I’ve yet to commit, to even consider agreeing to being the Night’s famed Lunalette, but, four days later, I’m still here. I’ve been assured a message was sent to Poppy stating I was safe. That I’ll get another chance to meet with the Sindaco “soon.” That I’ve spent more time with the leader of the Night than Dorian does each week serving under him. There’s a bit of envy in how he says it, which I immediately tease him about and he vehemently denies.
My birthday passed like any other day, save that morning when I awoke to Bronwyn and a second gift—a fresh blueberry muffin and her admission (I didn’t even have to attempt prying it out of her) that the Night had wanted to hold a large celebration in my honor. Much to her disappointment, the Sindaco had decided against it. Bronwyn explained he worried it might be too much for me.
I assured her he was right.
Dorian wished me happy birthday several times throughout the day and insisted I noted he had the date correct. He was a complete ass about it, but it kept me smiling, a gift all its own.
Mostly, I thought of Poppy all day. How each year he’d have me blow out a candle before dinner and we’d thank the Sun for another year. Then I’d go to my room for bed and find he’d snuck something small onto my altar. A new fishing hook he’d traded worms for, a pretty shell, the last of the sunrise flowers before they all wilted away from frost.
Strange thing is I was more upset for Poppy’s sadness about missing my birthday than my own.
Somehow all of that—turning seventeen, a rare blueberry muffin for breakfast, my Poppy missing the day for the first time in my life—feels like ages ago.
Yet, it’s been four short days. Living with the Night on the other side of Bellona in this place they call the Lower.
It feels like so much longer.
And even though I should be lying obediently on the mat in my cave, once again I’m wandering along a maze of tunnels. This is the second time I’ve ended up here in as many days. I can’t sleep in this place. It’s too dark. Too quiet. Too … underground. There are times, I’d swear on all the pantera fish in the Great Sea, that the twenty feet or so of dirt and rock and insects piled above my head is going to cave in right on top of me.
Despite my constant questions to Dorian, unremitting seeking out of the Sindaco (I’m convinced the man is a ghost), and general trying to wrap my mind around this flipped-upside-down world I’ve landed in, I’m hopelessly restless at lights-out.
My first night gone rogue, I took a wrong turn and ended up here: a dark and winding tunnel with more caves leading off it. I wound along the web of halls like an aimless ant until I hit a dead end: a large metal door without a knob or lever. Only a keyhole. It’s probably nothing. A closet full of gardening tools or extra dishes or, Sun help me, piles of soiled laundry. Despite the likelihood it’s nothing, I can’t stay away. I’ve tried picking the lock with the tip of my blade, peeking through the keyhole for a hint, but have been wildly unsuccessful.
Walking softly, I try to keep my boots from squeaking, my shaky breath from sounding too heavily. I traverse the labyrinth, a little ant winding along, going about her business, searching for the door with all the secrets. The tunnels are dark save for an occasional flicker of light mounted on a wall every so often. It’s only myself and the dim glow of my lamp, the oil burning quickly.
I turn the corner to find this next tunnel is completely dark, no flickers to be had. Then the next, same thing, pitch-dark like black ink bleeding all around me.
At the next curve I’m greeted with a single light to illuminate the way to—yes—the secret door. No longer worried about the sound of my feet, I speed toward the door, determined that this time it’s going to open.
Hand outstretched, I hold my breath, sending small, silent wishes up toward the Sun that when I push the door it’ll give way and swing open.
I push it.
It doesn’t budge.
Someone taps my shoulder.
I whip around in one quick motion. I’m not sure if it’s the adrenaline or the fright, but I accidentally elbow whoever it is in the gut. Hard.
There’s a groan of pain, several swears, and a hunched-over Dorian, about to punch the wall.
“Dorian! Holy hell, you scared me!”
He only responds by holding up a single finger as if asking me to wait.
