Page 88 of Fortress of Ambrose
“Don’t I?” I say to her face. “A childhood living in shadows, being seen by others but not ever really being seen at all, impossible expectations, feeling like you’re losing some part of yourself, being haunted by nightmares of things you’ve seen, isolating, self-deprecating, dabbling with darkness andliking it.”
She swallows.
“I’d rather be burned alive than sing the Order’s pledge anymore.” I smell a lock of her hair. “You still smell like Hartsboro.”
Hatred burns in Yani’s eyes. When suddenly behind her a figure shaped like Jordan appears across the Square. He strolls with steps sharper than a blade, holding a box.
“Something’s wrong,” I say, trying to reconcile the sublime expression on his face.
“Or something’s right,” Yani says.
“What is he holding?” Abby asks.
I book it toward him. His mouth bows in a clever smirk. He shimmies the box, and when we are close enough, he whispers, “The Sphere’s proper magic in an ancient diadem.” He clears his throat. “All of it that was inside me is gone.”
I look back. Abby watches, gaping. Yani gasps.
“What? How? Wait. That means—the Sphere’s toushana is still in you?” I hover a tentative hand near him and feel cold radiating off his skin. “Are you okay?” I ask. He has the Sphere’s toushana inside him.Onlytoushana.
“Quell, the extraction procedure they used to get this out of me is the same one we’ll use for the toushana. There were a few mishaps, unfortunately. Some of the magic was lost.” He turns the diadem, and I can seegaps for missing stones. “We’ll have to refine the procedure a bit before executing it again. But we knowhowto do what we want now. This is the best news.”
He smiles. I hesitate. “We should get back behind the gates of the Chateau.” The protections my grandmother put in place should hopefully help keep him from the Darkbearers hunting him and the Dragunhead after me.
“W-We have to leave!” Abby drops Mynick’s phone, and it hits the pavement with a thud. She’s as pale as a ghost. I pick it up, and despite the damaged outer case and cracked screen, I make out his last messages.
Mynick: Target found. Confirming, the magic in his body seems to be doing fine. Appears physically intact from what I can tell. Apprehend?
But it’s the response that chills my blood.
Them: Send me your location. He is my Heart. I will do this myself.
Mynick: Tippets Square.
My heart drums faster. My mother’s warning about the Dragunhead haunts me, connecting with something Jordan said some time ago.Darkbearer attacks are too coordinated to be random.My stomach plummets. The last several days crash together in my memory, the conversations about Jordan I kept overhearing, the swift way word spread, the absence of Draguns, Mynick’s death. Darkbearers are moving like a unit, an army, well organized.
Darkbearers don’t want Jordan.
Their boss does.
“He is behind the Darkbearer attacks.”
“Who, Quell?”
“The Dragunhead.”
Part Three
Thirty-Seven
Ellery
The slow drip of rainwater outside worked Ellery’s nerves. His plan to force his sister’s death by handing her heart to the ancestors had failed. They accepted the seed of poison in her as payment for the Pact.
He burned with irritation that he hadn’t considered that possibility. The toushana was so immature, it hadn’t even grown. He didn’t expect it to be enough to satiate the ancestors’ desires. But toushana was a powerful magic with massively destructive potential.
Even the dead coveted it.
The cut he’d somehow gotten on his arm during the scuffle with his sister stung. He rubbed more salve onto it, watching the Dragunhead—Sal was his name, but he preferred to be called by his role—tear off morsels of a loaf of stale bread and feed it to a crow in a wiry cage. He hummed a melody, and it made Ellery want to glue the man’s lips shut.How dare he be so chipper?
