THIRTEEN

APPARENTLY, VERENE HAS A KNIFE. SHE DRAGS ME TO MY feet and presses it into my back, then forces me out of the greenhouse. We’re sneaking somewhere. I can tell from the erratic way she keeps pressing me up against walls and then making me run. When we hit a staircase, she doesn’t see fit to warn me first, so I tumble to the bottom, my ankle twisting painfully.

The ground is cold and dusty and familiar. As soon as I hit it, my skin starts crawling.

I wish I knew what was happening to Ale. I wasn’t supposed to have to do anything else alone. Especially not anything involving the catacombs.

“Keep going.” Verene is right behind me, nudging my rear end with her foot.

“If only your people could see all your generosity and compassion on display right now,” I say, fumbling to crawl.

“No more—” She’s still nudging me. “Talking—I’m so tired of your—voice—here. Stop.”

I stop. I wiggle the bonds on my wrists, trying to subtly loosen them.

“Can’t you at least take the bag off my head?” I say.

“No,” she says.

“Why?” I say. “Because when you can’t see my face, you can tell yourself that you’re not really killing a person?”

She pulls the bag off my head. I sit up, enjoying my small victory. We’re in the middle of a narrow hall. The only light is a lantern on the ground at her feet, and the shadows on her face are startlingly sharp.

“I know you’re a person,” she says. “A terrible person. A person who tried to kill me. A person who needs to be stopped.”

“Must you declare everything so dramatically?” I say.

She glares at me. “I must.”

“You think that I deserve to die, then?” I say.

“The vide isn’t going to kill you,” she says. “It will swallow you and carry you to our prison. And maybe, while you’re there, you’ll think about the morality of coming into a new city and trying to kill its ruler. Maybe you’ll have a change of heart. It could happen, I suppose.”

“Where’s the prison?” I say. “In your cathedral?”

“No,” she says. “At the very bottom of the catacombs. And I do mean the very bottom. It’s incredibly dark and isolated. But don’t worry. We’ll send you food.”

My heart thuds in my ears. I can find a way out of this. I always find a way out.

Verene pulls off one of her gloves to reveal a bandage around her hand, then starts to unwind it. On her palm, there’s a long gash, barely healed. She slices it open with the knife in one quick motion. She turns back to me, squeezing her hand into a fist, and pointedly lets the blood fall onto the ground by my feet.

“So it’s not just your brother,” I say. “You feed the vide, too.”

“I would do anything for my people,” she says.

I remember her random dizzy spells that I saw in the cathedral. I know how dizzying it is to lose your blood. It seems she’s doing quite a lot for her people.

At my feet, a shadow is starting to form. The air is getting colder. I shiver.

I don’t have much time. I have to get her to tell me something I can use. Anything.

“You know,” I say, “in a way, you’re even worse than your mother was.”

Verene goes very still. Her eyes are fixed on me, dark and intent and, suddenly, unblinking.

“What?” she says.

The shadow has eaten up her blood.

“You think your powers are noble, don’t you?” I say. “Instead of the people of Iris bleeding for you, you bleed for them. But what you conveniently neglect to realize is that when you steal water from the other cities, that’s still water that somebody had to bleed for—”

In an instant, she’s on the ground and in my face. I flinch away automatically, and she grabs a fistful of my hair, forcing me back.

“Don’t—” she says. “Don’t you ever—”

I feel something cold against my neck. It’s the blade of her knife. It’s shaking in her hands. It’s digging in a little too hard.

“Don’t pretend that you know me,” she says. “Don’t pretend that you understand me. I did this for my city. No one will ever hurt them again, and it’s because of me.”

“Am I supposed to be impressed?” I say. “You were born into this life. You were born into this magic. Your power obviously doesn’t look like your mother’s, but that doesn’t make you—”

I falter. Because, just for a moment, I felt her falter, too.

I meet her gaze. We’re close. Too close. I can feel the warmth of her breath and I can smell her sweet hair. And I can see something deep in her eyes. Something that she’s trying to hide. It looks almost like fear. Like she’s afraid of what I’m saying. Like I’m getting too close to asking a question she doesn’t want to answer.

She believes in her power so strongly. She believes in it like it was something she chose.

People don’t choose to have magic. Our rulers are born with magic, and that’s why they’re our rulers. That’s what I’ve always been told. That’s what I’ve always believed.

But so many other things I’ve believed are turning out to be wrong.

I know that I only have a split second to act, so I do the last thing she would expect me to do. Instead of trying to throw myself away from her, I throw myself forward.

The knife cuts into my neck with a sting. Before it can go too deep, she flings herself back. The knife lands in my lap, and I twist around in my bonds until it falls to the ground. A drop of blood flies off it and lands in the dust.

