Beyond the Ruby Veil

by Mara Fitzgerald

  Then the ground underneath me turns cold.

  I sit up.

  “Ale,” I say. “What’s happening? Is that… is that the—”

  My throat fills up with panic, and I can’t finish. For a long moment, Ale doesn’t say anything.

  “I don’t know what else to do with you,” he whispers finally.

  The ground disappears.

  And I’m falling.

  I hit the floor hard. I rip off my blindfold and scramble to my feet, looking around wildly.

  But I see nothing. It’s pitch-black. I wait for my eyes to adjust, and they don’t.

  I drop to my hands and knees, expecting to find the stone floor of the catacombs, but instead, I touch smooth metal. Iron, maybe. It smells like iron. I feel my way across the floor and bump into an iron wall.

  There’s absolutely no light. I have no idea where I am, and it’s too quiet, and it’s freezing, and my best friend is nowhere to be found, and I didn’t mean for this to happen.

  I just wanted to save my city.

  I back up frantically. I run into something solid but strangely soft. It smells disconcertingly sweet, like flowery perfume.

  I know that perfume. But by the time I realize it, Verene is already screaming and shoving me away.

  TWENTY

  VERENE AND I DON’T SPEAK. WE SIT ON OPPOSITE SIDES OF our small prison at the bottom of the catacombs, and we do nothing.

  Time passes—hours, or maybe days. I don’t know. All I know is that we’re inside a very deep cell. It’s the blankest place I’ve ever been. It’s so dark that my eyes never adjust. There are never any new sounds, and there are certainly never any visitors.

  Except for the bundles of food and water. They fall from above every so often, carefully packed so that nothing breaks. At first, I don’t eat. I can’t eat. The taste of blood is still too strong in my throat, and everything I put in my mouth makes me retch. But eventually, I get so hungry that the instinct comes back. I don’t have the will to do anything else, but somewhere deep inside, I suppose my body still has the will to survive.

  The food is all from Theo, who must still be in Iris. I can tell by the bread. It’s still fluffy in the middle and crunchy on the outside, like bread should be, but it’s just not the same as Occhian bread.

  Of course it’s not Occhian bread. There’s no one in Occhia to make bread. I’ll never have Occhian bread again.

  The bundles are mostly basic—fruit and loaves that can be easily wrapped—but there are always a few treats. There are chocolate bonbons and candies I’ve never had, sticky and chewy, tasting like everything from sweet orange to sharp licorice.

  Verene never takes any of the candies. So either her brother is purposely sending her things she doesn’t like, or they’re all her favorites, and she’s trying to take some sort of righteous stand in front of no audience.

  There’s no food coming from Ale. Apparently, he doesn’t care if I live or die in this prison.

  I have no idea where Ale is. He had a map of the catacombs, and he knows how to communicate with the vide. He has nowhere to go. He could have gone anywhere.

  Time stretches on and on, and still, I refuse to speak to Verene. I don’t want to have to explain the details of how I ended up being banished to a pitch-black cell at the bottom of the catacombs. I don’t want to talk about all the terrible things I did to her in Iris. I don’t want to listen to her preaching at me about how I ruined her, blaming me for why her life is in shambles.

  She probably thinks I’m so quiet because I’m scheming. I’m not. The cell is too tall to climb out of, and it has no weak points in its walls. The iron keeps the vide from being able to reach us, apparently. It can toss the food inside, but we can’t offer it any of our blood.

  And even if I did get out, I’m just a girl with no city and magic she can’t control. I might as well stay in here and lie curled up on the cold floor, alone.

  I have no idea how long it’s been when I hear a voice from the other side of the cell.

  “Aren’t you wondering how we found out about this place?” Verene says.

  I realize that I’ve sort of forgotten how to speak. I struggle to answer her.

  “I’m going to tell you whether you want to hear it or not,” she says. “I miss the sound of my own voice.”

  “Of course you do,” I mutter, surprising myself a little.

  “After our maman died—” she says.

  “After you killed her,” I say.

  “—we went into the catacombs,” she says, pointedly ignoring me. “We knew there were other cities. She’d told us that much. And we knew, of course, that it would be dangerous to try and cross the other rulers. But we needed water, and I was so sure that we could find a better way. Something that none of them had found before.”

  She pauses.

  “We got lost,” she says. “The only reason we survived is because Theo had this ridiculous bag of supplies that would have lasted six months. Somehow we ended up at the very bottom of the catacombs. And we found this strange iron circle in the ground. I realized it looked like a door. So I opened it.”

  “Oh, always a smart move,” I say. “What did you think you were going to find at the bottom of the catacombs? Do your people not have terrifying superstitions about what lives down here?”

  I’m acting like I wouldn’t have opened the door, too. But I would have done it in a smart way, with a weapon poised. Verene probably just flung it open without even warning her brother.

  “We have plenty of superstitions,” she says. “But… thinking about what was going to happen to Iris without water was scarier than any of that. And I thought…” She pauses again.

  “What?” I say.

  “Never mind,” she says. “You’re going to mock me again.”

  “I’m going to mock you regardless,” I say.

