Beyond the Ruby Veil

by Mara Fitzgerald

  Everyone here thinks Verene is a saint. They don’t know about my people. They don’t know what she’s taking from us. They don’t know that we’re dying.

  I turn to Ale. “We can’t get back to Occhia.”

  “What?” he says.

  “We can’t get back to Occhia,” I repeat, more forcefully. “That thing… it lives in the catacombs. It moves around in the catacombs. It’s what they’re using to steal the water from us. It has to be. If we try to go back down there, it could—”

  “They’re stealing water from us?” he says. “With that thing? But, Emanuela, what was it?”

  “I don’t know.” My voice is too loud.

  “It can swallow water,” he says, like he’s realizing it as he speaks. “And people. But… where did it come from?”

  “They’re the children of this city’s last ruler,” I say. “The ruler with blood magic. Maybe it was some sort of power they got from her.”

  “What?” he says. “She had children? But why didn’t she just pass down the exact same magic—”

  “I don’t know, Ale! I don’t know what’s going on in this city. But I was so sure I could figure it out. I was so sure—and we can’t get back to Occhia—and—”

  And I almost killed Verene back there. I almost killed another person. And I didn’t even really think about what I was doing until it was too late.

  My papá always says that I never stop until I get what I want, and that it’s the best thing about me. And it is. It’s never scared me before. Not the way it’s scaring me now.

  Ale puts a hand on my back.

  “I…” I say. “We should…”

  I want to tell him that I have a plan. I want to tell him that we’re closer to getting this city’s water. But we’re not. And I can’t.

  He glances back at the towering face of the cathedral.

  “We should hide,” he finishes for me.

  ELEVEN

  WE REACH THE EDGE OF THE CATHEDRAL SQUARE. ALE moves in the direction of a quiet, unassuming street, but I grab his wrist.

  “Let’s go to the gardens,” I say.

  He gives them a nervous glance. “It sounds like there’s a party.”

  “Which means they’ll expect us to hide somewhere quieter,” I say.

  And I can’t go sit in an empty alley. Not after the darkness of the underground well. It doesn’t seem like the blood-eating shadow we just encountered can venture into the city above—if it could, surely it would still be chasing us—but I’m finding it harder and harder to trust my own instincts.

  We head for the gardens and push through an ornate iron gate at the entrance. In Occhia, the name “gardens” is a bit of a misnomer. They’re more of a stone plaza, with plenty of statues of saints and the occasional plant. Everyone crowds the prettiest path that’s lined with tall, skinny cypress trees. There are always, at minimum, three couples trying to have romantic moments. It’s impossible for anyone to enjoy it.

  My people would probably faint if they could see the gardens of Iris. They’re so green and so very alive. Ale and I are instantly lost in a maze of hedges. We wind around sharp corners and through ivy-covered tunnels, and I look for a hiding place that feels secure enough.

  “So,” Ale says. “You’re… you’re absolutely certain that Verene doesn’t have blood magic?”

  “We were fighting,” I say. “I was besting her. If she had it, she would have used it on me the moment she escaped from the trunk—”

  I stop short.

  “You loosened her bonds,” I say.

  “What?” Ale whispers very delicately.

  I round on him. “She escaped the trunk on her own. And I couldn’t figure out how. When we were in her bedroom, I told you to tie her up even tighter while I searched her things. But you didn’t. You loosened her bonds.”

  The guilt is all over his face.

  “I was afraid she wouldn’t be able to breathe,” he says. “And I didn’t—I really didn’t think she was dangerous. I just—”

  “And were you right?” I say.

  He’s not looking at me anymore.

  “You useless piece of garbage.” My ears are very hot. “This is why you’re supposed to do exactly what I tell you. She attacked me. She could have killed me.”

  “You left me with her brother,” he whispers. “He could have—”

  “You left yourself,” I say. “That was your own incompetent floundering. And it was mortifying to watch, by the way.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I just—I thought maybe, if we didn’t treat her like an enemy—”

  “She is our enemy,” I say. “She’s taking Occhia’s water, Ale. That water belongs to us. I was right about what’s happening in this city—I was more right than you, at least. These people are a danger to us, and they need to be stopped. Am I wrong about that? Tell me I’m wrong.”

  He’s quiet. He’s looking at the blood that’s still smeared on his fingers.

  “You’re not wrong,” he says.

  I whirl around and march off. I find a gap in the hedges and slip through it. Now that I’m hidden in the narrow, dark space between two walls of hedges, I should feel a little safer. I should feel a little better. But I don’t.

  “Emanuela.” Ale squeezes in after me. “Please don’t run.”

  “I didn’t want us to get separated,” I hear myself say. “I didn’t—When things started to go wrong, I didn’t know what was happening to you.”

  I pause, suddenly aware of how hard my voice is wavering. I can’t look at him, because I know he heard it, too.

  For a long moment, he’s quiet.

  “Well,” he says, “we won’t be separated again.”

  He sits down, his back against a wall of hedges. He rubs at the blood on his fingers, then sighs.

  “This city was too good to be true,” he says. “I should have known.”

