“I just didn’t want to pretend with you, too,” Ale said. “I can’t spend every day of our marriage lying to you. I just can’t.”
“You don’t have to,” I said.
My fingers slid discreetly to my hip.
He went quiet. I could see the wheels turning in his head, and I wondered how long he had been tormenting himself over the idea of being a good husband with a good marriage. I wondered how it was possible that we’d spent our whole lives engaged and not been on the same page about something so basic. I wondered, uneasily, if there was anything else on his mind that I didn’t know about.
He turned back to me, and I quickly readjusted my hands.
“What about you?” he said.
“What about me?”
“Well… are you having torrid affairs? Secret, torrid affairs?”
“Perhaps.” I tried to sound mysterious and full of experience.
He took a sip of his wine. He stared at me, and his eyes were a little too curious for my comfort.
“Chiara Bianchi is very pretty,” he said.
“Chiara Bianchi is all the worst things in existence combined into one girl-shaped object. And what is a pretty girl going to do for me, anyway? If I want a pretty girl, I can just look in the mirror.”
It was so obtuse of him to bring up my lifelong enemy, just because she was the only girl who was even close to being as attractive as me. He clearly understood nothing about the concept of enemies.
“That’s true,” he said agreeably, which was very annoying. “Well, we should probably go back before the chaperones lose their heads.”
His nose was still pink, but all other evidence of his tears was gone. He climbed to his feet, helped me up, and then started for the door. But I lingered by the bookshelf, fiddling with my skirt.
“Ale,” I said.
He turned back.
Nothing he’d just told me was a surprise, and yet, the fact that he’d done it had changed something between us. I could feel the relief, like we’d been wrestling with a tangled knot that had suddenly unraveled. He’d given me something, and I could give him something in return. I wanted to. But the words were stuck in the back of my throat.
“I was just teasing about Chiara,” he said in response to my silence. “Because you two have that… y’know. Long-standing rivalry. For reasons that are still very confusing to me. But obviously, it all makes sense to you.”
He was smiling a little.
“I—I heard something,” I blurted. “This morning. From one of my family’s kitchen maids. She said that when she was growing up, she had a sister who got her first omen, but instead of going to the watercrea’s tower, she waited to see if they would spread, and they… they didn’t. For years. I know that has nothing to do with anything, but I heard it this morning, and I just—I was thinking about us, and how if something happened to you—”
He’d stopped smiling. A little furrow appeared between his eyebrows.
“Oh,” he said. “That’s… I don’t think you should spread that story around, Emanuela. You don’t want people to think you’re—”
“But if you… if you get an omen… would you really want to…” I trailed off at the blank look on his face.
“Well,” he said, “God willing, that won’t happen anytime soon.”
Because if it did, he would follow the law and turn himself in. Because he trusted the people who had made the laws. He trusted the city that had raised us.
He drained the last of his wine. “Can we maybe not talk about my death anymore?” he said.
He was missing the point. He was preoccupied with his own business—and also, I suspected, tipsy. I could press him on it, like I pressed everyone on everything.
But then again, I didn’t need to. The omen on my hip was meaningless. It had no power over me. And whether or not he knew about it, it wouldn’t change how he felt about me. So if he kept on not knowing, that was fine.
I crossed the room and sank down on a nearby love seat. “I’ve grown bored of the party,” I said. “Let’s stay in here.”
“What about your friends?” he said.
“It’s healthy for them to miss me,” I said.
“But we’re not supposed to be unchaperoned,” he said. “What if someone sees us—”
“Sees us doing what, Alessandro? Or did I gravely misunderstand the talk we just had?”
He turned pink. “Right. Well, I did want to take a look at these books—I think this one is a special printing—”
He was already snatching up one of his favorites. And I knew that if I stayed on the love seat for the rest of the night, I was going to have to listen to him explain the complicated inner life of the heroine for the hundredth time. I was going to miss all the other nobles’ gossip, and I’d have nothing to report back to my papá, but for a moment, I didn’t care.
I’ve lived my whole life in the same house on the same street. I thought being “lost” meant going to a party in a less familiar neighborhood and having a moment of uncertainty that I was at the right manor. I thought it meant taking a wrong turn in the cathedral and finding one of the priests in a back room, chugging the holy wine—and then, of course, using the resulting leverage to get out of the most boring religion lessons. When I was a child and I heard the stories about Occhians of the past venturing slightly too deep into the catacombs and never returning, I assumed it was their own fault. I had no intention of ever entering the catacombs, but if I did, I thought, I would simply pay attention to where I was going.
Apparently, it’s a bit trickier than that. Ale and I had the brilliant idea to arrange pebbles on the ground to mark the places we’ve already been, but we’ve yet to see any of our pebbles twice. It’s been hours. Maybe days. My grasp on time has become so tenuous that I’m not sure. What I am sure about are the facts that we drank all the water, and we ate all the bread, and the lantern is burning low.
