The Young Elites
Page 26

“What if I tell my men to kill her now, unless you give me what I want?”
My jaw tightens. Stay brave. “Then I’ll never talk.” I meet his stare with my own, refusing to back down. The last time we met, he had taken me by surprise and I cowered before him. This time, I can’t afford to do the same thing.
Finally, Teren nods at me to follow him. “Come, then,” he says, gesturing to the Inquisitors. “Let’s play your game.”
Success. The Inquisitors lower their swords and drag me to my feet. Gradually, I start to gather energy in my chest. I’m going to need everything I have, or there is no hope of escaping this place with Violetta.
He leads us farther down into the dungeons, down, down, until I stop counting the number of stony steps we’ve covered. How far does this go? As we continue, I hear the cries of prisoners ringing from other floors, a chorus of haunted wails. I have to hold my breath down here. Never in my life have I felt so much fear and anger concentrated in a single place. The emotions swim around me, hungering for me to do something with them. My own anger and fear threaten to overwhelm my senses. I grit my teeth, hanging on to my powers. I could do so much down here. I could conjure an illusion like none of them have ever seen.
But I continue to hold back. Not until I see Violetta myself.
Finally, Teren guides us down to a floor quieter than the rest. Small wooden doors covered with iron bars line the walls. We walk through a narrowly lit corridor until we stand before a lone door at the very end. I nearly stagger, so powerful is my darkness here. I was in a place like this once.
“Your sister,” he says to me, giving me a mock bow. One of the other Inquisitors unlocks the door, and it groans open.
I blink. Behind the heavy door is a tiny, cramped cell. Candles burn along small ledges on the wall. A bed of hay is piled in one corner, and on it sits a girl with a sweet, fragile face and a head of dark locks that now look tangled and dull. She is thin and frail, shaking from the cold. Her wide eyes find me. I’m ashamed by my rush of mixed emotions at the sight of her—joy, love, hate, envy.
“Adelina?” my sister says. And suddenly I remember the night I ran away from home, when she stood in my bedchamber’s doorway and rubbed sleep from her eyes.
Inquisitors immediately file in and surround her. She shrinks away from them on the bed, tucking her knees up to her chin. As she does, I notice the heavy shackles on her wrists and ankles that keep her chained to the bed.
Darkness roars inside me. What illusion can I perform that could get us out before they can hurt her? I gauge the distance between us, the number of steps that separate the Inquisitors and me, me and Teren. All of Raffaele’s and Enzo’s lessons run through my mind.
Teren waits for me to step inside the room, and then closes the door behind him. He strolls closer to Violetta. As he does, I feel her fear spike—and with that, mine does too. Teren looks her over with a critical gaze, then turns back to me with a sweep of his cloak.
He studies me. “Tell me, Adelina—what are their names?”
I open my mouth.
Tell him about the horrible Spider, the little whispers say gleefully in my head. Go on. He deserves it. Give him Enzo, and Michel, and Lucent. Give him Gemma. You’re doing so well. In my head, I imagine confessing everything I know to Teren.
“Where are the Young Elites?” he’ll say.
“The Fortunata Court,” I’ll reply.
“Where?”
“It has many secret passages. They use the catacombs underneath the court. You can find the entrance in the smallest garden.”
“Tell me their names.”
I do.
The vision in my head vanishes, and I once again see Teren standing before me. Somehow, the confessions don’t come out.
Despite my silence, Teren seems calm. “Adelina, I’m impressed. Something did happen to you.”
A faint warning buzzes in my head. “You want their names,” I say, prolonging the game.
Teren observes me with an interested stare. His lips twitch. “Still hesitant, aren’t you?” He walks in a slow circle around me, close enough that I can feel the brush of his cloak against my skin. With a chill, I realize that it reminds me of when Raffaele circled me during my test with the gemstones, sizing me up, studying my potential.
