Page 109 of Shadows of Perl

I reach my desk and she gawks at me as I stare back, speechless.

Her mother is dead because Beaulah killed her.

Words claw their way up my dry throat. “We’re all set to go.”

She gathers the papers nonchalantly, as if there isn’t a chasm of pain gaping in her chest.

“Jordan, did you hear what I said?” She is resolute. Still, the urge to say something, anything about her mother, bites at my lips.

“Quell, about—”

“Don’t.” She’s like glass: hard, but fragile. And now that I know what Beaulah’s done, I can see through her clearly. “I said we’re going to start in Aronya. It has a tall mountain peak and clear skies, and it’s fairly remote, so we should be undisturbed.”

I let the urge to say something about her mother go.

Why Aronya? I almost ask. But we’ve thrown enough daggers today. If we’re going to work together, she is right: we have to trust each other. A little bit. Quell’s gaze moves past me to someone entering Headquarters. She tenses beside me as Charlie rounds on us, and I can feel her heart pounding. His skin is blotchy and pale and his stare is glassy. He looks like death. Yani is with him. Charlie struts toward us, as bullish as ever. Angry bruises are all over his hands. He catches me staring and stuffs them in his pockets.

“I see you’ve chosen your side, Dragunheart,” Charlie says.

“Charlie,” Quell mutters, and shadows shift between her fingers. I step between them.

“Charlie, do you really want to do this here?”

“No, not here. Not yet.”

Maei clears her throat.

“You surprise me.” He addresses Quell, and I can feel her shake with fury behind me. “And after all the bonding we did.”

I shove him in the chest. “Leave.”

Charlie throws his hands up, smirking as Maei gathers a stack of files and hands them to him before retreating back into the Head’s office.

“Let’s go, Yani,” Charlie says. “Duty calls.”

“Yani,” I say.

She turns at the sound of her name, and a fire I haven’t seen in her in a long time has returned.

“You’re choosing the wrong side.”

She grabs me by the jaw. Then she gazes between Quell and me. “I’ll take my chances.”

Once the door closes, I try to slow my raging pulse. This isn’t good. This isn’t good at all.

“I despise him almost as much as that witch he serves.”

“She knows.”

“That girl?”

“Beaulah. I don’t know how, but she knows that we’re onto her. Which means she’s onto us.”

Forty

Quell

Jordan moves closer to me, and my hand tightens on my copy of The Anatomical Difference: Darkbearers’ and Multistrand Magic. The dimness washes the alleyway behind Headquarters in an orange glow.