Verene and I both used the knife to cut ourselves. I don’t know if the blood is hers or mine.

Either way, the dark shadow is already underneath it. I scoot away and watch as the vide swallows it up.

It pauses. Like it’s considering.

I look at Verene. Her eyes are wide. She looks like she doesn’t know what’s going to happen now, either.

“What are you so worried about?” I say. “Surely you don’t think a terrible person like me could just… use your magic?”

And then I feel… something. There’s a cold, tingling sensation in my neck.

Experimentally, I look at the vide, and I will it to go after Verene.

It does.

The rush is unbelievable. Verene is scrambling away on her hands and knees, and I’ve never felt so powerful.

I’m so caught up in the euphoria that it takes me a long moment to realize the vide has turned around. It’s coming for me again.

Down the hall, Verene is squeezing her wounded palm. It’s still dripping.

Of course. She gave it more blood than I did. She must have more control than I do.

I throw myself at the knife. I rub frantically at it with the bindings around my wrist, and right as the vide is almost upon me, I manage to saw through and break free.

I seize the knife and cut my hand. I don’t even feel the pain. I splatter my blood on the floor and silently tell the vide to swallow Verene up and take her to her own prison.

She’s already unwinding the bandage on her other hand. The wound there is only semi-healed, too, and when she presses them both into the floor, the vide comes back at me.

I meet Verene’s eyes. They’re burning with pain and righteous fury in equal measure.

She’s not going to stop.

That’s… perfect. I don’t want her to stop. I want her to fight me the way I deserve to be fought.

I back up, leaving a trail of blood for the vide. From the tingling in my hand, I know that it’s swallowing up my offering. Verene hunts around on the ground. She finds a sharp rock and slashes at her hand, gritting her teeth.

It’s unsettling to watch. It makes me wonder just how far I can get her to go.

The vide comes for me again, and I steel myself and slice the one place on my palm that’s not already shredded.

Verene gets to her feet. She’s breathing hard and trembling. She’s all passion and rage and a burning desire to be rid of me, and I can’t take my eyes off her.

She presses the sharp rock into her wrist. The first drops of blood well up.

And then, abruptly, she sways. I see a flash of panic on her face, but it’s too late. She’s already crumpling. She hits the ground with a dull thump, sending up dust.

I tell the vide to stop. I don’t even really think about it. I crawl down the hall, picking up the lantern as I go.

Verene is collapsed on her side. Her eyes are closed and her bloodied hands are limp, but she’s breathing, slow and soft. I wait to see if she’s just faking it to lure me closer to her. But she doesn’t move.

I set the lantern down. A moment ago, she was ready to cut off her own hand to defeat me. Now, she just looks like a vulnerable girl lying all alone.

So Verene wasn’t born with this power. She wasn’t born with any power at all. She went into the catacombs and somehow found this creature she could bargain with. And now she gives her people a life more perfect than they could have ever dreamed.

She shouldn’t pretend to be a saint. She shouldn’t care if they think she’s perfect. She should let them see just how far she would go for them. Because it’s real, and it’s a little extraordinary.

A drop of blood rolls off Verene’s hand and hits the ground. Immediately, the vide is there.

“Don’t—” I say.

I realize I’m reaching for Verene’s hands, and I stop myself. I don’t know what I think I’m doing. I don’t know why I’m just sitting here, staring at her like I don’t have anything better to do.

I have so much to do. I know how to control the vide now. I’ve beaten her. I can go back to Occhia and steal all her water for myself. I can kill her. I can let this city crumble, just as it deserves.

But for some reason, I can’t get myself to do anything.

I hear the footsteps in the dark, but I can’t quite piece together what they mean. And then someone is walking around the corner. When they see me, they stop short.

It’s a young man. He’s holding a lantern. He’s dressed in dark clothes, a handkerchief around the bottom of his face.

“You shouldn’t be down here,” he says in a rush.

“Well, why are you down here?” I say.

He’s quiet, but his eyes are on the bloody slash on my neck. When they drift to Verene, they widen.

“Is…” he says, and I hear the note of fear in his voice. “Is that…?”

I look at Verene’s long, dark eyelashes. One of her curls has fallen over her face, and it’s stuck to her mouth. Her mouth looks so soft. Unimaginably soft.

I tear my gaze away.

I’m not just going to kill her while she’s already unconscious. That would be too easy for her.

She stole from my city for two years. She’s going to suffer.

I clutch at my throat.

“Run,” I tell the boy. “Run, before she gets you, too.”

He doesn’t need telling twice. In an instant, he’s disappeared into the shadows.

