All of a sudden, she looks helpless. And after what she did to my city, that’s how she deserves to feel. It’s as simple as that.
Theo curses under his breath and runs for the edge of the well. I block his path and point my sewing scissors at him.
“If you stay very still and answer my questions, maybe I’ll let you save her,” I say.
If she can even be saved, that is. She’s sinking so quickly.
I know, obviously, that Verene could die. The thought is occurring to me as I stare at the desperate blur of her under the water. But I don’t care if she dies. She’s not magical. She’s not special. And she’s certainly not important to me.
Theo considers me. Then, with one precise movement, he whacks the scissors out of my hand.
I should have brought a bigger weapon.
Just as Theo is about to push me aside, too, Ale bursts through the door. He’s holding an enormous kitchen knife.
I’ve never been so glad to see him.
What happens next is a blur. Ale dives at Theo. There’s a sharp, wet sound and a very undignified yelp. A second later, the knife clatters to the floor, and Ale leaps away from it like it’s on fire.
There’s blood all over it. And Theo is on the floor at the edge of the well, clutching at his side.
I look at Ale. “You… you stabbed him.”
Ale is still staring at Theo. He looks like he hasn’t processed it. He looks like he’s not going to process it any time soon. His face is all horror, but I mostly feel a strange sense of pride. For once, I didn’t have to do absolutely everything myself.
I march over to Theo. I kick him onto his back, and he grunts in pain as I put my foot on his chest. There’s blood all over his white gloves and smeared on the floor next to him. It’s actually quite a lot. I can even smell it, and for a moment, I feel a little nauseated. But I don’t feel any sympathy.
“I know that you’re stealing this water,” I say. “And I know who you’re stealing it from.”
“Em-Emanuela,” Ale stammers behind me.
In the well, Verene has stopped splashing.
I’ve been in this city for less than a day, and I’ve already reduced its leader and her accomplice to this. It’s almost pathetic, how quickly I broke down their little act of being more perfect and more powerful than everyone else. They look so ordinary now. Ordinary and broken. Just like the watercrea.
I lean harder on Theo’s chest, and he winces. He must know how close Verene is to dying, too, but he doesn’t look panicked. Maybe he’s too distracted by the pain. Maybe they didn’t even care about each other. Maybe he’s glad that he doesn’t have to design her fountains anymore.
“I know there’s no magic in this city,” I say. “You can’t control my blood. You can’t scare me with…” I trail off.
I don’t like how quiet he’s being. I don’t like the look on his face. He’s looking at me like he knows something I don’t.
“Emanuela!” Ale grabs me and pulls me back.
Only then do I see it.
On the floor beside Theo, something is… happening.
There’s a shadow forming. It doesn’t have a shape. It’s just a smudge. But Theo’s blood is disappearing. Like the shadow is consuming it.
The shadow moves abruptly, and Ale and I leap back, pressing ourselves against the wall. But it’s not moving in our direction. It slides over the edge of the well and disappears.
Theo sits up. He’s clutching at the wound in his side, and his breathing is ragged, but he doesn’t look the least bit afraid. He just looks grim.
“Did you really think there was no blood?” he says. “There’s always blood.”
The shadow flies out of the well, and all of a sudden, water sprays all over the room, cold and heavy. I duck. When I can see again, Verene is lying on the floor, soaking wet. She rolls onto her side and retches, water spewing out of her mouth.
And then the shadow is coming for us.
I don’t think. I just run. I push Ale back toward the stairs, and we throw ourselves up the steps. I don’t know how we make it to the top. It must be out of sheer desperation. We fling open the door and then, suddenly, we’re back in the peaceful dining room of the cathedral. The chandelier is still flickering softly.
I slam the door behind us and look around, searching the shiny tile floor and the white walls.
The shadow is nowhere to be found.
“What—” Ale is dripping wet and shaking. There’s blood on his hands. “What was that… thing?”
I don’t know. All I know is that we need to get out of here.
I run through the parlor, down the stairs, and into the foyer of the cathedral. The double doors are dead-bolted shut, and I’m certain that when I try to push the lock aside, they’re going to magically slam back into place. But they don’t. A moment later, Ale and I are stumbling out into the night.
For a moment, I just stand in the cathedral square, looking around wildly. It must be quite late. The veil has already deepened to black, and some of the windows in the manors around us have gone dark. I spot a few distant figures loitering on the steps of a manor, passing around a bottle of wine, and off to the side, I can hear the sound of revelry coming from the public gardens. Of course someone is having a garden party. This is a beautiful, perfect city, and its people can enjoy all the parties they want.
Everyone here thinks Verene is a saint. They don’t know about my people. They don’t know what she’s taking from us. They don’t know that we’re dying.
I turn to Ale. “We can’t get back to Occhia.”
“What?” he says.
“We can’t get back to Occhia,” I repeat, more forcefully. “That thing… it lives in the catacombs. It moves around in the catacombs. It’s what they’re using to steal the water from us. It has to be. If we try to go back down there, it could—”
“They’re stealing water from us?” he says. “With that thing? But, Emanuela, what was it?”
“I don’t know.” My voice is too loud.
“It can swallow water,” he says, like he’s realizing it as he speaks. “And people. But… where did it come from?”
“They’re the children of this city’s last ruler,” I say. “The ruler with blood magic. Maybe it was some sort of power they got from her.”
“What?” he says. “She had children? But why didn’t she just pass down the exact same magic—”
“I don’t know, Ale! I don’t know what’s going on in this city. But I was so sure I could figure it out. I was so sure—and we can’t get back to Occhia—and—”
And I almost killed Verene back there. I almost killed another person. And I didn’t even really think about what I was doing until it was too late.
My papá always says that I never stop until I get what I want, and that it’s the best thing about me. And it is. It’s never scared me before. Not the way it’s scaring me now.
Ale puts a hand on my back.
“I…” I say. “We should…”
I want to tell him that I have a plan. I want to tell him that we’re closer to getting this city’s water. But we’re not. And I can’t.