He’d stopped smiling. A little furrow appeared between his eyebrows.
“Oh,” he said. “That’s… I don’t think you should spread that story around, Emanuela. You don’t want people to think you’re—”
“But if you… if you get an omen… would you really want to…” I trailed off at the blank look on his face.
“Well,” he said, “God willing, that won’t happen anytime soon.”
Because if it did, he would follow the law and turn himself in. Because he trusted the people who had made the laws. He trusted the city that had raised us.
He drained the last of his wine. “Can we maybe not talk about my death anymore?” he said.
He was missing the point. He was preoccupied with his own business—and also, I suspected, tipsy. I could press him on it, like I pressed everyone on everything.
But then again, I didn’t need to. The omen on my hip was meaningless. It had no power over me. And whether or not he knew about it, it wouldn’t change how he felt about me. So if he kept on not knowing, that was fine.
I crossed the room and sank down on a nearby love seat. “I’ve grown bored of the party,” I said. “Let’s stay in here.”
“What about your friends?” he said.
“It’s healthy for them to miss me,” I said.
“But we’re not supposed to be unchaperoned,” he said. “What if someone sees us—”
“Sees us doing what, Alessandro? Or did I gravely misunderstand the talk we just had?”
He turned pink. “Right. Well, I did want to take a look at these books—I think this one is a special printing—”
He was already snatching up one of his favorites. And I knew that if I stayed on the love seat for the rest of the night, I was going to have to listen to him explain the complicated inner life of the heroine for the hundredth time. I was going to miss all the other nobles’ gossip, and I’d have nothing to report back to my papá, but for a moment, I didn’t care.
I’ve lived my whole life in the same house on the same street. I thought being “lost” meant going to a party in a less familiar neighborhood and having a moment of uncertainty that I was at the right manor. I thought it meant taking a wrong turn in the cathedral and finding one of the priests in a back room, chugging the holy wine—and then, of course, using the resulting leverage to get out of the most boring religion lessons. When I was a child and I heard the stories about Occhians of the past venturing slightly too deep into the catacombs and never returning, I assumed it was their own fault. I had no intention of ever entering the catacombs, but if I did, I thought, I would simply pay attention to where I was going.
Apparently, it’s a bit trickier than that. Ale and I had the brilliant idea to arrange pebbles on the ground to mark the places we’ve already been, but we’ve yet to see any of our pebbles twice. It’s been hours. Maybe days. My grasp on time has become so tenuous that I’m not sure. What I am sure about are the facts that we drank all the water, and we ate all the bread, and the lantern is burning low.
I’ve taken the lead, sweeping the dimming lantern around the hall as I go. My feet are aching and I’m desperate to lie down, but I can’t stop moving. If I stop moving, then I’ll notice how quiet it is. I’ll realize how thin the air feels, like it’s not meant for breathing. I’ll think about the footprints we’re leaving in the ancient dust—proof that people don’t truly belong in this place.
When Ale and I were children, our nursemaids used to blow out all the candles and compete to tell us the most terrifying ghost story. They’re a prized possession in Occhia, passed down and honed over generations for maximum spookiness. I was always the one who demanded the stories, and I would get very annoyed at Ale for interrupting with his hysterical crying. Right now, I sort of wish he’d hysterically cried so much that I’d never heard the stories at all.
We reach another fork. I stop at the top of two staircases, branching away from us and extending down into the darkness. I look desperately for a sign that we’ve been here before. I’m not intimately familiar with the edges of the city, because it contains a whole lot of nothing, but I feel like we should have run into the conspicuously glowing red veil by now. It surrounds Occhia on all sides, so if we haven’t found it, that means we’re going in some sort of horrible, convoluted circle.
Something touches my shoulder. I jump, but then I realize it’s just Ale.
“What?” I say. My voice is hoarse.
He looks exhausted. His hair is dusty, because he keeps bumping his head on the low doorways. Without a word, he reaches into his pocket and pulls something out.
I recognize the embroidered red wrapper instantly. It’s one of the famous handcrafted chocolates from the House of Adornetto. Ale always has one on his person. If I become hungry and unpleasant, he retrieves it and nudges it in my direction in the most passive-aggressive way possible.
It’s the only thing we have left. We should savor it.
“Open it.” I push at him like an impatient child. “Open it, open it—”
He fumbles in his desperation. The chocolate slips out of his hands, and I catch a glimpse of it tumbling down one of the staircases.
I scramble after it like a girl possessed, Ale on my heels.
I’m on the bottom step, reaching for my grimy prize, when I feel something strange. It feels like the chill of eyes on my skin, but that can’t be. We’re so very alone down here.
I lift my head.
At the other end of the hall, there’s a tall, slender figure in the doorway. I have a brief impression of legs and arms. I see something gauzy and white covering most of a face, making it indistinct in the shadows. But, just for a second, I meet the figure’s eyes, and they’re dark and glittering.
It doesn’t look like one of the watercrea’s guards. The problem is that I don’t know what, exactly, it looks like.
I lift the lantern higher.
There’s something on the figure’s hands. Something red and glistening.
The lantern finally gives up. The flame goes out. And everything is black.
I throw the lantern wildly in the direction of the intruder. It’s not exactly my most cunning decision, but it’s not really a decision at all. It’s an instinct. I’m already scrambling back up the steps, grabbing for Ale and clinging to his shirt, because if I lose him in the dark, I’ll never find him again.
We run. We can’t stop. I refuse to let us stop. We’re stumbling around corners and going up and down staircases and then, abruptly, we hit something blocking our path. It rattles against our hands. It doesn’t have the solid finality of stone. It feels like, at last, a wooden door.
I feel around for the handle, and after a few frantic moments, I manage to get it open and tumble through.
It’s so bright. It’s too bright. I find myself on my hands and knees, squinting and desperate for my eyes to adjust. I can’t just crouch here in uncertainty. I need to know what’s happening to me.
Then, finally, I can see. I look up, and I stare.
And stare.
I should know the cobblestone street winding away from me. I should know the manors with arched windows and intricate iron balconies. I should know the towering cathedral looming in the distance.