A conti vecchi contese nuove.
Old reckonings, new disputes.
“Our first performer tonight will be Josef Benheim,” Tomo said, kicking off another round of applause.
Lanky and long-limbed, with deep brown skin and serious eyes, Josef had always been a solemn boy. Nicknamed “little man” by their teachers, his rare smiles had become even more rare since he’d lost his sister. Or, rather, since Alessa took his sister from him.
Josef’s entrance was hindered by Nina Faughn clinging to his hand. They were the closest to Alessa’s age, so she knew them better than the other Fontes. It looked as though their longtime friendship had taken a new direction in recent months.
After extricating himself from Nina’s grasp, Josef strode to the center of the performance space. The light glittered on the silver trim of his royal blue tunic as he bowed, his attire a subtle tribute to Ilsi, who’d worn the same colors the day Alessa had selected her. Josef wasn’t spiteful, so she knew it wasn’t meant as a jab, but pain lanced through her anyway.
Like Tomo, Josef’s power was to create cold, or rather, to remove heat, as Tomo always made a point to remind her. Cold is merely a lack of heat, therefore one can remove heat but not create cold. Unsmiling, Josef froze the contents of a few waiting glasses. In addition to supplying his family’s year-round gelateria, Joseph’s gift made his family the primary supplier for the iceboxes of Saverio, and their home was one of the finest on the island. Not that his family only used his gift for their own enrichment—that would be shameful—but distributing ice to the poor wasn’t what gilded their home in luxury and thus didn’t come up in conversation quite as often. Of all the Fonte powers, his was fairly straightforward—aim, freeze, watch scarabeo fall and shatter—but it had a narrow range, and that could mean a long, drawn-out battle.
After Josef, Nina minced across the floor in a simple white gown. Her pale skin was nearly translucent beneath a constellation of freckles, but her cheeks went pink at the first polite smattering of applause. She’d come with props—a collection of small objects like spoons and rocks—and used them to demonstrate how she could warp matter, turning solids malleable and changing their shapes. It was a crowd-pleaser, but the more people clapped, the redder she grew, until her face clashed with her strawberry-blonde hair.
The next performer missed his cue.
Tomo checked his notes and scanned the shadows for whoever was up next, and Alessa let her gaze wander to the dark walkways above the glittering party.
Her eyes narrowed at a flash of movement. Soldiers wore blue, and servants wore black, so no one in white should be on the third floor, especially at this time of night.
“Kaleb Toporovsky?” Tomo called out, louder this time, and Alessa pulled her attention back to the matter at hand.
Visibly peeved, Kaleb looked up from his conversation with a handsome boy at the nearest table.
Alessa wrinkled her nose.
Auburn-haired and blue-eyed, with perfectly tanned skin, Kaleb was almost absurdly handsome—if you were into arrogant pricks—but she’d been thirteen to his fifteen the first time they’d met, and while eighteen and twenty didn’t feel nearly as far apart, she could never shake the feeling that Kaleb saw her as an annoying child he was forced to interact with. Granted, he looked at most people like that, so it might not be personal.
Kaleb took his time getting to the front of the stage. “Finestra, Fonte … new Finestra,” he drawled. “An honor, I’m sure.”
An honor for him? Or was he saying they were honored to have him? She tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but couldn’t.
Bolts of lightning danced above his palm as he plowed through a dry explanation of his powers, seeming annoyed that his gift made him eligible for anything but lazing about town. And yet, judging from his finery, he didn’t turn down the perks of being god-touched.
Next up were Kamaria and Shomari, copper-skinned twins wearing matching expressions of grim determination. Shomari’s eyes were flat when they met Alessa’s, while Kamaria’s glittered with something Alessa couldn’t interpret. Despite them being the only other set of boy/girl twins she’d ever met, she didn’t really know them. They’d gone to school together before she became Finestra, but Shomari and Kamaria were a year older, popular, and Fontes, while Alessa had been nobody back then. She’d admired them from afar but never tried to talk to them. And now they had to talk to her, which didn’t count.
Shomari lifted the water from a drinking goblet and swirled droplets through the air in intricate maneuvers. Kamaria, holding a candle, used her control over fire to turn the droplets into puffs of steam, occasionally winking at the crowd. Alessa hid a smile behind her glass. Some people, like Kamaria and Adrick, were born with too much charm to contain, and it poured forth no matter the circumstances.
Next up, Saida checked the gold headband holding her thick curls off her face before creating a wind funnel that made all the napkins on the head table twirl. She was also a year older than Alessa, but when she smiled at the applause, her round cheeks dimpled, and she appeared much younger.
Thanks to Hugo, Alessa had a bit of experience with wind power, but not enough to make Saida an automatic front-runner.
