Chapter Twenty-Six Jordan
Twenty-Six
Jordan
Nothing about this raid feels right.
The territory’s border town is more suburban than rural, with few trees. Very little cover. The houses crowded onto the narrow street have decorated porches offering seasonal greetings. Welcoming visitors. An uneasiness slithers up my spine.
“You’re sure this is the place?” I ask Kieran. He shows me the file on the suspected safe house once more. I check the notes again. About a year ago, Knox visited with someone in a park near here who returned to this house. Kieran filed the report. And this morning, Audubon was spotted in that same park.
Quell, are you in there?
“Yes.” Kieran huddles with me behind a large truck in the driveway. “Blue siding and a wraparound porch.”
I scan the perimeter. One of our flock, disguised in overalls, leans over the open hood of a truck down the block. Another is playing the concerned neighbor and repairing a lawn mower. A few others have slipped inside cars parked on the street.
“I don’t like this,” I say to Kieran. “You?”
“It does seem a little unusual.”
I squeeze the side button of my phone to get a message to the team. “Give me a clear perimeter every thirty degrees. And keep your eyes on the entry and exit points.”
Shadows shift in the glimmer of the fading night sky as my men adjust the cordon.
“You’re with me,” I tell Kieran as we slip around the side of the house. “Time?”
“Sunrise. Fifty-eight minutes.”
With a neighborhood this populated, this raid could get messy fast. Neighbors know each other. And there are a bunch of us. An Unmarked person cannot look upon magic and live. The protocol is rigid.
“We have to be out of here by sunrise. We can’t risk daylight in a place like this.”
Even in the early-morning light, I can tell Kieran’s color has faded.
I squeeze his shoulder. “It’s going to be fine.”
“My last two raids ended badly. Public burnings.” He meets my eyes, and a scared little boy looks back at me.
“You’ll need to cloak to get inside. Anything else could set off alarms.”
“Alarms, right.”
I grab his wrist. “If you see anyone who fits the description of Quell Marionne, notify me before you take your next breath.”
He nods.
“Time?”
“Fifty-two until sunrise.”
“Meet you around back. I’m going in.”
Kieran darts off, and I summon the deathly cold to my fingertips. I fold into it until every part of me shifts into a dark mist. Up through the air, past the windows, I rise, slipping between the metal grates of the air shaft beneath the dormers. I hold still as the world comes back in focus. The attic is warm compared to the lingering chill from my cloak.
I hurry down the attic stairs and ease the door to the second floor open. The hallway is silent. As I move down it, counting the rooms, faint snores slow my steps. There are three bedrooms and two bathrooms. I creep down the stairs to the first floor. But when I reach the living room, I freeze. It’s filled with coordinated furniture and framed family portraits. I study the smiling faces, and my pulse picks up. In the kitchen there’s a full sink of dishes. The pantry is sparsely filled, not stocked full. I peek in a few closets and it’s full of storage bins. No grab bags. The hair on my neck rises.
People in safe houses don’t live like this. Unless…it’s a new cover?
I signal for Kieran. He slips through the seams of the back door.
“Are you absolutely sure this is the right place?”
“I saw him in that park, just down the road, with my own eyes. This is the only suspected safe house for hundreds of miles. Why else would he have been near here?”
I quiet him, listening for any indication that we’ve been too loud.
Safe houses are like a crime scene without fingerprints. They are shells of a home, easily wiped clean. And never personalized. I think of Knox, what she said about people in safe houses losing their ability to touch dark magic because they don’t use it. How that fact technically opens the argument that they’re no longer a threat. It unsteadies me.
“Sir, are you alright?”
“I’m fine. We need hard evidence that they are Marked.”
Kieran follows me up the stairs; the glow of night-lights dot down the hall. I summon the cold, ready with thrashing shadows in one hand, just in case. Kieran does the same. We approach one of the bedroom doors, and I cup the knob gently.
Behind me, a child’s shrill cry scratches my ears.
I turn. Kieran’s as pale as a ghost, a child, who is no taller than my waist, standing in the middle of the hall gaping at the darkness in our fists. They stare up at us with red-rimmed eyes and a sleep-tousled head of hair, their little features scrunching in curiosity. They point at the shadows before shoving a thumb in their mouth. Realizing we’ve been seen by a child feels like a knife sticking me in the ribs. Voices stir beyond the door nearest me.
“Back away slowly,” I say.
But the moment Kieran moves, the child wails again. The knob in my hand twists, but it is not my own doing. I shove Kieran forward, swing open the door to a nearby closet, and conceal ourselves inside.
