At last, he gets to his feet. I hit him in the head with the pan again.
He staggers but somehow stays upright. I shove him in the direction of the cathedral and herd him quickly through the streets. When he tries to run, I push my knife into his side.
“I know where your sister is,” I remind him, urging him along. “I’ll tell her everything.”
The fire is getting worse. The double doors are open, spewing smoke. People have stopped approaching with their buckets. They’re just gathered around the mess, so frantic that I manage to push Theo to the front of the crowd without really being noticed. He’s just barely staying on his feet.
“Wait! Don’t get any closer!” someone says as I start forward.
I don’t listen to them. Slowly, as I advance out of the throng, I feel the people start to recognize me. I feel their confusion. I feel their fear. Things have gone so wrong in this city, so quickly, and they know that it involves me.
I stop halfway up the cathedral steps, which is as close as I dare get. I can feel the heat on my back and the sting of smoke in my eyes. With a little shove, Theo collapses at my feet. I reach down to tie his handkerchief over his mouth. If he stays conscious, I don’t want him interfering.
There’s a flash of movement at the bottom of the steps. A man in the crowd is running for me. I pull out my knife and point it at him.
“The Heart is in the gardens,” I say. “Find her. And bring her to me.”
SIXTEEN
IT DOESN’T TAKE LONG.
I see the crowd near the gardens rippling and parting, and then I see Verene walking my way. Her steps are slow and deliberate as she glides out of the crowd and approaches the base of the cathedral stairs alone.
She’s still wearing the same rumpled, bloody clothes. Her face is dirty and exhausted, and her hair is hopelessly disheveled. Even though she’s standing with her head held high, I can tell from here how much effort it’s costing her.
Her people are uneasy. It’s obvious they’ve never seen their leader like this.
First, Verene looks at her brother, who’s barely awake. Then she looks at me. She regards me like I’m the foulest thing she’s ever seen.
“Have you not done enough yet?” she says. Her voice carries over the crackling of the flames.
“Why don’t you want them to know?” I say.
“We don’t want to listen to any more of your lies,” she says.
“Why don’t you want them to know what you’ve done for them?” I say. “What you’ve really done for them?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, stubborn as usual.
“I’m talking about the ritual, of course,” I say.
Verene goes very still.
“There’s a ritual to get magic,” I say. “It’s not something you’re born with. It’s something you choose to do. Your maman chose to do it, long ago. And she wanted you to be like her.”
Verene doesn’t say anything. She just watches me, her eyes wary.
“But the ritual is violent,” I say. “If you want magic, you have to hurt someone else. And your maman pitted you against your brother. She wanted one of you to prove you would be willing to hurt the other. But you chose not to.” I pause. “You chose to get rid of your maman instead. Even though you had no water magic of your own. But you decided to lie about that and tell everyone you were better and different. You neglected to mention that, just like her, you’re a murderer.”
A soft gasp goes through the crowd.
I’m right about her maman. I can see it on Verene’s face. I can see it in the fierce set of her jaw.
I knew it. The last time I saw her in her quarters, she looked like someone who could kill. And she is.
“You murdered your old ruler because she was taking your blood,” I say. “Now you steal water from the other cities. And you hurt people like me when we try to take it back.” I hold up my bloodied hand. “Why pretend that you’re a saint? You’re powerful, and there’s more value in that. You would do anything for your city, wouldn’t you?”
Verene casts a frantic look around the square. The people are shifting and drawing back even farther. There’s been too many lies and too much chaos in the past day. They don’t know what to make of it.
And maybe, they don’t know what to do with a girl who’s not a saint. They’ve feared one ruler unconditionally and worshipped the other. Maybe they don’t know how to do anything in between.
“I—I would,” Verene says. “I would do anything for Iris. I love Iris.”
“How much do you love Iris?” I say.
She turns back to me. Her face hardens. “I would do anything.”
A chill goes down my spine.
“We’ll see about that,” I say.
I grab Theo by the hair. I lift the knife.
“No!” She starts to run up the steps.
I press the knife to his throat, and she stops.
“Don’t—” Her voice is shaking. “Come down here and fight me yourself.”
“I’m going to,” I say. “But not without magic.”
I watch her face carefully. Her dark eyes are blazing, reflecting the light of the fire, and I see the fear that flashes through them.
“What do you mean?” she says.
“Oh, I’m going to do the ritual on him,” I say. “I thought that was obvious.”
“You don’t know how,” she says.
“How do you think I learned everything I know about your maman?” I say.
She’s quiet. I can see her thoughts racing.
“Even if you—even if you’d read something of hers, somehow,” she says, “she wouldn’t have written down how to do the ritual.”
I look meaningfully at Theo. He’s slowly coming back to his senses, and he tries to struggle away from me. I hold him tighter, digging the knife into his throat.
“Would he have written it down?” I say. “Maybe in the back of a journal of hers? Something he kept without you knowing?”
Verene wants to deny it. I can tell. But she just isn’t sure. She looks around, like she can find another way to stop me. But I’ve taken away her people’s unquestioning devotion. I’ve taken away her sainthood. I’ve taken away her vide. I’ve taken away her cathedral. I’ve taken away her brother. She has nothing.
