The Young Elites (The Young Elites #1)(53)
Author: Marie Lu

My answer coaxes a single laugh out of him. His smile wavers for a moment, diminishing his madness, and he gives me a more serious look. “What made you turn your back on them?”

I withdraw. I don’t want to revisit what I heard. “Isn’t it enough that you threatened my sister’s life? That you threw me against a wall?”

His eyes pulse with curiosity. “There’s more.”

The heat of Enzo’s kiss springs unbidden to my mind, the way his eyes had softened at the sight of me, the way he’d pushed me against the wall . . . the conversation between him and Dante. I push the emotion away and shake my head at Teren. “Let me see my sister first,” I repeat.

“What if I tell my men to kill her now, unless you give me what I want?”

My jaw tightens. Stay brave. “Then I’ll never talk.” I meet his stare with my own, refusing to back down. The last time we met, he had taken me by surprise and I cowered before him. This time, I can’t afford to do the same thing.

Finally, Teren nods at me to follow him. “Come, then,” he says, gesturing to the Inquisitors. “Let’s play your game.”

Success. The Inquisitors lower their swords and drag me to my feet. Gradually, I start to gather energy in my chest. I’m going to need everything I have, or there is no hope of escaping this place with Violetta.

He leads us farther down into the dungeons, down, down, until I stop counting the number of stony steps we’ve covered. How far does this go? As we continue, I hear the cries of prisoners ringing from other floors, a chorus of haunted wails. I have to hold my breath down here. Never in my life have I felt so much fear and anger concentrated in a single place. The emotions swim around me, hungering for me to do something with them. My own anger and fear threaten to overwhelm my senses. I grit my teeth, hanging on to my powers. I could do so much down here. I could conjure an illusion like none of them have ever seen.

But I continue to hold back. Not until I see Violetta myself.

Finally, Teren guides us down to a floor quieter than the rest. Small wooden doors covered with iron bars line the walls. We walk through a narrowly lit corridor until we stand before a lone door at the very end. I nearly stagger, so powerful is my darkness here. I was in a place like this once.

“Your sister,” he says to me, giving me a mock bow. One of the other Inquisitors unlocks the door, and it groans open.

I blink. Behind the heavy door is a tiny, cramped cell. Candles burn along small ledges on the wall. A bed of hay is piled in one corner, and on it sits a girl with a sweet, fragile face and a head of dark locks that now look tangled and dull. She is thin and frail, shaking from the cold. Her wide eyes find me. I’m ashamed by my rush of mixed emotions at the sight of her—joy, love, hate, envy.

“Adelina?” my sister says. And suddenly I remember the night I ran away from home, when she stood in my bedchamber’s doorway and rubbed sleep from her eyes.

Inquisitors immediately file in and surround her. She shrinks away from them on the bed, tucking her knees up to her chin. As she does, I notice the heavy shackles on her wrists and ankles that keep her chained to the bed.

Darkness roars inside me. What illusion can I perform that could get us out before they can hurt her? I gauge the distance between us, the number of steps that separate the Inquisitors and me, me and Teren. All of Raffaele’s and Enzo’s lessons run through my mind.

Teren waits for me to step inside the room, and then closes the door behind him. He strolls closer to Violetta. As he does, I feel her fear spike—and with that, mine does too. Teren looks her over with a critical gaze, then turns back to me with a sweep of his cloak.

He studies me. “Tell me, Adelina—what are their names?”

I open my mouth.

Tell him about the horrible Spider, the little whispers say gleefully in my head. Go on. He deserves it. Give him Enzo, and Michel, and Lucent. Give him Gemma. You’re doing so well. In my head, I imagine confessing everything I know to Teren.

“Where are the Young Elites?” he’ll say.

“The Fortunata Court,” I’ll reply.

“Where?”

“It has many secret passages. They use the catacombs underneath the court. You can find the entrance in the smallest garden.”

“Tell me their names.”

I do.

The vision in my head vanishes, and I once again see Teren standing before me. Somehow, the confessions don’t come out.

Despite my silence, Teren seems calm. “Adelina, I’m impressed. Something did happen to you.”

A faint warning buzzes in my head. “You want their names,” I say, prolonging the game.

Teren observes me with an interested stare. His lips twitch. “Still hesitant, aren’t you?” He walks in a slow circle around me, close enough that I can feel the brush of his cloak against my skin. With a chill, I realize that it reminds me of when Raffaele circled me during my test with the gemstones, sizing me up, studying my potential.

Finally, Teren stops before me. He draws his sword and points it at Violetta. My heart twists. “Why do you protect them so loyally, Adelina? What did they promise you, once you were part of their circle? Did they make you believe that they’re a band of noble heroes? That they recruited you for some honorable cause, instead of the murder they actually commit? Do you think their Spring Moons stunt didn’t claim any innocent lives?” He fixes his pale, pulsing eyes on me. “I’ve seen what you can do. I know of the darkness in your soul. You were willing to run from them—I’d wager that you don’t trust them. There’s something . . . different about you. They don’t like you, do they?”

How could he possibly know that? “What are you trying to say?” I ask through clenched teeth.

“You’re here because you know you don’t belong,” he replies coolly. “Let me tell you something, Adelina. There’s no shame in turning your back on a group of criminals who want nothing more than to burn this entire nation to the ground. Do you think they’d protect you if you were in danger?” He turns, his gaze sidelong.

I think back to how malfettos have burned at the stake, and how the Daggers chose not to save them. Because they weren’t Elites.

“They came for you that day because you had something they wanted,” Teren says, as if he knows what I’m thinking. “No one throws away something useful to them—that is, until it’s no longer useful.”

He’s right.