I’ve taken the lead, sweeping the dimming lantern around the hall as I go. My feet are aching and I’m desperate to lie down, but I can’t stop moving. If I stop moving, then I’ll notice how quiet it is. I’ll realize how thin the air feels, like it’s not meant for breathing. I’ll think about the footprints we’re leaving in the ancient dust—proof that people don’t truly belong in this place.
When Ale and I were children, our nursemaids used to blow out all the candles and compete to tell us the most terrifying ghost story. They’re a prized possession in Occhia, passed down and honed over generations for maximum spookiness. I was always the one who demanded the stories, and I would get very annoyed at Ale for interrupting with his hysterical crying. Right now, I sort of wish he’d hysterically cried so much that I’d never heard the stories at all.
We reach another fork. I stop at the top of two staircases, branching away from us and extending down into the darkness. I look desperately for a sign that we’ve been here before. I’m not intimately familiar with the edges of the city, because it contains a whole lot of nothing, but I feel like we should have run into the conspicuously glowing red veil by now. It surrounds Occhia on all sides, so if we haven’t found it, that means we’re going in some sort of horrible, convoluted circle.
Something touches my shoulder. I jump, but then I realize it’s just Ale.
“What?” I say. My voice is hoarse.
He looks exhausted. His hair is dusty, because he keeps bumping his head on the low doorways. Without a word, he reaches into his pocket and pulls something out.
I recognize the embroidered red wrapper instantly. It’s one of the famous handcrafted chocolates from the House of Adornetto. Ale always has one on his person. If I become hungry and unpleasant, he retrieves it and nudges it in my direction in the most passive-aggressive way possible.
It’s the only thing we have left. We should savor it.
“Open it.” I push at him like an impatient child. “Open it, open it—”
He fumbles in his desperation. The chocolate slips out of his hands, and
I catch a glimpse of it tumbling down one of the staircases.
I scramble after it like a girl possessed, Ale on my heels.
I’m on the bottom step, reaching for my grimy prize, when I feel something strange. It feels like the chill of eyes on my skin, but that can’t be. We’re so very alone down here.
I lift my head.
At the other end of the hall, there’s a tall, slender figure in the doorway. I have a brief impression of legs and arms. I see something gauzy and white covering most of a face, making it indistinct in the shadows. But, just for a second, I meet the figure’s eyes, and they’re dark and glittering.
It doesn’t look like one of the watercrea’s guards. The problem is that I don’t know what, exactly, it looks like.
I lift the lantern higher.
There’s something on the figure’s hands. Something red and glistening.
The lantern finally gives up. The flame goes out. And everything is black.
I throw the lantern wildly in the direction of the intruder. It’s not exactly my most cunning decision, but it’s not really a decision at all. It’s an instinct. I’m already scrambling back up the steps, grabbing for Ale and clinging to his shirt, because if I lose him in the dark, I’ll never find him again.
We run. We can’t stop. I refuse to let us stop. We’re stumbling around corners and going up and down staircases and then, abruptly, we hit something blocking our path. It rattles against our hands. It doesn’t have the solid finality of stone. It feels like, at last, a wooden door.
I feel around for the handle, and after a few frantic moments, I manage to get it open and tumble through.
It’s so bright. It’s too bright. I find myself on my hands and knees, squinting and desperate for my eyes to adjust. I can’t just crouch here in uncertainty. I need to know what’s happening to me.
Then, finally, I can see. I look up, and I stare.
And stare.
I should know the cobblestone street winding away from me. I should know the manors with arched windows and intricate iron balconies. I should know the towering cathedral looming in the distance.
But I don’t.
I’m in a place that looks like a city. It is a city.
It’s just not my city.
SIX
MY CITY IS DARK AND MUTED, PAINTED IN BLACK AND GRAY. But the city I’m looking at is bright white—the cobblestone, the houses, and even the cathedral. It’s dazzling. It’s foreign. It’s unnatural.
White is the color of death. Everyone knows that.
I’m kneeling in an alley between two unfamiliar manors. I tentatively get to my feet and inch forward. The only thing in front of me that I recognize is the veil. It’s still high above, stretched over everything. It’s a bright, vivid red, like it always is during the middle of the day.
Behind me, a door slams. I whip around to see Ale. His face is as white as the scenery, and he’s very, very still, his back pressed against the entrance to the catacombs like he expects something to come bursting out.
He looks around slowly, and I wait for him to tell me I’m imagining things. I wait to hear that we’re back in our city, but I’ve simply lost my senses from hunger, and that’s the reason everything looks inexplicably not-Occhian.
“We’re dead,” he says. “That was a ghost. And we’re dead.”
I open my mouth. I shut it.
“We—we were in the bottom of the catacombs,” he says. “And a ghost killed us. And now we’re inside the veil. And this is what the afterlife looks like.”
“No,” I say automatically.
“Well,” he says, like he’s bracing himself, “the dying part actually wasn’t so awful. Yes, it was terrifying, but it didn’t hurt like I thought it would, so there’s that. What are we supposed to do now that we’re in the afterlife? Oh—we have to go atone for all our sins. Right. This is all fine. This is—”
“Ale,” I say. “We’re not—”
I try to say the word dead, but it gets stuck in my throat.