“So this is what you wanted?” she says. “To destroy me? And now you’re going to get magic just so you can kill me?”
“Not quite,” I say. “Have you ever been to one of the cities across the veil? Have you ever seen what you’ve done to us? Our wells are empty, and yours is overflowing. So now, you’re going to repay us. I’m going to take all the water you have back to my people. And then, you’re going to give me your blood.” I look around. “You’re all going to give me your blood. And, using a very clever system designed by one of your own”—I shake Theo a little bit—“I’ll give that blood to all the other cities. After what you’ve done to us, we deserve it. I hope you all enjoyed the opulence, because it’s over now.”
The people of Iris are starting to realize what’s happening. I see their stricken faces. I hear their terrified gasps. I see some of them turning to run, as if there’s anywhere for them to go.
“But don’t worry,” I say. “The Heart of Iris is still here. She just said she would do anything for you. I’m sure she has a way to save you one more time. She got you into this, after all. I’m sure she can get you out of it.”
Verene is looking at her brother. Her hands are clenched and trembling, and there are tears welling in her eyes.
For a moment, I feel a twinge of… something. And it almost feels like regret.
No one’s ever fought me like she has. She’s so self-righteous and so aggravating and so utterly determined to get what she wants. She made everything about her city better, and it was incredible. She’s incredible. And I have the sudden urge to stop everything and make sure she knows that.
But I can’t, of course. Because she and Iris are
in my way, and so this is what has to happen. There’s no mystical way to produce water out of nowhere. Somebody has to give up their blood.
I don’t want to do this to her people. Not really. I don’t want them to have to go back to the way things used to be.
But my people are dying.
“Well?” I say.
Verene has two choices left. She can surrender. Or she can do absolutely anything to stop me. Maybe she’d even do the one thing she said she would never do. Maybe, if she thinks I know how to get blood magic, she’ll get blood magic, too, and then I’ll know everything there is to know about magic.
If anyone can make her do this, I think it’s me.
As I wait to see what her next move will be, my heart is thrumming.
And when she meets my eyes again, it nearly leaps out of my chest.
She’s going to fight.
That’s perfect.
I push Theo onto his back. I raise the knife dramatically, like I’m going to hurt him.
I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know how to do this so-called ritual. But Verene is already sprinting up the steps in my direction, so I just have to pretend until she shows me how.
Then, off to one side, I see an unexpected flash of movement. I turn.
It’s Ale. He’s running up the steps from the direction of the Parliament buildings. And he looks furious. He looks so furious that I barely recognize him. There’s a knife clutched in his hand.
“Emanuela!” he says. “Let them go!”
“Ale,” I say. “No—”
He stops a few steps away.
“I know that you know how to stop the vide!” he says. “You were giving it your blood, weren’t you? We have everything we need to save Occhia.”
He can’t be here. I have this all under control, and he can’t get in the way.
“Ale.” I start in his direction. “Go back.”
“I don’t want you to hurt them anymore,” he says. “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt—”
I see Verene running at him. I see her dive and tackle him to the steps. I see a flash of metal as she grabs the knife from his hands. But I don’t comprehend any of it.
Not until I hear him scream.
The blade is in his eye. Verene is digging, like she’s trying to get it all the way into his brain. He’s struggling, prying at her hands and her face, but she won’t stop.
She drops the blade. She reaches in and pries the eye out with her fingers. It trails bloody threads, and she rips them off with a sharp jerk.
I don’t know if Ale is screaming anymore. I can’t seem to hear. My ears have filled up with a loud ringing sound, and everything around me has faded into white. The only thing I can see is Verene and the eye clutched in her bloody fingers.
She stands up and turns to look at me, all fiery determination, and lifts the eye. I have absolutely no idea what she’s about to do with it, but I know without a doubt that this is the ritual, and she’s about to finish it. I can’t stop watching. I’m rooted to the spot.
Then she hesitates. I watch her take in the bloody thing clutched in her hands, slowly, like she’s just realized what it is. She looks around and comprehends just how big her audience is.
She stumbles back. She drops the eye.
All at once, everything becomes very loud. The flames in the cathedral are roaring. The people in the square are screaming and running away. And Verene is staring at her bloody hands.
“I…” she says. “No. I’m not… I’m not like her. I would never—”
She looks at me. The fury on her face makes me lose my breath.
“You,” she says, and her voice is shaking. “You did this. You—you ruined everything. You ruined me. What did you do to me?”
The last words are more like a sob. Behind her, Ale is sobbing, too. He turns on his side, clutching his face, and I catch a glimpse of the bloody, gaping hole where his eye used to be.
And then, it feels like I don’t even have control over my body anymore. I just attack Verene with everything I have. We fall to the steps. And then we’re tumbling down, and I’m driving the knife into her soft body. And I’m doing it again. And again.
When we hit the bottom of the steps, the knife falls out of my hands. I realize, all at once, that Verene has stopped fighting me. I see the blood all over her and back away and for a moment, I just stand there, staring at her as she lies helplessly on the ground, struggling to breathe.
