The Young Elites (21 page)

“You’re here because you know you don’t belong,” he replies coolly. “Let me tell you something, Adelina. There’s no shame in turning your back on a group of criminals who want nothing more than to burn this entire nation to the ground. Do you think they’d protect you if you were in danger?” He turns, his gaze sidelong.

I think back to how
malfettos
have burned at the stake, and how the Daggers chose not to save them. Because they weren’t Elites.

“They came for you that day because you had something they wanted,” Teren says, as if he knows what I’m thinking. “No one throws away something useful to them—that is, until it’s no longer useful.”

He’s right.

“I’ve grown fond of you, in the time we’ve spent together,” he continues. “Do you ever think on the myth of the angel of Joy and his brother, the angel of Greed? Do you remember the story of Denarius casting Laetes from the heavens, condemning him to walk the world as a man until his death sent him back among the gods?
Curing
the angel of Joy of his arrogance in thinking that he was the gods’ most beloved child?” He leans closer. “There is an imbalance in the world, just as there was when Joy left the heavens—warning signs of demons walking with us, defying the natural order. Sometimes, the only way to set things right is to do what is difficult. It is the only way to love them back.” All pretense of amusement is now gone from his face. “That’s why I was sent by the gods. And I feel, too, that perhaps
you
were sent for the same reason. There is a yearning in you to set things right, little
malfetto
—you are smarter than the others, because you
know
there is something wrong with you. It tears at your conscience, doesn’t it? You have hatred for yourself, and I admire that. It’s why you keep coming back to me. The only way to cure yourself of this guilt is to atone for it by saving your fellow abominations. Help them return to the Underworld, where they belong. Do this with me. You and I can set the world right again, and when we do, the gods will deem us forgiven.” His voice has taken on a strange, gentle tone. “It doesn’t
seem
right or kind, I know—it
seems
cruel. But it
must
be done. Do you understand?”

Something about his words makes sense. They twist around my head and my heart until they seem logical. I
am
an abomination—even to the other Daggers. Perhaps it really
is
my duty to set the world right again.
I do this because I love you,
my father’s ghost whispers.
You may not understand it right now, but it is for your own good. You are a monster. I still love you. I will set you right.

Teren’s serious look shifts to a sympathetic one, an expression I recognize from my execution day. “If you pledge yourself to the Inquisition, to
me,
and swear to use your powers and your knowledge to send
malfettos
back to the Underworld, I will give you everything you’ve ever wanted. I can grant your every desire. Money? Power? Respect? Done.” He smiles. “You can redeem yourself, change from an abomination in the gods’ eyes to a savior. You can help me fix this world. Wouldn’t it be nice, not having to run anymore?” He pauses, and for a moment, a note of real, painful tragedy enters his voice. “We are not supposed to exist, Adelina. We were never meant to be.”

We are mistakes.

“Now, Adelina,” he says, soft and coaxing. “Tell me.”

I want to—oh, how I want to—in this moment. Teren can offer Violetta and me such an easy life if I only give him what he wants. The Daggers’ plans are ruined anyway, aren’t they? The king has died of his own accord. I have no reason to stay loyal to them anymore. I open my mouth. Dante’s words are fresh in my mind, and a surge of bitterness rises in me, eager for release. I could destroy them all right now, with just a few choice words.

But the words still don’t come. I am thinking instead of Enzo’s gentle expression, of Gemma’s quick smile. Lucent’s casual friendship, Michel’s art lessons. I am thinking of Raffaele most of all, with his patience and grace, his kind, calm faithfulness that has earned my trust. If he had been at the court tonight, I might have confided in him. He would have helped me. Things could have gone differently if he were there. I have something when I’m with the Daggers, something beyond an unwritten business contract to do what they tell me.

Some spark of clarity emerges through the net Teren’s words have cast over me, a trickle of logic that brings me out of the fog. He says the Daggers are using me. But he is using me too. This is the real reason why I cannot seem to give him what he wants. It is not so much that I am protecting the Daggers.

It is that I am tired of being used.

Teren sighs, then shakes his head. He nods at one of his men. The Inquisitor draws his sword and moves toward Violetta.

