I wish I could do that. One day I’ll be able to do that.
“Where are we going to go?” Ale’s face is very white in the dark. “We can’t go into the catacombs, because of the ghost.”
“The ghost?” I say.
“I’ve decided that the blood-eating creature in the catacombs was a ghost,” he says. “Since the catacombs are obviously haunted. I knew it all along.”
“If that makes you feel better,” I say.
“It doesn’t,” he says.
“So we can’t go into the catacombs,” I muse. “Or any of the manors.”
And we obviously can’t go back to the cathedral.
There’s only one thing I can think to do. With another look around, I get to my feet and gesture for Ale to follow.
It takes a long time to sneak through the winding streets. It takes much longer than I wish it would. We have to stick to the shadows, our eyes constantly peeled for the glow of lantern light. The city feels tense, and the manors are all unnaturally quiet. Once or twice, I see a curtain flick aside as someone peeks out.
But at last, I see the vaulted roofs of the greenhouses up ahead. They surround the edge of the city. I’ve visited the ones in Occhia before, when my papá took me. He showed me that some families have their own, passed down since the city began. Other families, like ours, rely on the limited rations from the public food supply. My papá wanted me to understand that, no matter how much I thought I had, I could always have more. He told me that the people who have the most hold on to it the tightest, and if I wanted it, I’d have to take it for myself.
“Are those the greenhouses?” Ale whispers. “Maybe we should turn back.”
Ale’s family owns five greenhouses, because of course they do. If our wedding had gone through, I would own five greenhouses.
“That’s where we’re going,” I say.
“What?” he says. “Why?”
Because Verene said that there’s a group of people in Iris who don’t believe in her powers, and they meet here in secret. She said that they’ve been snooping around the catacombs, trying to spy on her. Maybe I can find them. And maybe they know something about her that I don’t.
“Because I’m still feeling peckish,” I say, which is also true.
Unfortunately for my peckishness, the first greenhouse we enter has nothing but lettuce, arranged in neat rows under the glass ceiling. The next one is more promising. The ceiling and the walls are covered in lush grapevines, with two trellises running down the middle. I make my way to the far side, then start munching. I try to think about how I would go about organizing a secret group in this network of glass buildings. Ale watches me anxiously.
“Emanuela,” he says, “the mob is going to search here eventually. If they trap us, and we still have no idea how to get past the ghost—”
The door opens. In a scramble, Ale and I dive for the nearest trellis. There’s a wheelbarrow full of gardening supplies sitting there, and we crouch behind it for extra cover.
Soft footsteps make their way across the stone floor. I peek through the leaves of the grapevines, and my heart leaps uncomfortably into my throat. It’s the last person I expected—Verene. She’s almost unrecognizable in nondescript clothes, a handkerchief over her face and her hair stuffed underneath a cap. After her ridiculous, frilly gown, it’s odd seeing her in pants. I feel like I’m being bombarded with the fact that she has legs.
“Oh, look,” she says, brushing the grapes with a gloved hand. “My favorite.”
Theo trudges in behind her. He’s also changed into a drab ensemble. He doesn’t look like he’s having a good time. I’m not sure what, exactly, would prompt him to have a good time, but it’s definitely not this.
“Anyway.” Verene turns back to him. “They saw the vide with their own eyes. They saw how we summon it. If they tell the Red Roses, well… it’s more information than any of them need to have.”
It’s strangely thrilling that she’s figured out my plan already. Now I have to plan faster.
“Vee.” Theo rubs his eyes. “There’s fifteen people in the Red Roses, and everyone else thinks they’re paranoid. They’re not our problem. Our problem is the intruders from the other city who are loose—”
“That’s fifteen people too many,” she snaps.
The subject of people who don’t believe in her magic and aren’t exuberant about her rule strikes such a nerve with her. It’s fascinating.
She rips a couple of grapes off their stems and pops them into her mouth, surveying the greenhouse in front of her. Then she starts walking again, and Theo follows her. He’s eyeing each and every single leaf with distaste.
“The intruders will come here,” she says. “They’re trapped, and they know it. They’re going to get desperate. They’re going to start trying to use anything they can against us.”
She stops. Her eyes flit to the trellis Ale and I are hiding behind. I hold very still.
“And then,” she says, “they’re going to find out what happens to people who threaten our city. They’re going to be sorry they ever—Wait.”
I tense, but she’s looking over her shoulder now.
“You’re bleeding again,” she says, reaching for Theo.
“Am I?” He sighs. “Maybe I should just go ahead and die.”
“Oh, stop it. Let me see.” She rolls up his shirt to look at the knife wound on his side and wrinkles her nose. “The stitches ripped. Sit down.”
He resists her tugging. “Not right there. It’s dirty.”
“You know what else is dirty?” she says. “Dripping your blood all over the floor to summon a—”
“I still have standards,” he says.
She forces him down, his back against the trellis opposite ours. She kneels at his side, pulls fresh gauze out of her pocket, and wraps him up quickly, like she’s always prepared for this exact situation.
“Marie will have to fix it properly later,” she says.
“I just knew they were bad news,” Theo mutters. “I knew from the moment I saw them at the door. I never should have let them in.”
“We’re going to stop them,” Verene says.
“She had that insufferable face,” he says. “And he had those giant, creepy eyes. And he was in my study… looking at all my things.…”
“You mean your boring diagrams of fountain pipes?” Verene says. “What could he have found to use against us there?”
“I don’t know,” Theo says darkly. “But he was trying.”
I glance at Ale. His hand is pressed anxiously against his shirt pocket.
If they knew we had the map of the eight cities, they wouldn’t be happy. Anyone who saw it would start to ask questions. Even someone completely devoted to Verene.
Verene pushes a loose curl back under her cap. “This is exactly why we destroyed all her information. So no one can find it and use it for their own purposes.”
“I know,” Theo says.
“Even if they did see the vide, they haven’t seen the rest,” she says. “The cities. The… the source of the magic. They don’t know everything, and they never will.”