House of Marionne

Part 2

I plant my knees on the velvet bench, careful to keep my head bowed and Grandmom in my sights from the corner of my eye. I am entering induction, officially. Please don’t let this have been a mistake.

The auditorium is full to the brim of my soon-to-be peers, but not a breath can be heard over the hammering in my chest as Headmistress Marionne cloaks my shoulders in the ornate gold cloth of the House. Abby waves at me from the front row of the worship rotunda. The small prayer room on the east side of the estate is made of stone with wood accents. Sun-inspired detailing covers its walls, and above the altar, early morning light winks at us from colorful windows with images that seem to tell a story.

“Sit on your heels.” Grandmom presses my back. “The robe should cover all but your head.” Her lips thin in frustration. She sighs, and Jordan leaps from his seat and joins her side.

“May I assist, Headmistress?”

“No, I—”

“Oh goodness, yes, please.” Grandmom smooths the edges of her hair, warily eyeing the audience. Jordan joins my side and my breath hitches. Grandmom steps away, addressing the growing crowd.

“Put your hands in the pockets of the robe,” he says.

“I don’t need help, really.” I glare up at him, desperate to put as much space between me and him as possible before my toushana confirms his suspicions and his deadly magic is wrapped around my throat. “I mean it, I’m fine.”

“There’s no room for your pride in here. Humble yourself before Sola Sfenti’s altar and take your anointing with some dignity.”

“Pride?! You think—”

“Please, if you will quiet your voices,” Grandmom says into a microphone. “The ceremony is about to begin.” A bell chimes three times and low music croons from the distance.

“Pockets, now,” he says in a barked whisper, and I bite down, stuffing my hands into the velvety pockets of the House robe.

“On the twelfth chime,” he whispers so closely I feel it on my skin, “slip your hands out of your pockets, palms and eyes up in a show of submission to the Sun God.” He demonstrates. “When Headmistress signals, stand.” He moves backward to give me some space.

On the twelfth ting of the triangle I do as he says. Light throbs through the domed glass ceiling’s faceted angles, speckling on the marble altar beneath me. Grandmom approaches with a wood-handled brush.

“Now you must choose, mask or diadem,” Jordan whispers.

“Where will you take your anointing?” Grandmom asks.

“Um, uh, diadem, please.”

Jordan’s eyes widen and he mouths, ma’am.

“Ma’am.”

She dips the brush in a gold-rimmed bowl, gently back and forth. The subtle disturbance unlooses a cloud of glowing dust, and a hushed gasp sweeps through the room. Grandmom’s hand stills until the dust has settled.

“Sun Dust is ground from the sun stones Sola Sfenti discovered in the ancient days, the source of all magic,” Jordan says. “Its slightest touch is sacred, its every grain powerful. It will sharpen, focus, and awaken your ability to reach magic.”

I suck in a breath as the brush touches my hair.

“The words,” Grandmom says, her blush robe shifting at her feet as she moves around us. “Are you ready?”

I nod.

“May I prove worthy,” Jordan prompts me to parrot him. “May I prove to be a proper steward.”

“May I prove worthy. May I prove to be a proper steward,” I say as the soft fibers glide across the dome of my head.

“Again, keep saying the prayer, over and over until you feel something.”

I mutter again and again as Grandmom continues dusting, eyeing me with brimming anticipation. My skin tingles everywhere, subtle at first, then all over, so prickly it hurts.

“I feel it.”

Grandmom’s tentative smile brightens as she returns the brush to the bowl. “Rise and face Sola Sfenti, daughter of Sun. Your time is now.”

I stand bearing the weight of the cloak, the House jewels slung across my chest, and face the sun. The audience claps. Grandmom embraces me, kissing each of my cheeks.

“You’ll emerge in no time.” She squeezes my shoulder, and sickness sloshes inside me. I’ve done it. I’ve stepped into this world we’ve spent our entire lives running from.

There’s no turning back now.

Shortly after the induction ceremony Grandmom handed me a schedule, plus several more dresses like the one she sent to my room last night, and urged me to get to my first session without delay.

“Magic circulates in the blood better wearing these,” she said. “This is your uniform, here on out.” The fine fabric still feels foreign on my skin. Since the ceremony, my dress has felt as if it’s a part of me, amplifying the warm hum of magic beneath my skin. I turn in the mirror above the dresser but there’s no sign of Dust residue in my hair.

“Emerging . . .” I mutter, grazing my scalp with tentative fingers, and cringe at what it must feel like to have a diadem poke through. I set the wooden circlet on my head before departing for session. People stare as I move through the halls. Several with shiny masks on their faces or studded metal arced above their hair. Grafting myself into the shadows at a new school is nothing new. But this . . . here . . . with my name invisibly plastered on my forehead makes my head swim. I decide to try smiling; sometimes that’s more disarming. To my relief, those watching me smile in return. I will blend in.

