Behind us, the second Inquisitor lifts his blade at the other gondola.
I yank back my blanket of invisibility. We suddenly come into view.
The Inquisitor pauses for an instant as he sees eyes blinking back at him from where moments ago there had been nothing. “What in—” he blurts out.
I narrow my eye and lash out at him. Threads of energy whip around his body, the illusion hooking into his skin and pulling taut. At the same time, Violetta leaps out of the boat and knocks the Inquisitor’s sword from his hand. It clatters to the ground. The man lets out a half shriek, but I cut it off as my threads tighten around him. The energy in me surges with delight as the man’s confusion changes into terror. His eyes bulge, filling with pain.
Behind us, Magiano leaps out of their boat to attack the second Inquisitor.
The first Inquisitor clutches his chest and falls to his knees. He reaches for the sword on the ground, but I grab it first. As I move, I catch a glimpse of Violetta’s face. Her lips are set in a grim line. I half expect her to cower in the darkness, or reach out with her powers to stop me, but instead, she stoops down and grabs the Inquisitor’s cloak. She yanks it, forcing him to topple backward. He gasps in pain.
The world around me closes in—for a moment, all I can see is midnight and my victim. I grit my teeth, lift his sword, and plunge it into his chest.
The man trembles on the blade. Blood sprays from his mouth. I glance to my side to see Sergio with his arm wrapped tightly around the second Inquisitor’s throat. Sergio squeezes hard. His Inquisitor’s arms grapple frantically for him, but Sergio hangs grimly on. I breathe in the terror of the struggling man.
The Inquisitor I stabbed stops trembling. I close my eye, lift my head, and take a deep breath. The metallic scent of blood fills the air, mixing with the wetness of the rain—it is all so familiar. When I open my eye again, I’m no longer looking down at the Inquisitor. I’m looking down at my father’s ruined corpse, his ribs smashed in by his horse’s hooves, his blood staining the cobblestones—
And I’m not horrified. I look at it, indulging in the darkness around me, feeding me, strengthening me, and I realize that I’m happy I killed him. Truly happy.
A hand touches my shoulder. My face jerks around to see who it is, and my energy surges, eager to hurt again.
Violetta jumps back. “It’s me,” she says. She holds a palm out, as if that might stop me. Her own power touches mine, and I can feel it pushing me back hesitantly, threatening to take my power away. “It’s me, it’s me.”
The snarl gradually fades from my lips. I look back down at the body before me, now no longer my father but the Inquisitor I killed. Magiano and Sergio hurry to my side, leaving their Inquisitor lying lifeless in the shadows. Violetta stares at the two dead men. Her expression is numb.
My moment of bloodlust has passed, but the darkness it brought lingers, feeding the little whispers in my head that have suddenly become deafening. Quiet, I hiss back at them, until I realize I say the word out loud.
“We’d better move. Now.” Magiano glances over his shoulder, then hops over the Inquisitor’s body to glance down both sides of the canal. “We won’t be alone here for long.”
I pull myself up to my feet. I wash my hands in the rising waters of the canal. Then I hurry after them. Up in the pouring sky, a haunting cry echoes over the city, followed shortly by another. A pair of baliras are passing over the city, although in the night, all I can see are their silhouettes, their massive, translucent wings covering up the sky. If Gemma were with us, she could have gotten us onto their backs—we could have flown over the city and found a way down somewhere. I could have avoided killing those two men. It’s not that I wanted them dead, after all. It’s that we had no other way. I repeat this over and over again to myself. Had it been this easy for me, when I ended Dante’s life? When I killed the Night King? When I watched Enzo die? When I nodded my approval to Sergio to execute the Inquisitors on the ship?
No. But this time, it was.
I look at my Roses, then step forward so that I lead the way. I start to weave a curtain of invisibility over us again. As the baliras pass overhead, I turn us in the direction of the Estenzian palace. My thoughts transition from the Inquisitors’ deaths to the task before us. If the Beldish queen makes her move tonight, then I have to find Raffaele before she does.
Already, I’m starting to forget the face of the man I killed.
Raffaele Laurent Bessette
It takes another week before Queen Giulietta sends for him again. This time, when he visits her private chambers, Teren and several of his guard stand outside the doors instead of within. Raffaele looks briefly at him as he walks past. The energy churning in Teren is black with rage and jealousy, and the feeling makes Raffaele dizzy. He turns his eyes back down, but he can still feel the Lead Inquisitor’s stare burning into his back as the chamber doors open and close for him.
Inside the chambers, Inquisitors still line the walls. Queen Giulietta sits at the edge of her bed, her hair down in long, dark waves, her hands folded neatly into her lap. The sheer drapes hanging on each side of the bed are also down tonight, half drawn in anticipation of sleep. She watches him as the soldiers guide him into the center of the chamber, then leave him to stand there alone. He hesitates, then steps closer and lowers himself into a kneel before her.
For a moment, neither of them says anything. The queen’s emotions are different tonight, Raffaele thinks. Calmer, less suspicious, more calculating. She wants something.
“They say that you were the greatest consort ever to grace the courts of Kenettra,” Giulietta finally says. “You fetched a virgin price that had the courts talking for weeks.” She leans back on her arms and regards him thoughtfully. “I’ve also heard that you are something of a scholar, that your patrons frequently gifted you books and quills.”