Page 98 of Shadows of Perl

“You don’t know what you’re asking.” Tears stream her cheeks. “What they would do if they found out I betrayed them? We are ‘family first’ in this House. Our bonds run deeper than loyalty to any Order. I am a Perl.”

“You don’t want to be a Perl on their terms. You curtsy to their music, but you curse them under your breath. Loyalty doesn’t bind your tongue. Fear does.”

She glares at me.

“Which one of them gave her this note, Adola? Who did she trust?”

She rocks back and forth. “Stop, please.”

“Tell me.” Cold claws at my bones, writhing and unsettled. A sickening feeling lurches inside as I realize I know the answer. “Say it.”

She marches up to me, eyes rimmed with tears. “You don’t know what you’re asking me to do!”

“I’m asking you to stand for something.”

“You think the truth is worth dying for? You think that’s so easy? Let me see you do it.”

“I didn’t say it was easy. Say the name, Adola.” I need to hear it. To be sure. I poke the pins on her chest. “You owe me that much.”

She balls her fists.

“Who—”

“Mother! Mother gave the order, alright!” She holds up the note. “This is Charlie’s handwriting, but my aunt had him write it. She tried to convince Rhea to bring you here. And she refused. So she ordered Charlie to.” She gestures at the note. “I overheard them fighting about it a night ago.” Adola’s eyes are bloodshot. “She caught me eavesdropping. She told me she’d feed me to her dogs, too, if I told you.”

There it is. The truth I suspected. The world bleeds red. Boiling, bubbling, the shade of death. Toushana burns inside, begging to seep through my skin. Adola tries to rush past me, but I grab her by the arm.

“Get out of this House. Fast. Before I burn it to the ground.”

* * *

Hartsboro is silent. The Trial celebration festivities officially ended, but the after-party thumps in the distance. I enter the smoking room, then slip behind one of the bookcases, determined to find Beaulah’s bedroom. When she’s asleep, when she feels safe, is the best opportunity to press my toushana into her skin and do to her what she did to my mother: tear her apart.

The bookcase closes and I imagine my mother’s screams ringing in my head. My hands are slick and the walls of the hidden corridor close in. I pull at my toushana, playing with it, urging it to freeze me down to the bone. So I can’t feel my racing heart or the sting in my eyes. But my mother’s smile forces its way into my thoughts.

Dead.

She’s dead.

I urge myself up and run the length of the estate. Picturing Beaulah’s shock drives my feet faster. When she thinks she’s safe, I’m going to take her by surprise. Maybe I’ll tie her up to ensure she can’t get away. I want to savor the terror of the unknown in her eyes. I want to make her feel every burst of fear and pain my mother must have felt in her last minutes of life. Trust my magical instincts, she’d said. They’re loud and clear right now.

Her bedroom is in its own wing of the House. I climb rungs welded into the inside of the walls.

I pull myself up onto the second floor and race behind the walls, burning tiny holes, room by room, until I find a bedroom that is lavishly outfitted in cracked-column decor and House colors. Framed portraits cover the walls above a large bed. In the middle of the room is Beaulah, asleep in a freestanding tub filled with ice water.

Her head rests backward. I knock along the wall, listening for a break in the hollow sound indicating there’s a bookcase on the other side. My fingers find a seam and I nudge the secret door forward. It opens silently. My bones burn with an icy, violent appetite I’ve never felt before. And I lean into it. Inside the room, my chest tightens, my toushana ready to strike. Beaulah’s eyes are closed, her breath slow and even. I stretch open my hands. Blood pools in my ears as my magic awakens, hungry to release this pressure chamber in my chest.

Know what I want.

Trust my instincts.

Break through the fear.

I thirst, imagining the shock in her eyes. The wounded way she will look at me when she realizes she made me this way. She pushed me to this edge. And it killed her.

I take another step. Someone grabs me firmly by the arm.

I know the touch before I see him. Murder darkens his green eyes.