  I sit down next to him, closer than I normally do. I’m cold and wet and I’m craving the warmth of another person at my side. He idly rests his knee against mine.

  If we were still in Occhia, and we were married, we would be doing whatever we wanted right now. We would be throwing a party, or holding meetings, or just sitting together in the parlor we owned. That was the way things were supposed to be. Things will be that way again, once I fix my city.

  “I took something from him.”

  Ale says it so quietly that for a moment, I think I imagined it. I give him a sideways look and find that he’s hunched and shamefaced.

  “What did you just say?” I say.

  “The brother,” he says. “When he was showing me his study—he had all these diagrams of the fountains on the wall. There was a lot of math. I didn’t understand any of it. But I noticed that there was a piece of paper on his desk that he had folded and slipped under some books, like it was a secret. The books were very boring, by the way. They were also about math. I was so disappointed. I was thinking about how this city must have so much beautiful art and so many novels that I’ve never read. Isn’t it amazing that they’ve been over here for a thousand years, making their own—”

  “What’s your point, Ale?” I say.

  “Oh,” he says. “I, um, I waited until he turned his back and I took the secret paper.”

  “You stabbed him and stole his private documents?” I say. “What has this city done to my wholesome Alessandro?”

  He squirms. “I’m not proud of it. It was terrible of me. But maybe it will have something useful. I hope it didn’t get too wet…”

  He reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out the paper, unfolding it on the grass between us. I shift to get a better look. For a long moment, we’re both still, trying to figure out what we’re seeing.

  It’s a drawing in red ink. There are eight circles arranged in a ring, just barely touching. In the middle of each circle is a tiny drawing of a familiar building. A cathedral. Surrounding the cathedrals are webs of painstakingly rendered streets.

  One of the
circles catches my eye. It’s labeled with the word Occhia.

  I touch it, delicately. The drawing looks like it’s supposed to be a map, but I don’t recognize the path of the streets. I can’t find my family’s house. But after a moment of searching, I realize that maybe it’s not a map of the city above. Maybe it’s a map of the city below.

  My eyes drift to one of the neighboring circles. It’s labeled as Iris. The others are labeled, too, with names I’ve never seen before.

  “Ale,” I say.

  “There’s—” he says.

  “There’s more,” I say.

  There are other cities. Six other cities.

  “We’re all connected by the catacombs,” I say. “Everything around us—that’s the veil. But inside it, we’re connected. That’s how we got here.”

  I trace the path between Occhia and Iris.

  “Does no one know about this?” Ale’s voice is hushed. “Do the other watercreas know?”

  There’s a tiny dot behind the cathedral—a tower—in every city. Except Iris.

  There are six other cities. I can’t quite wrap my head around what it means. I can’t quite comprehend the fact that for my entire life, I thought Occhia was all alone, a tiny bubble inside the veil, and I was so wrong.

  There are six other cities, and no one in them knows my name. No one in them knows what I have to offer. But they could.

  “What do you think these marks mean?” Ale touches the outside of one of the circles.

  Somebody—Theo, I would assume—has been making small tick marks next to each city. Again, Iris is the only exception. I consider.

  “The water,” I guess. “He marks it off every time they steal. And they go in a circle. So each city takes a turn, and each city has time to recover.”

  “They have so much water here,” Ale says. “They’re taking more than they need. Why?”

  “Because they can,” I say.

  “Don’t they ever think about what it does to us?” he says.

  “Obviously not,” I say.

  This is the reason why Occhia’s underground well is empty. Verene and Theo must have stolen the last of our water right before our watercrea disappeared. She didn’t have time to replace it. My people are panicking and rioting and afraid so that the people here can splash around in happiness and comfort.

  “The rulers of these other cities…” Ale says. “The other… watercreas. They must notice when their water gets stolen. Why haven’t they stopped it?”

  “They must not know how,” I say.

  “Maybe they’ve tried, but they can’t,” Ale says. “If Verene and Theo were born with this, like their mamma was born with her magic…”

  A cold dread is creeping down my spine. There are six other rulers out there who have a thousand years’ worth of power and knowledge. If they knew how to get their water back, they would have done it already.

  I know how to fight against people. I know how to look for weaknesses in humans. But that thing we saw in the catacombs wasn’t human. It wasn’t like anything I’ve ever seen before.

  “But we have to figure out a way,” Ale says.

  “What?” I say.

  “We have to figure out a way to stop them,” he says. “To stop that thing. If we stop it, then we can use the catacombs to get home. And we’ll have helped the other six cities. They’ll be free again. So maybe, in return, we could ask them each to give us a little bit of their water…”

  And Occhia will be saved.

  And Verene will be destroyed. And I’ll be the savior of my city. I’ll be the one with the power.

  “Emanuela.” Ale is eyeing me nervously. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking that you’re brilliant for finding this,” I say.

  He beams.

  We slip out of the hedges, and I lead us in a winding path, following the noise to the garden party. We find everyone in a large clearing. At the center—of course—is a statue of Verene. This one has been lovingly draped in chains of white roses. Below her, water is spilling out into an enormous pool. It’s as wide as a manor and filled with people, and looking at it makes my stomach churn.

