by Tracy Deonn
He holds both palms up. “I hear you. I do! But you’ll never get near the Regents.”
“Because I’m not in this—this club?”
“The Order is a strict hierarchy, all titles and ranks,” he explains in a voice meant to calm. “The Legendborn title is sacrosanct. They outrank Vassals, Pages, Lieges, Viceroys, Mage Seneschals, you name it. The Regents have all the functional control, but if a Legendborn makes a demand, they are Oathbound to comply. The Regents won’t answer to anyone less.”
“So I live the rest of my life without knowing what really happened?” The defeat on Nick’s face fills me with desperation. How can I be this close to the truth, and yet it’s still out of my reach? Fear is a tight knot in my throat, but I swallow around it. There has to be a way—
Outside, the massive front door swings open with a bang. We both freeze. Sarah’s voice, then another. Several feet enter the foyer. Laughter. Someone says, “Welcome!”
And just like that, a solution strikes down into my core. A path. A purpose. Lightning. Our Brave Bree.
“Why did Sarah think you were my sponsor?”
Nick’s eyes widen, a glint of fear in their depths. “Bree…”
“It’s the first week of school. Are they recruiting?”
Nick says no. Then repeats himself. But I don’t hear it: the idea is already coursing through my veins, hot and heady.
If the Regents won’t talk to outsiders, then I won’t be an outsider.
“It’s not possible.” Nick groans. “Even if it were, you’re the exact worst person to appear before the Regents.”
I raise a brow. “What does—”
“Listen to me.” He reaches for my hands, forces me to look at him. “I’ve been around the Order my entire life and I’ve never heard of anyone like you. An Unoathed Onceborn who can See aether and voluntarily resist mesmer, the Code of Secrecy’s greatest weapon? All of that means the Legendborn, the Order, and the Regents will see you as a threat, an anomaly. Something to be contained if not eliminated. Not to mention the Merlins. They’re an army dedicated to enforcing Order law—and Sel’s one of the most powerful Merlins in years. If it gets out he’s failing at his post here, it’s his head and future on the line. He’ll report you to the Regents himself, the Regents will put you on trial, confirm what you can do, and then disappear you. Now, please, we have to leave before—”
“No!” I yank my hands away, walking back toward the door. “The timing is perfect. All I have to do is go out there and confirm what Sarah already thinks she knows. Then I’ll join and become Legendborn. Easy peasy.”
Nick stares at me, incredulous. “That right there is proof you have no idea what you’re talking about. I was born into my title, but you’re an outsider. If I bring you in, you’ll only be a Page. You’d have to compete against all the other Pages to become Legendborn. The tournament lasts months, and all of it is rigged. It’s a setup to favor certain families, certain kids.”
“Kids like you, right?” I’m drunk on the idea now, the solution to everything. I jerk a thumb over my shoulder at the two paintings. “Your ancestor founded the damn Order. You’re the textbook definition of a legacy.”
He laughs bitterly. “A legacy I rejected. I’ve never even seen a tournament. Even if you do well in the Trials, there’s no guarantee you’ll get chosen at Selection. The other Pages have been trained to fight, they’ve studied—”
“And I’m pushy,” I retort.
A wry smirk tugs at the corner of Nick’s mouth. My heart is thundering so loud I’m sure he must hear it. He paces, stares at me, then paces again. Stops. “Say we do this. Then what? You join, find your evidence, and go? These people don’t let members just walk away for good.”
The fight in me is still there, but resolve folds around it. “The last words I said to my mother were in anger.” He flinches like I’ve struck nerves in multiple places. “If there’s even a one percent chance that she was…” I swallow hard. “Either way, I can’t let our fight be the end. And if you don’t help me, I’ll just find another way.”
His eyes search mine. That tug between us pulls tight.
We both jump when the door opens and a new face peeks in. “Davis!” A tanned boy in a dress shirt and slacks ambles into the room, swirling a glass of sparkling water in one hand. His cool gaze lands on me for a second before it flows back to Nick. “Sar said you were here! This your Page?”
