The Young Elites series by Marie Lu

A light tap comes from the door. When I look over, I see Magiano walking toward me. He comes to stand beside me and watch the baliras haunting the wet skies.

“If the Star Thief were near us,” he mumbles, “I could control those baliras. We could fly right over the palace and land on its roofs.”

I stare at the sky, listening to their cries. “The storm has stirred them from their waters,” I reply. “Not even Gemma can control more than one, not in this agitated state.”

Magiano leans against the windowsill. “Do you really think Teren will help us?” he says. “I don’t remember him being great at keeping his word.”

“I know how he keeps his word,” I reply. A fleeting memory comes back to me of his pale eyes and twisted smile, how he’d watch me beg for more time whenever I went to see him in the Inquisition’s tower. I tense at the recollection. “He hates the Daggers more than he hates us. It’s all the advantage we need.”

Magiano nods once. His eyes seem distant tonight. Behind us, we both hear Enzo rise in the hallway and make his way downstairs. His boots hit ominous notes against wooden floors. Magiano looks over his shoulder, then back to me when the footsteps fade away. “The prince is a moody one, isn’t he?” he says. “Was he always this way?”

“Enzo has always been quiet,” I reply.

Magiano looks at me. Whatever taunts he might have had on the tip of his tongue now vanish, replaced with a grave expression. “Adelina, you keep waiting for him to become what he once was.”

My hands tighten against the windowsill. Even now, I can feel the tether between me and the prince pulling taut, calling for me. The whispers stir restlessly in the back of my mind. “It will take time,” I reply. “But he will come back.” My voice drops to a whisper. “I know it.”

He frowns. “You don’t believe that. I can see the truth on your face.”

“Do you say this to hurt me?” I snap, turning a fiery glare on him. “Or do you actually have a point to make?”

“I’m trying to say that you are living in a world of illusions,” Magiano says, reaching a hand out to touch my arm, “of your own creation. You are in love with something that no longer exists.”

“He is one of us now.”

Magiano leans closer. His eyes flash, his pupils black and round. “Do you know what I saw when I passed him in the hall? I looked down at him, and he up at me—I looked into those eyes and I saw … nothing.” He shivers. “It was like staring straight into the Underworld. Like he aches to return to where he came from. He is not really here, Adelina.”

“He is right here, in this building, with us,” I say through clenched teeth. “He is tethered to my life. And I will use him as I see fit.”

Magiano throws up his hands. His eyes turn distant, and his pupils turn again into slits. “Yes, I know,” he growls sarcastically. “That’s all you see. Your victory. Your prince. Nothing else.”

I blink, confused for a moment, and then I realize that he’s talking about himself. He is standing before me, confessing something, but I am not hearing it. I’ve forgotten our moment under the stars, when his kiss brought me calm like nothing ever has. I do not see him. I hesitate, torn between my anger and confusion, and say nothing.

When I don’t reply, Magiano shakes his head and leaves the room. I watch him go before turning back to the window. The anger continues to churn inside, blackening my heart. I don’t want to admit it, but I find myself aching in his absence, missing the light that he brings. We shared a moment, I remind myself. Nothing more. Magiano is here because he wants his gold, not because he’s in love with me. He’s a trickster and a thief, isn’t he? The familiar feeling of betrayal wells up in me, memories of how others have turned their backs on me in the past, and I recoil, folding away my thoughts about Magiano. Caring for a scoundrel is a dangerous thing.

When I look down at the soggy grounds below, I can see Enzo standing near the entrance. Behind him, small fires still dot the scorched earth of the courtyard.

Magiano’s right about this, at least. There is a distance about Enzo that has not faded since he returned. Tonight, it seems as if he were not really here at all—like his thoughts don’t linger with the Daggers, or with us, but with something far, far away, in a realm beyond the living. I watch his dark figure in the night, then push away from the windowsill and head out of the room. I head down the hall, then the stairs. I ignore the mercenaries chatting with one another in the house’s crumbling entryway. I make my way outside, where the rain is still soaking the air. I stop a few feet away from Enzo. It is quiet out here, and I can see only the two of us. I wrap my arms around myself in the cold, then approach him.

He turns to look at me. The tether between us pulls tight.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him.

He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he turns back to the storm with a frown, the distance still plain on his face. It takes me a moment to realize that he has turned in the direction of the ocean. I feel a deep ache in my chest.

He is here, but he doesn’t want to be.

He nods once as I come to stand beside him, acknowledging my approach. Even now, he still has the air of nobility, an unspoken sense of authority. It gives me a glimmer of hope. “I am thinking of an old tale,” he says after a long silence. His voice is deep and quiet, the voice that I remember. Why, then, does he seem so different? “‘The Song of Seven Seas.’ Do you know it?”