TWO

WHEN THE WATERCREA STANDS, EVERYONE ELSE BOWS.

They don’t use the kneelers in the pews, because those are for praying to God, and God can’t do what the watercrea does. Everybody in the cathedral drops to the stone floor. They disappear behind the pews, and abruptly, it looks like the building is empty.

For a moment, I’m mesmerized. With one move, the woman in the red gown has the entire city at her feet.

It must be nice.

I’m vaguely aware that Ale is already on his knees, tugging on my hand, and that the watercrea is gliding toward us. She stops a few paces away. In the shadows of the candlelight, her face is unreadable.

There’s a distant little voice in my head, and it’s screaming at me that I’m the only one still standing. I should kneel. I should run. I should do something. Anything.

The watercrea lifts a pale hand and beckons over her shoulder, and one of her guards crawls out of his pew and runs forward.

“The bride,” the watercrea says in a soft voice.

It feels inevitable. It feels like I’ve been holding a fine crystal glass that’s slipped out of my fingers, and all I can do is watch it fall and wait for the explosion of shards.

The guard walks toward me. In his outstretched hand is something small and glinting, and when I realize it’s a knife, I take a clumsy step back. Ale’s grip on my hand tightens. But the guard stops an arm’s length away, and for a long moment, he just stares at me. His face is expectant.

He’s waiting for me to confess, I realize dimly. At this point, in front of God and everyone, any other Occhian would confess.

I lift my chin and regard him with disdain.

He lunges forward. He grabs my arm and yanks me away from Ale.

Obviously, I know how this is supposed to go. I’m Emanuela Ragno, and this is my wedding day. If a guard dares to interrupt and pull me around like he owns me, he regrets it.

It’s just that I can’t seem to wrap my head around the fact that he actually came after me. I can’t comprehend his hands, heavy and foreign, on my arm. On my shoulders.

I can’t let this happen. I have to do something.

The cold knife touches my back. It shocks me into action, and I leap away.

Or I try to.

But everything… stops. My legs stop. My arms stop. I don’t know what’s happening to me. All I know is that I’m desperate for my body to move, and it’s not going anywhere. I try to scream, but my throat is squeezed shut.

Then my eyes focus on the woman in front of me.

It’s the watercrea. She’s using her magic on me. She’s taken control of my blood.

Something is roaring in my ears, but over the noise, I hear the snick of the guard’s knife cutting into my gown and my corset. He starts to wrestle them off.

I try to look away from the watercrea, but I can’t. She’s even taken control of my eyes.

I hear my clothes hitting the floor. I feel the cold air on my skin, and then the guard is cutting off my underpants. They fall away, and nearby, Ale’s mamma stifles a gasp. I know exactly what she’s seeing. I know what they’re all seeing.

The mark on my hip doesn’t look like much. It’s just a small red smudge. But to the people of Occhia, it’s everything.

“Quickly,” the watercrea says. “Before it spreads.”

No. It’s not going to spread. They have to let me go. They have to let me explain.

The guard slides off the gold engagement ring I’ve been wearing since I could fit it on my finger. He tries to pull the crown of roses from my head, but Paola pinned it within an inch of her life, and it doesn’t budge. A moment later, I feel his knife sawing through my hair, and clumps are ghosting down my back.

He’s ruining my hair. He’s not allowed to do that.

And then my feet aren’t on the floor anymore. They slide out of my silk slippers as I hover a breath above the carpet, and I’m gliding down the aisle toward the watercrea.

They say the watercrea’s power comes from her eyes. As I feel myself drift past her and continue toward the back of the cathedral, I know her gaze is following me.

It feels like nobody in this whole huge room is breathing. I’m not sure if I’m breathing. I can’t see Ale or my family and I can’t blink and all I know is that everything is happening too quickly and too quietly.

It’s not like I haven’t had nightmares about this. But the nightmares were different. In the nightmares, I could talk. I could fight. I was dragged to the tower kicking and screaming, defiant and alive.

But I’m already at the double doors of the cathedral. There are guards on either side of me, pushing them open, and we’re descending into the night.

The veil overhead is inky black. The guards swarm around me with glowing red lanterns, their boots heavy on the cobblestone, and I just keep gliding along against my will. We round the corner of the cathedral, and when we reach the back, the watercrea’s tower is there, waiting. Its spike of a roof looks like it’s about to poke right through the veil. It’s the only building in Occhia that’s taller than the cathedral.

I’ve never been this close to it. The closer we get, the less real the black stone walls look.

This is where people with omens on their skin go. This is where people with omens die. I know that.

But not me. They’re not just going to put me in here. Not on my wedding day. They can’t pull me from the altar and leave a pile of ruined clothes where I used to be. The whole city gathered there for me. They want me there. They need me there.