Nick’s eyes never left my face. I meet them with every ounce of determination I possess. Finally, after a long moment, he answers us both.
“Yeah, Fitz, she’s mine. Figured it’s about time I reclaim my title.”
PART TWO DISCORD
10
FITZ SLAPS NICK on the back, spilling his sparkling water in the process. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about, Davis!”
Nick’s eyes slide from mine to Fitz’s. “Give us a minute, Fitz?”
“Not a problem.” Fitz backs out of the room with a wide grin. “My man!”
“That’s right!” Nick flashes a smile and points to Fitz, looking for all the world like a fraternity bro at a tailgate. When the door closes, he turns to me, expression solemn again.
“Questions: Was that your bro face? Because I super don’t like it. More importantly, your Page?” I exclaim, eyes narrowing. “Like I belong to you? Your servant?”
“No!” Nick says, flushing. “Of course not. Sorry. Not that kind of Page. Here—” He fishes under his collar and draws a long silver chain up and over his head. “A medieval Page’s service was voluntary, honorable, and mutually beneficial.” He nods toward my neck. “May I?”
I eye the jewelry in his palm. “I guess.” He drapes the necklace over my hair. A heavy silver coin like the one on Sarah’s bracelet drops down to the center of my chest. I run my fingers over the engraving on the still-warm surface: a circle with an elegant diamond shape etched in the center. A line with no end, and four points stretching beyond its curves.
“Calling you ‘mine’ means I’m the one who tapped you. That my bloodline—my family and I—vouch for you, and you have our protection and blessing.” He holds a hand up to stop the question on my lips. “Later. I’ll go along with you competing for now, only while I figure out an alternative. But if we’re going to do this—and I just need to state for the record, one more time, that this is a bad idea—then we’re doing it together. You and me. And on my terms. Agreed?”
I cross my arms, but he tilts his head expectantly. “Fine.” I relent. “What ‘terms’?”
“We literally just came up with this plan, Bree, gimme a second.”
The lights above us flicker once, twice. Outside, Sarah announces that the event will begin in ten minutes. When I look back down, Nick’s eyeing me speculatively. I can’t help but feel like he’s measuring me for a coat that I’m not going to like.
“Okay. First rule…”
* * *
When we leave the room ten minutes later, there are over twenty students milling in the foyer. Some are dressed like Nick and me, in jeans and T-shirts; others wear cocktail dresses and suits. Some Pages assess me with not-so-subtle glares, while others stare at Nick, blinking twice as if he’s a heaven-sent mirage.
Nick sports an expression I’ve yet to see on him. With each step into the crowd, he becomes some new iteration of himself: a combination of the confident, warm charmer from the first time we met and… something I don’t recognize.
A curvy, short girl with wavy red hair and a tall, lanky boy with cropped brown hair approach us. Although they walk close together, they seem like polar opposites: she’s dressed in loose slacks and a paisley blouse while his jeans and wrinkled button-down shirt look like he’d plucked them from a sad pile of clothes on the floor. Interestingly, they wear matching red leather cuffs on their right wrists with identical silver coins in the center.
What are these coins?
“Nick…,” the girl breathes, “Sarah said you were here, but…” A soft British accent cu
rves around each word before her voice trails off in awe.
The boy squeezes her shoulder and steps forward with his hand out. “While Felicity here regains the power of speech, I’ll say it’s good to see you, man.” He doesn’t sound Southern at all. A New Englander, probably.
“Hey, Russ. Thanks.” Nick clasps Russ’s hand with a smile and nods in my direction. “This is Briana Matthews, my—” He clears his throat. “I invited her to join the Order.”
I shoot him a look that says real smooth, and his mouth quirks.
Russ notices our exchange but doesn’t comment. His mischievous eyes immediately put me at ease. “Nice to meet you, Briana,” he says while shaking my hand. “Welcome to the Lodge.”
“Thank you,” I say, keeping my tone light. Gracious. I force a goofy smile, hoping that I look overwhelmed and clueless. “I’ve never been in a house like this before. It’s so… fancy.” Nick’s first rule is still ringing in my ears.
