Chapter Thirteen
Knees trembling, I jolted away from Ezra. “I didn’t do anything,” I began absurdly, before Julian cut me off.
“I warned you from the start that your behavior is a reflection of the House.” Despite the anger that darkened his eyes, Julian’s voice was even and cold. “And now I find you sullying yourself with some common boy right here in our Mission?”
“Senior,” I said hoarsely, gripping the loose fabric of my trousers. I needed something to hold on to as the room tilted.
“Julian,” Ezra said, starting toward him with a growl.
“That’s too far.” My ears were ringing. I grabbed Ezra by the sleeve, terrified for him.
Julian was no Transistor, but for all I knew, he’d attack Ezra for his inappropriate advances anyway.
“Let it be,” I said shakily. “Get out of here.” To Julian, I pleaded, “I invited him in. It’s my fault. Leave him alone.”
“Leave him alone?” Julian echoed, disbelieving. He laughed bitterly and looked at Ezra. “What a tremendous hold you have on her.”
“I’m not a child!” I snapped. As soon as I spoke, I knew how immature that sounded. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here.”
“Return to your room,” Julian told me. “Now. We’ll discuss this shortly.”
Unbearably gentle, Ezra pried my hand away from his sleeve. “Go on, Jo. I’ll make my escape so your Senior can shame you.”
For the first time, Julian sounded as if his composure had slipped. “Oh, this is my fault?”
Ezra lifted his hands in mock surrender. “I’m not the one enforcing ridiculous rules.”
I gave Ezra a desperate push. “Leave. We’re dangerous. You shouldn’t be arguing with him.”
“Is that so?” Ezra asked, taking a lunging step toward Julian. I felt invisible. Neither one of them was acknowledging me. For the first time since I’d met him, Ezra looked dangerous. He sneered at Julian. “Do you really think Julian Gray is going to hurt me?”
Before I could shout a warning, Julian hit Ezra in the stomach so hard, he sagged to the floor, only held upright by Julian grabbing his shirt at the shoulder. “Do you require any further proof?” Julian asked, panting.
“Stop it!” I screamed, unleashing a bolt of radiance that struck the floor at their feet and left a spidery, smoking scorch mark. “Both of you stop it!”
They were no longer ignoring me.
Moving only his fingers, Julian released Ezra and let him scramble up and away. “Control yourself, Apprentice Haven,” he said carefully, straightening slowly.
Ezra made a show of casually brushing the wrinkles out of his shirt, but I could see the way he glanced at the burn mark. I could see the way his hands trembled. I’d frightened him. I’d frightened him far more than Julian had.
I hated them both.
I stomped between them to escape to my room, barely able to feel my own footsteps. It was like my mind had detached from my body. I was no longer worried for either of them. Somehow, I knew Ezra would walk away from here, and Julian would let him go unscathed.
And me? I’d lose everything.
In my room, I stared at my hands. Radiance shimmered along the lines on my palms. For a while, I didn’t try to stop it. I wasn’t even sure I could. I certainly couldn’t calm the raging cadence of my heartbeat.
Then I thought about Ezra’s fear. It had been different from the times I’d accidentally hurt him. I’d wanted to scare him. Both of them. And it had worked.
With a shuddering sigh, I closed my hands into fists and willed the radiance back into the core of me where it could simmer alongside my misery.
Julian knocked on my door a few minutes later and pushed it open when I ignored him. We regarded each other silently. I was vaguely relieved to see him in one piece despite the fact that I’d been far more worried about Ezra.
His throat bobbed with a swallow before he finally announced, without emotion, “Due to your wanton and reckless behavior, I have no choice but to send you back to Sterling City.”
I’d known in my bones that he’d send me away, but it still felt as if he’d thrown me into a deep, dark well.
I’d failed.
I was a failure.
The mule brayed outside, and my ears rang with a sound like the skitter of radiance through thin wire.
“You can’t send me home,” I whispered. Was the House of Industry even my home anymore?
Sterling City already felt like a place I’d lived a lifetime ago. I wanted to stay here. I wanted to live here. I wanted to make Frostbrook my home.
“You left me no choice. It’s one thing to bend the rules, but you crossed a line entirely. Josephine. Are you listening?”
“I’ll be disgraced.” My voice was a pitiful croak.