I glance at my sister. She realizes I’m about to make a move. I gather my strength. Then I reach out and
pull.

A sheet of invisibility shoots up around me, mimicking the wall behind me and the floor beneath my feet. I weave the same around my sister. To the naked eye, it seems as if my sister had suddenly been replaced by empty space.

For the first time, Teren looks surprised. “You’ve improved,” he snaps. He draws his sword, then shouts at the other Inquisitors, “Enough of this. Find her.”

They start in my general direction, but I’m already on the move. I pull again, wrapping each one of them in a vision of nightmares—shrieking demons, their piercing wails the sound of metal ripping against metal, their mouths pulled all the way back. Several Inquisitors fall to their knees, their hands pressed over their faces and ears. Their terror makes me gasp. It feels so good.

Teren and I reach my sister at the same time. He gropes blindly, grabbing at her arm. He yanks her to him and presses his sword against her throat. “Don’t,” he shouts to the air. Even through his anger, he seems to see something in me that fascinates him. I turn my concentration onto him, then seek out his senses, aiming to drown him in illusions with his men.

I hit a wall.

I’ve never felt this in anyone else before—like a block of ice, something hard and impenetrable that shields his energy from my own. I grit my teeth and push harder, but his own energy pushes back. A smile spreads across his face as he senses me struggling. I’d witnessed how Enzo’s fire barely affected him, and heard Enzo talk about how Teren cannot be injured like a normal person. Now, for the first time, I’m feeling it for myself.

“Try that again, and I’ll cut her,” he says.

Violetta squeezes her eyes shut. She takes a deep breath.

And the strangest thing happens. Teren stops cold in the middle of his attack. He shudders. I feel the wall of ice shielding his energy from me crack—then shatter. He lets out a terrible gasp, releases Violetta, and falls to his knees. Suddenly, just like that, I see his energy threads, his fear and his darkness, the threads that tie to his senses that I can now seek out and twist like I did to the others. What happened?

Someone tampered with his abilities.

I glance at Violetta, stunned. She returns my stricken look. That’s when I know. I know it immediately.

My sister is an Elite.

And she just took away Teren’s powers.

While my illusion holds, I hurry over to him and yank the key from around his neck. Then I rush over to my sister and remove her invisibility for a moment. She’s shaking all over, a sheen of sweat on her delicate brow, and her eyes stay fixed on Teren as he crouches on the ground. My trembling fingers attempt to position the key at her iron cuffs. I wince as I force my one crooked finger to work with the others. Gods help me, but I’m so exhausted. I hadn’t even realized how much of my energy I’d used, but now I feel it weighing me down. My fear is the only thing that keeps me going.

Finally, Violetta’s chains fall away and she springs to her feet. She swings one of my arms over her shoulder, steadying me, and together we make for the door. I strengthen our invisibility. I pause right before the door, then glance at Teren over my shoulder. He grins; the wall of ice around him is gradually piecing itself back together.

“Adelina,” he exclaims. “You constantly surprise me.” He laughs again, the sound of a madman. We stagger out into the corridor as Teren shouts for more guards.

We climb the steps in silence, our breaths turning into hoarse gasps. My energy weakens—even my own fear isn’t enough to keep the illusion going. Our invisibility flickers in and out. Inquisitors dash past us. I try to save my strength for when they near us. But by the time we’ve reached the main level of the tower, we appear as ripples moving against the walls.

“Hang on, Adelina,” my sister coaxes. We hurry onto the street and into chaos.

Shattered glass everywhere. Screams in the night. More Inquisitors than I’ve ever seen in my entire life, swarming the streets and dragging
malfettos
out of their homes—still in their nightgowns—and into the square, beating them senseless, clamping chains on them. I stumble to a halt in a nearby alley. There, I finally release the last of my energy and slide down the wall into a fetal position. Violetta collapses beside me. Together, we look on in horror at the scene unfolding before us. One Inquisitor runs a sword straight through the body of a young
malfetto
woman with a streak of gold in her black hair. She lets out a broken shriek—her blood spills onto the cobblestones. Cries ring out across the square.