The inside of the tower is pitch-black and quiet, and the heavy, sweet smell in the air fills up the back of my throat. Blood. The blood of dying people. I know the watercrea is somewhere behind me, because I’m floating up the narrow spiral stairs. We pass a hole in the wall, then another, then another, then so many I lose track. They all have bars over them.

Finally, we slow to a stop. A guard opens the door of the nearest cell with a creak, and I feel myself climbing obediently into the dark, even as everything inside me screams in protest. It’s barely big enough to hold me, but I turn around and lie down on my back on the freezing stone. The shadowy form of the watercrea leans over me. She smells like rosy perfume.

Something pricks me in the neck. A needle. So she can drain my blood. So she can turn it to water, and everyone else in Occhia can drink it while I wither away.

The cell door closes and locks.

And the magic is gone. I can move again.

I rip out the needle without even thinking. I ignore the hot blood that runs down my fingers and turn over to grab the bars. I press my face to them and peer out at the black staircase.

The guards and the watercrea have disappeared. It’s so quiet.

“Wait!” I scream, and it echoes in the stairwell. “I demand an audience!”

Silence.

“Hello?” I say, as imperiously as I can.

Nothing.

There’s no reason to panic. There’s no reason to let her think I’m afraid, because I’m not. I’m not afraid, and I’m not weak, and I’m not about to die.

This isn’t going to happen. Not to me.

I was seven years old, and Paola was undressing me for bed. More accurately, Paola was attempting to undress me for bed while repeatedly cursing my existence. I slithered out of her arms and informed her that I wasn’t cooperating until she brought me another hot chocolate, which forced her to chase me around in a very undignified manner. I chucked my dolls at her feet and tipped a burning candle onto the carpet, but I had the disadvantage of tiny legs, so eventually, I lost. She grabbed me and started to wrestle me out of my clothes.

And then I felt a strange pressure on my hip. It was quick but insistent. Like an invisible finger had reached down and poked me. My gown was already off, and I reached for my underpants and pulled them aside to look at the red smudge that had just made its home on my skin. It was like a small, bloody wound. The moment Paola realized what was happening, she stopped everything and rubbed it, like it was merely dirt. But it didn’t budge.

I knew exactly what it meant. Everybody says the omens are put onto our skin by the hand of God. One day, out of nowhere, a small red mark shows up on our body. In a matter of hours, they spread across our skin, and when our body is completely covered, we disappear. And that’s the end.

Some people make it well into their thirties before their first omen appears. Some people get them when they’re only children. Nobody can explain why. They say it’s God’s decision. We’re born from the veil that he created, and when our time is up, the veil takes us back. It’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s just the way things are.

The moment an Occhian discovers their first omen, they turn themselves in to the watercrea. That’s the honorable way to die. Nobody would ever dare to hide their omens. The moment we know we’re dying, we have to give up our blood, or it will disappear along with the rest of us. The city needs every drop it can get, and running from that would be selfish and shameful. It would be sacrilege.

When they feel the first sign of death touch their skin, dukes run out in the middle of Parliament meetings and priests stop in the middle of sermons. There may be a lot of powerful men in Occhia, but nobody is more powerful than their omens. Nobody is more powerful than the watercrea.

I knew exactly what the mark on my hip meant. Death was coming for me. It was time to go. But I didn’t move. I just stared at Paola, and she stared at me.

“Well,” she said, a tremor in her voice, “maybe it won’t spread. Let’s wait and see.”

She got up to fold my clothes, and I stared at my skin. I waited, barely breathing, because I knew how the omens worked. I knew when adults were worried about me, and Paola looked worried. I knew she was just trying to delay the inevitable.

But the omen didn’t spread. And for the next ten years, it kept not spreading.

For ten years, I’ve been waiting to feel the hand of God again. For ten years, I’ve woken up in the morning and practically torn my nightgown in my desperation to look, sure that I was going to find myself covered.

Everyone else’s omens spread quickly. Everyone else dies in a matter of hours.

But not me.

I have my arm outside the bars, trying to get a grip on the lock on my cell door, when I see the shadow of a man on the stairs. I withdraw my hand just as a guard in red comes stomping by. He slows down as he reaches me.

“You shouldn’t take the needle out,” he says. “We need that blood.”

“Ah, hello at last,” I say. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding. My omens aren’t spreading. See?”

He looks me over. His gaze feels like cold fingers. I’ve never been naked in front of anyone but my nursemaid, but that’s certainly changed. I casually put my hand over my hip and leave the rest uncovered. I’ve always designed my gowns to assure people that I have plenty of unmarked skin—so much that I couldn’t possibly have anything to hide.

“Now, listen—what’s your name?” I say.

The guard is still studying me. He’s older, around my parents’ age, with broad shoulders and a bushy mustache. He probably inherited his red uniform from his father. Being a guard comes with a house and generous rations, and if he walks through any neighborhood’s art market, people will hand him things for free. But they won’t meet his eyes.

