The Young Elites (The Young Elites #1)(35)
Author: Marie Lu

Dante hesitates for a moment. Then he pushes away from the wall. “Watch your back, little lamb,” he snaps at me before stalking off down the hall. Windwalker watches him go, shrugs, and regards me with a suspicious look.

“Now what, Reaper?” she says. “A whole new plan for the Tournament of Storms?”

“No need.”

She snorts. “But they’ve disqualified Gemma,” she says. “She can’t get close to the royals if she won’t be able to race.”

Enzo studies me with a gaze so intense that it leaves my cheeks red. “Not if someone disguises her,” he replies.

I blink, my mind spinning with the new information they’re feeding me. First, Spider’s real name. Now, this. Is he . . . pleased with me? Permitting me to participate in the Daggers’ plans? I could learn to disguise Gemma. I could disguise any one of them to ride in the race.

Enzo steps closer until he’s now barely a foot away from me. The heat emanating from him burns my skin through the fabric of my clothes. He reaches out one hand and touches the clasp that pins my cloak at my neck. The metal turns white hot. When I look down, I see threads fraying on the cloak’s cloth, their ends blackened and singed. My fear rises up into my throat.

“You want to train faster,” he says.

I keep my chin up, refusing to let him see my anxiety. “Yes.”

He’s silent. A second later, he removes his hand from my cloak’s clasp, and the heat is sucked out of the melting metal as if it were never there. I’m shocked it didn’t burn straight through to my skin. When I look back up at Enzo, I notice a tiny spark of something else behind his rage. Something in his eyes that sends a different kind of warmth tingling through me.

“So be it,” he replies.

My heart jumps.

“But I warn you, Adelina. Dante is right. There is one line you do not cross with me.” His eyes narrow as he folds his hands behind his back. “You do not recklessly endanger my Elites.”

His words sting, labeling me as someone separate from them. I am separate from them. I am a spy and a traitor. Besides, what if things had gone horribly wrong when I used my powers? If I hadn’t been there, the other Daggers would surely have made a move to protect her, and they are certainly more skilled than I am. What if Gemma had instead been harmed during my antics, because I didn’t know what I was doing? What if the Inquisition had chosen to blame her for the false Elites on the roofs?

What if Teren had seen me out there?

“I’m sorry,” I murmur at the ground, hoping he doesn’t hear in my voice all the reasons why.

Enzo makes no indication that he has accepted my apology. His stare feels like it can burn straight through my skin. “This will be the last time you disobey me.” He says it without a single hesitation, and I realize, with a horrible shudder, that he means exactly what he says. If he finds out about Teren, he really will kill me.

“Tomorrow.” His voice is hard as diamond. “Be at the cavern by dawn. Let’s see how fast you can learn.” Then he breaks the stare, steps away from me, and leaves down the hall.

Windwalker lingers for a moment. She gives me a small nudge and a grudging smile, then extends a hand. “I’m Lucent,” she says.

I take her hand, unsure what to say in return. Another barrier between me and the Daggers breaks down. I don’t know whether to feel joy or guilt.

“That’s his way of showing thanks for your help, by the way,” she says before she turns away. “Congratulations. He’s going to train you himself.”

Teren Santoro

Do you have any idea who Lady Gemma is?”

Teren stays bowed before the king. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Do you realize that Baron Salvatore is her father?”

“I apologize, Your Majesty.”

“You’re a damn fool of a Lead Inquisitor. I cannot afford to anger a nobleman like Baron Salvatore. And he is furious. You do not allow your Inquisitors to threaten his daughter in public and make an embarrassment of me. Even if she is a malfetto. Do you understand?”

“But your decree, Your Majesty—”

The king makes a disgusted sound. “Carry out my decree discreetly.” He leans back in his chair. “And the Young Elites attacked the qualifying races. You still haven’t caught a single one.”

Teren clamps down on his rising frustration. “No, Your Majesty.”

“I should throw you in a dungeon cell.”

Teren keeps his eyes cast down at the throne room’s marble floor. His teeth are clenched. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he says, but furious thoughts swarm in his mind. What a fool of a king. He wants the Elites captured, but he’s too cowardly to jeopardize his political relations. He’s too cowardly to wage real war on malfettos. Teren doesn’t mention aloud that his Inquisitors threatened Lady Gemma on purpose. That it had been the queen’s idea. That the game they play is tightening. Turn the king’s nobles against the king, and he weakens.

And as soon as Adelina delivers her information . . .

Beside the king, Queen Giulietta leans over to whisper something in her husband’s ear. The king just waves her off in annoyance. Teren’s temper flares. Giulietta glances briefly at him.

Patience, my Teren, her eyes seem to say. Everything will fall together.

“The next time you embarrass me,” the king goes on, “I will have your head.”

Teren bows lower. “There won’t be a next time, Your Majesty,” he answers loudly.

The king looks smug and satisfied. He has not understood the double meaning in Teren’s words.

I hereby pledge to serve the Dagger Society, to strike fear into
the hearts of those who rule Kenettra, to take by death
what belongs to us, and to make the power of our Elites known
to every man, woman, and child. Should I break my vow,
let the dagger take from me what I took from the dagger.

—The Dagger Society Initiation Pledge, by Enzo Valenciano

Adelina Amouteru

The next morning, when I go to meet Enzo in the cavern, the sky churns with black clouds, and giant raindrops splatter on me as I hurry through the main courtyard toward the secret entrance. I head down the stairs alone, trying not to think about the last time I’d seen a storm like this.

No disguise on me today. My hair has taken on a dark blue-gray sheen under the stormy sky, the strands pulled tightly away from my face, and my lashes are a dull shade. I’ve even left my porcelain mask behind. My clothing is simple Kenettran garb instead of Tamouran silks, deep blue vest over white linen, dark trousers, dark boots lined with silver trim. I shake water from my hair as I go.