As my heart calms, Dorian slowly recovers, until he’s standing but leaning against the wall. “I really tried not to scare you. That’s why I tapped you instead of shouting your name. I’m sorry.”
“My Sun, next time just shout my name.” He glares up at me. I give an apologetic smile. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, but it’s my instinct to punch anyone who sneaks up on me in the dark…” I pause. “Wait. What are you doing down here?”
“Guard duty.”
“Oh, really…?” Right. “Down here.”
He nods.
“Middle of the night.”
Nod-nod.
“Yeah, I don’t buy it.”
“It’s true.” But the crooked grin taunting the corners of his lips would suggest otherwise.
I slide down the wall and sit next to him. “What could you possibly be guarding in these empty caves?”
He glances over, slowly regaining his composure. “You.” I gape back at him. He sighs deeply. “Trust me, I’d rather be sleeping.” He narrows his eyes, small smile finally surfacing. “But the Sindaco wants you to go wherever you want, but doesn’t want you to get lost. Alas…” He shrugs.
I narrow my eyes. “You’re guarding me.”
“Sort of.” He smirks playfully. “It sounds creepier when you say it like that.” He peels himself away from the wall, wincing, stretching from side to side. “We’d hate for you to get stuck in some cave. You’d starve … There’d be a huge, highly inconvenient search. Someone, probably me, would have to identify your body … It’s just better for everyone if we avoid all that.”
“Sure … What a pain that’d be.” I return his playful smile, notice how his hair is disheveled, less perfectly kempt than usual, features softer when he’s not so on guard. I’m also very aware of how seeing Dorian like this sets off a pleasingly warm swirling in my chest. Especially when his smile widens, how he glances at me from the corner of his eyes, part playful, part trying to read me as if he’s feeling the same.
“So.” He clears his throat. “What’s your excuse? Going somewhere?”
“Maybe. I do miss my bed, my room, reliable plumbing…” Well, mostly reliable plumbing. “But, no, I’d probably end up in that same scenario you so poetically described.” I sigh, rubbing my tired, heavy eyes. “I can’t sleep, so I’ve been exploring. I found this door and…” I hesitate for a minute, unsure if I want to open up to him, when, his eyes bearing into mine, I think of what he said my first day here. That you have to give trust to receive it, to earn it back. I choose to give, take a small risk with the hope it’ll pay off in the end. “… I kind of hoped there’d be something amazing and magical behind it.” He only stares. I glance away, instantly regretting the risk. “It’s stupid, I know. I’m tired. Delirious, probably.”
“It’s not stupid.” He brings his hand up like he’s going to touch my shoulder or graze my cheek with his fingers, but seems to change his mind, which leaves me disappointed, which morphs into confusion. “Not at all. In fact”—he pulls his keys from his pocket, holding a single one up in front of him—“here.”
“What?”
“You do the honors.”
I take the key out of his palm. My hand shakes as I insert it into the door, turn it to the left. The lock clicks and lifts. I look at Dorian. He raises his eyebrows and I push the door open.
It’s not what I expect.
There’s no fairy dust or magic … No scrolls or thick tomes for me to thumb through …
But my breath catches all the same.
The corners of my eyes sting, emotion and memories, so many prayers, filling the air like wishes in a well. You can’t see any of it, but you know it’s there. Countless blessings. There’s an indescribable tangibility to it. I feel Dorian’s eyes on me, and I open my mouth to speak, to try to voice my thoughts, but all the right words escape me.
“I know.” His words are simple, light. But the way he says them, somehow so knowing and understanding, it calms me.
A MEMORIAL ROOM.
There are lamps mounted to the walls of the cave, illuminating name after name carved into the stone. There’s an altar up front, not unlike the ones for missing Basso that have sprung up all over the island. Woven mats line the edge of the floor along the wall.
“The memorial room,” Dorian says so lightly it’s almost a whisper. Without another word he leaves my side and walks to a far wall. Crouching on one knee atop a mat, he touches a couple of names, bows his head, and says a few words under his breath.