“My daughter works for the House of Bianchi,” he says. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“All good things, I assume,” I say, already knowing they won’t be.

“You’re the one who put the spiders in Signorina Bianchi’s bed,” he says.

One of my finer moments. Chiara Bianchi and I have always had a lively rivalry. At a recent party, she decided to spread very creative rumors about the things my betrothed and I were doing in bed—and the number of people we were doing them with. I found it hilarious. Until I saw that Ale did not. A few days later, on what just so happened to be the morning of her wedding, Chiara woke to discover a truly alarming number of spiders under her covers. And on her pillow. The hideous purple bite on her cheek went very well with her bridal gown.

“Oh, she blames me for it, does she?” I say. “Perhaps she should ask herself why her bed was so dusty it was attracting spiders. What’s your name?”

The guard doesn’t answer me.

“No matter,” I say. “I’ve seen your face. I won’t forget it. Keep that in mind as you decide whether or not to help me.”

A smile creeps onto his face. It’s edged with condescension.

“You’re not the first person to try and threaten me,” he says. “But our duty in death comes for us all. Even noble brides.”

He’s wrong. One tiny omen on my hip doesn’t mean anything. I’m obviously not like everyone else, and this obviously isn’t my duty.

“Isn’t it dreadful to work in the place you’re going to die?” I say. “Which of these cells will be yours someday?”

“I serve my people now, and I’ll serve them then,” he says.

“What if your daughter gets her omens before you?” I say. “Will you be the one to strip her and lock her up?”

“When she’s meant to pass on, she’ll do so with honor,” he says.

It’s the same way every other Occhian talks about it. Nobody should be so resigned about death.

“What if she wasn’t truly about to die?” I say. “What if she hadn’t gotten enough time to do everything she wanted?”

His eyes flit over me again, but he’s growing detached.

“Listen to the people all around you,” he says. “Do you think any of them had enough time to do everything they wanted?”

“I don’t hear any other people,” I say.

“Stop clawing so loudly at the lock of your cell, and you will,” he says.

He turns away.

“Wait—” I say. “You can’t leave me here. My omens aren’t going to spread. You’ll see.”

He’s already thumping down the stairs.

“I’m going to be the head of the House of Morandi,” I say. “They can give you anything you want. You know that. And once they see how you’ve imprisoned me for no reason—”

He’s gone. I clamp my mouth shut and cross my arms. I refuse to yell after him like I’m desperate.

The silence of the tower settles around me like a thick blanket. But it doesn’t last. Because now that he told me to listen, I can hear it.

In the cell next to mine, somebody is breathing, slow and ragged and horrible. Somewhere above me, there’s a muffled sob that sends a shiver down my spine.

Death in the tower is supposed to be quick. The watercrea takes as much blood as she can, but she’s racing against the omens. Once the omens spread, it’s over.

Maybe these people are dying quickly. But it doesn’t sound like they’re dying painlessly.

I draw back into the shadows, trying to hide from the sounds. I’ll convince the guard next time. I can’t let this go on for too long. I have things to do and people who need me.

My papá needs me. He has two sons, but I’m still his favorite. He used to sit with me in the library after my lessons, teaching me his version of history and answering all the invasive questions I wasn’t supposed to ask. He used to take me on tours of Parliament and show me the offices of the House of Morandi and tell me it would be mine someday. He used to tell me about the laws we could pass and the power we could hold if we worked together. We’re a team, and we have so much ahead of us.

Paola needs me. Paola is a devout Occhian who prays before every drink of water and never breaks a law, and yet, she looked the other way so that I could stay free. She became a nursemaid, forever unmarried, because she can’t bear children of her own. I was never just a job to her.

And Ale needs me most of all. We’ve been together ever since the day our nursemaids plopped our tiny bodies side by side on my bedroom floor. Ale was clutching his favorite doll, which I immediately grabbed. Ale didn’t lift a finger in protest. He just watched as I mixed his precious toy in with mine. At the time, he was so quiet his family thought he’d never learn to speak, but I started talking and, to his nursemaid’s astonishment, he talked back. He’s my best friend, and we’re not in love, but I love him. He knows that.

My legs grow stiff. I’m stretching them out when two guards appear and reach for my cell door. It swings open with a creak.

I knew they would realize their mistake. I dive for the exit.

“You really want to make this hard, don’t you?” one of them says.

It all happens very fast. One of the guards yanks my arms over my head and wraps a chain around my wrists. The other one gets me onto my back. And then the needle is in my neck again, and my cell door is slamming, and I try to sit up but discover that my chain is also wrapped around the bars. I’m trapped.

“They can’t do this to me,” I say into the dark.

I wanted to say it out loud so that I could hear the confidence in my own voice. But instead, all I hear is the tiny quiver underneath my words.

They can’t do this to me.

I don’t understand why they are.