The Young Elites (15 page)

When the world was young, the gods and goddesses birthed the angels, Joy and Greed, Beauty and Empathy and Sorrow, Fear and Fury, sparks of humanity. To feel emotion, therefore, to be
human,
is to be a child of the gods.

—
The Birth of the Angels
,
various authors

T
he storm finally passes, leaving a devastated Estenzia
in its path—broken roof shingles, flooded temples, wrecked ships, the dead and dying. As people flock to the temples, others gather in Estenzia’s squares. Teren leads the largest of these gatherings. I can see it all the way from the Fortunata Court’s balconies.

“We let a
malfetto
win the qualifying races,” he calls out, “and look at how the gods have punished us. They are angry with the abominations that we allow to walk among us.” People listen in grim silence. Others start to shout along, raising their fists in response. Behind Teren are three young
malfettos
—one of them barely out of childhood. Probably dug them out of the city’s ghettos. They are tied together to a stake erected in the center of the square, and their mouths are gagged. Their feet are hidden in the midst of a pile of wood. A pair of priests flank them, lending their silent approval.

Teren lifts the torch in his hands. The firelight casts an orange hue across his pale irises. “These
malfettos
are accused of being Elites, for being among those that attacked Inquisitors during the races. The Inquisition has found them guilty. It is our duty to send them back to the Underworld, to keep our city safe.”

He throws the torch onto the pile of wood. The
malfettos
disappear, screaming, behind curtains of fire.

“From this day on,” Teren calls out above the sound of the flames, “all
malfetto
families and shops will pay a double tax to the crown, as reparations for the bad fortune they bring upon our society. Refusal will be seen as reasonable cause for suspicion of working with the Young Elites. Offenders will be detained immediately.”

I can’t see the Daggers from here, but I know they are watching the burning from the roofs. I know that right now Dante is notching arrows to his bow, getting ready to put each of the
malfettos
out of their misery. I try not to dwell on why they don’t risk saving them.

The next day, an angry mob tears down a
malfetto
family’s shop. Broken glass litters the streets.

My lessons speed up.

Enzo takes me under his tutelage, coming to the court late at night or early in the morning. Not until Gemma whispers it to me do I learn that Enzo has never trained anyone like this before. Her words are meant to be encouraging, but all I can do is lie awake at night, dreading the moment when I will have to see Teren again.

To hone my illusion skills, Enzo calls on Michel, the Architect. “Ridiculous,” Michel says during our first session together. He brings the painter’s eye, and his painter’s eye critiques my work. “You call this a rose? The shadows are all wrong. The petals are too thick and the texture is too harsh. Where’s the essence? The delicate touch of life?”

Michel forces me to create small illusions, as tiny as I can. This helps focus my concentration without draining my energy, requiring me to pay attention to everything on a minute scale, on details that I normally do not consider. I learn to make illusions of tiny flowers, keys, feathers, the texture of a wood splinter, the wrinkles of skin on a finger’s joints. He reminds me that when I want to imitate a real object, I need to think like a painter: A smooth stone is not smooth at all, but covered in tiny imperfections; white is not white, but a dozen different shades of yellows, purples, grays, blues; skin color changes depending on what light shines on it; a face is never entirely still, but made up of tiny, endless flickers of movement we never think twice about. Faces are the hardest. The slightest mistake, and the face looks unnatural, eerie and false. Conjuring the spark of life in a person’s eyes is nearly impossible.

Michel’s words echo Raffaele’s. I learn to
see.
I start to notice all the things that weren’t there before. With this comes another thought: If I can master my powers, perhaps I can face Teren next time with something other than traitorous information. Perhaps next time, I can actually attack him. The thought spurs me on with feverish intensity.

I spend every waking minute practicing. Sometimes I practice alone, and other times I’ll watch as Enzo spars with Lucent and Dante. Occasionally Gemma takes me aside, working with me while the others duel. Gemma is the one who teaches me how to still my mind in order to better sense the minds of those around me.

“Why don’t you duel with them?” I ask her. Today, she has a cat with her, a huge, feral one with a low growl.

Gemma grins at me, then looks down at the cat. It untangles itself from her legs and comes ambling over to me. I shrink away from its wild face, but it rubs its head against my leg and settles at my feet.

“I’m no fighter,” Gemma replies, folding her arms. “Father thinks I have beautiful hands, and he doesn’t want me to ruin them once I find myself a proper suitor.” She holds up her hands for emphasis, and sure enough, they are indeed fine and delicate. I’d forgotten for a moment that Gemma, unlike Lucent and the ex-soldier Dante, is a proper-born lady. The only thing that had spared her the Inquisition’s wrath after the horse race incident. I also feel a rush of jealousy that her family seems perfectly kind and encouraging. It’d never occurred to me that some might actually love their
malfetto
children.

The cat wound around my legs hisses at me before returning to Gemma.
Stupid creature,
I think grudgingly. I look at Gemma. “Why do you always have different animals with you?”

“They follow me. Sometimes I have an easier time bonding to certain animals, to the point where I’ll do it accidentally. This fellow tailed me all the way from my father’s villa.” She scratches the animal’s head fondly, and it purrs back. “He won’t stay forever. But I’ll enjoy his company in the meantime.”

I turn my attention back to the dueling. We watch the fight for a while, until Gemma clears her throat and I look back down at her again. This time, her carefree expression has given way to something more serious.

“I never properly thanked you for what you did in the racing square,” she says. “That was reckless, and brave, and breathtaking. My father and I are both grateful.”

Her father must be a patron of the Daggers, the way she talks about him. Her kind words stir warmth in me, and I find myself returning her smile. The darkness in me fades for a moment. “Glad to help,” I reply. “You seemed a bit unhappy out there.”

