Finally, I give him a small nod.
Beside me, Violetta stirs. Everyone’s eyes shift to her. When she doesn’t speak, I do it for her. “I brought my sister here not just to protect her,” I say, “but because she can help us. She has something that can turn the tide.”
Michel gives her a skeptical look. “Are you a malfetto?” He glances over her, searching in vain for a marking.
“She’s an Elite,” I answer. “I think she lacks markings because of what she can do.” My gaze returns to Enzo. “She has the ability to take others’ powers away.”
Silence follows. And attention. Enzo leans forward in his chair, regards both of us thoughtfully, and then tightens his lips. I know that everyone is thinking the exact same thing.
Violetta can help us kill Teren.
“Well,” he says. “Let’s see what she can do.”
Violetta’s fever continues that night, a low burn that leaves her in a strange state of half consciousness. She murmurs for me now and then. I hold her hand until the whispers stop and her breathing evens out.
It’s quiet in the university’s temple hall. The others must have all retired to their chambers by now, although I doubt anyone is completely asleep. I want to venture outside, to get away from my sister for a moment and let the cool night air clear my senses. But the Daggers have locked us in our chamber. Lucent says it’s for my safety, but I can sense the subtle hint of fear lingering behind her words. Walls are slowly rising between us.
The sound of steel ringing out in the hall catches my attention. I sit up, more alert now. For an instant, I think it might be Inquisitors. They’ve discovered our hideout here and are coming after us. But the more I listen, the more I realize that the sound is coming from one sword, its lonely sound echoing every few seconds from some distant chamber. I rise from the bed and press my ear to the door. It sounds like swordplay. I listen for a while, until it finally dies down.
Footsteps approach in the hall outside. I lean away from the door. Seconds later, a soft knock sounds out. It takes me a moment to answer. “Yes?”
“It’s me.”
Enzo’s voice. I stay quiet, and a moment later I hear the lock click. The door opens a sliver to reveal part of Enzo’s face. He returns my stare for a moment before his gaze falls on Violetta’s fragile form. “How is she?” he asks.
“She just needs rest,” I reply. “I’ve seen her like this enough times. It seems to happen after she uses her powers.”
“Come with me,” he says after a moment. Then he leaves the door ajar and motions for me to follow him.
I hesitate, and for an instant I’m afraid that this will be the moment when Enzo finally gets rid of me once and for all. But he waits patiently, and after a while, I get up and follow him out of the chamber. One look at him sends a warm flush through me. He’s clad in simple clothes tonight, his linen shirt hanging loose over his torso, its undone lacings revealing skin underneath. His hair is untamed and untied, a dark red mane falling slightly past his shoulders. One hand holds a sword. That’s what the ringing sound had been in the hallway. Enzo must be practicing for the duel tomorrow.
I follow him down the hall with soft steps until we reach the door of his chamber.
We enter without a sound. In here, Enzo’s figure is barely illuminated by soft candlelight. My heart hammers in my chest. I stand near the door while he wanders over to the tiny desk at his bedside and uses his energy to strengthen the candle’s glow. His loose shirt reveals the skin of his lower neck. The silence sits heavily between us.
He gestures to the desk’s chair. “Sit, please.” Then he leans against the edge of his bed.
I sit. A long silence passes between us. Now that we’re alone, his eyes are gentle—not the hard, dark vision I’m so accustomed to—the same softness I’d seen when we kissed in the courtyard. He studies me. There’s a cloud of fear hovering around him tonight, subtle but significant. Is he afraid of me? “Tell me. Why did you really run away?” he asks. “There was another reason, other than your sister. Wasn’t there?”
He knows. A sudden fear floods through me. He doesn’t know about Dante—how could he? He’s digging for something else. Slowly, I let myself revisit the night when I covered the floor of my bedchamber with visions of blood, when I scrawled words of fury onto my wall. “Is it true?” I finally reply. “What Dante said to you in the hallway that night? About . . . getting rid of me?”
Enzo doesn’t look surprised. He suspected my reason all along. “You were there in the hall,” he says. I nod wordlessly. After a while, he clears his throat. “Dante’s opinions were his own.” Then, he adds in a softer tone, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Were. I shiver. Suddenly the room seems colder. “What happened to Dante?” I say.
Enzo pauses for a while, considering. Then he looks at me again. He tells me how they all scouted the city that night after seeing Inquisitors flooding the streets. How they split up. How all of them came back except one. How Lucent was the one to discover Dante’s body in an alley.
The story stirs the whispers in my mind, calling them back to the surface so that for a moment I can barely hear Enzo through the hisses of my thoughts. Dante deserved it, the whispers say. I murmur my condolences through a fog, and Enzo takes it all with a composed face.
How long can I keep up this lie?
We fall into a long silence. As the seconds drag by, I sense a new energy coming from Enzo, something all too familiar to me but foreign from him. I watch him for a while before I’m sure of what I’m feeling. He’s afraid.