The next two performers were strangers who must have traveled from outside the city. One girl controlled fire, like Kamaria, and the other manipulated matter, like Nina, but not very well.
There was a long pause before the next performer. A skinny boy with glossy black hair, hovering slightly apart from the rest of the group, stepped up, his arms held stiffly at his sides and a look of determined courage on his face.
Alessa felt ill.
“Jun Cheong?” she whispered to Renata. “Really?”
“His parents weren’t thrilled, but he’s old enough.”
“Is he, though?”
Jun couldn’t be more than thirteen, and while the bonding of a Finestra and Fonte wasn’t a regular sort of marriage, Alessa didn’t want a child groom.
“No. Absolutely not. I used to babysit for him.”
Renata protested, as Alessa knew she would, but Tomo agreed, as she knew he would. And soon, they had one fewer prospect on their list. Alessa tried to give Jun’s parents a reassuring smile, but they didn’t know that Alessa was arguing for their son’s elimination and only looked more nervous.
When the last performance was over, Renata heaped effusive praise on the Fontes, so out of character for her that it made Alessa squirm, then invited the guests to enjoy the rest of the evening, with a pointed look at Alessa.
Alessa took a last, fortifying sip of water before stepping down from the dais, scanning the Fontes for a promising place to start. A smile was too much to hope for, but maybe someone would look her way without flinching.
Kaleb and his handsome friend were perusing a table of desserts, and a Fonte with pastries was more appealing than one without, so Alessa headed there first. Brushing a stray hair from his forehead, Kaleb met Alessa’s gaze, and her heart leapt. His power over electricity could make him a powerful Fonte, especially if he was willing and not compelled. She could deal with a poor personality if he was strong enough to endure her touch. And, who knew, maybe he was one of those people who looked angry but would warm up once she got to know him.
His lip curled as she neared, and he leaned in to say something to the other boy that made them snicker.
Face hot, Alessa bent to fix an imaginary problem with her shoe.
Fine. Not Kaleb, then.
She found another target. Their huddle tightened as she neared, but Kamaria, Shomari, Nina, and Josef held their ground.
At Alessa’s tentative hello, Kamaria and Shomari glanced at each other, a brief look loaded with words unspoken. Kamaria uncrossed her arms. Shomari did not.
Silence fell after a round of strained greetings. The others nursed their drinks, but Alessa had nothing to hold, so she wedged her hands inside the deep pockets of her skirt, picking at a loose thread. If Saverio’s morale depended on her talent for small talk, the outlook was bleak.
Nina tugged on her long reddish braid. “Do any of the books in the Cittadella say when, exactly, Divorando will arrive?”
“No,” Alessa said. “We won’t know the date until the First Warning.”
The gods’ idea of a countdown clock to the final invasion was a month of blights, floods and storms and locusts, so people didn’t forget that something much worse was coming.
Nina didn’t seem reassured. “But it will be sometime this year. Aren’t you worried?”
“Of course, she isn’t,” said Josef. “That’s why Dea sends the First Warning, so we know to begin preparing, and that hasn’t happened yet, so we still have plenty of time.”
“Exactly,” Alessa said. “She won’t let us miss it.”
“Right,” Nina said. “How big, exactly, are the scarabeo?”
Apparently, Nina hadn’t outgrown her tendency to blurt out uncomfortable topics. Kamaria sighed. “Nina, most people will never even see one. Including you. Right, Finestra?”
“Not from inside the Fortezza,” Alessa said. “You can leave the scarabeo to me. And my Fonte, of course.”
The scarabeo were the last thing Alessa wanted to talk about.
Joseph cleared his throat. “Have you chosen, then?”
Fine. Second to last.
“Not yet.” Alessa’s smile pulled tight as a violin string about to snap.
As the silence stretched from uncomfortable to painful, Alessa caught the eye of a passing server, who extended his tray as far as his arms would reach so Alessa could snag a sweet.
“You should try one,” Alessa said to the others, smiling too brightly. “They’re absolutely to die for.”
The words stuck in her throat as everyone flinched. Where was a scarabeo when you wanted to be torn to bits?
She cast up a silent apology. Dea, I didn’t mean that. Please give me as much time as possible.
The paving stones didn’t open up and swallow her as she requested, so she pinned on a smile and excused herself from the group.
Saida Farid sat alone, scribbling what appeared to be a recipe in a small notebook.
Alessa cleared her throat so she didn’t startle the girl. “What are you writing?”
Saida flushed and put the notebook in her lap. “It’s just a pet project. I like to analyze food, try to figure out the ingredients of dishes so I can recreate them. My goal is to write a culinary history of Saverio, to memorialize our ancestors’ respective cultures through food.”