Gemma wrinkles her nose. “Not my best moment.” Then she laughs. It is a bright, ringing sound, the laugh of someone who is loved. In spite of everything, I can’t help laughing along with her.

“You’ve grown rather fond of Gemma,” Raffaele tells me the next day, as we walk together in the underground catacombs. Today, his hair is tied high on his head in an elegant dark knot, exposing his slender neck. He wears a bold blue robe trimmed in silver. I can only see the part of him illuminated by lantern light, and the sight unnerves me, making me feel like the darkness is trying to swallow us whole.

“She’s easy to like,” I say after a while. I don’t like admitting it. I shouldn’t be getting close to any of the Daggers at all.

Raffaele turns to give me a brief smile, then looks away again. “The tunnels branch once more here. Do you see?” He pauses to hold up the lantern, and in the gloom, I see the path before us split into two, the walls lined with endless rows of urns. Raffaele chooses the right-hand path. “We now walk underneath the Piazza of Twelve Deities, the city’s largest marketplace. If you listen close, you can hear some of the bustle. It’s a shallow spot.”

We both pause to listen, and sure enough, eventually I make out the faint shouts of people hawking their goods: stockings and sweets, dental powders and bags of honey-roasted nuts. I nod. All my recent time with Raffaele has been spent learning the catacombs. It turns out that the main underground cavern is connected to a wider maze of tunnels. Much wider.

We continue walking, memorizing one branch after the next, a honeycomb of quiet paths that run parallel to the bustling surface world. I watch the frescos on the walls shift with the ages. The walls feel like they’re closing in on me, ready to entomb me with the ashes of past generations. Without Raffaele’s help, I know with absolute certainty that I would die down here, lost in the maze.

“This path leads to a hidden door under the temples,” Raffaele says as we pass another branch. “The opposite path will take you to Enzo’s northern villa.” He nods to the dark tunnel up ahead. “There was even a path that used to run under the Inquisition Tower, although it has been sealed for many decades.”

I fall silent at the mention of the tower. Raffaele notices my discomfort. We walk in the darkness for a long time without saying anything.

Finally, we stop before a dead end. Raffaele runs his fingers delicately along the edge of the wall. He finds a small groove in the stone, and then gives it a good push. The wall swings slowly to one side, and light streams in. I squint.

“And this,” Raffaele says, taking my hand, “is my favorite path.”

We step through the open wall and find ourselves standing at the entrance of a tunnel, the ancient stone steps sinking straight into the water of the canals, a quiet, hidden spot that looks out over the main harbor and the beginning of the Sun Sea. Distant gondolas glide by on golden water.

“Oh,” I breathe. For an instant, I forget my troubles. “It’s beautiful.”

Raffaele sits on a step right above the water, and I follow his lead. For a while, we say nothing, listening instead to the water lapping gently against the stone.

“Do you come here often?” I ask him after a while.

He nods. His multicolored eyes focus on a faraway pier, where the hazy silhouette of the palace rises. Light outlines his long lashes. “On quiet days. It helps me think.”

We sit in comfortable silence. Off in the distance, the songs of gondoliers float toward us. I find myself humming along, the melody of my mother’s lullaby coming instinctively to my lips.

Raffaele watches me with his small smile, his eyes bright with interest. “You sing that song often,” he says after a moment. “‘The River Maiden’s Lullaby.’ I know it. It’s a lovely rhyme.”

I nod. “My mother used to sing it to me when I was very little.”

“I like it when you sing. It calms your energy.”

I pause, embarrassed. He must be able to sense my heightened sense of unease for the past few days, as my next appointment with Teren draws near. “I’m not very good. I don’t have her voice.” I almost tell him about my sister, how Violetta’s voice sounds closer to my mother’s—but then I remember where my sister is right now. I swallow the words.

Raffaele doesn’t comment on my energy this time. Maybe he thinks the thought of my mother saddens me. “Can you sing it for me?” I ask him, to distract myself. “I’ve never heard you before.”

He tilts his head at me in the way that makes me blush. My alignment to passion stirs. His eyes go back to the water. He hums a little, then sings the first few verses of the lullaby. My lips part at the sound of his voice, the sweetness of the melody, the way the lyrics hang in the air, light and clear and full of longing. When I sing it, the song comes out as individual notes, but when he sings, the notes change to
music.
I can hear my mother in the words. A memory comes back to me of a warm afternoon and our sun-drenched garden, when my mother danced with me to the lullaby. When she caught me, I turned around to hug her and buried myself in her dress.

Mama, Mama,
I called up to her.
Will you be very sad when I grow up?

My mother bent down and touched my face. Her cheeks were wet.
Yes, my darling,
she answered.
I will be very sad.

The melody ends, and Raffaele lets the last note disappear in the air. He glances at me. I realize that tears are blurring my vision, and reach up to hurriedly wipe them away. “Thank you,” I murmur.

“You’re welcome.” He smiles back, and there is genuine affection in his expression.

For a moment, I sense something I’ve never sensed outside of the Dagger Society. Something I’m finding only now, surrounded by young strangers that remind me of myself. Kindness. With no strings attached.

I can see a life for me here, as one of them.

It’s a very, very dangerous way to think. How can I be their friend, with what I’m doing? The closer I get, the harder it will be the next time Teren expects me to deliver what I’ve promised him. But the longer he stays away and the stronger I get, the bolder I grow. I return to watching the scenery with Raffaele, but my mind spins.
I need to find a way out, to find Violetta without giving Teren his information.
And the only way is to work up the courage to tell the Daggers the truth.