  “I thought it looked like a well,” she says. “I don’t know why there would have been a well down here. But that’s what I thought. Anyway, I opened it before Theo even realized what was happening—”

  I knew it.

  “He pulled me back,” she says. “I fell, and I accidentally cut my hand. I left blood on the floor. We looked down through the door, and we saw… this. It was empty. But then I noticed that my blood was gone. And there was a shadow in its place.”

  I’m quiet for a moment.

  “So…” I say. “The vide was a prisoner.”

  “It was very weak at first,” Verene says. “But I think it’s getting stronger. Sometimes… sometimes I would test it. To see how much it could do. It could do more than I expected.”

  I think about the way it shattered my chains. I know what she means.

  “All of this is your fault,” I say. “All of it.”

  She doesn’t say anything.

  “This all happened because you decided to play around with a thing from the catacombs that you don’t even understand,” I say. “Because you decided to steal from my city until it was so thirsty that our ruler was— She was desperate for prisoners. And it’s because of you that—”

  “I know,” she snaps.

  I’m thrown for a moment. I didn’t expect her to admit it.

  “I know it wasn’t right to steal from you,” she says. “But until I met you, I’d never seen anyone from another city. I could almost believe that you weren’t real. I don’t feel good about what I did. Do you think I feel good about it?” Her voice is trembling. “But my people needed water. And I couldn’t put them in a tower. I just couldn’t. I couldn’t be like…” She trails off.

  “Tell me about what happened,” I say. “When you did it.”

  “Did what?” she says stubbornly.

  “When you killed her,” I say.

  At first, I think she’s not going to answer me. It’s too dark to see her, but I can imagine her huddled against the far wall of our cell, starved and weak with blood on her clothes but still insufferably determined to be perfect.

  “She brought us
into her study,” she says quietly. “We thought it was for our lessons. But then she told us that it was time for her to choose her heir. We’d always thought we were going to rule together. But she told us how to do the ritual, and she told us that whoever did it to the other would be the heir, and I realized she had planned it that way all along.”

  Her voice has become strangely flat.

  “We tried to run,” she says. “But she stopped us. I knew she wanted him to win. He was always her favorite. He was smarter than me, and better at everything, and he had control over his emotions. She was always talking about how important it was to keep control. But she still didn’t understand him. He would never have done that to me. I realized that if we didn’t do what she wanted, she was going to kill us both. She didn’t care. She would just try again, with new heirs. So… I killed her.”

  “How?” I say.

  “Does it matter?” she says.

  I think about the crack of the watercrea’s bones on the cobblestone. I think about Verene’s housekeeper, dribbling blood onto the floor. I think about my papá, standing over me with a rock in his hand, looking at me like I was just an obstacle in his path.

  “I want to know,” I say.

  “She had this big glass jar on her desk,” she says. “She would put blood in it and show us her magic. When we were children, we thought it was… I don’t know. Interesting. We didn’t understand. I grabbed the jar, and I hit her. She fell down, and I kept hitting her until the jar broke. I got one of the shards, and I stabbed her until she was dead.” She pauses. “Until she had disappeared, actually. I didn’t notice it at first. I just kept stabbing at the floor.”

  I shiver a little bit, imagining the sound of it. The feel of it.

  “I said I would never do the ritual on anyone,” Verene whispers. “I was so sure about that. But then… you threatened me. Just like she did. And I would have done anything to stop you.”

  She takes in a shuddering breath.

  “I’ll never be able to learn to control the magic,” she says. “I’ll hurt people. I deserve to be in here.”

  I go still.

  “We can learn to control it?” I say.

  “Our maman said it’s always hard to control at first,” she says. “She said she was going to train her heir for years.”

  So it’s not just me.

  “But I don’t want to learn,” Verene insists. “I don’t want to go back to Iris and become the Eyes. Theo is bringing them water now. He was prepared to do it without me. He told me—” She chokes on a sob. “He told me that he always knew I’d go too far, and that he’d have to pick up the pieces.”

  She sobs again. “I just wanted to do something good for my city,” she whispers.

  She sounds broken, and I’m surprised by how much it hurts me. The pang in my chest is extremely disconcerting.

  I don’t want her to feel so helpless. I don’t want her to give up and let herself wither away. She deserves better than that.

  “No,” I say. “It’s not that you went too far. It’s that you didn’t go far enough.”

  “What?” she whispers.

  “What is your brother doing in Iris?” I say. “Stealing water from the other cities, just like you were doing before? That’s not the answer. You tried everything you could to change Iris for the better, and you couldn’t. But it wasn’t your fault.”

  “What was it, then?” she says.

  “It’s these cities,” I say. “In these cities, we can’t get water unless we feed on blood. The person who makes the water can’t do it unless they feed on eyes. Of course you couldn’t truly change your city for the better, because your city is broken. They all are. And who made them this way? Who’s been around for a thousand years? Who told everyone that this was how things were always going to be?”

  “The rulers,” Verene says. “All of them.”

  I’m on my feet. I haven’t been on my feet in so long, and it’s dizzying.

  “How do we know they’re right?” I say. “They kept so much from us. The Eyes was your maman, and she barely told you anything.”