He glances back at me and I walk over, stop next to him, kneel on the mat beside his.
“My parents.” Voice scratchy with emotion, he doesn’t take his eyes off the names.
I look over at him. “Dorian … I…” I have no idea what to say. Hearing him say it’s his parents, the hurt beneath his voice, it’s suddenly very real. I take his hand in mine, then set my sights on the wall as well, read his parents’ names, the dedications written beneath. The inscriptions aren’t graphic, but Laurel and Ren Winters were brutally killed by the Imperi, their remains never recovered. “I’m so sorry for you … For Bronwyn…” My voice quakes from sadness, but the words seem so small compared to the weight of the loss.
Dorian turns his head, eyes red around the edges, and his words about giving trust to receive it ring true. “Thank you. It means a lot—I know you understand my loss better than most.” He catches my eyes, giving a small nod, then stands. I release his hand, standing up along with him.
I glance around at the names, none of them familiar, but still significant. They were killed fighting for something they believed in. “Dorian?”
“Yeah?”
I glance over his shoulder at the names, trying to figure out if there’s any order to them. “My mother was Amalie Adeline; she died soon after I was born and, according to the Sindaco, fighting for the Night. I don’t know much about my father—nothing really—except that his first name was Vincent. I overheard my grandfather say it once coupled with a swear, but otherwise Poppy’s never spoken of him.”
Dorian’s suddenly stone-faced, not giving me the slightest hint of what he’s thinking. “I’m not sure about your father, but…” He peers behind his shoulder to the back corner where a single light shines in the darkness. “Over here.”
Dorian takes my hand this time. His touch sends a tingling warmth that travels up my wrist and back. He leads me to the orange glow of a torch that seems to burn with endless flame.
Just above it is the name Amalie Adeline, the words literally taking my breath away. It’s so beautiful it could be a poem. Two simple words, when put together, would illuminate the page. But it’s not a poem. It’s my mother’s name.
“What is this?” I barely manage to breathe.
“Moon help me, I didn’t know.” He turns to face me. “Please believe me, V. I’ve seen this memorial countless times, but didn’t put your last names together until just now when you said it.” He shakes his head. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine … I believe you…” But I’m barely thinking on that. All I focus on is what scenario under the Sun could have ended with my mother’s name being carved into this wall.
“The woman, Amalie Adeline—your mother, apparently—her death was the catalyst to the first war. She and a team of Night soldiers were on a secret mission to get intelligence on the Imperi, but were ambushed. She was caught, pressed for information that she never gave up, and executed by the Imperi. Like my parents, her remains, unfortunately, weren’t recovered.”
My stomach churns, sending warm bile up into my throat. “Where did this happen?” I choke the words out.
“We believe she was taken to the holding cells under the Coliseum. Secluded. With no one around to witness any of it. The Imperi couldn’t risk Basso hearing word a revolution was brewing.” He shakes his head, taking a long breath in. “She was the first of many, but the one who sparked our initial uprising, hence the special memorial.” He glances at the flame illuminating my mother’s name. “She was a warrior. A hero. Your mother sacrificed herself so the other Night soldiers on her team could safely get away.” He lowers his voice. “Maybe your father was one of them?”
“Maybe…” I run my fingers over the ornate letters carved into the stone wall. “Dorian?”
“Yes?”
“Why lie? Why not just tell me the truth when I was old enough to understand? Swear me to secrecy like my grandfather? Why the seventeen years of complete horseshit?” The back of my throat burns with anger.
He gives a stern, yet sympathetic nod. “I’d be thinking the exact same thing.”
“I mean, it’s not like I’d go and tell anyone, because I’d be putting myself and Poppy in danger.”
Brow furrowed as if in deep thought, Dorian sets his jaw like he’s worked something out. “I guess, this whole thing”—he glances around the room, then stares right at me—“you being brought down here now, when you’ve just turned seventeen, is exactly that. Finally giving you the truth and trusting you with it.”
