I look around wildly. It’s dark. I have no idea where I am.
“Verene,” I say. “She—she was—”
“She’s right out there,” he says. “Shh, Emanuela.”
We’re in an alley between two manors. For a bewildered moment, I just take in the laundry strung up overhead. Then I turn around and see lantern light. I crawl to the mouth of the alley and look out.
There’s a small group of people in the street. They’re all staring at something on the cobblestone. Someone. Verene is lying there, limp and unconscious. Theo is standing over her stiffly. He looks very much like he’s trying to get rid of the bystanders, but they’re not moving.
I turn back to Ale. “What happened?” I say. “You were—”
“I came back to the greenhouse, but you were gone,” he says. “He tried to chase me into the catacombs, and that was when we found you. You and her, lying at the entrance.” He pauses. “Bleeding.”
I notice dimly that there’s a strip of fabric wrapped around my injured hand. Ale tore off the bottom of his shirt.
“We have to—” I’m still fumbling to get my thoughts in order. “We’re too close to them. He’s going to send the mob after us—”
“He was trying to come after us himself,” Ale says. “But then he got interrupted. When he saw all the blood on you, he looked… I don’t know. I don’t think he wants the people of Iris to see you.”
He looks at me expectantly. Like he wants me to explain how, exactly, all this blood came about.
“So we have the advantage right now,” I say.
“We could escape,” Ale says. “If… if we knew how to stop the vide.”
It comes back in a rush. I want to tell him everything I just learned. I want to share the thrill of the magic. The thrill of the control. The thrill of not having to be afraid of something anymore.
But then the last piece of my memory falls into place.
I fainted. I barely even did any magic with the vide, and I fainted.
Verene has been using this magic to bring water to her city, but there’s a price. She’s weakened. She spends all her time in the cathedral, dizzy and resting. She gives up entirely too much of herself just to keep things the way they are.
The disappointment is bitter. Magic isn’t supposed to cost this much. Magic didn’t seem to cost the watercrea anything.
If magic can be chosen, I want to choose the most powerful magic there is. I want the kind of magic that can bring water to a city that has none. I want the kind of magic that will let me go everywhere and change everything.
I want the kind of magic that belongs to me, and only me.
I want more.
But I don’t know how to get more.
I look back at the street just as a man tries to duck around Theo, reaching for Verene. Theo shoves the man in the chest, hard.
It startles everyone. For a moment, I think Theo looks a little startled, too. But then he doubles down, bracing himself in front of Verene like he’s daring someone else to try.
“Emanuela,” Ale whispers. “What… what should we do?”
The people on the street look so unsettled. They don’t know what’s happening to their Heart. They don’t know why she would have been attacked in such a strange way—ending up with blood on her hands, and nowhere else.
They don’t know why her brother is suddenly acting like he’s hiding something.
I stand up. I’m a little woozy, and Ale reaches for me, but I brace myself on the white wall of the alley.
“Quickly,” I say. “We have to get back to the cathedral before they do.”
FOURTEEN
I DON’T KNOCK ON THE FRONT DOOR OF THE CATHEDRAL. I find a narrow window around the back and shatter it with a rock, because we don’t have the time to bother with subtlety.
I pick the lock to get back into Verene and Theo’s quarters. We make our way down the hall and into the dark parlor. I survey the fluffy white love seats arranged under the beautiful stained-glass window, and I wait for someone to leap out and try to stop us.
No one does. So I lead Ale down the hall and into the studiously clean bedroom that I ignored the last time I was here.
“Shut the door,” I say. “Look around.”
“That was a long walk,” he says. “Are you sure you don’t need to sit down—”
“Just start looking,” I say.
“What are we looking for?” he says.
“Haven’t you always wanted the chance to snoop around in a boy’s bedroom?” I say.
Ale flushes. “Not this boy. Do you know what he told me, when he was trying to catch me back there? He told me that I’m ruining his life. What a selfish thing to say.”
“He also said your eyes were giant and creepy,” I say, opening the nightstand drawers.
“Oh, I remember,” he says.
“And look at the books all over his bed,” I say. “What kind of sad person keeps books on his bed? It’s like admitting that you’ll never have any suitors.”
“And—” Ale says. “Well, I—I do that.”
I know. I couldn’t resist.
“But my books are good,” Ale insists, rifling through the ones on the bed. “They’re imaginative and romantic, not… math.”
“Shake them out and make sure there’s nothing hidden in the pages,” I say.
“Do you think he’s hiding something about the vide in here?” he says. “But why in his bedroom? We could look in his study again. I wasn’t able to properly search it with him glowering at me the whole time.”
I look beneath the pillows and run my hands under the mattress.
“Do you think he’s hiding something… from her?” Ale says.
I wish he would stop asking questions and just help me. Verene and Theo are probably sneaking through the catacombs or the streets right now.
“Anything is possible,” I say. “He seemed to be hiding that map of the eight cities.”
“I don’t know, Emanuela,” he says. “Maybe… maybe there’s another explanation for that. Maybe he just didn’t want her to worry about it being stolen. What they’re doing is terrible, but they’re in it together. They have to trust each other.”
I turn around. “Everybody hides things.”
I’m not really thinking about the fact that I’m talking to the boy who found about my secret omen on our wedding day. As soon as I realize it, I regret the words.
For a long moment, Ale just looks at me. I can’t quite read his face, which is disconcerting.
“Everybody hides small things,” he says. “Things that don’t really matter.”
“Fine,” I say. “Everybody hides small things.”
I turn away quickly to search the dresser. For a moment, we both work in a profound silence. I pick through a truly astounding assortment of colognes.
“Emanuela,” Ale says. “I found something. Under the bed—”
I whip around. Ale is kneeling on the floor, holding a large painting.
It’s a family portrait. It takes me a moment to recognize the children. Theo and Verene are sitting with their tiny hands folded, dressed in a startling shade of red. Verene’s voluminous hair is pulled back and stifled, and her high-necked dress looks like it’s choking her. There’s a dark-skinned man standing behind her with his hand on her shoulder. He has a perfectly groomed beard and a regal face. A single rose is pinned to his chest.