“Think about this logically, Emanuela,” he says. “You have to do what’s best for the whole family. A mob chased us out of our home, you know. Mamma and your brothers… they’re wasting away. All the cousins—they’re so weak. Do you want to make things even worse for them?”
“Of course not,” I say. “I’m not going to make things worse. I’m going to save us.”
“Well, you turned the entire city upside down,” he says. “It’s a mess out here. I can’t even begin to describe to you how unruly things have gotten. But we can fix it. Once the House of Ragno saves the city, we’ll start repairing your reputation. It will be grueling, but it can be done. I have some ideas for where to start.”
This is how it always is. He always has ideas. We always work together.
But as long as I’m in these chains, we’re not working together.
“We’ll repair my reputation,” I say slowly.
“Yes,” he says.
“And what?” I say. “I’ll go back to the exact same life I had before? The life you set up for me?”
“Is that not what you want?” he says.
“I… I don’t know.” I’m realizing it as I say the words. “I don’t know if I want to spend all of my days in Parliament with a bunch of old men and their laws.”
“You have the mind for it,” he says.
“I have the mind for many things,” I say. “And Ale and I—we’re best friends. That’s what’s always mattered. Not whether or not we were married.”
Something flickers in my papá’s eyes.
“The Morandi boy would be the most valuable husband in the city,” he says. “We can still find a way to—”
“And the watercrea…” I say.
If I hadn’t killed the watercrea, I would have spent the rest of my life afraid of the moment she discovered me. I had to stop her. I’m doing exactly what I need to do. Right now, I’m more certain of it than ever.
“Emanuela,” my papá says. “Your old life was perfect. You don’t have to lose it all just because you…” He pauses. “We can fix all this. Together. What else could you possibly want?”
He doesn’t understand. I’m not just going to bring the water back. I’m going to save us. I’m going to protect us. I’m going to make sure I’m doing absolutely everything I can for us. There are six other cities across the veil that I haven’t gotten to see yet. There’s a girl in a white gown I still have to defeat—a girl who just got magic and whose next move is now, thrillingly, impossible for me to predict.
“More,” I say.
My papá is quiet. But he understands. He must. I got my ambition from him.
“Well?” I say. “Can I come out now?”
“There really are other cities?” he says. “There’s a city that has our water?”
“Yes,” I say breathlessly.
He hesitates. I wait for him to start picking the lock on my cell.
“And how do we get the water back?” he says.
“I—” I falter. “I told you. I can show you. There’s a way to—”
“Just tell me how, and I’ll do it,” he says as calm as ever.
“No,” I say, automatically. “I have to show you—”
He sighs and stands up. “Clearly, you can get to the other cities through the catacombs, since that’s where you came from. So I’ll send another search party down there.”
“Wait,” I say. “It won’t be that simple. There’s a—” I cut myself off.
“There’s what?” he says.
I can’t tell him about the vide. Until I’m out of this cell, I can’t tell him anything.
He sighs. “I don’t enjoy seeing you in here, Emanuela. I want you out. I do. But things are getting very dire for Occhia. If you can’t control your hysterics for long enough to comprehend my very sensible plan, I’ll do it without you.”
He starts to turn away, but then he pauses.
“You’ll thank me later,” he says.
As if he gets to decide that. As if he gets to decide anything at all about me.
I throw myself at the bars, and when I hit them, the clang is tremendous. My papá flinches and stumbles back.
“I can do this without you,” I say.
His eyes flicker to the chains wrapped around my whole body. “It doesn’t look like it.”
Then he’s gone, slipping away down the stairs. The tower door creaks open and slams shut.
I sink down to the floor of my cell. I don’t understand what just happened. I don’t understand why he’s not proud of me. I don’t understand why he doesn’t want me at his side.
I’ve never seen him flinch the way he flinched when I threw myself at him. He looked… terrified.
Last time, the tower was mostly silent, but that was nothing compared to the quiet now. There’s not even the faintest suggestion of breath or movement from the other prisoners. They must have all wasted away and disappeared. There are no guards thumping up and down the stairs. Outside, the cathedral bells aren’t even ringing.
I feel like I’m the only person in the whole city. All I can do is remind myself that I’m not. I have to be patient.
But when I’m lying here, alone in the dark, I have nothing to do but relive it all again. The watercrea’s needle in my neck. The cold, sick feeling of my blood being sucked out of me. The quiet defeat of the other prisoners—the sound of a hundred people dying without a fight.
I turn over and shut my eyes, desperate to block it out. But I can’t. This place is crawling all over my skin and into my ears. It’s telling me I only managed to escape it for three days. It’s telling me that being able to run from my omen for ten years was just luck, and I can’t run forever.
I know it’s lying. But the longer it talks, the harder it is to fight off.
Hours later, when I hear the tower door creak open, I sit up and press my face to the bars. I don’t care if it’s an angry mob. I just need to talk to someone.
“Hello?” I say. My voice sounds so small in the empty stairwell.
I hear his soft steps and see his long shadow on the floor, and then Ale comes into view. He stops in front of my cell. He doesn’t say anything. He just looks at me.
He’s changed clothes. It’s good to see him in familiar Occhian attire, dark and drab as it is. His missing eye is covered with gauze, bandages wrapped around his head to hold it in place. His hair is matted with dried blood. Apparently, even at the illustrious House of Morandi, he didn’t have enough water to clean himself properly.
I want to ask if the wound hurts. I want to ask if he’s all right. But they seem like such silly questions. The important thing is that I get him the water he needs. Then I’m going to make sure he rests, because he looks like he really needs to lie down.
“Did the guards see you?” I say.
He hesitates. Then he shakes his head. He gingerly touches the bandage around his head, like he’s making sure it’s in place.
“Verene is going to pay for what she did to you,” I say. “I’ll make sure of it.”