Finally, Teren stops before me. He draws his sword and points it at Violetta. My heart twists. “Why do you protect them so loyally, Adelina? What did they promise you, once you were part of their circle? Did they make you believe that they’re a band of noble heroes? That they recruited you for some honorable cause, instead of the murder they actually commit? Do you think their Spring Moons stunt didn’t claim any innocent lives?” He fixes his pale, pulsing eyes on me. “I’ve seen what you can do. I know of the darkness in your soul. You were willing to run from them—I’d wager that you don’t trust them. There’s something . . . different about you. They don’t like you, do they?”
How could he possibly know that? “What are you trying to say?” I ask through clenched teeth.
“You’re here because you know you don’t belong,” he replies coolly. “Let me tell you something, Adelina. There’s no shame in turning your back on a group of criminals who want nothing more than to burn this entire nation to the ground. Do you think they’d protect you if you were in danger?” He turns, his gaze sidelong.
I think back to how malfettos have burned at the stake, and how the Daggers chose not to save them. Because they weren’t Elites.
“They came for you that day because you had something they wanted,” Teren says, as if he knows what I’m thinking. “No one throws away something useful to them—that is, until it’s no longer useful.”
He’s right.
“I’ve grown fond of you, in the time we’ve spent together,” he continues. “Do you ever think on the myth of the angel of Joy and his brother, the angel of Greed? Do you remember the story of Denarius casting Laetes from the heavens, condemning him to walk the world as a man until his death sent him back among the gods? Curing the angel of Joy of his arrogance in thinking that he was the gods’ most beloved child?” He leans closer. “There is an imbalance in the world, just as there was when Joy left the heavens—warning signs of demons walking with us, defying the natural order. Sometimes, the only way to set things right is to do what is difficult. It is the only way to love them back.” All pretense of amusement is now gone from his face. “That’s why I was sent by the gods. And I feel, too, that perhaps you were sent for the same reason. There is a yearning in you to set things right, little malfetto—you are smarter than the others, because you know there is something wrong with you. It tears at your conscience, doesn’t it? You have hatred for yourself, and I admire that. It’s why you keep coming back to me. The only way to cure yourself of this guilt is to atone for it by saving your fellow abominations. Help them return to the Underworld, where they belong. Do this with me. You and I can set the world right again, and when we do, the gods will deem us forgiven.” His voice has taken on a strange, gentle tone. “It doesn’t seem right or kind, I know—it seems cruel. But it must be done. Do you understand?”
Something about his words makes sense. They twist around my head and my heart until they seem logical. I am an abomination—even to the other Daggers. Perhaps it really is my duty to set the world right again. I do this because I love you, my father’s ghost whispers. You may not understand it right now, but it is for your own good. You are a monster. I still love you. I will set you right.
Teren’s serious look shifts to a sympathetic one, an expression I recognize from my execution day. “If you pledge yourself to the Inquisition, to me, and swear to use your powers and your knowledge to send malfettos back to the Underworld, I will give you everything you’ve ever wanted. I can grant your every desire. Money? Power? Respect? Done.” He smiles. “You can redeem yourself, change from an abomination in the gods’ eyes to a savior. You can help me fix this world. Wouldn’t it be nice, not having to run anymore?” He pauses, and for a moment, a note of real, painful tragedy enters his voice. “We are not supposed to exist, Adelina. We were never meant to be.”
We are mistakes.
“Now, Adelina,” he says, soft and coaxing. “Tell me.”
I want to—oh, how I want to—in this moment. Teren can offer Violetta and me such an easy life if I only give him what he wants. The Daggers’ plans are ruined anyway, aren’t they? The king has died of his own accord. I have no reason to stay loyal to them anymore. I open my mouth. Dante’s words are fresh in my mind, and a surge of bitterness rises in me, eager for release. I could destroy them all right now, with just a few choice words.
But the words still don’t come. I am thinking instead of Enzo’s gentle expression, of Gemma’s quick smile. Lucent’s casual friendship, Michel’s art lessons. I am thinking of Raffaele most of all, with his patience and grace, his kind, calm faithfulness that has earned my trust. If he had been at the court tonight, I might have confided in him. He would have helped me. Things could have gone differently if he were there. I have something when I’m with the Daggers, something beyond an unwritten business contract to do what they tell me.