“Remember that Sel thinks you’ve been mesmered twice: the Quarry and last night. So, behave as though you know nothing and have witnessed nothing. Everyone here has to think you’re an ignorant Onceborn brand-new to our world. Don’t let anyone know what you can do.”
“Yeah, well, we don’t really do things halfway.” Russ follows my gaze. “It has a certain museum-chic, don’t-touch-anything-or-else-someone-will-rap-your-knuckles charm, I suppose.” I giggle at that. The sound feels completely foreign, but I think I pull it off, because Russ gives me a wink. “Of course, fancy and formal means Flick made me wear something other than a T-shirt.”
Beside him, Felicity scowls. “I really hate that nickname.”
“Felicity is way too many syllables!” Russ exclaims. “Your parents were sadists.”
She rolls her eyes. “Ignore him.”
Somewhere a small chime rings, and double doors open at the back of the foyer.
As Felicity and Russ walk ahead, Nick and I follow at the back of the crowd. I lean in to him, my voice pitched low for his ears. “What’s their deal? And what are the coins?”
Nick replies quietly, without looking at me. “Felicity Caldwell, junior, and Russ Copeland, sophomore.” He waves at a tall boy with a gentle face and light-colored hair, who salutes him back with a wry smile. “Both Legendborn. They wear matching sigils because Felicity is a Scion, born with the title like me, and Russ is her chosen Squire.”
“Why do you hate them?”
He blinks. “Who said I hate them?”
I gesture over his shoulder to the undergraduates chatting around us, then to the opulent foyer. “Sel called you the prodigal son. You rejected all of this.”
A muscle twitches in his cheek. “The reason I renounced my title has nothing to do with the people here.”
“Then why—”
“Another story for another day.”
I frown but don’t feel like I know him well enough to press. But if I don’t know Nick, I think, then why do I trust him?
He bumps me with his arm, nodding ahead to where the crowd is moving into the great room. “We both need to be ‘on’ when we walk through those doors. Any more questions?”
“A ton.” The features of his face are caught halfway between the loose, charismatic boy I’d met last night and the stern, noble Nick whose eyebrows are drawn tight with some emotion I can’t identify. “Why are you helping me?”
His mouth quirks. “I like helping people, if I can.” The light in his eyes dims. “And I know how it feels to watch your family shatter right in front of you and not be able to stop it.”
Before I can ask another question, he turns away—and then I’m struck silent by the massive living room in front of me. Brown leather couches sit clustered in front of a large fireplace on one far end. The fireplace itself is Biltmore House–big; the marble hearth could hold a horse standing upright. I glimpse a bright chef’s kitchen through a swinging door to the right, but most stunning are the twelve-foot-high floor-to-ceiling windows that make up the entire back wall and give an expansive view of the forest. The Lodge is high enough on its hill that the darkening horizon is visible through the earthen browns and evergreens.
Nick has paused beside me while I take everything in. Once I’m done, I notice that, again, half of the eyes in the room are glued to Nick and the other half have found me. A few of the more nicely dressed people from the foyer trail curious eyes up my boots to my jeans and T-shirt. Some stare openly at Nick’s coin around my neck, and heat rises up my ears. Nick leads me over to a display of beverages in a corner. When the eyes follow us, I find my irritation shifting from the gawkers to Nick.
The moment the voices around us return to idle chatter, I move closer to him and whisper, “Everyone’s staring.”
His back to the room, he passes a glass of cucumber water to me and keeps his voice low. “As far as they know, I haven’t walked into this house since I was twelve years old. Then I show up out of the blue to reclaim my title and sponsor a Page no one’s seen before. And…”
“And?”
Nick presses his lips into a thin line and pours a water for himself. “And, traditionally, new Pages come from the Vassal families who pledged themselves to the Order decades or even generations ago, so…”
I groan inwardly. “So it looks like I skipped the line.”
He chuckles. “You could say that.”
