Page 2 of House of Marionne

The thick envelope in my hand soothes my nerves. I count it. Twice. My lips curl as I thank Mrs. Broussard and turn to go. The crowd has thickened like a nice roux. Be unpredictable. A cluster of tourists lodge in the entryway and I scan for another exit. Away from the vendors, near an abandoned pop-up tent full of fleur-de-lis candleholders, is a sign for the bathrooms. A red exit sign blares next to it and I head that way. Mom will worry if I take too long.

The winding hallway toward the bathrooms twists and the light bulbs overhead flicker. Small exit arrows glow red, urging me farther down the hall. I expect to spot the bathrooms but don’t see them yet. The Market pavilion is open to the outdoors, so there should be sunlight up ahead. The fluorescents flicker again and I walk slower. This doesn’t feel right. Worry bites at me and I turn to go back the way I came.

But there’s a wall there.

A shape of something, like a shadow or trick of light, forms a fleur-like shape on its stuccoed surface. I blink and it’s gone. My heart stumbles; my toushana unfurls in my bones, dancing with my panic, threatening as it does in warning that it might rise up in me soon.

I turn, but in every direction the walls have shifted or closed in. There are no bathroom signs, no blaring red light pointing toward an exit anymore.

“Memento sumptus,” someone says. The voice is coming from a narrow door that blends seamlessly with the wall. Caution tugs at me like a tether. Pressed carefully to the door, I listen, hands hooked behind myself just in case. Strained voices tangle around each other in a whispered argument. There are a pair of men, it sounds like. I listen again and hear several more. I teeter forward on my toes ever so slightly, pressing my weight against the door to ease it open a sliver.

Inside, dark-robed men encircle another bound to a chair. Around them are rows of stacked barrels marked with a thorny branch coiled around a black sun and words in a language I don’t understand.

“Go on, Sand,” one says after refilling a barrel with a pale liquid. “We’ll clean up.”

A blond fellow lassos his arm in the air and the dozen barrels tremor. A haze fills the air, rippling like rain on a window. It clears and he does it again, and this time the barrels disappear. I squint, my heart lodged in my throat.

I glare at my hands in confusion, and I can still picture the wisps of darkness that bleed through my fingertips when my toushana shows itself, destroying anything I touch. When I was little, I’d called it “the black.” Then as I grew to know its nasty nature, “the curse.” Mom finally corrected me a few years back after someone overheard me complaining about it. Toushana is its name. Some genetic malfunction, Mom had said. She’s lying. But Mom does that. I’ve heard her mutter to herself about this poison I have.

She called it magic.

But whatever these men are doing appears quite different. My nails dig into the door’s frame as I peer harder into the dimly lit room. I’ve never seen magic that isn’t my own.

“What was the order, Charlie?” asks Sand. The others in the room watch from the shadows.

“No prisoners. Not today.” Charlie plants his hands on his knees and glares at their captive, now at eye level. “May Sola Sfenti judge you fairly.”

“Screw you and your Sun God,” the bound man spits as Charlie pulls deep from a fat cigar. He blows smoke into the captive’s face. Then he does something with his fingers, too fast and too far away for me to make out. The bound man throws his head back, choking and contorting in pain, his wrists and ankles rubbed red from their hold on him. The smoke from Charlie’s lips hovers like a cloud around his face, consuming and suffocating. The man gasps for breath and in moments, his writhing stops. His head lolls and I stumble backward, lacing my fingers, trying to slow my hammering pulse. He’s . . . dead. That man, they . . .

“Fratis fortuna.” The voice comes from behind me. I turn and there is a man in a dark suit, same as the ones the men I just saw were wearing. But unlike the others, a gleaming dark mask slopes across this man’s brows, over his nose, its ornate carvings tapering off into his high cheekbones. His expression hardens at my silence.

I step backward, my back hard against the wall. There’s nowhere for me to hide. His brows knit with intrigue and my heart patters faster. My toushana’s ache deepens, my hands growing colder. I have minutes, maybe, until it will rip through my fingertips angrily like a spewing burst pipe. Pressure swells in my chest. Run. I step aside. His hand latches onto my wrist, but I feel it around my throat.

“What are you doing back here?”

My envelope from my job slips from my fingers, and I try to dash for it as it tumbles to the pavement.

“Ah, ah. Hold still.” His long coat is tightly buttoned all the way up to his neck, and a round piece of silver gleams at me from his throat. An image is engraved on it, a Roman-style column, with a jagged crack running across its front as if it’s been broken in half. I squint, trying to remember if I’ve ever seen that symbol before. Thick brows shade his narrowed expression. “Answer the question.”

“I got lost trying to find the exit. I thought it was near the bathrooms.” I tug against his grip, but he doesn’t let go. He glances just past me at what was a door, but is solid stone wall now. My heart hiccups. “I—I didn’t go in there, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“In . . . where?”

“There was a door, but I could tell it wasn’t the bathroom, so I turned around to leave. I swear!” A lie is too risky. People believe half-truths much more easily.

“What’s your name?”

“I—”

The answer sticks in my throat, magic fluttering around in me like a moth searching for a place to land. Mom changes my name each time we move, cycling through the same three or four. Quell Jewel. Not Quell Marionne. Who lives at 711 Liberty Street. Born in a small town outside the city. New to the area. Whose dad’s job requires him to travel a lot. Two parents means fewer questions. My script, the drill Mom has run through my head year after year, hangs on my lips. All lies seasoned with enough truth, the proper inflection, the warmth of a genuine smile, to make them feel true. To make the veneer of a life we’ve lived, I’ve lived, for as long as I can remember, real.

“I’m Quell.”

His mouth bows in suspicion.

My fingers hurt as my toushana yawns like a cat stretching itself awake from a nap. Its claws run underneath my skin, sharp tendrils of ice scratching my bones. My breaths quicken. The mask on his face fades into his skin, seeping into his pores like dry soil soaking up rain. I blink and stuff down a gasp. But he doesn’t even flinch.

“Your heart is racing. Your pupils are dilated. And if you move, that bile in your stomach might come tumbling up your throat. Something wrong?” He peers harder at me as if sussing out a question, but after a moment the crater between his brows disappears.

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