Adelina Amouteru
My heart hammers loudly against my ribs. I pray to the gods that they can’t hear it.
“—but the point is, she was recognized,” Dante says. The mere sound of his voice sends a tremor of anger through me, bringing back with it the memory of his threats during my training. “And not only was she recognized, I saw them talking to each other.” He scowls. “Has she told you what words she exchanged with him?”
“He had her pinned against a wall. She tried to attack him.”
Dante grits his teeth. “They talked for longer than that. Where is she now?”
“She’s resting,” Enzo replies.
Dante waits for him to say more. When Enzo doesn’t, he continues in a growl. “You’ve killed your own before, when they’ve endangered the safety of our entire group.”
Enzo stays quiet, as if reminded of something he would rather forget. My hands clench together.
“Her presence here now endangers us all,” Dante goes on. “We still have some days to go before the Tournament of Storms, and Adelina can’t be recognized again.”
“She may be the only way for us to get close enough to the king and queen.”
“She may be the one sabotaging us. Is it strange that the Inquisition banned malfettos from entering the Tournament on the same day Adelina left to watch the qualifying races against your wishes?”
“If she wanted to turn us in, there would be Inquisitors swarming all over us right now.” Enzo folds his arms behind his back. “It would have happened already.”
Dante looks at him sideways. “Is that all, Your Highness?”
Enzo narrows his eyes. “What are you suggesting?”
“I saw you escorting her away. All the other Elites suspect it. I’ve known you for years—I can see the truth on your face.”
“There’s nothing to see.”
“She reminds you of Daphne, doesn’t she? That little Tamouran face?”
A cloud of numbness sweeps over me. Daphne. Who is Daphne?
Through the fog that envelops me, I sense an overwhelming tide of anger rising in Enzo’s heart, pushing and straining to lash out. The energy makes me gasp—I clamp a hand over my mouth to silence it. My heart pounds a frantic warning.
“You’re on dangerous ground,” Enzo says to him in a quiet voice.
Dante hesitates, wavering for a moment, but then scowls and plunges on. His voice takes on a surprising switch, a transition from his arrogant, bullying condescension to something with genuine concern in it. “Listen. We all liked Daphne. Best non-malfetto I ever knew. She nursed me back to health—I’d have died if it wasn’t for her. You think I didn’t notice all the times you abandoned your estates or the Fortunata Court in order to go find her? Think we didn’t know you wanted to marry her?”
To marry her.
Dante’s voice stills. “You think I didn’t mourn her too? That I didn’t want to murder every Inquisitor in the city for her?”
Enzo listens in silence, his face a portrait of stone. There are walls around his energy now, barring me from his emotions. I fight to concentrate on my illusion of invisibility. Why aren’t you calling him a liar, Enzo? Because it’s all the truth, of course. No wonder Enzo sometimes looks at me as if I were someone else. It’s because he is seeing someone else. Another girl who once lived, whom he once loved, whom he loves still.
Dante leans over. The anger in him swells. “Adelina is not her. She’s got the fire, I’ll give her that, and—markings aside—the face. But they are completely different people, Reaper. And I can tell you that while everyone trusted Daphne, nobody trusts your new girl. We all tolerate her, at best.” Dante pauses to hold up two fingers. “She’s gone against your orders, and she’s been spotted talking to the enemy. You’ve killed for less than that. You’ve given her advantages that you don’t give others. You’ve softened to her. I don’t like taking orders—but I still take them from you. I haven’t taken them for years just to see you fall all over yourself for a girl who reminds you of a dead sweetheart.”
The look that Enzo now gives Dante is enough to make the latter take a careful step back. “I’m quite aware of who Adelina is,” the prince says in a low voice. “And who she’s not.”
“Not if you think you’re in love with her, Your Highness.”
“My affairs are not your business.”
“They are if she’s a distraction from our goals.”
Enzo narrows his eyes. “She is nothing to me,” he snaps with a careless gesture of one hand. “Nothing more than a Dagger recruit. Just part of our plans.” The ice in his voice hits me hard. Nothing more. A rip appears on my heart.
Dante snorts at his words. “If that’s the truth, then you should have no trouble taking some advice from another one of your Daggers.” He gestures at himself.
“And you’re suggesting?” Enzo says.
“On my honor, I will tolerate her so long as you tolerate her. Use her as you will. But after you’re on the throne and finished with your fun, you should get rid of her. She won’t stay loyal to you long.”
I tremble at the darkness awakening in Enzo’s heart, a fury that blacks out all the excitement drifting over from the other Daggers and patrons, a rage that envelops the cavern.
“I appreciate your concern,” he says after a moment, emphasizing the words in slow, ominous notes. “But our conversation here is done.”
“Suit yourself, Your Highness,” Dante says in disgust. “You may have sentenced us all.” He turns away to head back to the group. Enzo stays where he is, his expression guarded, his eyes trained on the Spider’s back, thinking. It occurs to me, with all the agony of a twisting knife, that he might be considering Dante’s words.
Finally, Enzo also returns to the others. I don’t. I stay where I am, crouched in a shuddering heap at the entrance of the chamber, shrouded in invisibility, alone as the gathering continues. The words I prepared to say to the Daggers have withered on my tongue. The memory of the kiss I shared with Enzo so recently now leaves me cold and shivering.
I feel no anger. No jealousy. Just . . . emptiness. A bone-deep sense of loss. Somehow, the echoes of Gemma’s wisecracks and the patrons’ laughter sound menacing to me now. Gemma has treated you well. Raffaele took you under his wing. I hang on to these thoughts in desperation, searching for comfort, trying to convince myself that Dante’s lying. I can’t.
They are only good to me because they need me. Just like Enzo. Kindness with strings attached. Would they have befriended me if I were worthless?
Finally, I rise to my feet and head back to my chamber. My illusion ripples around me. If someone were here in the hall, they would see a current of movement in the air, a strange shadow gliding along the corridor.
I reach my chamber, lock my door, release the illusion, and crouch against the foot of my bed. Here, I finally unleash my emotions. Tears run down my face. So much for thinking that I can tell them everything. Time passes. Minutes, an hour. Who knows? The moonlight shifts its slant through my windows. I am back again in my childhood bedchamber, running away from my father. I am back against the railings of my old home’s stairway, listening to my father sell me to his guest. Or maybe I’m listening to Dante denouncing me before Enzo. They’re talking about me. They are always talking about me. I have made a full circle and I have not escaped my fate at all.
My father’s ghost appears through the wall beside me. He kneels before me and cups my face in his hands. I can almost feel the whisper of his touch, the cold shiver of death. He smiles. Don’t you see, Adelina? he says gently. Don’t you see how I have always looked out for you? Everything I’ve ever taught you is true. Who will ever love a malfetto like you?
I clutch my head and squeeze my eye shut. Enzo is not like them. He believed in me. He took me in and stood up for me. I recall the way he had danced with me at the Spring Moons, the way he protected me from Teren. All our days training together, the gentleness in his kiss, his affectionate laugh. I repeat this to myself until the words blur together into something unrecognizable.
But did he really do those things for you? my father whispers. Or for himself?
I have no idea how late the night has turned. For all I know, dawn could be arriving soon. Or perhaps only a few minutes have passed. All I know is that, as the time drags on, the true part of me is slowly but surely giving way to something bitter. What was once sadness is making way for anger. The darkness creeps in. Exhausted, I welcome it.
I rise from my crouch. My feet move toward the door. I head out into the hallway again, but this time I don’t go in the direction of the others. My feet point instead toward the opposite path, the one that leads me out of the court, into the streets, and down to the canals.
Toward the Inquisition Tower.