Beyond the Ruby Veil

by Mara Fitzgerald

  I didn’t need any of that. I had Ale. Ale didn’t have any paramours. Ale didn’t have any other friends. He had no romance to offer me, but he’d also never marry somebody else, and he’d never carry on a life without me. He couldn’t.

  He wouldn’t.

  TEN

  I DON’T KNOW WHY I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE EASY TO GET A trunk with a girl inside it down a steep, dark staircase. My first approach is to get in front and pull, but after it nearly runs me over, I try pushing. In an instant, it’s gotten away from me. I chase it down the steps, grimacing at the obnoxious noise. When I finally manage to catch it, I wrestle it down, and down, and down. Just when I start to fear the stairs will never end, I wind around a bend and find an arched doorway, two flickering lanterns on either side.

  I leave the trunk for a moment. I creep to the doorway and peek into the room.

  I never saw the underground well in Occhia, but I was taught how it works. The watercrea collected blood in a glass tank beneath her tower. Then she opened a hole at the bottom and let it flow down into the well. She used her magic to transform it as it went.

  After ten years of nightmares about the watercrea, I have a very particular mental image of what I think it all looks like. It makes seeing the well of Iris even more jarring. It’s not a small hole in the floor, like the one I imagined for Occhia. It’s wide, taking up most of the space in the round room. It’s full to the brim, the surface dark and glassy. And there’s no glass tank holding blood above it. There’s nothing above it—just endless stone walls stretching up into shadow.

  Off to one side is a black doorway. It must lead to the catacombs. This place has a silence to it, ancient and total, that I would never find in the city streets above.

  I move to the edge of the well and kneel down. I can’t see the bottom.

  Verene claims that she spends most of her day here, filling the well. But I don’t see any sign of that. I don’t see a chair, or a bottle of wine, or an easel and paints. I don’t see any signs of… anything. The well looks like it was simply filled out of nowhere, by magic.

  I touch the surface of the water, just to be sure it’s real. It’s cold.

  Occhia could live off this water for days. Months. Years.

  Behind me, there’s a loud crash. I whirl around to see that the trunk has fallen onto its side, and Verene is tumbling out.

  I run for her, my sewing scissors out. But she’s already on her feet. She’s pushing her mussed hair out of her eyes, and all at once, she’s looking at me. In the dim light, her eyes look bigger. Colder.

  “So?” she says.

  I can’t move. I can’t even breathe.

  She gestures to the well behind me, and I stumble back.

  “Do you believe me yet?” she says. “Or are you going to tear up the catacombs, looking for whatever evidence you think you can find?”

  The scissors are shaking in my grip, and I clutch them with both hands.

  Verene sighs. “That’s what I thought.”

  I jab at her. I have to. I have to do something. But she lunges at me, like she’s not even afraid of getting stabbed, and grabs my wrists. And the scissors are out of my hands and in hers. I have no idea how it happened. I thought I’d be better at using a sharp thing on another person. It seems like the sort of thing I should be good at.

  “This is insulting,” she says. “It’s really insulting. You attacked me for no reason, and then you tied me up in the most undignified way—and I’m sure you snooped around in my things, too. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for this city. I give so much of myself, and I do it for you and everyone you love. Can’t you see that?”

  She’s coming at me. The scissors are clutched in her white-gloved fingers. And her eyes are unblinking. Unrelenting.

  “Just explain it,” she says.

  “Ex—” I’m stammering, even though I’m not the sort of person who stammers. “Explain what—”

  “My magic is real!” she says. “You have to know that! You can see it all around you! So why do you and your little group of conspiracy theorists still have meetings in the greenhouses? Why do you make up these ridiculous rumors about how I’m taking blood from people in their sleep? How would I even do that? I couldn’t. Things are so good in Iris. Everyone is happy. Except you.”

  She won’t stop advancing. I stumble along the edge of the well, groping the cold wall for balance.

  “I—” I say.

