Then, the sound of blades against skin, the gush of blood.
The whispers cheer in my head. I keep my mind on the burning stake, the
malfettos
I’ve seen suffering right in front of Inquisitors who turn a bored eye, the breaking glass and screaming people. I should feel some sense of disgust, some recoil or horror at the thought of the carnage down below. But I don’t, not for those Inquisitors.
I strike first from now on.
We watch in silence as the harbor approaches, until our hull bumps dully against the piers and a worker on the ground ties us in. He casts a glance over at the quiet Inquisition ship behind us, but he doesn’t act on it. Instead, our crew prepares the gangplank, and we gather near the railing. Down on the harbor’s main street, clusters of Inquisitors cut lines through bustling crowds. I wonder how long they will take before they investigate the floating ship.
As the crew haul crates down the gangplank and hook up thick ropes to hoist larger cargo, we follow Magiano and Sergio off the ship. “This is exactly why I left this forsaken country in the first place,” Magiano mutters to me as we go. He still seems like he is in an odd mood. “Damn Inquisition, always swarming about. Come on. And keep your face disguised.”
I straighten my head wrap and check Violetta’s, then
strengthen the illusion over my face. It’s not hard to blend in with the throngs wandering the harbor. I keep a steady illusion over my face, and my hair stays hidden inside its wrap. Behind us, several other crewmembers also make their way off the ship and scatter into the crowds. I watch them go. I recognize a few of their faces now, men I saw tying up the Inquisitors on the ship. I also see the man who had spoken briefly to me on board. All mercenaries. All loyal to me. For now.
Dead men belowdecks, sightless eyes, bloody chests.
The whispers excitedly remind me of what had happened on the ship.
Dead men, dead men.
Violetta makes a small sound, breaking my stream of thoughts. When I look at her, her brow has tensed. She starts to drag her feet, as if something had caught her interest. I frown, then look into the crowd.
“What is it?” I ask.
Violetta just nods silently into the milling people.
It takes me another second to spot what she’s noticed. Not far from us, walking along the edge of the street, is a girl I recognize. She seems like she’s in a hurry. Still, even in her rush, she pauses to smile and pet a stray dog. The dog starts to follow her.
“Gemma?” I whisper to myself.
The Daggers are here.
And so they huddled together, waiting, hoping for a savior that would never come.
—
Tides of a Midwinter War
, by Constanze De Witte
Adelina Amouteru
Already, I’m starting to lose her in the crowded street. A traveling cloak hides the top half of her face, and her figure is almost lost amid the horses and wagons.
“That girl,” I murmur to Magiano. I tilt my head in Gemma’s direction. “She’s one of the Daggers. I know it.”
“Are you sure?” Magiano gives me a skeptical look.
“Adelina’s right,” Sergio interrupts, his eyes following Gemma down the street. We look on as she stops to talk to one of the sailors from a ship. “That’s the Star Thief.”
I start to move. “If they’re here, I want to know what they’re up to. I’m going to follow her. Don’t let her know we’re here.”
Ahead of us, Gemma reaches the end of the harbor and turns onto a winding street. Sergio leans close to us, his eyes fixed on her as if she’d vanish any second. “We’ll trail her,”
he says to me in a low voice. “I’d like to see what those Daggers are up to here.” I expect him to start pushing his way through the crowd without hearing my reply—but to my surprise, he looks at me expectantly.
It takes me a moment to realize that he’s waiting for my approval. “Yes,” I reply, stumbling over the word.
It is all he needs to hear. He exchanges glances with a couple of the other crew from the ship, those who must be his fellow mercenaries.
“Count me as curious too,” Magiano mutters, then nods once at me before vanishing into the crowd.
Violetta leans over to me. “Look,” she says, subtly motioning to the general direction where Gemma is heading. “The sailor we just saw her talking to. He’s heading that way as well.”
My sister’s right. I pick out the back of his head among the people. He smiles and laughs at a few children that cross his path, but there’s no doubt about it—he must be following Gemma too.
I touch Violetta’s arm. “Don’t stay too close,” I say as I start walking. I weave a subtle illusion over her face, changing her features enough to make her unrecognizable should Gemma ever look back.
