Giulietta’s grip on his cloak softens. I can sense the energy shimmering around her, the strings of light fading, going dim, leaving her and returning to the world, seeking the dead ocean. Her face twists for a moment, but she is too weak to speak now.
The energy within her fades then, and she goes limp.
Teren shakes her shoulders. His head stays bowed over her, and his voice cracks. “We were supposed to fix the world together,” he says. I can barely hear him. He sounds confused, still shaking off the remnants of my illusion. “What have you made me do?”
Giulietta just stares back at him with empty eyes. Teren lets out a choked sob. “Oh gods,” he breathes as he finally realizes what he has done. My darkness swirls, and the whispers in my mind coo at the sight. From the corner of the room, my father’s ghost laughs, his shattered chest heaving in amusement. He keeps his stare focused on me. I see for an instant what Teren might have been like when he was younger, a little boy in love with an older girl, watching her dance while he hid in the palace’s fruit trees, infatuated with an idea that he could never become. My smile turns savage.
I could have killed Giulietta myself … but this is better.
“I suppose she is a pure-blooded royal, after all,” I say aloud. I give Teren a bitter smile. “Now you know how it feels.”
In the midst of his grief, he lifts his head to look at where Raffaele is now on a hovering balira’s back. A spark of fury burns in him. No, not fury. Madness. The madness in him is growing. It fills him until it threatens to spill out. “You,” he snarls. He turns back to me. “You did this to her.” His rage grows and grows, until it seems to blind him. I gasp at the rush of it.
He shouts for his Inquisitors to attack me. Magiano whips out a dagger and braces himself. But we stand our ground. I glance at the Inquisitors walking behind Teren, then smile and gesture to them.
Some of the Inquisitors aren’t Inquisitors at all. They are my mercenaries, in disguise.
They break rank with the real Inquisitors, draw their weapons, and attack. Two Inquisitors fall, screaming, clutching at their throats.
Raffaele reaches for the balira’s reins. The creature shudders, startled, and before the few Inquisitors with him can react, the balira surges forward, hitting its back against the balcony’s marble railings. It crushes two Inquisitors against the railings with a sickening crunch of bones and flesh. Another is flung, screaming, out into the air. The last one tries gamely to hang on to Raffaele, but I see Raffaele reach down in one fluid motion, pull a dagger from the Inquisitor’s belt, and stab it grimly through the man’s neck. At the same time as the man falls, the balira pushes its fleshy wings down and shoots up.
I suddenly realize that Gemma must be nearby, calling Raffaele’s balira forward. Enzo must be nearby too. I rush forward.
Outside, heavy drops of rain have started to fall. I nearly slip on the balcony’s slick surface. A blast of icy cold air hits me. As I reach the edge of the railing and look down, I see a sight that lifts my heart. Magiano is riding on the back of one balira, while Sergio and Violetta are on another. Magiano whistles to his, and the creature rushes upward toward me.
“Jump!” Magiano shouts at me.
I don’t think. I just act.
I push myself up onto the railing until I’m straddling it. The fall down to the courtyards below makes me dizzy, and I teeter for a moment, lost in a sudden haze of fear. My power floods my chest and mind. I clench my teeth, then swing my other leg over and fling myself out into the open space. I fall.
The balira glides up to meet me. I land against cold, slick flesh. I almost slip off, but Magiano’s warm hand seizes my arm and yanks me up. He pushes me forward until I can grasp the edge of the saddle next to him. I pull myself into a sitting position, then grab the reins with him.
He turns the creature sharply in the direction of Raffaele’s balira. Now I can see others in the air, dozens of them, some ridden by the Daggers, others by my own mercenaries. I focus my energy on the Daggers and the Beldish queen: my next targets.
Behind us, baliras carrying Inquisitors stop to hover at the balcony, and Teren and his men board. Magiano whistles at ours, and it surges forward. Rain whips against my skin.
“We have to keep up with your Star Thief,” he shouts. “I can’t mimic her if I can no longer see her.”
I squint against the rain and look over my shoulder. Teren and his Inquisitors are on our tail.
Black clouds have now completely covered the sky, blocking any sign of the sun from view, and the rain comes down in torrents. Lightning forks ahead. Sergio’s storm is building quickly now, likely out of his control. The baliras fly low, as unnerved by the charge in the air as we are. I can feel a steady pulse of unease from the balira beneath us, and the sheer intensity of its fear makes me light-headed.
Beside us, Violetta shouts at me. I turn instinctively in her direction, as if I’ve always known where she is. She points to a balira some distance before us. “Star Thief,” she calls out over the storm.
My attention darts to where she gestures. Now I can see a rider on the balira’s back, her hair whipping behind her in a long sheet. It’s Gemma. For an instant, I think back to the day I’d seen her race a horse, her head thrown back in sheer joy, hair streaming out, and I realize that even if I cannot see her face, I can recognize her by the life in her movements. She urges on her balira. Arrows sing toward her from Inquisitors flying nearby, but her creature turns in a spin, narrowly avoiding the weapons.
Magiano whips our reins, guiding our own balira. It speeds up.