  “I’m not like her.” Her voice is too loud, echoing off the stone walls, and I swear she still hasn’t blinked. “I would rather die than be like her. Do you think you had a bad time of it, with her ruling over you? Imagine being her daughter. She treated me like a prisoner, too. She never let me go anywhere. She made me watch as she stuck needles in dying people and took their blood. She—”

  She cuts herself off. She’s breathing hard, and the scissors are trembling in her grip. She presses a hand to her forehead, like she’s suddenly dizzy.

  I feel like I’ve been frozen inside. I haven’t been thinking. I’ve just been backing away, instinctively, trying to get away from her eyes. But all at once, I come back to my senses.

  If I was being attacked by magic, I would know. I’m terrified right now, but the sensations in my body are all my own.

  The moment I realize that I’m still free to act, I do. I lift my skirts and kick Verene in the stomach, hard. It catches her off guard. She doubles over and drops the scissors. I snatch them up and back away. And I wait to see how she’s going to retaliate.

  “What—” She’s a little breathless. “What are you going to do? Stab me? You’ll regret that.”

  “You…” My mouth is very dry. “You don’t have it. The blood magic.”

  “No!” she says. “I don’t! That’s why I’ve been trying to tell you the whole time! For the love of—”

  “Then show it to me,” I say. “Your true magic. Your water magic.”

  She straightens up, all defiance and pride. And for a split second, I think she’s going to raise her graceful hands and shower me in water, and I’m already trying to figure out what it would mean for Occhia and me.

  “No,” she says.

  I blink at her. “No? After all that carrying on about your miraculous powers, you’re just going to—”

  “No,” she repeats. “I gave you the chance to see it before, and you turned me down. You stuffed me in a trunk. You threatened me with scissors—which you’re still doing, by the way. I don’t have to show you anything.”

  “But—” I fumble. “Don’t you want to convince me? Because I’m still not convinced.”

  Her nostrils flare.

  “Look at all this water.” She gestures widely. “If I didn’t make it, then who did?”

  She says it with so much confidence. Because in her mind, she’s talking to Tatienne du Brodeur, a seamstress from Iris who only knows one city and one ruler who makes water.

  But she’s not talking to Tatienne du Brodeur.

  I glance at the doorway to the catacombs and think about Occhia, mysteriously connected to this place by the maze of tunnels. I think about the grim set of Paola’s face when she told me our underground well was empty, and no one knew why. I think about two little girls crammed into the same cell of the watercrea’s tower, like the watercrea had become desperate to get every last drop of blood she could.

  A few feet away, Verene is hesitating. Her eyes are searching my face, and I don’t want her to read what’s written there, but it’s all coming too fast for me to hide it. Realization. Bewilderment.

  And a sudden, blinding fury.

  Verene isn’t like the watercrea. But she’s not a miraculous saint who can create something out of nothing, either.

  She’s a thief.

  And I’m already running at her. I’m already attacking.

  She tries to fight back, but I’m angrier. In an instant, I have her on the floor, the point of my scissors in the hollow of her throat.

  “You—you—” I see
the, unable to finish the sentence.

  “Who—” she chokes out, disbelief in her voice. “You’re not—Who are you?”

  I dig the scissors deeper, and her breath catches. She’s trembling underneath me. I can feel it as I try to gather myself. I swallow down my anger so that I can regard her with the coldest hatred I possess.

  “My name is Emanuela,” I say. “You’re going to tell me how you stole my city’s water.”

  And I’m going to steal it back.

  Verene’s breathing is ragged. Her gaze flits down to the scissors pressed into her throat and I notice, irrationally, how very long her dark eyelashes are. Then she looks back at me, and somehow, her eyes are even more defiant than before.

  “No,” she says.

  My grip on the scissors tightens. “I’m not afraid to draw blood.”

  I’m not. I’ll push these scissors in and ruin her perfect skin. It’s what she deserves.