“Well, they sure did take their time.”
“I know … I agree … But I can only assume it wasn’t meant out of deception or mistrust but out of protection.”
And it hits me, and I hate how much sense it makes, because I really want to be angry at all the lies. “The less I knew, the less that could get me into trouble.” It doesn’t absolve the deception, but it definitely puts it into perspective.
He nods. “I’d say so, wouldn’t you?”
I lift an eyebrow. “I just did.”
Dorian gives a slight grin.
But I’m unable to smile back. Instead I face my mother’s memorial, run my fingertips across her name, a knot forming in my throat. “Thank you for showing this to me.” It’s like everything I thought was real has been pulled apart and I’m slowly puzzling the pieces back together in a new image.
He nods slowly, eyes heavy. “I wish I had more information to share with you. Something to ease the weight of it all.” Taking a deep breath, I glance at Dorian from the corner of my eyes as something I hadn’t considered nags at me. “Actually … I do have a question you can answer.” His eyes flash to mine. “Why didn’t you confide in me earlier? Up on Bellona? Why lie about who you were?”
Dorian sucks in a deep breath, runs his hands through his hair. “Technically, I didn’t lie.” I furrow my forehead but let him explain further. “I am Dorian Winters, nephew and apprentice to the glassmaker. I grew up on Bellona. I’m Basso and I can’t fish to save my life.”
“Oh, I see…” I snort. “So you just didn’t tell me everything.”
He shoves his hands in his pockets, shaking his head. “I wasn’t sure I could trust you. And, honestly, what if I had been completely truthful with you? Told you everything?”
“I’d have punched you in the nose and then turned you in.”
He laughs. “Exactly. Sure, trust has to be given to be received. But … it also has to be earned. Even with your closest allies. Though I have a feeling you get that.”
I open my mouth to argue, but stop myself to really dissect his words. He must be referring to Nico. And even though Nico is my closest friend, I do keep secrets from him and, I’m sure, he keeps them from me. And what is trust anyway? Is it being able to expose all your fears and disappointments and desires to someone else? Or is it in trusting those things will be kept safe with that person if you do? And maybe it’s not so much about the secrets. Maybe it’s all about knowing you can tell another person anything. Knowing that you can be vulnerable and safe. Trusting—without doubt or fear.
I glance across the space at Dorian and he stares back. It’s going to take a lot more than him letting me through secret doors to earn my trust. But it’s a good start.
Finally, I answer. “I do get it, but trust goes both ways.”
Dorian steps closer, gingerly takes my hand in his. After all we’ve shared here, so many layers beneath Bellona, the warmth of his skin against mine is everything. It’s grounding and calming and exciting all at once.
It’s as if we’re suddenly realizing we’ve known each other all along. The way we relate, how closely we understand each other, it’s like we’ve been reunited.
Like I didn’t know I’d been missing him until now.
I place my other hand on top of Dorian’s, lace my fingers between his, which sends my stomach reeling.
He takes a quick breath in as if he feels it too. “I promise you I will do all I can to earn your trust. Because, Veda, if you don’t trust me … trust us”—he searches the room as if referring to the Night past and present—“this will all have been for nothing.”
“THANKS FOR TONIGHT,” I say when we reach my cave, stop outside the arched doorway.
“I’m glad I ran into you,” he says.
“You were following me!”
“Details…” He flashes a crooked grin, waving my comment off with a flourish of his hand.
I’m about to enter the cave, but pause, one question plaguing me since my meeting with the Sindaco. “Dorian?”
“Yes, Veda?”
“If it’s not the Night who’s abducting the Basso and it’s really the Imperi…” I pause, collecting my thoughts, unsure if I really want to hear the answer. “What are the Imperi doing with all of them?”
Dorian’s face falls and he only shakes his head. “You don’t want to know.”
I don’t want to know, but I must. “Please tell me.” My voice strains around the words. I’m worried it’s what I’m thinking. What I’ve feared.