“That wasn’t a ghost,” I say instead.
“What?” he says. “Then what was it?”
“It was a person,” I say.
“It looked like a ghost,” he says.
“It was a person,” I insist. “I saw its eyes. They were… person-like.”
“I didn’t see any eyes,” he says.
“I was closer to them than you were,” I say.
“Well, it could have been a ghost with person-like eyes,” he says. “Remember that awful story your nursemaid used to tell us about the ghost that wore the face of its last victim—”
“It wasn’t a ghost,” I say with vicious certainty.
If the ghosts of Occhian lore were real, and one had come after me, I would know. If I were dead, I would know. I would feel it.
Ale is quiet. I wait for him to admit that he’s being hysterical and I’m being logical.
“So that means a person lurking in the catacombs killed us?” he says. “Is that better or worse?”
I whirl around and march to the mouth of the alley.
We’re not dead, because I refuse to be dead. I’m sure that once I take a proper look around, this will all make sense.
“Emanuela, wait—”
Ale scampers after me. I duck around the corner and, before he can catch up, I pull aside my pants to look at my hip.
I still have the same omen on my skin. Just one.
They haven’t spread. I’m alive.
I knew that. I was just making sure.
Ale joins me, and we both survey the street. The manors around us are towering and pristine—and absolutely smothered in plants. There are columns wrapped in vines and windowsills overflowing with white roses and flowerbeds of every color. The house just across the way has an entire wall covered in yellow blossoms. They’ve been meticulously placed to form an elaborate, spiraling design.
My mamma’s family, the House of Rosa, has a garden of heirloom roses in our courtyard. It’s our pride and joy. It’s small enough to cross in three steps. We can’t afford to make it any larger.
I cross the street to the house with the yellow blossoms. I rip off one of the petals.
“Emanuela,” Ale says, “don’t touch anything—”
It’s real. I drop it and look around again. I don’t know what I’m looking for. I’m just waiting for this place to make sense.
But there’s no explanation leaping out at me. All I see are a lot of beautiful manors, sitting in an unnerving quiet.
I start slowly down the street, peering in the windows we pass. The houses are empty, but they don’t look abandoned. I see a parlor with tiny sandwiches sitting out on a silver platter, waiting for teatime. I see laundry hanging in alleys. I see a manor that’s been terrorized by its children, who have left toys scattered all over the floor of every room.
The people of Occhia all leave their manors at the same time every day to gather for worship. For some people, worship is about the religion, and for some people, it’s the place to see and be seen, but for everyone, it’s an event.
I glance up at the spires of the cathedral.
This is a city. A city that looks like Occhia, but doesn’t. A city that’s like Occhia, but isn’t.
I can think the words, but when I try to wrap my mind all the way around them, it rebels. The idea that I got lost in the catacombs and wandered into another city doesn’t make any sense. Because that would mean everything I know about Occhia is wrong. My city is supposed to be all alone in the middle of the veil. My city is supposed to be everything that’s ever existed.
“Emanuela.” Ale whispers it directly onto the back of my neck.
I startle away. “Must you? The point of you being twice my height is that you stay out of my breathing space.”
“Look.” He follows me. He grabs my head and delicately turns it to direct my gaze down the street.
At the intersection of several winding lanes, there’s a statue made of white marble. It has thr
ee tiers, stacked like a cake, and on top is a figure of a woman. Her arms are outstretched benevolently.
“What is it?” Ale says.
“A ghost,” I say, just to be insufferable.
He stiffens. “You don’t think… you don’t think it followed us—”
“It’s clearly a statue, Ale,” I say. “A statue of a saint, probably. That’s what we make statues of in Occhia, isn’t it?”
“But…” he says. “We’re not in Occhia.”
I hesitate.
“I know,” I say.
We approach the statue cautiously. Like everything else on this street, it’s polished and pretty and unfamiliar. The woman’s white skirts are expertly carved to billow around her, as if she’s in the middle of a twirl. She has a white rose behind one ear and long, curly hair. She looks so real. I feel like if I climbed up and touched her, I’d find her skin warm and soft.
But I’m not going to do that. I don’t want to get any closer.
At the end of the next street, we find another statue. It’s the exact same woman, on top of the exact same tiers.
“Who is she?” Ale whispers.
He’s asking like he thinks I’ve somehow come up with an answer. I keep walking, hoping that maybe I will. With one eye on the spires in the distance, Ale and I wind our way up staircases and across walkways and past more identical statues. It quickly becomes apparent that there’s a statue at every single intersection.
Whoever this woman is, she’s all over the city.
All too soon, we’re at the end of a street that faces the cathedral. Just like in Occhia, it’s never far away. Its looming towers are white and striking against the red veil. The enormous double doors are shut. I strain my ears for organ music, the familiar sound of worship, but I hear nothing.
“Where’s…” Ale says. “Where’s the—”
He cuts himself off with an uneasy look at me.
The watercrea’s tower. In Occhia, it’s right behind the cathedral, peeking over its shoulder, always visible. But here, I don’t see anything.
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