“Emanuela.” Ale is eyeing me nervously. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that you’re brilliant for finding this,” I say.
He beams.
We slip out of the hedges, and I lead us in a winding path, following the noise to the garden party. We find everyone in a large clearing. At the center—of course—is a statue of Verene. This one has been lovingly draped in chains of white roses. Below her, water is spilling out into an enormous pool. It’s as wide as a manor and filled with people, and looking at it makes my stomach churn.
“Emanuela,” Ale whispers as we peer in. “Why are we here?”
“We need food,” I say. “They must have food. And…”
I trail off as I take another look around the clearing. I’ve just comprehended the fact that most of the people lolling on the grass and playing around in the fountain are rather… undressed.
I straighten out my wet skirts, undaunted. I grab Ale’s hand and pull him into the party, to his obvious distress. We meander through the din of shrieking and splashing like we belong.
“Everyone is going to notice us—” he says.
“If you’re confident enough, people only notice what you want them to notice. How many times do I have to tell you this, Alessandro? Besides, they’re all drunk. Can’t you smell it?”
I’ve already casually bent down and scooped up a basket someone was kind enough to leave on the grass. It contains a bundle of neatly cut fruits with a jar of chocolate spread and loaves of savory cakes studded with olives. I hand a cake to Ale. I spot a promising pile of clothes near the edge of the fountain and approach, because some disguises could come in handy. I bend down and quickly shove it all into my basket. As I close it up, I accidentally make eye contact with a girl in a chemise who’s sitting on the edge of the fountain. I continue to look confident. Extraordinarily confident. She turns away, unconcerned.
I’ve never seen another girl in nothing but a chemise before. I’m used to being the most scandalously dressed one in the room.
I stand up. It’s very hot in this garden. “Let’s go, Ale. Ale? Where did you—”
He’s hovering behind me. He’s eating his cake, slowly, and gaping at something in the fountain. I follow his gaze to see two boys getting very intimate with each other’s faces. They’re not the only people in the pool engaging in such… activities.
I mean, we have debauchery in Occhia. It’s not this extravagant, but we have it. Occhians who follow the rules—accepting the spouse their family chooses and promising to bear children—are given some unspoken freedom in that regard. I knew about it. I had followers who told me who was sneaking off to wine cellars together after a few too many drinks at a dinner party.
No one ever asked me to sneak off to a wine cellar. They were intimidated, of course.
I wave my hand pointedly in front of Ale’s face. He jumps.
“I wasn’t—” he says.
“Of course not,” I say. “You don’t sound guilty at all. Let’s go before someone notices that I’m stealing their basket.”
“Mmm-hmm,” he says.
He’s staring at the boys again.
I sidle closer. “If you ask nicely, they might let you smell their handkerchiefs.”
“I—” He startles again. “I don’t want to smell every single boy’s handkerchief, Emanuela! Just because—”
The boys glance over at us. In true Ale fashion, Ale drops his cake and flees. I catch up to him at the entrance to the clearing, where he’s withering away from embarrassment.
“Here, you absolute fiasco.” I give him another cake. “Now we need to—”
Then the cathedral bells ring out.
Ale and I both go still. The entire party goes still.
The bells chime again.
And again.
And again.
And then, everyone is running. They abandon their wine and clamber out of the fountain, dripping wet, and they charge at the entrance to the clearing—at us.
“Don’t just stand there!” A girl stumbling over the bottom of her soaked gown reaches us first and shoves at me. “Remember the last time we were summoned like this?”
The cathedral bells are still chiming.
So the Heart of Iris wants to speak to her people. I wonder what this could possibly be about.
Ale and I melt into the crowd that’s pushing into the cathedral square, which is already full. It’s impressive how quickly the city has assembled. Manor doors have been left open. People are in their nightclothes. The air is tense, and everyone is whispering, their eyes on the cathedral.
Ale and I find a spot in a back corner. I take a moment to quietly shove down an olive cake, very aware that everyone else is too nervous to eat. A young girl nearby is in tears, and her friend is holding her around the shoulders.
“I’m sure the Heart is fine,” she’s saying, her voice trembling. “I’m sure it’s nothing bad.”
“What if—” The other girl is choking on her tears. “What if something happened to her? What if she got sick, too? What if—”
Up above, the balcony doors of the cathedral open. Instantly, the crowd stops breathing. And I wonder if anyone else is imagining a woman in a red dress, sweeping out and expecting us all to bow and saying that this fever dream is over—that it’s time to go back to the way things used to be.
When the people see Verene, I feel their collective sigh of relief. But as she staggers forward to grip the balcony, that relief starts to fade.
She’s still wearing the same disheveled, wet gown. Her hair is hanging limply in her face, and when she pushes it aside to reveal a bruise on her nose, dried blood crusted below it, a gasp rips through the crowd.
It’s all very theatrical. Verene certainly looked worse for the wear after what I did to her, but she didn’t look this bad. I don’t know why, but it makes me smile. I suppose
