The Rose Society (17 page)

Enzo and I kiss in the courtyard, oblivious to the light rain falling all around us. He walks me back to my chambers. But in my dream, he doesn’t bid me good night and then leave. In my dream, he comes inside with me.

I don’t know if my power is at work … but I can
feel
his locks of dark hair against my cheeks, can
sense
the ripples of heat that his touch sends through my body. His lips brush past my ear, then touch my jaw and my neck, working their
way steadily downward. I sit on the bed and pull him closer until we are a tangle of limbs. This is where we first met, after all, when he came to sit beside me and offered me a chance to join the Daggers.

Now his face stays buried against my skin. Currents of heat rush through me until I think I might burn alive. His shirt slips to one side, exposing his shoulder. Is he really here? Am I really in the Fortunata Court, in all its former glory? My finger traces the ridge of his collarbone. He sucks in his breath as I tug off his shirt, then run my hands down his chest. He pushes against me.
This is real. It must be.

This is what could have happened that night.

“
I love you,
” he whispers in my ear. And I am so enveloped in my dream, so lost in his trail of kisses, that for a moment I let myself believe it.

Enzo pauses. He coughs once. I turn my head enough to see the angles of his face in the darkness. “Are you all right?” I ask with a smile. My arms reach up to wrap around his neck and pull him closer.

Enzo stiffens, then coughs again. His brows twist into a knotted line, and he frowns. He pushes away from me and sits in a hunched position on the bed. His coughs come again and again, until he can’t seem to stop. Spots of blood stain the sheets.

“Enzo!” I cry out. I scramble to his side and put a hand on his shoulder. He waves me away and shakes his head, but he’s coughing so hard that he cannot speak. There’s blood on his lips, glistening in the night. His face contorts in pain.
One of his hands comes up to grip his chest, and when I look, I notice with horror that a deep, scarlet wound is growing in the center, right over his heart.

He needs help.
I leap out of bed, run to the door, and throw it open with all my strength. All of my limbs feel like they’re dragging through the darkness, struggling through some invisible current. Behind me, Enzo’s breathing turns desperate. I stare wildly down the hall.

“Help!” I scream. Why are all the lanterns dimmed now? I can barely see through the shadows of the corridor. My feet pound silently against the floor. I can feel the coldness of the marble. “Help!” I cry again. “The prince—he’s hurt!”

The hall goes on and on.
Raffaele will know what to do.
Why can’t I find the way back to the underground cavern? I keep running until I remember that Raffaele isn’t at the cavern with the others. He doesn’t come back on this night, because he has been captured by the Inquisition.

The hall is endless. As I run, the paintings lining the court’s ornate walls begin to peel away, burnt and ashen, the corners ruined by fire. There are no doors or windows. Somewhere in the distance comes the sound of pouring rain.

I pause to catch my breath. My limbs burn. When I look behind me, I can no longer see my own chambers. The same hall stretches in both directions. I continue forward, walking now, my heart pounding against my ribs. New paintings begin to appear on the walls. Perhaps they’ve been there the entire time, and I’ve just noticed them. None of them make any sense. One of the paintings shows a girl with large, dark
eyes and a rosy mouth—she sits in the middle of a garden and holds a dead butterfly in her hands. A second painting is of a boy dressed in white Inquisition armor, his mouth stretching from one ear to the other, his teeth scarlet red. He crouches inside a wooden box. A third painting runs from the ceiling to the floor. It is a girl’s face, and half of it is gruesomely scarred. She does not smile. Her brows are knotted in anger, and her eyes are closed, as if they might open at any moment.

Fear begins to gnaw at my stomach. There are whispers here, the familiar whispers that plague me. I start to run again. The hall grows narrower, closing in on me from all sides. Up ahead, it finally reaches an end. I pick up my pace.
Help!
I call out again, but it sounds strange and distant, like an underwater cry.