The hall opens up to the grand entryway, sunrays throbbing through endless windows. It takes every bit of my focus to not gape at the rotating sphere hung in the grand foyer like a blackened sun, matter undulating beneath its glass angrily, choppy waves on a stormy sea. The dots on its surface sparkle like a starlit night. I reach for one of the specks and my fingers pass through the illusion. Then it shifts, expanding into a web of what must be hundreds of names written in such small letters I can hardly make one out. I marvel at the numerous members’ names etched on the Sphere, before returning my attention to my map.

The map shows a way to Dexler’s session that doesn’t involve going through a hidden corridor. Dexler, as my assigned Cultivator, will be like a homeroom teacher or adviser, Grandmom had explained. Everyone gets two Seasons to work at their own pace, under the guidance of a Cultivator, and can apply for Third Rite when the time comes. For some it takes months, for others, like Abby, years. Many don’t make it at all.

Dexler’s room is past the foyer, down Sunrise Corridor deep in the North Wing. At least there’ll be one person in this room I sort of know.

The doors open, and a powdery residue on them sticks to my hand. I step through.

And somehow I’m outside.

The fresh air sings notes of gardenia, whipping by, the breeze soothing to my nerves. The estate hovers behind me like a watchful mother, and fog rests on the blanket of green in the distance. Landscape crews tend the gardens in the midday sun, trim the grass, shape the hedges with nothing more than the glide of their hands. I hurry toward the makeshift classroom in the middle of what appears to be a small garden closed off by walls of greenery, with stone pillars for desks, fallen trees for seats. Dexler weaves her magic around a bit of bark, and it shrinks smaller and smaller while everyone watches with wide eyes.

“Oh, good,” she says, waving me along faster. “I was worried the gateway would throw you. Come on, have a seat. We just got started.”

I slide into the seat next to the blonde with the pixie cut and exhale. The session is a mix of inductees in robes like mine and others in pants with loose tops. A quick inventory eases the tension between my shoulders. There are three others without diadems and at least one without a mask. Who knows how long they’ve been here, but at least I’m not the only one who needs to emerge.

“Where were we? Oh, yes.” Dexler cradles the bit of bark with both hands. It’s so small now, I have to squint to see it. She clasps her hands around it and lifts them toward the sun. Her ring, a deep blue-stoned one today, glitters in the sun. “From one living thing to another.” She opens her hands, and a baby bird takes off from her fingers.

The class gasps.

“Today’s refresher is about Natural Path of Change, a branch of Anatomer magic. And a reminder that all magic has a cost.” The hatchling flaps its wings in the air, and their span widens as it matures, aging from a baby bird to a full grown one right before my eyes.

“Part of your job is to weigh that cost.”

The bird’s wing tips gray first. Then its feathers fray as if withered with age. He starts his descent, struggling to keep himself up on the wind until he’s flying, falling more like, straight for the ground.

“He’s going to—” My teeth dig into my knuckle.

He pummels the lawn. Someone yelps. Dexler gathers us around his feeble frame. She rolls the dead bird on its side, horror etched on my peers’ faces. “Know the cost of the mysteries you wield, or you too might pay a price you hadn’t bargained for.”

A shiver runs down my spine as we return to our seats.

“To begin, Electus, what is your charge?”

That’s me. “Emerging one’s magic,” I say, ready this time, in unison with the others who haven’t emerged. “Rich is the blood of the chosen.” The words send a wintry echo through me. My toushana flutters. Quiet, I urge it. Please.

Primus and Secundus complete their recitations and I glance at the others who haven’t emerged, trying to glean what they’re doing. One spots me watching, and I force myself to meet her eyes. She looks me up and down as Dexler drones on about what we’ll be doing today. Her shoulders hang. Her chin rises. I know that look. She wants nothing to do with me.

I fight the urge to shrink in my seat, and focus on Dexler.

“We’ll be working with a different kor today.” She points at the sun overhead. “Hence the change of venue. Anatomer magic requires understanding how organisms function, how they grow and change naturally. Similar organisms will have similar anatomical structures, making them easier to transform. Changing from person to person is vastly easier. But we are a cut above the rest, we don’t settle for easy, do we?”

“Here.” The blonde next to me tosses me a spare notebook and a pencil.

“Thanks.”

“Shelby . . . Duncan.” She offers me a handshake, but a question glints in her cerulean eyes.

“Hi.”

We shake. “Secundus, fifth of my blood, Anatomer candidate.”

Nigel Hammond morphing into the Dragun who is after me unfurls in my memory.

“You can shift your face.”

“If I was basic, sure. With enough practice and a bit of their blood, I can mimic voice and personality, too. I can become anyone. I’ve almost mastered one person so far. But I still don’t have this animal bit down yet.”

“You’re a Secundus, so you must know Abby, my roommate.”