I grab the lantern. Then I grab Verene’s ankle, and I drag her down the hall. When she’s on her feet, she looks so light and graceful. When I have to pull her through the darkness with one hand, she’s the heaviest person in all the cities.

With a rush of relief, I finally find the staircase that leads up to the city. I pause at the bottom, trying to catch my breath.

I have to drag Verene just a little farther. I want to make sure all her people see her like this.

I set the lantern on the steps. I grab Verene’s ankles with both hands and heave.

My vision goes gray. For the first time, I notice that the cuts on my hand are still bleeding. My palm is absolutely sliced to pieces. And now, all of a sudden, I can feel the pain.

No, I tell myself firmly. I didn’t lose that much blood. Surely I lost more than this in the watercrea’s tower. I’m not going to faint. Not now.

I try to pull Verene again. I drag us up the stairs through sheer force of will. We’re almost at the top.

But then my knees give out. I reach for the street, but everything is spinning out of control before my eyes.

And then, nothing.

It’s my wedding day.

I’m lying in my bed, snug and warm. In a moment, I’ll hear the door open and smell the coffee Paola brings me with breakfast. I’ll eat in bed as we go over the final plans for the reception, and tonight, everything will be perfect. Nothing will go wrong. I refuse to let it go wrong, so it won’t. The thought is reassuring. It’s all so simple.

“Emanuela. Emanuela.”

I recognize the voice and frown. Ale and I do spend a lot of time together, but he usually isn’t in my bedroom when I wake up. He must be very nervous about the wedding. Even more nervous than I expected, which is saying a lot.

“Emanuela,” he says again.

I open my eyes. I see Ale’s face, pale and worried. I feel his cold fingers on my hair.

And then it all comes back to me.

I sit bolt upright.

“Don’t.” Ale grabs me. “Don’t. Shh.”

I look around wildly. It’s dark. I have no idea where I am.

“Verene,” I say. “She—she was—”

“She’s right out there,” he says. “Shh, Emanuela.”

We’re in an alley between two manors. For a bewildered moment, I just take in the laundry strung up overhead. Then I turn around and see lantern light. I crawl to the mouth of the alley and look out.

There’s a small group of people in the street. They’re all staring at something on the cobblestone. Someone. Verene is lying there, limp and unconscious. Theo is standing over her stiffly. He looks very much like he’s trying to get rid of the bystanders, but they’re not moving.

I turn back to Ale. “What happened?” I say. “You were—”

“I came back to the greenhouse, but you were gone,” he says. “He tried to chase me into the catacombs, and that was when we found you. You and her, lying at the entrance.” He pauses. “Bleeding.”

I notice dimly that there’s a strip of fabric wrapped around my injured hand. Ale tore off the bottom of his shirt.

“We have to—” I’m still fumbling to get my thoughts in order. “We’re too close to them. He’s going to send the mob after us—”

“He was trying to come after us himself,” Ale says. “But then he got interrupted. When he saw all the blood on you, he looked… I don’t know. I don’t think he wants the people of Iris to see you.”

He looks at me expectantly. Like he wants me to explain how, exactly, all this blood came about.

“So we have the advantage right now,” I say.

“We could escape,” Ale says. “If… if we knew how to stop the vide.”

It comes back in a rush. I want to tell him everything I just learned. I want to share the thrill of the magic. The thrill of the control. The thrill of not having to be afraid of something anymore.

But then the last piece of my memory falls into place.

I fainted. I barely even did any magic with the vide, and I fainted.

Verene has been using this magic to bring water to her city, but there’s a price. She’s weakened. She spends all her time in the cathedral, dizzy and resting. She gives up entirely too much of herself just to keep things the way they are.

The disappointment is bitter. Magic isn’t supposed to cost this much. Magic didn’t seem to cost the watercrea anything.

If magic can be chosen, I want to choose the most powerful magic there is. I want the kind of magic that can bring water to a city that has none. I want the kind of magic that will let me go everywhere and change everything.

I want the kind of magic that belongs to me, and only me.

I want more.

But I don’t know how to get more.

I look back at the street just as a man tries to duck around Theo, reaching for Verene. Theo shoves the man in the chest, hard.

It startles everyone. For a moment, I think Theo looks a little startled, too. But then he doubles down, bracing himself in front of Verene like he’s daring someone else to try.

“Emanuela,” Ale whispers. “What… what should we do?”

The people on the street look so unsettled. They don’t know what’s happening to their Heart. They don’t know why she would have been attacked in such a strange way—ending up with blood on her hands, and nowhere else.

They don’t know why her brother is suddenly acting like he’s hiding something.

I stand up. I’m a little woozy, and Ale reaches for me, but I brace myself on the white wall of the alley.

“Quickly,” I say. “We have to get back to the cathedral before they do.”