“That’s ambitious.”
“It started as a school assignment, but it got me thinking about how most families have special dishes they’ve passed down for generations that aren’t written down anywhere else. I want to make sure they’re recorded, just in case…” She trailed off. “How’s your…” She gestured at Alessa’s ear.
Self-consciously, Alessa checked to be sure her hairstyle was still covering it and took an empty seat. “It’s fine. Really. Barely a scratch.”
“Still. Must have been scary.”
At the other girl’s sympathy, tears pricked Alessa’s eyes. She smiled harder to force them back. “Knives are the least of my problems, right?”
Saida’s tawny complexion went ashen. “But you’ve been working to get that, um, sorted out, right?”
Damn. She’d been referring to the scarabeo, not her Fonte-killing problem.
“Absolutely.” Alessa stood quickly. “I am confident, and I have everything under control.”
Whoops. She hadn’t meant to say the last part out loud. It seemed to reassure Saida, though, so for once, her tendency to say the quiet part out loud hadn’t made things noticeably worse.
It was past midnight when Alessa returned to the relative peace of her rooms. Sleep offered the only escape from the hum of anxious energy twitching through her body, but her bed loomed rather than beckoned. Insomnia never felt more inevitable than when she settled herself in the middle of the massive four-poster monstrosity, acres of cold emptiness on either side.
Alessa flopped onto the couch instead.
She still didn’t know who to choose. The strongest? The person whose gift was most practical? If her chosen Fonte didn’t live long enough to fight, what difference did it make? She needed a Fonte who would live.
Choosing Emer, her first Fonte, had been so easy. His funeral, unbearable.
At first, she’d been so angry when people insisted he was a bit too gentle, but the thought became a lifeline. It was still her fault for choosing him, but maybe not entirely her fault he’d died.
Her naive, selfish heart had wanted the golden boy with a sweet smile, and the gods had not approved. Message heard.
She’d chosen more wisely the next time.
Ilsi, Josef’s older sister, had been so confident, beautiful, and powerful she might have stepped out of the Cittadella’s mosaics. Everyone knew she’d be strong enough to withstand Alessa’s power, including Alessa, who’d been awestruck by the older girl, and for one brief day, Ilsi illuminated the Cittadella with her charismatic presence and sly sense of humor. Alessa hadn’t even decided whether she wanted Ilsi or wanted to be Ilsi before Ilsi was dead, too.
Once, she’d followed her heart. And Emer died.
Then she’d listened to her brain. And Ilsi died.
So she’d thrown the rules out the window and picked someone entirely different.
Poor Hugo.
It had been worth a shot.
She could put all their names in a bucket and ask Dea to guide her hand. Or read another dozen historical texts in search of hints that didn’t exist. Maybe rearrange their names to see if she could spell anything fun with the letters.
If only she could extinguish her thoughts like blowing out a candle. Her family used to affectionately joke about her “busy brain” but it wasn’t amusing when her thoughts refused to quiet themselves so she could rest.
She’d heard of people who struggled to sleep because of tingling in their legs, but the restlessness that plagued her nights went deeper than muscles. It was a nagging need, like her skin had shrunk in the wash and would never fit again.
In daytime, she could stay busy enough to ignore it, but when the night grew quiet and still, the clamoring returned.
Movement was her only remedy, so she spent most evenings pacing. Even when she wasn’t especially anxious—rare, but it happened—she’d walk her room for hours. But she’d already been on her feet all night socializing, if one was generous enough to call hours of stilted small talk “socializing,” so she closed her eyes and guided her thoughts to a sandy beach. Hot sand between her toes, waiting for someone special to row back to shore with fresh-caught fish for dinner. The sun, blindingly bright behind a tiny rowboat, erased the rower’s features, but imaginary Alessa knew exactly who it was, and her heart swelled …
Darkness descended, but before she’d fully sunk beneath, she jerked awake.
She couldn’t breathe.
Her eyes snapped open.
Couldn’t see.
Something—someone—had her pinned, trapped, crushing her windpipe. Thrashing, she fought to free herself. Her fingers scrabbled against leather. Hands, encased in thick gloves, tightening around her neck.
She wasn’t strong enough.
Alessa forced her fingers to reach, touching coarse fabric, a hard chest, thick arms—a sliver of bare skin between his collar and some sort of mask over his head.
The man’s grip faltered. She sucked in a desperate breath before he extended his arms to keep his vulnerability out of reach.
“Go easy, will you?” he growled in a coarse whisper as his hands tightened. “I’m trying to be respectful about it. Just let go and it’ll be over soon.”
Stars burst in her vision, colorful flashes in the darkness, like fireworks celebrating her impending death.