The king is dead! The king is dead!

This is all wrong. I watch as the Inquisitors kill other
malfettos.
I am numb. Something has gone terribly wrong.

I pull Violetta close. “Think of something else,” I whisper into her ear, feeling her trembling uncontrollably against me. I force myself to take in the terror and evil that swirls around us, letting it strengthen the darkness in me so that I can weave an illusion of calm around my sister. I block out the screams for her. I weave a blanket of darkness around her, shielding her from the sight of the crying
malfettos
gathered in the square. This must be happening all across Estenzia—across Kenettra, even. As Violetta weeps against my shoulder, I stare at the horrific scene in her stead.

How ironic, that I should embrace such evil in order to protect my sister from evil.

Through my fog of terror, I remember the catacombs under the city. I touch my sister’s face. “We have to go,” I say firmly. Then I take her hand and begin to lead us away—

—until we turn the corner and run straight into Dante. He stares down at me, his face swathed in shadows. “Well,” he growls. “I knew I’d find you out here.”

He could feel the storm’s energy in the breeze, as if it were
some sort of living creature, breathing life and fear into his body.

—
Tales of Lord Dunre
,
by Ephare

M
y first, feverish thought:
Dante followed me.

He’d somehow seen me leave the Fortunata Court. He’d tracked me to the Inquisition Tower. And now he knows I must have visited the Inquisition. A flurry of thoughts flash through my mind in the span of a second. If he goes back to the other Daggers, he will tell them about everything.
No—they cannot find out in this way.
I open my mouth, trying to think of something to say.

He doesn’t give me a chance. Instead, he lunges at me with an outstretched hand, trying to grab my arm. Violetta cries out—my energy roars in my ears.

I fling an illusion of invisibility desperately over us and throw myself to the ground. My powers are fading fast, and we blink in and out of sight. I scramble to my feet right as Dante lunges for me again. This time he attacks with a dagger. My illusion manages to throw off his aim, but the blade still catches the edge of my thigh, slicing through my clothes. I wince at the bite against my skin. Darkness roars inside me, feeding on Dante’s own fury. My strength grows again.

“You
traitor.
” He points the dagger at me. “Enzo should’ve done away with you the instant you came to us.”

How dare you. I protected you all.
“I didn’t do anything,” I shout back. “I told them nothing.”

“You expect me to believe you?” Dante twirls his blade.

“Let me explain,” I say, holding my hands out. “I didn’t give anything to them. What you saw happen at the Spring Moons—”

Dante’s lips curl into a snarl. “I know what I saw. How long have you been working with Teren?”

“I wasn’t working with him! He found me—months ago, at the court—” I don’t know how to tell Dante this, without making it sound like everything is my fault.
It is my fault.

“And yet, you told us none of this. Why keep it a secret?”

“I didn’t mean to! I was afraid of getting hurt. My sister—”

Dante sneers. “I knew you were no good. I should carve your mouth right off your face, because it spits out nothing but lies.”

I’m starting to have trouble breathing. My words come in gasps. “You have to believe me. I didn’t tell him anything.”

“Did you tell him about the Tournament of Storms?”

“I—” I hesitate.

Dante catches my pause. He narrows his eyes. “And you betrayed Raffaele to the palace, didn’t you?”

I blink. What? Raffaele? “Raffaele hasn’t returned?”

Dante doesn’t need to speak for me to know the answer.
Raffaele was absent at the last meeting, he never returned from his client visit.
No, not him.
The thought of Raffaele being the first to suffer—

Dante lashes out again. He knocks me to the ground and holds me down. I can’t find my energy to pull on. Violetta lets out a choked scream.

“I’m taking you back to Enzo,” he growls, narrowing his eyes at me. His hand presses down on my neck, choking me.
No, you can’t. I should be the one telling him, not you.
“You’ll answer to him, you pathetic little coward.”

I’ll kill you before you can ruin this deal.

