I wish you were here, Enzo, I add to myself. A memory returns of the heat his touch could bring, the warmth that he could send bubbling through me on a cold night. I shiver. Soon, he will be back. Can I bear that?
Magiano sighs loudly and leans back against the canal wall. He sits close enough to me that I can feel the warmth coming off his body, and I find myself savoring it. “Sergio says you have more mercenaries gathering behind you. Why don’t we retreat to somewhere outside of Estenzia and mobilize whatever allies you’ve gathered? Then we can figure out a way to strike at Teren and the queen when they least expect it.” He gives me a wry look. “Do we really need to be here?”
I huddle deeper into my cloak so that Magiano can’t see me blushing. He has been uncharacteristically moody today. “Enzo is an Elite,” I say to Magiano, something I’ve repeated several times in the last day.
“Yes. And also the former leader of the Daggers. How do you know this will work? What if something goes wrong?”
A part of me wonders whether he is acting like this because of what Enzo used to mean to me. What he still means to me. And Magiano—does he stir those same feelings? Even as I lean in the direction of his warmth, I’m not sure. “I don’t know,” I reply. “But I’d rather not risk letting a chance go.”
He tightens his lips for a moment. “The Beldish queen has no ordinary power,” he says softly. “This is tampering with the gods themselves, bringing the dead back to life. You are putting yourself directly in that path, you realize.”
It’s almost as if he’s trying to tell me, I’m worried about you. And suddenly I want so much to hear those words that I almost ask him to say them. But my desire is quickly replaced by irritation at his concern. “You’ve gone this far with us,” I whisper. “We’ll get you your money, don’t worry.”
Surprise flashes in Magiano’s eyes … followed by disappointment. Then he shrugs, leans away from me, and goes back to eating his bread and cheese. “Good,” he mutters.
I make myself smaller. It was a spiteful thing for me to say, but so is his open doubt over whether or not we should be here for Enzo. I watch him from my cloak, wondering whether he will glance in my direction and give me a hint of what his thoughts are, but he doesn’t look my way again.
Beside me, Violetta stirs. She blinks while facing the arena’s center, then tilts her head. Magiano and I both still as we watch her. “Is it them?” I whisper to my sister.
Before Violetta can respond, a silhouette drops down behind us with a silent thud. I jump to my feet. It’s Sergio.
He hefts a blade in one hand. “I spy our favorite Dagger,” he says with a smile.
Raffaele Laurent Bessette
As he leaves the palace, Raffaele presses his hands together over and over, but he can’t seem to stop their trembling. A wide hood covers him, partially shielding him from the storm. He looks over his shoulder. Inquisitors escorted him as far as the palace gates, but now that he has reached the main streets, they stay behind and allow him to have his freedom.
He blinks water from his eyes, then hurries down the streets until he melts into the shadows. Teren will leave the palace tomorrow, no doubt about it—exactly the goal Maeve had set for him when bringing him into the palace. Now the city loses their near-invincible Lead Inquisitor, and the queen loses a powerful bodyguard. The Beldish navy draws closer.
Still, Raffaele frowns as he walks. Teren is not gone yet, and now he is as furious as a wounded beast. No doubt there are still soldiers watching him right now. He walks in a wide arc, far from the arena where he knows he must end up. I have to hide quickly. Out here, the queen cannot protect him from Teren’s wrath. If the Lead Inquisitor finds him, he will kill him. Raffaele searches for any signs of Teren’s energy nearby, then changes his course, careful to leave the signals he had agreed upon with the other Daggers.
A deep line in the mud with his boot, clearly visible from the air. A whistle, nearly lost in the storm’s roar, mimicking a lonely falcon. A glass ring on his finger that reflects the lightning whenever it flashes.
He hopes Lucent is watching from somewhere high, and that she has raised the alarm.
Moments later, he calls on his memory of the underground maze of catacombs beneath the city. He makes his way through a labyrinth of alleys before finally vanishing through a small, unmarked door.