Off in the crowd, Magiano flickers in and out of sight. When I look to my right, Sergio’s hair peeks out from the throngs. We move together, unorganized yet coordinated. I’m reminded of the first time I ever saw the Daggers go on a mission—and a ripple of excitement runs down my spine.
We head down the same street that Gemma entered. As we do, I see her turn around to look down at the dog still trailing faithfully behind her. She smiles, bends down, and rubs its ears. Even though I know her power, I’m somehow still surprised to see the dog turn obediently around, as if led by an invisible hand, and walk away from her without another backward glance. I slide between two clusters of people and look on, awed for a moment. There is something quiet and warm about this tiny, temporary bond between the girl and the dog. What must it feel like to harness joy and love, instead of fear and hate? What kind of light does that cast?
I lose her a few times in the thick of the crowds. She makes her way out of the busy sections of the port, then heads up a small hill to what looks like a tiny tavern at the end of a street. I look behind me, wondering where Magiano and Sergio are. Violetta walks several paces behind me, stopping now and then to weave her way through pockets of people.
Finally, up ahead, Gemma turns where the tavern’s main entrance is. She doesn’t try to go through the front—instead, she steps into a side street and disappears from view. I hurry along, trying to stay in the shadows along the edges of the buildings. Not many people wander here. No Inquisitors to be seen. I wait until I’m fairly alone on the street, and then I wrap myself in threads of energy. I blend into the shadows, and then I become the shadows, until no one notices my invisible figure heading up to the tavern.
I turn onto the street where I saw Gemma go, then stop at the corner to watch.
She’s standing at a back entrance of the tavern with several others, a space so narrow and shadowed that no one would think to turn back here. I recognize Lucent immediately—her copper curls are tied back into a bushy tail, and she has a frown on her face. Michel is there, but Raffaele is not, and a bald boy I don’t recognize is talking in low voices with Gemma. The sailor we saw down at the pier is here too, along with a couple of others. Are these new Dagger recruits? It seems as if everyone has gathered here to wait for Gemma. I make sure my invisibility is intact, and then I walk forward. I keep going until their voices drift to me and I can understand what they’re saying.
Gemma’s voice comes to me first. She’s arguing with Lucent. “At least Raffaele is safely there,” she says.
Lucent lifts a brow and shakes her head, as if this were the first time she’s hearing the news. “He’s going to get himself killed,” Lucent replies, “the instant they leave him alone with Teren. Why couldn’t we have just asked for an audience directly with the queen?”
I hold my breath. Raffaele is back in the Estenzian palace, by his
own
choice? What are they planning now?
“Giulietta would never hold an audience with us and risk her life,” Gemma says. “Trust your queen, Lucent—Maeve knows what she’s doing. Giulietta will be forced to dine with her and celebrate her arrival, which should give Raffaele time to deliver what he wants to say.”
Maeve. Queen. I think back, remembering after a moment that Lucent is originally from Beldain. If Maeve is her
queen
,
then Maeve must be the Queen of Beldain. Beldain is working with the Daggers.
“Maeve will act in three nights’ time,” Gemma now says. “That’s when the festivities will end in a night of raucous performances. It will help to hide what we’re doing.”
“She will make her way to the arena at midnight,” Lucent says to the others whom I don’t recognize. “She needs to be in the exact place where he died. During the process, she will be entirely defenseless. We have to make sure she is safe and untouched.”
Lucent’s words send a prickle down my spine.
The exact place where he died.
What is she talking about?
“We’ll ensure it,” the men reply. I wonder whether they are Queen Maeve’s own soldiers in disguise.
“And Raffaele must be there, yes?” asks another.
Gemma nods. “Yes. The dead cannot exist in this world on their own. Enzo must be bound to someone in order to have the strength to live again. Maeve already has her brother bound to her. She will bind Enzo to Raffaele.”
Enzo.
Suddenly, I can’t seem to catch my breath. The world shifts around me, and my invisibility is in danger of flickering out. I struggle to hang on to it, then stumble back until I hit the edge of the tavern wall. I must not have heard Gemma say the name correctly—this must be some misunderstanding, a different name. It cannot be Prince Enzo.
My
Enzo.
The bald boy shakes his head and gives Gemma an
apologetic look. “I don’t understand. Raffaele never informed me of this. Why are we bringing him back?”
