In the morning, I woke to rough hands dragging me from the hay.
I startled, trembling, and looked up to see the faces of two Inquisition soldiers staring down at me, their white armor and robes lined with gold, their expressions hard as stone. The king’s peacekeepers. In desperation, I tried to summon the same power I’d felt before my father died, but this time the energy did not course through me, and the world did not turn black and white, and no phantoms rose from the ground.
There was a girl standing beside the Inquisitors. I stared at her for a long moment before I finally believed the sight. Violetta. My younger sister. She looked as if she’d been crying, and dark circles under her eyes marred her perfection. There was a bruise on her cheek, turning blue and black.
“Is this your sister?” one of the Inquisitors asked her.
Violetta looked silently at them, refusing to acknowledge the question—but Violetta had never been able to lie well, and the recognition was obvious in her eyes.
The Inquisitors shoved her aside and focused on me. “Adelina Amouteru,” the other Inquisitor said as they hauled me to my feet and bound my hands tightly behind my back. “By order of the king, you are under arrest—”
“It was an accident”—I gasped in protest—“the rain, the horse—”
The Inquisitor ignored me. “For the murder of your father, Sir Martino Amouteru.”
“You said if I spoke for her, you would let her go,” Violetta snapped at them. “I spoke for her! She’s innocent!”
They paused for a moment as my sister clung to my arm. She looked at me, her eyes full of tears. “I’m so sorry, mi Adelinetta,” she whispered in anguish. “I’m so sorry. They were on your trail—I never meant to help them—”
But you did. I turned away from her, but I still caught myself gripping her arm in return until the Inquisitors wrenched us apart. I wanted to say to her, Save me. You have to find a way. But I couldn’t find my voice. Me, me, me. Perhaps I was as selfish as my father.
That was weeks ago.
Now you know how I ended up here, shackled to the wall of a wet dungeon cell with no windows and no light, without a trial, without a soul in the world. This is how I first came to know of my abilities, how I turned to face the end of my life with the blood of my father staining my hands. His ghost keeps me company. Every time I wake up from a feverish dream, I see him standing in the corner of my cell, laughing at me. You tried to escape from me, he says, but I found you. You have lost and I have won. I tell him that I’m glad he’s dead. I tell him to go away. But he stays.
It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’m going to die tomorrow morning.
Enzo Valenciano
The dove arrives late in the night. It lands on his gloved hand. He turns away from the balcony and brings it inside. There, he removes the tiny parchment from the dove’s leg, caresses the bird’s neck with one blood-flecked glove, and unfurls the message. It is written in a beautiful, flowing script.
I’ve found her. Come to Dalia at once.
Your faithful Messenger
He remains expressionless, but he folds the parchment and tucks it smoothly inside his armguard. In the night, his eyes are nothing but darkness and shadow.
Time to move.
They think they can keep me out, but it does not matter how many locks they hang at the entrance. There is always another door.
—The Thief Who Stole the Stars, by Tristan Chirsley
Adelina Amouteru
Footsteps in the dark corridor. They stop right outside of my cell, and through the gap in the door’s bottom, an Inquisitor slides in a pan of gruel. It careers into a black puddle in the cell’s corner, and dirty water splashes into the food. If you can call it such a thing.
“Your final meal,” he announces through the door. I can tell that he’s already walking off as he says, “Better eat up, little malfetto. We’ll come for you within the hour.”
His footsteps fade, then disappear altogether.
From the cell next to mine, a thin voice calls out for me. “Girl,” it whispers, making me shiver. “Girl.” When I don’t respond, he asks, “Is it true? They say you’re one of them. You’re a Young Elite.”
Silence.
“Well?” he asks. “Are you?”
I stay quiet.
He laughs, the sound of a prisoner locked away for so long that his mind has begun to rot. “The Inquisitors say you summoned the powers of a demon. Did you? Were you twisted by the blood fever?” His voice breaks off to hum a few lines of some folk song I don’t recognize. “Maybe you can get me out of here. What do you think? Break me out?” His words dissolve again into a fit of laughter.
I ignore him as best as I can. A Young Elite. The idea is so ridiculous, I feel a sudden urge to laugh along with my crazy dungeon mate.
Still, I try once again to summon whatever strange illusion I’d seen that night. Again, I fail.
Hours pass. Actually, I have no idea how long it’s been. All I know is that eventually I hear the footsteps of several soldiers coming down the winding stone steps. The sound grows nearer, until there is the scrape of a key in my cell’s door and the creak of a rusty hinge. They’re here.
Two Inquisitors enter my cell. Their faces are hidden in shadows beneath their hoods. I scramble away from them, but they grab me and pull me to my feet. They unlock my shackles, letting them fall to the floor.
I struggle with what little strength I have left. This isn’t real. This is a nightmare. This isn’t a nightmare. This is real.
They drag me up the stairs. One level, two levels, three. That’s how far underground I was. Here, the Inquisition Tower comes into better view—the floors change from wet, moldy stone into polished marble, the walls decorated with pillars and tapestries and the Inquisition’s circular symbol, the eternal sun. Now I can finally hear the commotion coming from outside. Shouts, chanting. My heart leaps into my throat, and suddenly I push back with my feet as hard as I can, my ruined riding boots squeaking in vain against the floor.