  “Emanuela,” Ale whispers as we peer in. “Why are we here?”

  “We need food,” I say. “They must have food. And…”

  I trail off as I take another look around the clearing. I’ve just comprehended the fact that most of the people lolling on the grass and playing around in the fountain are rather… undressed.

  I straighten out my wet skirts, undaunted. I grab Ale’s hand and pull him into the party, to his obvious distress. We meander through the din of shrieking and splashing like we belong.

  “Everyone is going to notice us—” he says.

  “If you’re confident enough, people only notice what you want them to notice. How many times do I have to tell you this, Alessandro? Besides, they’re all drunk. Can’t you smell it?”

  I’ve already casually bent down and scooped up a basket someone was kind enough to leave on the grass. It contains a bundle of neatly cut fruits with a jar of chocolate spread and loaves of savory cakes studded with olives. I hand a cake to Ale. I spot a promising pile of clothes near the edge of the fountain and approach, because some disguises could come in handy. I bend down and quickly shove it all into my basket. As I close it up, I accidentally make eye contact with a girl in a chemise who’s sitting on the edge of the fountain. I continue to look confident. Extraordinarily confident. She turns away, unconcerned.

  I’ve never seen another girl in nothing but a chemise before. I’m used to being the most scandalously dressed one in the room.

  I stand up. It’s very hot in this garden. “Let’s go, Ale. Ale? Where did you—”

  He’s hovering behind me. He’s eating his cake, slowly, and gaping at something in the fountain. I follow his gaze to see two boys getting very intimate with each other’s faces. They’re not the only people in the pool engaging in such… activities.

  I mean, we have debauchery in Occhia. It’s not this extravagant, but we have it. Occhians who follow the rules—accepting the spouse their family chooses and promising to bear children—are given some unspoken freedom in that regard. I knew about it. I had followers who told me who was sneaking off to wine cellars together after a few too many drinks at a dinner party.

  No one ever asked me to sneak off to a wine cellar. They were intimidated, of course.

  I wave my hand pointedly in front of Ale’s face. He jumps.

  “I wasn’t—” he says.

  “Of course not,” I say. “You don’t sound guilty at all. Let’s go before someone notices that I’m stealing their basket.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” he says.

  He’s staring at the boys again.

  I sidle closer. “If you ask nicely, they might let you smell their handkerchiefs.”

  “I—” He startles again. “I don’t want to smell every single boy’s handkerchief, Emanuela! Just because—”

  The boys glance over at us. In true Ale fashion, Ale drops his cake and flees. I catch up to him at the entrance to the clearing, where he’s withering away from embarrassment.

  “Here, you absolute fiasco.” I give him another cake. “Now we need to—”

  Then the cathedral bells ring out.

  Ale and I both go still. The entire party goes still.

  The bells chime again.

  And again.

  And again.

  And then, everyone is running. They abandon their wine and clamber out of the fountain, dripping wet, and they charge at the entrance to the clearing—at us.

  “Don’t just stand there!” A girl stumbling over the bottom of her soaked gown reaches us first and shoves at me. “Remember the last time we were summoned like this?”

  The cathedral bells are still chiming.

  So the Heart of Iris wants to speak to her people. I wonder what this could possibly be about.

  Ale and I melt into the crowd that’s pushing into the cathedral
square, which is already full. It’s impressive how quickly the city has assembled. Manor doors have been left open. People are in their nightclothes. The air is tense, and everyone is whispering, their eyes on the cathedral.

  Ale and I find a spot in a back corner. I take a moment to quietly shove down an olive cake, very aware that everyone else is too nervous to eat. A young girl nearby is in tears, and her friend is holding her around the shoulders.

  “I’m sure the Heart is fine,” she’s saying, her voice trembling. “I’m sure it’s nothing bad.”

  “What if—” The other girl is choking on her tears. “What if something happened to her? What if she got sick, too? What if—”

  Up above, the balcony doors of the cathedral open. Instantly, the crowd stops breathing. And I wonder if anyone else is imagining a woman in a red dress, sweeping out and expecting us all to bow and saying that this fever dream is over—that it’s time to go back to the way things used to be.

  When the people see Verene, I feel their collective sigh of relief. But as she staggers forward to grip the balcony, that relief starts to fade.

  She’s still wearing the same disheveled, wet gown. Her hair is hanging limply in her face, and when she pushes it aside to reveal a bruise on her nose, dried blood crusted below it, a gasp rips through the crowd.

  It’s all very theatrical. Verene certainly looked worse for the wear after what I did to her, but she didn’t look this bad. I don’t know why, but it makes me smile. I suppose I appreciate some dramatics from my enemies.

  “People of Iris,” she says. Her voice is hilariously ragged, but the square is so silent that it carries anyway. “You all remember the last time I called you outside of a watering. Two years ago, when I announced that I would become your Heart and showed you my powers, it was a joyous occasion.”

  She pauses.

  “This is not,” she says.

  The girl next to me sobs even harder.

  “Earlier this evening, I had some visitors,” Verene says. “I welcomed two citizens of Iris into my House, hoping to learn more about their lives. And they attacked me. I was able to get free, but only after I almost—”