Jack hugged me tighter.
I disentangled myself just enough to pull him down and kiss him.
He broke away. “I—”
I just shook my head and kissed him again, and then we were kissing so fiercely, nothing else mattered.
That last time we’d slipped up, Jack had stopped it as quickly as it had started.
Not this time.
We pulled each other so close, I could feel the hard ropes of muscle in his arms as he wrapped them around me. Everywhere his skin touched mine felt like it was melting, in the best way.
This was so much better than I’d remembered. How had we possibly been able to not do this all the time? Kissing him felt safe. Kissing him made me forget.
It was only when we ran roughly into the damp stone wall of the next building over that we pulled away, gasping. I hadn’t even realized I had his shirt half off, my palms pressed to his ribs, just under those mysterious round scars.
Jack pushed my hair back from my face. “You were so close. He could have shot you.”
“He didn’t.” I slipped my hands out from under his shirt and around his back. “He could have, and he didn’t. That’s what I’ve been saying—the Order doesn’t actually want to kill me. But he could have shot you.”
“He didn’t.”
Another violent shudder ran through me. Jack pulled me to his chest again.
“We have to stop this.” It wasn’t just for my mom anymore. Dev Rajesh, then Eli and Takumi . . . I’d realized intellectually that the Order was killing people, but I didn’t know them.
If I did marry somebody, though, would that stop it? The Saxons thought so, but I’d never been sure. Maybe if it proved that the union didn’t lead to the tomb after all, they’d have no reason to kill any more boys . . . but that wouldn’t help my mom. Finding the tomb was the only thing that would solve both problems. After tonight, seven days. “We have to find it,” I said. “There has to be something here.”
“I know.”
I took a deep breath, and felt Jack’s chest expand with one of his own. Finally, I pulled away and smoothed my hair back from my face. “We should go.”
Jack’s hair was wild, his shirt askew. I saw his arm move, almost reach for my hand. Stop. Notice me notice the hesitation. Both of us frozen, waiting for the other to make a move. To acknowledge that the worse everything got, the more difficult it became not to have each other to fall back on.
“I—” Jack said. He stuffed both hands into his pockets.
I nodded, smoothed my skirt, and we ran out of the narrow alley without a word.
? ? ?
The fog that had settled since dinner made it impossible to see more than ten feet in any direction, but it seemed to amplify sounds echoing off the narrow alleys that served as streets for anyone not moving around by boat. I flinched at every slamming door or boat motor, and glanced over my shoulder at every set of footsteps.
Jack walked quietly beside me, lost in his own thoughts. I wondered suddenly what would happen if—when—I did get my mom back. If I stayed with the Circle, I might not have to be married off, but unless I had enough power to change the rules, Jack and I would never work, anyway. Maybe we’d leave, but then I’d be abandoning the family I’d just met, and he’d be leaving the only family he’d ever had. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
The only certainty was that we had to find this bracelet.
? ? ?
Finally, after ten minutes of weaving quietly through the maze, a glimmer of light shone up ahead and the alley opened up onto a wide square. “Oh,” I breathed. Despite everything, the square ahead looked like magic.
The fog wasn’t as dense here—it must have had more space to dissipate. But the driver had told us earlier today about the acqua alta. “Just be glad it’s not August,” he’d said in broken English. “If the acqua alta comes in August, you can smell Venice from anywhere in Italia.”
Now I saw what he meant.
The Piazza San Marco was underwater. Tourists strolled along wooden walkways that stretched across it, but it looked like they were walking on the water’s surface. The lights from the basilica and the surrounding buildings shimmered in the ripples, creating gleaming pinstripes in the settling dusk. Around the edges of the square, locals went about their business as usual, ducking into stores and sitting at half-submerged cafe tables in knee-high galoshes.