It doesn’t look like one of the watercrea’s guards. The problem is that I don’t know what, exactly, it looks like.
I lift the lantern higher.
There’s something on the figure’s hands. Something red and glistening.
The lantern finally gives up. The flame goes out. And everything is black.
I throw the lantern wildly in the direction of the intruder. It’s not exactly my most cunning decision, but it’s not really a decision at all. It’s an instinct. I’m already scrambling back up the steps, grabbing for Ale and clinging to his shirt, because if I lose him in the dark, I’ll never find him again.
We run. We can’t stop. I refuse to let us stop. We’re stumbling around corners and going up and down staircases and then, abruptly, we hit something blocking our path. It rattles against our hands. It doesn’t have the solid finality of stone. It feels like, at last, a wooden door.
I feel around for the handle, and after a few frantic moments, I manage to get it open and tumble through.
It’s so bright. It’s too bright. I find myself on my hands and knees, squinting and desperate for my eyes to adjust. I can’t just crouch here in uncertainty. I need to know what’s happening to me.
Then, finally, I can see. I look up, and I stare.
And stare.
I should know the cobblestone street winding away from me. I should know the manors with arched windows and intricate iron balconies. I should know the towering cathedral looming in the distance.
But I don’t.
I’m in a place that looks like a city. It is a city.
It’s just not my city.
SIX
MY CITY IS DARK AND MUTED, PAINTED IN BLACK AND GRAY. But the city I’m looking at is bright white—the cobblestone, the houses, and even the cathedral. It’s dazzling. It’s foreign. It’s unnatural.
White is the color of death. Everyone knows that.
I’m kneeling in an alley between two unfamiliar manors. I tentatively get to my feet and inch forward. The only thing in front of me that I recognize is the veil. It’s still high above, stretched over everything. It’s a bright, vivid red, like it always is during the middle of the day.
Behind me, a door slams. I whip around to see Ale. His face is as white as the scenery, and he’s very, very still, his back pressed against the entrance to the catacombs like he expects something to come bursting out.
He looks around slowly, and I wait for him to tell me I’m imagining things. I wait to hear that we’re back in our city, but I’ve simply lost my senses from hunger, and that’s the reason everything looks inexplicably not-Occhian.
“We’re dead,” he says. “That was a ghost. And we’re dead.”
I open my mouth. I shut it.
“We—we were in the bottom of the catacombs,” he says. “And a ghost killed us. And now we’re inside the veil. And this is what the afterlife looks like.”
“No,” I say automatically.
“Well,” he says, like he’s bracing himself, “the dying part actually wasn’t so awful. Yes, it was terrifying, but it didn’t hurt like I thought it would, so there’s that. What are we supposed to do now that we’re in the afterlife? Oh—we have to go atone for all our sins. Right. This is all fine. This is—”
“Ale,” I say. “We’re not—”
I try to say the word dead, but it gets stuck in my throat.
“That wasn’t a ghost,” I say instead.
“What?” he says. “Then what was it?”
“It was a person,” I say.
“It looked like a ghost,” he says.
“It was a person,” I insist. “I saw its eyes. They were… person-like.”
“I didn’t see any eyes,” he says.
“I was closer to them than you were,” I say.
“Well, it could have been a ghost with person-like eyes,” he says. “Remember that awful story your nursemaid used to tell us about the ghost that wore the face of its last victim—”
“It wasn’t a ghost,” I say with vicious certainty.
If the ghosts of Occhian lore were real, and one had come after me, I would know. If I were dead, I would know. I would feel it.
Ale is quiet. I wait for him to admit that he’s being hysterical and I’m being logical.
“So that means a person lurking in the catacombs killed us?” he says. “Is that better or worse?”
I whirl around and march to the mouth of the alley.
We’re not dead, because I refuse to be dead. I’m sure that once I take a proper look around, this will all make sense.
“Emanuela, wait—”
Ale scampers after me. I duck around the corner and, before he can catch up, I pull aside my pants to look at my hip.
I still have the same omen on my skin. Just one.
They haven’t spread. I’m alive.
I knew that. I was just making sure.
Ale joins me, and we both survey the street. The manors around us are towering and pristine—and absolutely smothered in plants. There are columns wrapped in vines and windowsills overflowing with white roses and flowerbeds of every color. The house just across the way has an entire wall covered in yellow blossoms. They’ve been meticulously placed to form an elaborate, spiraling design.
My mamma’s family, the House of Rosa, has a garden of heirloom roses in our courtyard. It’s our pride and joy. It’s small enough to cross in three steps. We can’t afford to make it any larger.
I cross the street to the house with the yellow blossoms. I rip off one of the petals.
“Emanuela,” Ale says, “don’t touch anything—”
It’s real. I drop it and look around again. I don’t know what I’m looking for. I’m just waiting for this place to make sense.
But there’s no explanation leaping out at me. All I see are a lot