My steps now make a splashing sound. I stumble to a halt. Water is pouring down the hall, black and cold. I start to back away, but the current sweeps me off my feet, and the water swallows me whole. I cannot think, I cannot hear, I cannot see anything except for the swirling darkness all around. The cold numbs me. I open my mouth to scream, but nothing comes out. I look for the light of the surface, but the same darkness yawns all around me.

The Underworld.

Black shapes swim through the depths. Through the darkness, I finally see a set of stairs that I instinctively know leads back to the hallway. Back to the living world. I try to swim toward the stairs, but they never seem to get any closer.

Adelina.

When I look over my shoulder, a shape materializes out of the blackness. It is a monstrous form, with long, bony fingers and milky, sightless eyes. Her mouth is open in a snarl. The fear in my heart turns to terror.

Caldora. The angel of Fury.

I struggle toward the stairs, but it is no use. Hissing fills my ears. When I look behind me again, Caldora’s hands reach for me, fingers curled into claws.

I jolt awake at the ominous blare of a horn from above deck. Sunlight streams in from our porthole. The storm has passed, although the waters are still choppy. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and try to still my pounding heart. The whispers are stirring, but their voices are muted, and after a few seconds, they fade away entirely. My fingers shake as they run along the fabric of my pillow. This feels real. I hope it is. A part of me yearns to go back to the Fortunata Court, to throw my arms around Enzo and will him back to life—but another part of me is afraid to blink, lest I return to the Underworld’s waters. Even glancing out the window sends a ripple of fear through me—the water is a dark, opaque blue, eager to swallow a ship.

I look to Violetta’s bed. She’s not there.

“Violetta?” I jump to my feet and hurry to the door. I make my way through the dark, cramped passageway of the ship’s belly. My sister. She’s gone. My nightmare comes back to
me—the scorched, endless hall—and suddenly I’m terrified I’m still lost inside it. But then I reach the ladder leading to the deck, and I climb it gratefully.

When I peek over the top of the ladder, I see Violetta at the bow of the ship, leaning over the rails and talking in a low voice to Sergio. My limbs turn weak with exhaustion. I take a deep breath, calm myself, and pull myself up onto the deck. Several other crewmembers give me long looks as I pass by. I wonder which of them are also mercenaries, and whether Sergio has told any of them about our conversation from yesterday.

As I draw near, Sergio puts a hand on Violetta’s arm. He laughs at something she says. A feeling of jealousy runs through me. It’s not that I want Sergio’s attention—but rather that he is attracting Violetta’s.
She is
my
sister.

“What was the horn for?” I ask. I purposely push between them, forcing Sergio to take his hand off my sister and assume a more distant stance. Violetta shoots me a sullen look. I blink innocently back at her.

Sergio points toward the outline of land on the horizon, still faint through the morning mist. “We’re nearing the city of Campagnia. Have you been there before?” When I shake my head, he continues, “It’s the closest port city to Estenzia. My guess is that we’re not going to be greeted with open arms in the capital. It’d be impossible to dock.”

Violetta nods in agreement. “Adelina’s illusions are good,” she says, “but she can’t protect all of us forever from the number of Inquisitors in that city.”

Estenzia. Somehow, it feels as if we left the capital a lifetime ago.

Sergio just shrugs it off as we watch the outline of a city gradually appear on the shore. “We’ll dock in Campagnia soon,” he reassures us. “They haven’t passed any mandates outside of the capital that I know of. It’ll be safer.”

I nod. Sergio falls back into a conversation with Violetta. As they talk, I look around the deck. “Where’s Magiano?” I ask.

Sergio’s eyes roll skyward. “In the crow’s nest,” he replies, pointing up. “Gambling away his life’s work.”

On cue, a perfect imitation of a crow’s caw sounds out. We all glance up to see Magiano above us, leaning so far forward that I’m afraid he’ll topple right out. He’s shouting something at the other sailor in the nest.