My father’s words from that fateful night suddenly echo all around me, filling my ears and taking me back to the rain-soaked marketplace where he’d died. Dante’s words to Enzo run through my mind. The darkness that has risen in me ever since I left the Daggers now claws eagerly for freedom—it builds and builds, feeding off the fears and hatred of Dante, the Inquisitors, the terror of the people in the streets, the darkness all around us. Above me, I no longer see Dante . . . instead, I see my father, his lips twisted in a dark smile.

Enough.
I twine the glittering threads of energy around myself—there is suddenly so much of it that I feel light-headed from the power, as if I’d left my body. Raffaele once showed me how to create illusions of
touch.
Can I do that now?

I bare my teeth. And I unleash my anger.

For a single, terrible moment, I can see every single one of the energy threads connecting Dante to myself. From myself to his pain senses. On instinct, I reach out and pull hard.

Dante suddenly scrambles away from me. His hand leaves my neck—I gasp desperately for air. His eyes bulge. Then he drops his weapons and lets out a bloodcurdling scream. The sound sends a flood of excitement through me so intense that I tremble from head to toe.
The illusion of touch; the illusion of pain.
Oh, I’ve wanted to do this for so long. I pull harder, twisting, increasing his belief that he is in agony—that his limbs are being ripped off one by one, that someone is peeling the skin off his back. He collapses to the ground and writhes. Scream after scream.

At first, all I feel from him is rage. He glares at me with murder in his eyes. “I’m going to kill you,” he spits out amid his pain. “You’ve attacked the wrong Elite.”

I harden my expression.
No,
you
have.

His rage changes to fear. Terror pours from him—it only makes me stronger, and I throw all the extra power back into torturing him. A part of me is horrified at what I’m doing. But the other part of me, the part that is my father’s daughter, delights in it. I’m heady with pleasure—it washes over me until I feel like I am a completely different person. I walk closer to where he writhes and look on patiently with a curious tilt of my head. I open my mouth to speak, and my father’s words spill out of me.

“Show me what you can do,” I whisper in Dante’s ear.

Somewhere in the midst of swirling darkness, I catch sight of Violetta cowering in the corner, her terrified eyes fixed on me.
She has the power to stop me,
I realize through my haze of exhilaration. But she’s not.

Stop? Why should I stop?
This is the boy who told Enzo to kill me. He has threatened my life from the moment I joined the Daggers—he tried to kill me
right now.
Just like everyone else. I have every right to torture him. He deserves to die at my hands, and I will make sure he feels every last moment of it. All the rage and bitterness I’ve held in my heart for
everything
now reaches a peak. My father’s image replaces Dante again, his body bent backward in agony. My smile turns dark and I twist harder, harder, harder.

I will destroy you.

“Stop,
please
!” At first I think it’s Violetta screaming this at me, but then I realize that it’s my father. He has resorted to begging. His heartbeat increases to a violent pace.

Something inside me screams that this is going too far—I can feel the darkness taking over my senses. My father—Dante—gasps. His scream cuts off as his face freezes into a trembling picture of shock.
Harder.
I try in vain to shove it away, to regain control. I can’t. A real trickle of blood runs from his lips. My heart trembles at the sight. That isn’t supposed to happen. I am a conjurer of
illusions.
Can even the illusion of pain eventually trigger something real? Again, I reach out to stop myself. But my father’s ghost only laughs, mingling with the gleeful whispers in my head.

Keep going, Adelina, and no one will ever command you again.

I feel something snap in Dante’s heart, a breaking of strings.

He freezes. His mouth stays open in a silent scream; his lips are stained red. His fingers twitch, but his eyes are glazed. The darkness in me that took over my mind now vanishes in a rush—I collapse to my knees, suddenly unable to catch my breath, and lean against the wall in exhaustion. I feel like I’ve returned to my body. My energy shrinks away into nothingness, just like that—my father’s ghostly presence disappears, and his voice melts into the night. Violetta stays where she is, staring in stunned silence at Dante’s body. I do the same. The chaos out in the streets rings in my ears like an underwater scream.

I wanted to hurt him. To defend myself. To get revenge. To escape.
But I didn’t just hurt him.
I made sure that he will never again lift a finger against me.

In my fury, I killed him.