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“I’m not the best person to give honing tips because, alas, I wasn’t great at it. But you can talk to me if it’s stressing you out.”
“No, I’m not spoiling this day for you. I want to hear about all the things and help you get ready for your very first society ball.” I don’t get the big deal, but my friend is excited, so I am thrilled for her. I notice a stack of oversized parcels in a corner half opened with fabric spilling out. “What is all that stuff?”
“Samples my parents sent. They’re flying in a whole host of Vestisers from all over. I need to narrow this down from, like, two hundred samples to, like . . . thirty.” She rolls her eyes. “My mom is a lot. She didn’t debut, so this is big for her.”
“Why not?”
“She could see diadems and stuff, but her family didn’t know anyone in the Order until my dad finished, and by then it was too late.” She shrugs. “So she and my dad were all over me when they realized I had a shot. Deda still refuses to come anywhere near this place.”
Why? I wonder, but Abby keeps talking. The itch to get moving tugs at me.
“Are you listening?”
I nod.
“I was ready to quit a year ago, but she refused to let me. She said I’d be here every Season, May to August, as long as it took. I didn’t burst her bubble and tell her you only get two. You know how hard it is to get a private prep school to let you out of school months early to ‘study abroad’?”
“I went to public schools. I don’t think they care very much.”
“Lucky. Anyway, now I’m glad, of course.”
She loops her arm in mine. “So you’ll be by my side for all the Cotillion planning and everything, right? To help me fend off my mother at the very least. If I have the excuse of hanging out with the Headmistress’s granddaughter, she’ll back off, I’m sure.”
I really should be spending every free second I have working on my dagger. And trying to get control of my toushana.
“Sure,” I say, still not quite certain what exactly I’m signing up for. But it feels like the right thing to do. I check my watch before dumping her mountain of samples onto her bed. “I think we have some time to sort through these.” I plop beside her on her bed. “But by dinner I have to get to lab. I have three enhancers to fold into my dagger by morning.”
She squeezes me and I warm all over, not with magic, but something else just as foreign and special.
* * *
The lab on the basement floor of the estate is as silent as the dead when I descend the steps. Inside are tables like the one in my room. I ease the door closed and lock it. For good measure, I drag one of the tables and barricade the door. I don’t know how ugly trying to fold in this Purifier Enhancer is going to get, but I can’t have any surprise visitors. I set my bag down and center my blade on the stand. The stones in the bottom of my bag glisten at me.
Here goes nothing.
I start with the red one, setting it on the blade, and slice my hand over it. Magic prickles in my palms, then gushes in a rush of granulated warmth like tiny particles crawling beneath my skin. The stone brightens, then bleeds into the metal. I exhale and repeat the process with the green one, which takes some repeated swiping motions to get to meld in completely. But it eventually goes.
I reach for the blue one, and I’m cold in an instant.
It doesn’t want me to touch it.
My toushana rolls around inside, and I hold the spot where the chilliness throbs, imagining I can subdue it, hide it, shove it out of me. I pace, then try again, reaching deeper into the bag, my fingers grazing the glassy stone. Bitter cold magic crashes over me, and I stagger at the sheer force of it. Toushana expands in me, and I can feel it slinking through my body, dragging itself along with icicled claws, bone by bone, from my trunk, up to my chest, then through my arms. A spur of warmth flutters in me, and the cold strikes at it like a snake protecting its nest. The heat disappears.
I stuff down a scream, pushing past the pain, and close my hands around the blue stone. I blink and the world bleeds white, my insides so frostbitten they burn like fire. Let it go, my magic seems to whisper, my toushana edging me off a frozen cliff. But I tighten my fist. I have to do this. For Mom. For me.
I’m so cold.
A cold that sings like a lullaby from death’s own lips.
A cloud forms at my next breath as I summon all my strength to drag myself to the table, hoping I can browbeat this poisonous magic into letting me set the Purifier Enhancer on the blade.
Toushana rears in me. A scream rips from my throat. My insides quiver, but I picture Mom the last time I saw her and drag one stiff foot in front of the other. I lug my dead weight to the table, my toushana fighting to turn me to ice limb by limb.
I hover the stone over the dagger, and a stabbing pain rips through my stomach. My knees slam the ground. Victory hangs like a dangled carrot just out of reach. Up, I have to get up.
I steady myself on shaky legs.
Despite my bones feeling like they’re being pulled apart, I reach for the dagger, imagining it’s the doorknob to a beach cottage, with the Purifier Enhancer clutched tightly in my hand. The world sways from the throbbing pain. My hand is a breath away from the dagger. I grab the table to anchor myself, but my grip on its edge falters.