Lucent shoots him an annoyed glare, but Gemma gives him a pat on his shoulder. “You are a new Dagger,” she replies. “You’ll be brought up to speed soon enough. Kenettra lost a leader when Prince Enzo died at the hands of the Lead Inquisitor. Maeve had counted on him to be the one to bring trade and prosperity flowing again between our two nations. When she brought her little brother back from the Underworld, he returned with strength unheard of in mortal men. If she can also bring back Enzo—an Elite—he may return with his powers strengthened in ways we cannot even fathom. She can place him back on the throne, where he belongs, as her Kenettran ambassador.”
I close my eye. Blood roars in my ears.
The dead cannot exist in this world on their own.
I cannot possibly be hearing their conversation correctly. Because if I am, then that would mean that the Daggers are planning on bringing Enzo back. My mind spins. Maeve, Maeve …
she will bind Enzo to Raffaele.
Hadn’t Raffaele once mentioned rumors of an Elite who could raise the dead?
That’s what the Daggers are here for. The realization finally makes my invisibility break down, and for a second, I’m exposed.
Instantly I fix it, melting myself back into the scene around me. Gemma’s eyes dart in my direction—she looks confused
for a moment, but then she seems to shrug it off and return to the conversation. I swallow hard and try to ignore the thundering of my heart.
The bald boy narrows his eyes. “But—I have seen the queen’s brother. He is not of the living. Will the same not happen to Prince Enzo?”
Gemma sighs heavily at that. “We don’t know. Perhaps. Perhaps not, as he is an Elite. The queen has never brought back anyone else, aside from her brother. But he will walk the world again, with Raffaele at his side.”
Lucent addresses the bald boy. “Leo,” she says. “We need to get Enzo out of the city once he returns. None of us have any idea how he will be—not even Maeve. He may not have his powers at all, or he may be exactly as he used to be. Regardless, he will cause a scene. Maeve said that her brother’s revival caused a whirlpool in the lake where he’d”—she pauses for a moment, and I detect a hint of guilt in her voice—“where he’d originally drowned. Then he was bedridden for a week. Do you think you know your power well enough to distract the Inquisitors at one of the gates?”
The boy named Leo sounds nervous, but he still lifts his chin. “I think so,” he replies. “My poison is temporary, but it will last long enough to weaken them.”
“Maeve will be weak as well,” Gemma adds, turning her attention to the others standing beside Leo. “You need to get her to safety as quickly as possible.”
One of them steps forward. He lifts a hand, and a tiny flash of blinding light sparks in his palm.
Another Elite.
“We
are the queen’s personal Elites,” he says, as if insulted. “We know how to protect her. Just handle your prince.”
“And her navy?” Lucent asks.
“They will arrive soon. Mark my words—it will be a massive siege.”
They exchange a few handshakes and some more words, but I stop listening in order to take in what I’ve already heard.
Raffaele is working with the Beldish queen to bring Enzo back. Meanwhile, Beldain’s navy is coming. In fact, Beldish soldiers—Elites—are already here, perhaps all hiding in plain sight. Pieces are all moving into place to force Giulietta from her throne.
Enzo.
Enzo.
I place a hand on the tavern wall and guide myself around the corner. I find a dark spot in the next alley. There, I finally shed my invisibility and lower myself into a crouch, then rest my head in my hands. Threads of energy inside me start to rise out of control. The scene changes from a hilly street in Campagnia to a dark hallway back at the Fortunata Court. I’m crouched in one corner, hiding, listening to Dante talk to Enzo. I hear how little the Daggers trust me—how even Enzo hesitates when Dante talks about my disloyalty. The scene vanishes, replaced by a bed and Raffaele sitting beside it, holding my hand and telling me I am no longer one of them.
Adelina.
I look up to see a vision of Enzo standing there. His face is as beautiful as I remember, his eyes scarlet and piercing, his dark red hair tied back in an unruly tail. He leans down,
and his ghostly fingers brush my cheek. I want to reach up to him, but I know he’s too far away.
I should be happy to hear all this. This is what I want too—to see Giulietta overthrown and
malfettos
safe under the rightful ruler of Kenettra. Why am I unhappy? I want Enzo back, don’t I? And yet, the memory returns to me of the child sitting along the stairs, fantasizing about the crown of jewels on her head.