowd rose, and the aisles swelled with people. Two bodies swept between her and Yagrin, and when they passed, she lost sight of him. She hurried toward the exit, the direction she thought they were heading, the same door where they came in. But once she was in the rotunda, Yagrin was nowhere to be found.
Her palms sweat as a throng of débutants in boldly colored dresses and suits with masks and diadems to match swallowed her as they shuffled to the exits. The world around her pulsed with a vibrance that made it hard to breathe. By comparison, Dlaminaugh was a prison of drabness.
She spun, taking in the tapestry of people. No one hurried with books in hand, but there was every instrument she could think of, and funky paintbrushes with spiraled handles wound around wrists like bracelets. There were masks,full-face ones, like she’d never seen! They were plain, patterned; some appeared to be hand-painted while others were ornamented with jewels or flecks of gold. Emoters wore shimmery jewels on their bodies and faces. Hairstyles existed in every color, pinned, pressed, or curled high in creative shapes.
Nore stared at her gray dress and her plain red hair hanging over her shoulder. She tucked her head down and wedged her way through the crowd, peering for Yagrin. But there was no sight of him. She’d never felt so out of place. And that was saying something.
She stared so hard at a girl made up beautifully in silver and shades of blue that the girl grabbed Nore by the wrist tightly. She tried to wriggle away but stilled when the girl’s palms shifted to purple.
“Are you lost?” the Emoter asked. “She’s terrified, poor thing,” she told a friend with her.
“I’m fine.” Nore hurried away. She’d never seen an Emoter in person or been touched by one, as emotion-magic training was only offered in House of Oralia. Nore had read about it, fascinated, how there were Shifters so sensitive to emotion they could sense it in others. Still, she wasn’t sure what all they could tell by touching her. And she needed her secrets to stay buried.
Corporeal House emptied into a courtyard with a paved stone path across a hand-painted pond. The crowd was ushered toward the reception. Nore walked along, peering harder at the mural on the ground, and noticed the fish were flicking their tails, swimming in patterns, their scales shimmering, putting on a show for her as she passed.The art was alive.Everything about Oralia was a performance—the displays of magic, the choice of wardrobe, hair, and make-up. Even a simple stroll from the auditorium to the reception. There was always something or someone to feast your eyes on. As colorfully enthralling as it was, beingonall the time had to be exhausting.
She bit the inside of her cheek. She had so many questions for them about their lives between these walls, but that wasn’t at all why they were there. She skimmed for Yagrin.