I’d be more than disgraced. I’d be nothing.
Two apprentices had returned almost immediately in my four years of upper school.
They’d repeated classes with the fourth years, and not a single person had talked to them for fear of their spectacularly bad fortune being contagious.
Even worse, they weren’t assigned out again after that and had eventually become servants at the House. They’d become prisoners.
I swallowed the bitter taste of bile and breathed through a surge of radiance that wanted to rage out of me.
“You will not be disgraced,” Julian said, looking pained.
He softened his voice. “I am not—I am not cruel. I’ll send you home with a letter stating that you would benefit from working at a more established Mission, with more peers at your level.
This is only a setback. An opportunity, really. Were you really content here?”
He sounded like he was trying to convince himself that I was better off leaving. I didn’t care how he felt. I was already searching for a way to fix this.
My hands felt like bricks of ice. I shook them out, hating the prickly numbness. “You don’t have to do this, Senior. I’m a good Conductor. You know I am. And I can work machinery better than anyone I graduated with. Everyone knows that! I can be obedient.”
“And Ezra?” Julian asked, raising his voice. He pushed his hair out of his eyes in a way that looked familiar to me. “Would you be able to stay away from him?”
“It was a mistake,” I whispered, my voice breaking with a low, ragged sob.
He couldn’t send me away. I’d be alone.
No one in Sterling City would make me feel like a person. Like I was worth anything more than the light and rage inside me.
Ezra would be left alone.
Again.
Julian sucked in a shaky breath, as if sending me home somehow upset him.
What did he have to lose? He’d get a new, better apprentice.
Someone who didn’t ask questions. “Apprentice Haven, I did not expect you to fight me on this. We both know you’ll benefit from reconnecting with your instructors.
The shock of moving from the city to this wilderness has clearly upset your sensibilities.
When you’re home, you’ll regain your footing. And your propriety.”
I wanted to tell him exactly what he could do with propriety. A month ago, the following thought never would have crossed my mind: What if I simply ran away?
I could learn how to survive. Where to eat, where to sleep. I could find work like Ezra’s mother had. I could learn what was beyond the front range of mountains and where the winding river led.
I couldn’t go back.
Julian watched me, his eyes narrowing as if he could read the shifting of my expression from devastation to reckless defiance.
“There’s a train this afternoon. You’ll be departing on it.
” This was clearly not a request. “I won’t be able to get word to the House before you, so send a message when you arrive at the train station in Sterling City. They’ll come to collect you.”
It would do me no good to argue with him. I knew this. But it was painful to agree. “Yes, Senior.” My voice broke as my fingers curled into tight fists. “I’ll go pack my things.”
“You may bring your new tool belt back to the House of Industry with you,” Julian said, not unkindly. His gaze had softened to something like regret.
I looked away, loath to find pity in his jewel-like eyes.
In that moment, I resolved to end up anywhere but the train station back in Sterling City. I sucked in a breath and tried to sound defeated and not at all like someone seriously contemplating running off into the wilderness. “What good will the tools do me when I’m made a servant?”
Julian looked pained before he straightened and crossed his arms. “Take them or don’t take them. Prepare to leave in a few hours and gather your wits about you enough not to make a scene in front of all of Frostbrook on the way there.”
He’d been right that this place had changed me. But the wilderness hadn’t upset my sensibilities. It had awakened them.
How could he expect me to put my mind back to sleep?
Julian followed me around the Mission like an uptight shadow, knocking on the door when I took too long to pack, as if I’d developed the ability to turn myself into a bird and fly out the narrow, high window.
Hysterically, I found myself wondering if Ezra could turn into a bird and fly.
Probably not. He would have told me.
“I’m nearly finished,” I called out irritably.
When I wrenched the door open, I didn’t have to put on any pretense of devastation. I could feel the splotchy itch of a flush across my cheeks and neck. No matter how determined I was to avoid returning to the House of Industry in shame, I couldn’t keep my fears in check.
I knew nothing of survival. Not out here.
Ezra had tried to teach me a little, but now all I could recall was a blur of unfamiliar plant names.
I didn’t know what was poisonous or what I could eat.
What was venomous and what would simply slither away from me.
I could make fire, but I wouldn’t be able to find water unless I stayed along the river, where I’d surely be found eventually.