  “And I’m not afraid of you,” she says.

  “This water was made in my city,” I say. “It’s mine.”

  “My people need it.”

  Her words still have an unsettling conviction to them. She may not have magic, but she really believes she’s the savior of her city. I can see it on her face. I can feel it radiating off her body.

  I want to destroy it. I want to destroy her. I want to see her lying in the ruins of this place, while I bring my people the water that they died for.

  “Aren’t you wondering where my accomplice is?” I say.

  “I assumed he was hiding nearby,” she says. “As part of some trap you thought you could set, perhaps?”

  “Actually,” I say, “he’s with your own accomplice. I’m referring, of course, to your brother.”

  Something flickers in her eyes. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I know that I’ve found a promising avenue.

  “Your brother designed your so-called fountain system,” I say. “The one that lets you distribute water all around your city. It’s such an impressive feat. I wonder if he has any information about the way you’re getting water from my city to yours.”

  “Even if he did, you’ll never get it out of him,” she says.

  I smile like I know something she doesn’t. “Well, my accomplice is very good at getting information out of people. You thought he was sweet and innocent, didn’t you? You were practically courting him earlier.”

  “Courting him?” she says. “Please. I was being kind to someone I thought was my new friend. But you’re obviously not familiar with that concept.”

  For a moment, all I can think about is the way she made courting a boy sound so ridiculous, like the thought has never occurred to her before. But it’s beside the point, of course. The point is that I’m on top of her, and my scissors are making a dent in the soft hollow of her throat, and she’s going to give me what I need.

  “He’s not sweet and innocent,” I say. “He’s almost as dangerous as me. If I were you, I’d start thinking about what you’re going to do when he gets down here with your brother in his captivity—”

  In the distance, a door cracks open. It’s quickly followed by the sound of someone moving down the stairs. I freeze. I can feel Verene holding her breath. And for a second, we just wait to see what’s going to happen next.

  After a moment, I realize it doesn’t sound like a person walking down the stairs at all. It sounds like a person falling. Falling while simultaneously attempting to juggle a variety of heavy objects that keep slipping out of their grip and thudding onto the steps.

  I glance at Verene. She looks just as perturbed as I am.

  Then I hear a familiar, muffled voice.

  “Emanuela! He got suspicious—I’m trying to stop him—”

  It distracts me. I don’t even realize it’s distracted me until Verene takes advantage of it. She knocks the sewing scissors out of my hand, and they clatter to the floor. We both dive for them. She gets there first, because of her long arms—I decide that I also now have a personal vendetta against how tall she is—and she tries to jab them at me. I leap up and kick her in the nose, and she falls back, dropping the scissors and clutching at her face.

  I scoop up the scissors just as Theo stumbles through the door. He’s breathing hard and his crisp white shirt is half-untucked. He looks, to put it mildly, displeased.

  Verene is on her feet again. I catch a flash of her white gown, and I have just enough time to calculate my move. I back up to the edge of the well. She charges, and when she throws herself at me, I leap out of the way.

  She hits the water hard. There’s a loud smack and a splash, and then she’s thrashing. Her heavy skirts are already pulling her down.

  All of a sudden, she looks helpless. And after what she did to my city, that’s how she deserves to feel. It’s as simple as that.

  Theo curses under his breath and runs for the edge of the well. I block his path and point my sewing scissors at him.

  “If you stay very still and answer my questions, maybe I’ll let you save her,” I say.

  If she can even be saved, that is. She’s sinking so quickly.

  I know, obviously, that Verene could die. The thought is occurring to me as I stare at the desperate blur of her under the water. But I don’t care if she dies. She’s not magical. She’s not special. And she’s certainly not important to me.

  Theo considers me. Then, with one precise movement, he whacks the scissors out of my hand.

  I should have brought a bigger weapon.

  Just as Theo is about to push me aside, too, Ale bursts through the door. He’s holding an enormous kitchen knife.