I don’t know if I meant to do that to her. I don’t know if I wanted it to happen. I just did it. She hurt Ale, so I hurt her, because that’s what she gets.
Ale. I look for him and realize that he’s crawled down the steps, dripping blood. He reaches the cathedral square and tries to look around. He’s looking for me. I run to him, and when I touch his shoulders, he makes a terrified little noise and squirms away.
“Ale,” I say, and my own voice sounds odd and distant. “Ale. It’s me.”
I pull him away from the steps. I’ve forgotten what I was even trying to do in this city. Right now, I just want to get him out. But we only make it a couple of feet before he collapses. I kneel down at his side. I take off my jacket and wad it up to press it over the hole in his face.
But the bleeding won’t stop. I watch it soak into the fabric, dizzyingly fast.
I hear noises and look around vaguely to see that Theo is scrambling down the steps toward us. Toward his sister. Somehow, he got the bindings off his wrists. He reaches for Verene and pulls her into his lap. She’s still taking those horrible, rattling breaths. Theo touches something on her forehead, gingerly, like he’s not sure it’s real.
I recognize the red smudge the moment I see it. It’s an omen. A moment later, another one appears right next to it.
She’s dying.
Verene tries to say something and chokes. She coughs up blood.
“Theo—” she says. “You have to—the city.”
“What?” He barely whispers it.
“The city,” she says again. She curls her fingers into the front of his shirt. “Theo, you have to make sure they see me. They have to know that I died for them. For the good of Iris.”
Theo lifts his head to look around the square. It’s emptied out. Maybe people are watching from the windows of their manors. Or maybe we’re all alone with a burning cathedral.
“I’m not scared,” Verene says. “But they have to know. They have to know what I did for them. You can’t let me just disappear without—”
She’s clutching his shirt so tightly. She is scared.
There’s a strange expression on Theo’s face. He’s no longer looking at his sister. All his attention is focused on something clutched in his hand, and he’s just staring at it, like he can’t decide what to do with it.
It’s the eye. Ale’s eye.
And then Verene notices it, too. She recoils. She tries to squirm away.
“No,” she says. “No. I won’t—”
“Verene,” Theo says. “You already did.”
She’s trying to get away. But he’s already shoving the eye into her mouth.
All I can do is watch, strangely mesmerized, as Verene gags. Theo covers her mouth and forces her to chew. And chew. And chew. It takes so long, and she fights it the whole time, but he doesn’t let up. When it’s finally done, she goes limp.
She’s crying, and it’s a small, broken noise. He takes his hand off her mouth and pushes her hair away from her face, gently. He’s watching her like he’s waiting for something to happen.
So I watch her, too. I watch her shuddering breaths. I watch her seeping wounds. I watch the omens crawl down her face and onto her neck.
And then, the omens stop in their tracks. They disappear. Every last one.
Her wounds stop bleeding.
Verene goes still. Then, all at once, she wrenches herself away from her brother. She scrambles back on her hands and knees. She’s moving like she doesn’t feel any pain at all, but her face is gray and
terrified.
She blinks once, twice, and something happens behind her eyes. Even from here, I can see it. In an instant, they’re darker.
Colder.
“No,” she says, her voice hushed. “No—”
I know what I’m looking at. I’ve seen it before.
Magic. Blood magic. The most powerful magic a person can have.
I have to get out of this city. I have to get back to my home.
I stand up and scoop up my knife off the cobblestone. Somehow, I get Ale on his feet. His arm is around my shoulder, leaning on me heavily, as we stumble into the nearest street. I look around wildly for an entrance to the catacombs. I see dark manors and terrified faces peeking out of the windows. I see bubbling fountains and beautiful white rose gardens. I can’t remember if I’ve been on this particular street before, and I want to scream. I don’t have time to be lost. Ale doesn’t have time to be lost.
At last, I spot a familiar door in an alley. I drag Ale onto the first step. Instantly, a few drops of his blood fall. A moment later, the vide is there, swallowing it up.
I pull the blood-soaked jacket off Ale’s face. I wring it out onto the vide, and its shadowy form gets darker. The air gets colder as the splatters of blood disappear.
“Ale,” I say. “Tell it to take us back to Occhia. It will listen to you.”
Ale sways, and all at once, he’s collapsing down the steps. I chase him. He’s landed in a crumpled pile on the catacomb floor, barely conscious. His one remaining eye is fluttering, but really, all I can see is the gaping, bloody hole in his face.
“Ale.” I grab his shoulder and shake him. “Tell the vide to take us home. Now.”
“It hurts,” he whispers.
“I know,” I say.
“Why?” he says. “Why did she do this to me?”
His voice is so small and helpless, and for a second, I completely lose my nerve. For a second, I’m convinced that I can’t do this. We can’t do this. We’re never going to be able to make it back to Occhia, and we’re going to die right here on the floor of the catacombs.
But then I shake myself. Ale needs me. He needs his best friend—the one who can and will do anything for him.
Beyond the Ruby Veil Page 19