Nick explained Vassals in the salon: Onceborn outsiders who are sworn to the Code and the Order at large, but pledged in service to one of the original thirteen Legendborn bloodlines that founded the Order in the medieval ages. The Vassals know about aether and Shadowborn, but they don’t fight in the war. Instead, their network shores up any gaps in their assigned family’s needs and resources. In exchange, the Order grants them favors. Most Vassals start out with power or money and use the Order to gain more. Climbers. Like Deputy Norris, probably. Vassalage creates CEOs, elected officials, cabinet members, even presidents.
I scan the room, hear the buzz again, then mutter into my drink. “And then there’s the fact that no one else here looks like me.”
Nick follows my gaze, sees what I see—a room full of white kids, not a person of color in sight—and grimaces. His jaw sets in a hard line. “If someone says something to you, anything, let me know. I’ll put a stop to it.”
I look at Nick’s face. He is so certain that he understands what I’m facing. Then I think of Norris, the dean, and how some things, some people, don’t want to just… stop. I think of what it might cost me to infiltrate the Order. To succeed in an institution founded by men who could have legally owned me, and wanted to.
“Sure you will.”
I hear my cynicism, and Nick does too. He frowns and starts to reply, but gets cut off by a new voice at my shoulder.
“Hey, Davis!”
We turn to see a pair of students looking at us with bright, curious eyes.
“Whitty!” Nick smiles and slaps hands with one of them. “Man, is it good to see you. It’s been what, two years since the rafting trip?”
Whitty grins. “Not our finest hour.” He has a stocky build with wild, pale curly hair, and he’s wearing a worn camo jacket and jeans. While the other kids are dressed for classes or the formality of the Lodge, Whitty’d look equally at home on a tractor or up a hunting blind. His casual indifference appeals to me immediately, but then I remember he’s probably a Vassal kid, and my guard goes up.
Nick had been disdainful about Vassal families whose sole focus is positioning one of their children to join the Order: “The Order’s mission is fighting Shadowborn and protecting humans. It’s safer on the outside, but for some the benefits of membership outweigh the risks. Even Pages and their families get privileges Vassals don’t. Only Legendborn can recruit new members, so these climbers will do anything to curry favor with their assigned bloodline in hopes that their child will get tapped,” he’d scoffed. “But those Vassals don’t want to help people, they want the status. And they put their kid in harm’s way to get it
.”
Hence, Rule Two: “Keep your head down. Disappear. Make them forget you, so they don’t consider you competition.”
But Nick seems genuinely happy to see the other boy, so maybe Whitty’s not the “sport and glory” variety?
“The Upper Nantahala’s class three and four rapids, though. We did all right.” Nick nods in my direction. “This is Bree Matthews. Bree, this is James Whitlock, also known as Whitty. The Whitlocks are Vassals to the Line of Tristan, and they own most of the pig farms out in Clinton.”
“We prefer the term ‘hog barons.’ ” Whitty gives me a conspiratorial wink. He offers his hand; his grip is firm and warm. The faded blue cuff around his wrist is held together by a rubber band. “Nice to meet you, Bree. Nick here your sponsor?” I nod, and he whistles low. “Well, all right then.”
“I’m Sarah’s Page.” Whitty jerks a thumb at his companion. “And this is Greer Taylor. They’re Russ’s.”
“Hey, y’all.” Greer gives a short wave. They’re basketball-player tall and lean, with long, muscled arms and legs. Their dirty-blond hair lies in a single braid over their shoulder, while a few shorter strands fall out the front of their slouchy gray knit cap. An unbuttoned, expensive-looking, slate-colored suit vest over an untucked denim shirt and cuffed jeans puts their look somewhere between designer and hipster. They’re also wringing their hands in front of their belt buckle in a nervous gesture that reminds me painfully of Alice.
“Thought we’d come over and introduce ourselves,” Whitty says with a sidelong glance at the rest of the room. “Plenty o’ time to be at each other’s throats later, if the tournament stories are true.”
Nick starts to reply—to assuage our fears or to counter Whitty’s casual prediction of violence?—but stops when a tall boy with brown curly hair appears at his elbow.
“Sorry to interrupt, but are you Nick Davis?” When Nick nods, the boy’s brows shoot up. He offers his hand. “I’m Craig McMahon, fourth-year Page.”