  “She said we would learn everything once we had our magic,” Verene says. “But I don’t even know if that’s true. She said she was going to pass her power on, but she liked having power. She was so secretive about it. My—” She stammers a little bit. “My papa didn’t even know the truth about where she got her magic. He felt sorry for her. He thought she was trapped. If he’d known…”

  “Of course she liked having power,” I say. “Who doesn’t like it? Who doesn’t want to be the most powerful person in the whole city?”

  I hear Verene rustling. She’s on her feet, too.

  “But if we can get out of here, we’ll be just as powerful as the other rulers,” she says. “No—we’ll be more powerful. Because there’s two of us.”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “We can use the power for good,” she says. “We can find out what the other rulers are hiding. We can find out why they’re keeping things this way.”

  “And then we can stop it.” I’m rushing forward in my excitement. “Really stop it. And then we’ll be—”

  I bump into her and stop short, startled. I didn’t realize she was so close to me.

  But she is. I can smell her, sweet and fresh underneath all the grime. My hand seems to have gotten tangled in something soft—her shirt. Beneath, I can feel the warmth of her body. I can feel her stomach rising and falling as she breathes.

  And then her fingers are on mine. She’s no longer wearing gloves. I feel the rough gauze of the bandage around her wounded palm, and her long, delicate fingers. They curl around mine, and I tighten my grip without even thinking.

  She shoves my hand away.

  “No,” she says.

  She backs up.

  “No,” she repeats. “I’m not—I’m not working with you. What am I even saying? We could never be a team. You’ll just use me and betray me, because you don’t care about doing good. All you care about is yourself.”

  My fingers are still clutching empty air. My heart is pounding in my throat.

  “I’m not going to forget what you did to me and my city,” she says. “I’m never going to forget. You can pretend that you want to find something better, but I know just what sort of person you are.”

  I back up until I hit the cold wall. It brings me abruptly back to myself.

  I know what sort of person I am, too. I’m a girl who’s going to save the cities that still need to be saved. I’m a girl who’s going to turn them upside down and change the things that need to be changed. I’m a girl who’s going to live forever.

  I cross my arms. Obviously, Verene can’t see me, but I need to know that I look effortless and completely unaffected by her and her sweet-smelling shirt.

  “Fine,” I say. “It’s not like I need you and your sanctimonious, bothersome prattling. You’ll slow me down. In fact, I’d rather we didn’t work together.”

  “Fine,” she says.

  “I’ll just figure out how to break out of this prison on my own,” I say.

  For a long moment, she’s quiet, and the challenge hangs in the air.

  “Not if I figure it out first,” she says.

  I have no way of knowing for sure, but I swear I can hear her smiling.

  And that’s… perfect.

  EPILOGUE

  THE CITY OF IRIS IS QUIET.

  Overhead, the veil is the blazing red of midday, and clustered below are the white manors. The beautiful plants the Circles of Iris used to display on the sides of their houses—each family quietly judging and trying to outdo the other—are gone. Now, the city is blank and dry.

  But the streets are full. The people have all emerged. There are groups in every intersection, huddled around the white marble fountains. There are vases and buckets and jugs clutched in their hands. They’re waiting.

  For almost a thousand years, the people of Iris had a mysterious ruler who put them in a tower and took t
heir blood. Then, in a two-year daze that doesn’t feel real to anyone anymore, they had a girl in a white gown who gave them everything they ever wanted.

  Now, they have this. Every day, at noon, the fountains turn on, just like they used to. But this time, they only run for five minutes.

  They don’t know how it’s happening. It’s been a whole month, and no one has seen the girl in the white gown. Sometimes people claim that they saw someone who looks suspiciously like her brother. A lady in the Circle du Tasse insists that she peeked out her window at night and spotted him lurking around one of the fountains. A kitchen maid in the Circle du Richard is pretty sure he was the one who snuck in and stole the bread she’d just finished baking. But they haven’t made an effort to chase him down. They don’t want to get too close to the son of the Eyes. After all, he and his sister hardly ever left the cathedral, and no one has any idea what went on in there.

  The cathedral has been reduced to a crumbling charred ruin. The banner that was hanging from the balcony, showing a drawing of the eight cities that nobody really understood, has turned to ash.

  Some bold people went into the catacombs, looking for answers. None of them ever returned. The rest decided to stay in their homes. They decided to survive, the way they always have. They don’t have much, but at least they have water.

  And right now, they’re just waiting for it.

  It’s almost time. The people standing around the empty fountains start to jostle one another, subtly. They pretend that there’s an order to things. Each family is allowed a certain number of people at the front. But really, the moment the water appears, it’s chaos.

  The people of Iris are so busy waiting that they don’t notice what’s happening up above.

  The brilliant red of the veil is shifting and growing. It almost seems like the veil is getting closer to the city. And closer.

  Then it stops. And everything is still, like it never even happened.

  With a rush and a gurgle, the fountains of Iris come to life. No one was looking at the veil. No one saw.

  And far below the cities, at the very bottom of the catacombs, a girl has just climbed out of a prison.