“You can sense me?”
“I was the one who first discovered you.”
I frown at that. “What do you mean?”
Raffaele guides us out of the sitting room and into the hall, until we reach a large courtyard of fountains. The breeze combs through his hair, revealing several brilliant sapphire strands glistening under the black, jeweled lines moving against a night canvas. A second marking. “The night you ran away from home,” he says as we walk, “you paused in Dalia’s central market.”
I recoil at the memory. My father’s rain-washed face, split into a menacing grin, flashes before me. “Yes,” I whisper.
“Enzo sent me to southern Kenettra for several months, to find those like you. I could sense you the instant I arrived in Dalia. Your pull was faint, though, something that came and went, and it took me several weeks to narrow my search to your district.” Raffaele pauses before the largest fountain in the courtyard. “But the first time I saw you was in that market. I watched you ride off into the rain. Naturally, I sent word back to His Highness right away.”
Someone had indeed been watching me that night. A boy who can sense those like me—like us. That must be his ability, just like Enzo to fire, myself to illusion. “You recruit Young Elites for the Dagger Society, then?”
“Yes. They call me the Messenger, and the hunt is always an adventure. Of every thousand malfettos, there’s that one. After a potential recruit falls into the Inquisition’s hands, though, it’s difficult to save them in time. You’re the first we’ve pulled straight from their grasp.” Raffaele winks a jewel-toned eye at me. “Congratulations.”
The Reaper. The Messenger. A society full of double names and hidden meanings. I take a deep breath, wondering about the other names I’ve heard rumors of.
“No one told me this place was a . . . a brothel,” I say.
“A pleasure court,” Raffaele specifies. “Brothels are for the poor and tasteless.”
“A pleasure court,” I echo.
“Our clients come to us for music and conversation, beauty and laughter and wit. They dine and drink with us. They forget their worries.” He smiles demurely. “Sometimes outside the bedchamber. Sometimes within.”
I give him a wary, sidelong look. “And I’m hoping I don’t have to become a consort to join the Dagger Society? Not to offend you, of course,” I add in a hurry.
Raffaele’s gentle laugh answers me. Like everything else about him, his laughter is perfectly refined, as lovely as summer bells, a sound that fills my heart with light. “Where you sleep is not who you are. You aren’t of age, mi Adelinetta. No one at the Fortunata Court will force you to service clients—unless, of course, such work interests you.”
My face burns at the suggestion.
Raffaele leads us around the side of the courtyard. Out here, the wind brings with it the sweet scent of spring. I can tell that the brothel—pleasure court—is situated on the side of a rolling hill, and when we reach a good outlook, I glimpse the city below. I catch my breath.
Estenzia.
Redbrick domes and wide, clean roads. Curving spires, sweeping archways. Narrow side streets overgrown with colorful flowers and vines. Towering monuments that gleam in the sun. People bustling from building to building, horses pulling carts loaded with casks and crates. Marble statues of the twelve gods and angels, their feet draped with flowers, line the main squares. Hundreds of ships pull into and out of the harbor, fat galleons and thin, quicksilver caravelas, their shining sails brown and white against the deep blue of the sea, their flags a rainbow of kingdoms from all over the world. Floating gondolas glide between them, fireflies among giants. A bell chimes somewhere in the distance. Off at the horizon, the misty outlines of a chain of islets appear before the flatness of the Sun Sea. And up in the sky—
I gasp in delight as an enormous creature resembling an ocean ray glides lazily across the city’s harbor, its fleshy wings smooth and translucent in the light, its tail stretched out behind it in a long line. Someone—a tiny speck nearly lost from sight—rides on its back. The creature lets out a haunting note that echoes across the city.
“A balira!” I exclaim.
Raffaele glances over his shoulder at me, his gesture so smooth and regal that one could mistake him for royalty. He smiles at my joy. “I would think you’d often see them shipping cargo in Dalia, given your location near the waterfall arc.”
“Never this close.”
“I see. Well, we have warm, shallow waters, so they gather here in the summer to give birth. You’ll see your fill, trust me.”
I shake my head and continue to take in the scene. “The city’s beautiful.”
“Only to a newcomer.” His smile fades. “We are not like the Skyland nations, where the blood fever was mild and where their few marked people are celebrated. Estenzia was devastated by the fever. She has suffered ever since. Trade is down. Pirates plague our routes. The city grows poorer, and the people are hungry. Malfettos are the scapegoats. A malfetto girl was killed just yesterday, stabbed to death in the streets. The Inquisition turns a blind eye.”
My excitement wanes. When I look again at the city below us, I notice the many boarded-up shops, the beggars, the white cloaks of Inquisitors. I turn away uncomfortably. “The story’s not much different in Dalia,” I mutter. A brief silence. “Where are the other Elites?”
We come upon a blank wall of stone behind a narrow corner of the courtyard, situated in such a way that you’d never think to stop here unless you knew better. Raffaele runs his fingers along the wall before pushing against it—and to my surprise, it slides silently open. A cold rush of air greets us. I peer inside. Stairs of weathered stone wind their way down into the darkness. “Don’t think of them,” he replies. “Today, it is just you and me.” A strange, pleasant tingle runs down my neck. He says no more, and I decide not to press him for more information.