“Baby boy, oh, it’s okay,” a sweet voice hums in the hall. I watch through the slightly parted door. The child’s eyes are fixated on the closet door that we disappeared behind.
He points in our direction.
My heart stops.
“Back to bed, sweet one.” The mother walks away, toward the room at the far end of the hall.
“The notes don’t mention any kids!”
“I watched the house for days!” Kieran drains of color. “Never saw one.”
“Are you sure these are Marked people?” I shake him by the collar.
“I saw a woman who…” His brows smoosh. “Come to think of it, she doesn’t look anything like her. But I saw a woman use toushana to get through a locked gate at the park. I followed her home, here . Maybe they moved?”
I rest my head back on the wall for a moment to stifle the urge to strangle him. Perhaps I took his tip about Audubon in haste, trusting he’d done his damned job. If he had, he’d have casually talked to neighbors. Asked questions. Visited their friends. Created a rock-solid information loop so this does not happen. We are not reckless killers.
“I’m not convinced these people are magical,” I say. “And if they aren’t, you just condemned them to die.”
His eyes widen with something heavier than regret: fear.
“Stay here.” There is one clear way to tell. I cloak and move through the second floor as a shadow, looking for the mother. I find her tucking the child in bed. The room darkens as I slip inside. She stiffens, her brow furrowed in confusion, gaze darting to the window. Then in my general direction.
“Honey!” she shouts.
A man rushes in. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. I just feel…there’s something.”
I move closer, letting the edges of my shadow graze her arm.
“Call the police,” she screeches. “Something isn’t right. Someone is here. I—”
“Calm down—”
She hands him the child and dashes out. I follow her before rejoining Kieran in the closet.
“They’re calling the police.” I can’t believe the words I’m saying. “This isn’t a safe house. These people are not magical. Your lead is wrong.”
“Dear,” the husband chimes, “he was just scared. He’s back in bed now.” Their bedroom door creaks open, then clicks closed. Their stirrings settle and the house is again silent.
“The child saw our faces,” Kieran whispers, his expression scrunched in horror at what must come next. “And the parents felt your cloak.” He releases a shaky breath, and it takes me back to the nightmare of cleaning up my first raid gone wrong, when I was still a deb at Hartsboro. We set the house on fire. And there were actual toushana-users inside. I couldn’t eat for a week.
“I can do it, sir,” he whispers, but he can’t even look at me. It reminds me of Yagrin. Our work should make us sick to our stomach. Taking lives should never be easy. But this…this is an acute kind of discomfort. It’s not just Kieran. I feel sick, too. But he’s not wearing a gleaming red pendant.
“You will do nothing else but leave. I can’t let you mess this up, too.” I open the closet door wider. “Take a day. I’ll file the report. After that, you’ll be reassigned to desk duty for a while, until you’re able to sleep again.”
He nods, forlorn. I squeeze my phone. “Abandon target. We’ve been compromised. Head back. I’ll finish up here.”
From the second-floor landing I can see shadows shifting past the windows as my men depart. I sit on the top stair, waiting for my hands to stop shaking, and Knox’s words tear at my conscience. We are not inhumane. We are not senseless killers. I cannot believe I’m allowing her treasonous accusations to still ring in my head.
There are principles to uphold for a reason. The sun is more beautiful after a season of rain. Forests grow back stronger after a burn. How can the Order be what it was created to be if no one will do the despicable things needed to keep its existence secret until it’s safe to be out in the open? If the Dragunhead were here, he would not balk at what’s required. I stiffen my chin, sickness thickening in my insides.
The child is so young. He’ll forget my face.
But the mother saw my cloak. She felt my touch.
She only saw shadows.
Protocol is rigid. It has to be.
I grab a fistful of carpet, just to do something with the frustration burning its way through me. I blow out a breath and force myself to stand. The soft blues of morning glow outside, streaming through the windows. I stand there for what feels like an eternity before entering the child’s room. He’s fast asleep, tucked under covers, his little hand dangling off the edge of the bed. I move closer to him, my heart ramming my ribs, as I draw the cold blackness to my fingertips. My foot nudges a stuffed bunny that’s fallen out of his crib. I stare at it. The child’s chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm. And I envy him. What I wouldn’t give to sleep like that. The admission burns my cheeks.
Protocol.
My heart ticks faster.
I stand there until the room has noticeably brightened. A sharp heaviness like I’ve never felt twists inside my chest, like a broken bridge with jagged edges trying to weld itself together.
We are not inhumane.
I am not inhumane.
Protocol.
I feel for magic and tighten my fist.