Some spark of clarity emerges through the net Teren’s words have cast over me, a trickle of logic that brings me out of the fog. He says the Daggers are using me. But he is using me too. This is the real reason why I cannot seem to give him what he wants. It is not so much that I am protecting the Daggers.
It is that I am tired of being used.
Teren sighs, then shakes his head. He nods at one of his men. The Inquisitor draws his sword and moves toward Violetta.
I glance at my sister. She realizes I’m about to make a move. I gather my strength. Then I reach out and pull.
A sheet of invisibility shoots up around me, mimicking the wall behind me and the floor beneath my feet. I weave the same around my sister. To the naked eye, it seems as if my sister had suddenly been replaced by empty space.
For the first time, Teren looks surprised. “You’ve improved,” he snaps. He draws his sword, then shouts at the other Inquisitors, “Enough of this. Find her.”
They start in my general direction, but I’m already on the move. I pull again, wrapping each one of them in a vision of nightmares—shrieking demons, their piercing wails the sound of metal ripping against metal, their mouths pulled all the way back. Several Inquisitors fall to their knees, their hands pressed over their faces and ears. Their terror makes me gasp. It feels so good.
Teren and I reach my sister at the same time. He gropes blindly, grabbing at her arm. He yanks her to him and presses his sword against her throat. “Don’t,” he shouts to the air. Even through his anger, he seems to see something in me that fascinates him. I turn my concentration onto him, then seek out his senses, aiming to drown him in illusions with his men.
I hit a wall.
I’ve never felt this in anyone else before—like a block of ice, something hard and impenetrable that shields his energy from my own. I grit my teeth and push harder, but his own energy pushes back. A smile spreads across his face as he senses me struggling. I’d witnessed how Enzo’s fire barely affected him, and heard Enzo talk about how Teren cannot be injured like a normal person. Now, for the first time, I’m feeling it for myself.
“Try that again, and I’ll cut her,” he says.
Violetta squeezes her eyes shut. She takes a deep breath.
And the strangest thing happens. Teren stops cold in the middle of his attack. He shudders. I feel the wall of ice shielding his energy from me crack—then shatter. He lets out a terrible gasp, releases Violetta, and falls to his knees. Suddenly, just like that, I see his energy threads, his fear and his darkness, the threads that tie to his senses that I can now seek out and twist like I did to the others. What happened?
Someone tampered with his abilities.
I glance at Violetta, stunned. She returns my stricken look. That’s when I know. I know it immediately.
My sister is an Elite.
And she just took away Teren’s powers.
While my illusion holds, I hurry over to him and yank the key from around his neck. Then I rush over to my sister and remove her invisibility for a moment. She’s shaking all over, a sheen of sweat on her delicate brow, and her eyes stay fixed on Teren as he crouches on the ground. My trembling fingers attempt to position the key at her iron cuffs. I wince as I force my one crooked finger to work with the others. Gods help me, but I’m so exhausted. I hadn’t even realized how much of my energy I’d used, but now I feel it weighing me down. My fear is the only thing that keeps me going.
Finally, Violetta’s chains fall away and she springs to her feet. She swings one of my arms over her shoulder, steadying me, and together we make for the door. I strengthen our invisibility. I pause right before the door, then glance at Teren over my shoulder. He grins; the wall of ice around him is gradually piecing itself back together.
“Adelina,” he exclaims. “You constantly surprise me.” He laughs again, the sound of a madman. We stagger out into the corridor as Teren shouts for more guards.
We climb the steps in silence, our breaths turning into hoarse gasps. My energy weakens—even my own fear isn’t enough to keep the illusion going. Our invisibility flickers in and out. Inquisitors dash past us. I try to save my strength for when they near us. But by the time we’ve reached the main level of the tower, we appear as ripples moving against the walls.
“Hang on, Adelina,” my sister coaxes. We hurry onto the street and into chaos.