  I’ve never been so glad to see him.

  What happens next is a blur. Ale dives at Theo. There’s a sharp, wet sound and a very undignified yelp. A second later, the knife clatters to the floor, and Ale leaps away from it like it’s on fire.

  There’s blood all over it. And Theo is on the floor at the edge of the well, clutching at his side.

  I look at Ale. “You… you stabbed him.”

  Ale is still staring at Theo. He looks like he hasn’t processed it. He looks like he’s not going to process it any time soon. His face is all horror, but I mostly feel a strange sense of pride. For once, I didn’t have to do absolutely everything myself.

  I march over to Theo. I kick him onto his back, and he grunts in pain as I put my foot on his chest. There’s blood all over his white gloves and smeared on the floor next to him. It’s actually quite a lot. I can even smell it, and for a moment, I feel a little nauseated. But I don’t feel any sympathy.

  “I know that you’re stealing this water,” I say. “And I know who you’re stealing it from.”

  “Em-Emanuela,” Ale stammers behind me.

  In the well, Verene has stopped splashing.

  I’ve been in this city for less than a day, and I’ve already reduced its leader and her accomplice to this. It’s almost pathetic, how quickly I broke down their little act of being more perfect and more powerful than everyone else. They look so ordinary now. Ordinary and broken. Just like the watercrea.

  I lean harder on Theo’s chest, and he winces. He must know how close Verene is to dying, too, but he doesn’t look panicked. Maybe he’s too distracted by the pain. Maybe they didn’t even care about each other. Maybe he’s glad that he doesn’t have to design her fountains anymore.

  “I know there’s no magic in this city,” I say. “You can’t control my blood. You can’t scare me with…” I trail off.

  I don’t like how quiet he’s being. I don’t like the look on his face. He’s looking at me like he knows something I don’t.

  “Emanuela!” Ale grabs me and pulls me back.

  Only then do I see it.

  On the floor beside Theo, something is… happening.

  There’s a shadow forming. It doesn’t have a shape. It’s just a smudge. But Theo’s blood is disappearing. Like the shadow is consuming it.

  The shadow moves abruptly, and Ale and I leap back, pressing
ourselves against the wall. But it’s not moving in our direction. It slides over the edge of the well and disappears.

  Theo sits up. He’s clutching at the wound in his side, and his breathing is ragged, but he doesn’t look the least bit afraid. He just looks grim.

  “Did you really think there was no blood?” he says. “There’s always blood.”

  The shadow flies out of the well, and all of a sudden, water sprays all over the room, cold and heavy. I duck. When I can see again, Verene is lying on the floor, soaking wet. She rolls onto her side and retches, water spewing out of her mouth.

  And then the shadow is coming for us.

  I don’t think. I just run. I push Ale back toward the stairs, and we throw ourselves up the steps. I don’t know how we make it to the top. It must be out of sheer desperation. We fling open the door and then, suddenly, we’re back in the peaceful dining room of the cathedral. The chandelier is still flickering softly.

  I slam the door behind us and look around, searching the shiny tile floor and the white walls.

  The shadow is nowhere to be found.

  “What—” Ale is dripping wet and shaking. There’s blood on his hands. “What was that… thing?”

  I don’t know. All I know is that we need to get out of here.

  I run through the parlor, down the stairs, and into the foyer of the cathedral. The double doors are dead-bolted shut, and I’m certain that when I try to push the lock aside, they’re going to magically slam back into place. But they don’t. A moment later, Ale and I are stumbling out into the night.

  For a moment, I just stand in the cathedral square, looking around wildly. It must be quite late. The veil has already deepened to black, and some of the windows in the manors around us have gone dark. I spot a few distant figures loitering on the steps of a manor, passing around a bottle of wine, and off to the side, I can hear the sound of revelry coming from the public gardens. Of course someone is having a garden party. This is a beautiful, perfect city, and its people can enjoy all the parties they want.