“I’ll make that
twenty
gold talents, then,” he calls out, leaning back into the nest and out of sight.

“Is he … winning?” Violetta asks, squinting up at the sky. We look on as Magiano mutters a train of words to himself. A half-mad thief and a rejected Dagger—I’m certainly off to a good start in building my Elite society.

Sergio shrugs. “Does it matter? If he loses, he’ll just steal the poor bastard’s winnings, anyway.”

Suddenly, the sailor Magiano is playing hops up to his feet. He points out at the water. Magiano cranes his neck toward land too, then shouts something down to Sergio that I can’t make out.

Sergio bites his lip. I watch him, noting the tiny sparks
of fear coming off him. I stare hard into the mist. For a long moment, none of us can see anything. Only when the morning sun burns away more of the mist do I detect the faint outline of golden sails, the curving hull of a ship sailing out of Campagnia’s harbor. The sound of horns floats toward us again. This time, they’re deafening.

Overhead, Magiano grabs the rope attached to the crow’s nest and glides down the mast. He lands with a light thump. His hair is in wild disarray, and the salty smell of ocean permeates his clothes. He gives us a passing glance. “An Inquisition ship,” he says when he sees my questioning expression. “Looks like they’re heading straight for us.”

“You saw the Inquisition’s flag on them?” I fold my arms and try to swallow the fear building in my throat. “But we’re a completely common-looking ship.”

“We’re also the only ship passing the bay right now,” Magiano replies. He frowns out at the water. “Why would they care if a cargo ship’s making its way to Campagnia’s port?”

The Inquisition’s ship is getting closer. Something about the sight of its familiar emblems stirs the whispers in my head, and they shuffle their little claws, restless. The fear in my throat gives way to something else—a wild courage, the same thing I felt when I confronted the Night King.

A chance at revenge,
the whispers say over and over.
Adelina, it’s a chance at revenge.

“Teren may be expanding his operations into Kenettra’s other cities,” Violetta says, casting me a sideways look.
Are you all right?
her expression says.

I tighten my lips and push down the whispers. “Do you think they’re going to board us?” I ask Magiano.

Magiano points to how the small ship is now positioning itself behind us. “It’s a small team, but they’re going to steer us into the port,” he replies. “And then they’re going to inspect every nook and cranny of this ship.” His expression darkens as he turns to me. “If I’d known you were going to cause this much trouble in the first three days since our little agreement, I would’ve left you to the Night King without a second glance.”

“Good,” I shoot back. “I’ll remember that the next time I see you in danger.”

My answer makes Magiano let out a surprised laugh. “You’re charming.” He grabs my wrist before I can stop him, then nods at Violetta to follow him. “It looks like we’re stuck together now, aren’t we?” he says. “I recommend we hide.”

We hurry back belowdecks, where a nervous and sweaty crewmember hisses at Magiano to take us down to the ship’s belly. Our footsteps echo hollowly across the narrow wood floors.

We make our way down three ladders before finally reaching a closet where crates are stacked haphazardly from floor to ceiling. Here, he ushers us into its dark recesses. The space is nearly pitch-black, except for a dense iron grating high overhead that lets in slivers of dim light.

Magiano gives me a pointed look. “Stay quiet,” he whispers. He glances at Violetta. “Keep a lid on your sister’s
power. It’d be in all of our best interests for it not to careen out of control like it did in Merroutas.”

“She’s going to be fine,” Violetta answers, a note of irritation in her voice. “She knows how to control herself.”

He looks unconvinced, but still gives her a nod. Then he’s gone, closing the door behind him and leaving us in darkness.

I can feel Violetta’s faint trembling. She doesn’t do as Magiano suggested—take away my power—but she doesn’t seem entirely comfortable with me, either. “You’re feeling okay, right?” she whispers to me.

“Yes,” I reply.

We wait without saying another word. For a while, the only thing we can hear is the familiar sound of waves outside the ship. Then, we hear new voices. Footsteps.