This is how my dream starts tonight. A dark storm rages outside my windows. I dream that I wake up in my bedchamber to find Violetta huddled beside me, under the blankets, her back turned to me, her body trembling, the curls of her dark hair spread against my pillow. I smile sleepily.
“It’s all right, mi Violettina,” I whisper. I put my arm around her shoulders and start to hum. “It’s only a storm.”
It will get worse, she whispers back. Her voice sounds strange, like a hiss. Inhuman.
I stop humming. My smile fades. “Violetta?” I murmur. I move my arm and roll her to face me.
Where Violetta’s face should be, there is instead nothing.
The bed collapses beneath me—and suddenly I am falling. I fall down, down, down. I fall forever.
Splash.
I struggle to the surface, gasping, and wipe water from my eyelashes. Where am I? I’m surrounded on all sides by what looks like a still ocean, with no land in sight. Above, the sky is charcoal gray. The ocean is black.
I’m in the waters of the Underworld. The realm of the dead.
I know this immediately because the light here is not like the light of the living world, finished and whole, chasing the shadows away with its warmth. The light here is dead, faint enough to keep everything in a constant state of gray, no colors, no sounds, only a quiet sea. I look down into the dark water. The sight sends a coil of terror through my stomach. Deep, black, endless, filled with the gliding, ghostly silhouettes of monsters.
Adelina.
A whisper calls to me. I look to my side. A child walks on the surface of the ocean, her skin as pale as porcelain, her body skeletal under white silks, her long locks of black hair spread out across the ocean like a web of endless strands, stretching as far as the eye can see. This is Formidite, the angel of Fear, the daughter of Death. I want to scream, but no sound comes out. She leans down toward me. Where her eyes and nose and mouth should be, I can see only skin, like someone has stretched cloth tightly across her face. It had been her curled in my bedchamber, not Violetta.
Fear is power, she whispers.
Then from beneath the water’s surface, a bony hand grabs me and pulls me under.
I sit up in bed, trembling from head to toe. Everything vanishes, replaced with my empty chamber at the Fortunata Court. Rain slaps weakly against my windows.
After a few moments, I lean my head wearily against my arms. Images of my sister linger in my mind, fragments of ghosts. I wonder whether it’s raining where Violetta is, and whether she is sleepless because of the thunder.
What am I going to do? I try, as I always do, to grasp the energy buried deep inside me and pull it to the surface, but nothing’s there. What if I can never do it again? Good, a part of me thinks. Maybe I shouldn’t use my powers again. Yet this thought makes my stomach flip.
What if I escape tonight? Run away from the Daggers? Raffaele’s ominous words play over and over in my mind. He had mentioned nations in the cold Skylands that revere malfettos and Elites—I could flee Kenettra and sail far north. But even as I consider it, I know it’s dangerous and pointless. Stay calm, Adelina, and think. If I were to try running away from a group of Young Elites, how would I manage to stay ahead of them? They have finely honed powers—I don’t. What I do have is the Inquisition Axis on my trail, probably combing their way through southern Kenettra at this very moment, waiting for me to make a wrong move. If I couldn’t run from the Inquisition when I first tried to escape, how could I hope to evade the Daggers too? They would never rest until they caught me; they’d silence me before I could potentially give away their secrets. They might catch me before I even reached the harbor—and even if I could board a ship to the Skylands, they may simply tail me there. They’re probably watching me right now. I will forever be watching my back. My chances are close to impossible.
So I contemplate my second option.
What if I do become one of them? What more do I have to lose? I’m no safer on my own than if I remain with them. But if I want to survive, I need to stay and prove myself. And in order to do that, I not only need to learn how to control my energy—I also need to make some allies. Some friends. Setting out alone hasn’t exactly worked well for me. I shiver when I remember the reaction I had to the nightstone, how whatever Raffaele did had forced a darkness from within me and brought it to the surface.
What if that’s who I am? Be true to yourself, Violetta once told me when I was trying in vain to win Father over. But that’s something everyone says and no one means. No one wants you to be yourself. They want you to be the version of yourself that they like.
Fine. If I need to be liked, loved, then that’s what I’ll do. I’ll win Enzo’s approval. Impress him.
By the time dawn finally creeps into my room and bathes it in pale gold, I’m exhausted. I stir when someone knocks faintly on my door. Probably the maid again. “Come in,” I call out.
The door opens a little. It isn’t the maid who has come to see me, but Raffaele. This time he’s clad in a beautiful black robe trimmed with swirls of gold, his sleeves wide and billowing. Thin gold chains encircle both his forehead and his neck, hiding his throat from view, and his loose braid of hair cascades over one shoulder, strands of sapphire shimmering against the dark like a peacock’s feather. His jewel-toned eyes are rimmed with bold lines of black powder. He looks even more stunning than I remember, and I turn away my stare in embarrassment.
“Good morning,” he says, coming over to me and kissing me on both cheeks. He shows no signs of the hesitation he felt toward me after the gemstone incident. “Enzo and the others have returned.” He gives me a serious look. “Let’s not keep them waiting.”