Whoever this woman is, she’s all over the city.
All too soon, we’re at the end of a street that faces the cathedral. Just like in Occhia, it’s never far away. Its looming towers are white and striking against the red veil. The enormous double doors are shut. I strain my ears for organ music, the familiar sound of worship, but I hear nothing.
“Where’s…” Ale says. “Where’s the—”
He cuts himself off with an uneasy look at me.
The watercrea’s tower. In Occhia, it’s right behind the cathedral, peeking over its shoulder, always visible. But here, I don’t see anything.
I start walking again. Faster.
“Wait—” Ale runs after me.
I reach the edge of the cathedral square. Off to one side are white, columned buildings that look very much like Occhia’s Parliament buildings. On the other side is a public garden, lusher and greener than any I’ve ever seen. There’s still no sign of anyone.
There’s something very unusual about this city, and I know what it is, but I’m afraid to name it, even inside my own head.
I lead Ale across the square. I try to look like I visit this cathedral every day. I try to look like I know exactly what I’m going to find inside.
I’m just past the halfway point when I feel it. Someone is watching me approach. I’m certain of it.
I stop. I survey the cathedral’s closed doors and intricate white face and narrow windows. There’s no sign of life.
I turn to Ale. “Did you feel…?”
“What?” he says, instantly on alert.
“Nothing,” I say, and keep going.
I’m not dead, I remind myself. As long as I’m not dead, I can handle anything.
I climb the steps to reach the cathedral doors. And finally, I can hear something beyond the thick walls. It’s the steady, muffled hum of voices. Of people.
I stare at the intricate wood paneling and will myself to just reach out and push my way inside. I think about the last time I was in a cathedral that looked almost, but not quite, like this one. I think about my papá’s arm in mine and Ale waiting at the altar and the woman in the red gown who took one look at me and knew about my omen.
I think about the thing I saw in the catacombs, and the moment when its eyes met mine.
I think about my nursemaid, stuck in a city with no water, braving the guards so that I could slip away. I think about my people panicking in the streets. I think about all those prisoners in the watercrea’s tower. No one else is going to help them.
I reach out and slowly, slowly push on the door.
Someone on the other side wrenches it open and ushers me inside, and all at once, Ale and I are propelled through the foyer and surrounded by people. The inner chamber is full of them. They’re milling around under the enormous arched ceilings, their chatter loud as it echoes off the walls. There are no pews. There’s no altar. There’s a shiny floor of black-and-white tile and, in the very center, an enormous, three-tiered dais.
It looks like the statues we saw in the street. But there’s no marble woman standing on top. It’s empty.
For a moment, I’m frozen at the edge of the crowd. I’m waiting, instinctively, to be recognized. I’ve never gone anywhere in Occhia and not been recognized. I’ve never been so surrounded by people I don’t know. I’ve never walked into an event and not known, more or less, everything that was going to happen.
“She’s late,” the man next to me says, shifting impatiently. His eyes are on the dais.
“She’ll be here soon,” his friend says.
They’re not speaking in Occhian, but rather an oddly accented version of Culaire. In my city, Culaire is mostly confined to a neighborhood that we call the Lily. I speak it well, of course, because I’m very educated. And I like the art market in the Lily. They have the fanciest desserts.
But I’m not in the Lily. I’m in… this place.
Someone elbows me in the back as they push past, and I whip around in surprise. People in Occhia know better than to jostle me.
It’s a tall girl in a maid’s dress. She has a red smudge on her cheek. It’s so unexpected—so very blatant—that, for a moment, I can’t even comprehend what it is.
It’s an omen.
No. It’s not just one omen. She has two omens on her cheek.
She doesn’t seem to notice. It feels like I’m the only one who can see them. And for a moment, I’m convinced that none of this is real.
Then the dais in the center of the room goes up in smoke. Huge columns of it shoot out of the center, dissolving into the high ceiling.
I grab Ale’s wrist, fully prepared to run away from whatever horrifying thing is about to happen. But then I realize that nobody around me seems concerned. Instead, they’re starting to sing.
At first, it’s more of a murmur. But as the smoke starts to clear, it builds. The words sound like a language I’ve never heard, which is unnerving. I thought I was at least passably familiar with every language spoken in my city. But then, this isn’t my city.
The shadow of a person appears on top of the dais, and the singing grows. People put their arms in the air, like they’re reaching for the mysterious figure.
Ale and I exchange a sideways look. We’re the only people in this entire room who don’t know the song. He sinks down a little, trying to make himself less tall.
The smoke dissipates to reveal a woman in a white gown. A girl, maybe. I’m very far away and she’s very far above, but she looks young and slender, with brown skin and long, curly hair. There’s a white rose tucked behind one of her ears. She’s smiling. And even though I can barely see her face, I can tell that she’s glowing, like there’s nowhere else she’d ever want to be.
I know instantly who she is. She’s the statue.
The singing is tremendous now. The people are beaming and jostling me in their excitement.
The girl lifts her white-gloved hands.
The singing cuts off. The crowd around me vibrates in anticipation.
And then, water.
It pours down from the platform under the girl’s feet, falling from tier to tier to gather in a basin below. Two streams form an archway over her head, framing her. All around the statue, streams are coming to life, leaping from place to place to form an elaborate lattice below her.
I’ve never seen anything like it. Like the rest of this city, it’s beautiful.
And then, it’s shooting out from the fountain into the crowd.
And then, it’s everywhere.
It’s hitting me in the face. I think it came out of the ceiling. I’m not sure. All I know is that I’m reeling and sputtering, and it won’t stop coming. No one else seems concerned. As far as I can tell, they’ve still got their arms up, soaking it in.
Abruptly, the deluge stops. When I’ve blinked it all out of my eyes, I turn to find Ale, his hair plastered to his forehead. He’s staring at the drops of water running off his fingers like he’s trying to figure out if they’re real.
I look back at the dais, only to find that the girl in the white gown has disappeared. The soaked crowd pushes us back out the cathedral doors, like the show is over, and I’m too baffled to resist.
At the top of the steps, I catch a brief glimpse of the city laid out below—the red veil over the shining white manors, and the branching cobblestone streets cutting it all up.