He gives a slight nod, eyes somber. “We’ve found evidence they were Offered. Privately.”
Heat turns my gut, warmth rises up my throat. Even though I assumed it, hearing the words sends me into a panic. I don’t want to know what specific evidence they’ve found, but I can’t help asking, “Even the children?”
Dorian shakes his head. “There’s no way of knowing. Our hope is that some are being kept alive somewhere. But many”—he pauses to swallow—“have been killed.”
“Sacrificed, the High Regent would say.”
“Exactly. Somehow, he’s justifying it, if even to his soldiers.”
I think of all those names, photos of the missing. A flame lights deep in my chest thinking of my sweet Poppy still stuck up on that island. “How could they?” My voice shakes with emotion. Sadness and pure, seething rage. “It’s not right.”
Dorian steps closer, takes my hands in his. “If there are any alive, we will free them.”
I nod, but I’m not confident. I’ve seen what the Imperi are capable of and, now, what the Night truly is. I can’t begin to imagine a world where the Night can win this fight. It’s a death wish.
“I know that look.” Dorian breaks into my thoughts, and I’m instantly aware my face is tight with worry, my shoulders slumped. “It’s a long shot. We’re outnumbered and outweaponed. But with you”—he gazes over my shoulder and into the cave at the mural—“the hope you bring coupled with the fire we all have to defeat the Imperi … It won’t be easy, but I know we’ll defeat them.”
THAT NIGHT I lie on my mat, images of the memorial room—my mother’s name written in stone above the orange flicker of a flame—swimming around my mind, and I try with all I have to tap into some memory of my parents. I don’t have any photos to reflect on; Poppy always said the few he had were long destroyed. Was that a lie too? All I ever had of my parents was a maybe-map and a pink crystal.
There’s no telling if even those are authentic. Had Poppy just picked some scraps off the ground and placed them on my altar to give me a sense of real memories? That my parents had left these mementos behind for me when really they were someone else’s trash?
Everything I thought I’d known, each memory I’d imagined based on Poppy’s stories or that map and stone, I’d wholeheartedly believed.
And maybe some of it was true. The few things Poppy told me about my mother must have been; she was his daughter.
But the rest?
Or maybe he only lied about their deaths.
I close my eyes and conjure an image of my mother. Her hair is a few shades lighter than mine, but the same fiery amber. She wears a black Night uniform and wields an atlatl, busting into one of the Imperi’s secondary army training facilities and freeing the Basso who then join the fight.
I breathe deeply, sinking more heavily into my pillow. It might not be steeped in truth, this story I’ve spun, but I’ll hold the image of my mother dear. As hope. Motivation. Sun help me, I can’t even believe I’m thinking it …
Yet, there it is. A tiny light, a flicker of the notion that maybe, possibly, I’m going to do this.
Follow in my mother’s footsteps as a member of the Night.
What better way to honor her, to honor the life that was taken from us? The bond we’ll never know. I’ll never know.
What better way to honor her sacrifice than to fight the very people who took it from her?
And what better way to honor my future, the future of all Basso, than to stand up for what we deserve? For what’s right?
I glance at the mural, the jagged pointed star that’s supposed to symbolize me, and with the weight of a hundred boulders my chest grows heavy, doubt crushing all that hope I’d just built up.
How quickly possibility can be reduced to dust.
The truth is louder than the daydream: I’m not my mother.
I’m not so sure I’ve got it in me to be a member of the Night, much less their sacred Lunalette. Their symbol. Whatever that means.
Fighting, I get.
Freeing any Basso held captive? That I understand.
But being nothing more than a symbol? A good luck charm? Someone meant to motivate and inspire and do it all from belowground?
I don’t think so.
The mere thought of such a responsibility throws me into an internal cyclone of pure doubt, icy fear.
Because I don’t know what the hell being Lunalette looks like.
But it’s definitely not me.