“Yeah, we were both here last Season. We’re on track to finish together.” She pops her gum. “If she can get it together that is.”

“I’m Quell Ma—”

“Marionne, I know. Everyone knows.”

My cheeks warm at her response, the exact sentiment unfamiliar. Being talked about isn’t new. But the curl of her lips, the way she doesn’t smile at me so plastically this time makes it hard to look her in the eyes. A robust diadem studded with pale blue stones rises out of her head, setting off her eyes. Abby’s was much smaller than Shelby’s. But something tells me everything about Shelby is grand.

Say something else. Don’t be awkward. “Nice to meet you.”

She blows another bubble until it pops. “You, too.”

“Do you mind telling me.” I point at my head. “How the emerging thing works?”

She rolls her shoulders back haughtily, as if it wasn’t already painfully obvious I’m the new girl. Marionne only in name, Grandmom pegged me right. But I will show her.

“I just haven’t caught up yet,” I say, trying to make my words come out more certain than they feel. “My mom didn’t do any of this, so it’s a bit new.”

“Sure thing.” She leans in for a whisper as Dexler wanders between the aisles going on about something I am almost sure I should be listening to. But I can’t help but hang on Shelby’s words.

“So emerging is the easiest Rite if magic is strong in your bloodline, which, I mean, for you it is, duh.”

I can’t help but smile. It’s tempting to think I could be a member of this Order, a wielder of what Grandmom called the greatest mysteries of this world.

“Go on.”

“Emerging happens by using a lot of magic in a short period of time. Because magic—”

“Strengthens with use,” I recall.

“Yep, and you’ll be using it all day for the next several days. Completing First Rite proves that your magic is strong enough to be useful to the Order. Don’t sweat it. At most it’ll take a few days.”

“I see, okay, thanks.” If using magic is what gets me to emerge, then using magic is what I need to do.

“Ready?” Dexler chimes, something green blooming in her hand. She passes out bunches of grass and jars of dirt. “Transfigure these items into a fresh Nerium oleander bloom. On my desk by the end of class.”

Everyone around me seems to know what’s happening, including Shelby, so I follow her lead. I pour the dirt on my stone and arrange the grass around it.

“I missed what she said. I have to grow an oleander flower?”

“Watch.” Shelby shows me a seed. “Seed to flower is a natural path of change. But magic is wielding the unnatural.” She turns back to her two ingredients. How is this going to bloom into a flower? I watch, intent to not miss anything. Shelby traces circles in the grass, her expression suddenly very focused. The air around her fingers ripples and the grass dissolves into the dirt. Then she tugs at her pile of earth, pulling up. Out of it blooms a white flower.

“Wow. So you made the grass behave like a seed?”

“Exactly. Give yourself a break. It takes a little time to catch on.” Smile lines hug her eyes, and I settle in my seat a bit more comfortably. I thank her and leave her to her own work before smoothing out my dirt again.

My fingers creep with a sudden chill, and I shake it off, shoving my toushana down. Warmth. I reach for anything inside me that feels hot. A tightness in my stomach ignites like a flame, and I imagine it growing. Heat streams up my body in a sudden puff of air, and it feels like tingly granules fluttering all through me. I set my mind on changing the grass to behave like a seed, its dewy surface cold to my fingertips. The air around my hand ripples and the tiny blade of green dissolves.

My heart thuds in excitement. I pinch a bit of dirt, and the bud of a stem grazes my fingers. I pull on it, and suddenly everything in me goes cold, chasing away the magic roaring in me properly. I shove my hands between my thighs. On my desk is a puny excuse for a flower. I breathe, in through my nose, out through my mouth, until the chill in my fingers ceases.

“Not bad, Miss Marionne.” Dexler wanders over.

“Thanks, Shelby helped.”

“Now, with me, again.” Dexler cups her hand on my shoulder, and we repeat the lesson a few times with her magic bolstering my own until the flower that I pull from the dirt is much longer.

When she breaks our touch, she staggers.

“Cultivator Dexler, are you all right?” I steady her as she sways.

“I’m fine, don’t worry. All magic has a cost. The one Cultivators pay is quite high.” She snatches a clear-stoned ring from a box and slides it onto her finger, blowing out a breath. “Now, you, madam, must keep up that good work. You’ll emerge in no time,” she says before turning to Shelby to survey her work. “Flawless, Miss Duncan, as usual. Such a keen sense of touch and solid oration.” She turns the ring on her knuckle. “That and your knack for teaching. I wonder, have you ever given any thought to cultivating?”

“Actually, Headmistress and I—” Shelby blushes, and their words drone on into the distance as I keep practicing. By the time session wraps, I have managed to pull three flowers out of my dirt, but none with full leaf and stem.

“Not bad for your official first day,” Shelby says, tossing her things into her bag.

“Thanks.” I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, finding it a bit easier to look my peers in the eye.

Maybe I can do this.