My heir has to be strong. Strong enough to keep a city alive forever. Stronger than I am.
The rest of the journal is blank. For a long moment, I just sit there, staring at it and willing more words to appear.
“Emanuela.”
I startle at the voice. Across the hall, Ale is sitting up on his cot, the thin blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He’s looking at the book in my hands.
I close it. “What?”
“We need to get out of here,” he says.
“I didn’t want to wake you,” I say.
“I was barely even sleeping,” he says. “I can’t stop thinking about Occhia. How long have we been gone? Two days? Three days?”
I don’t know. Time has lost all meaning for me in this place. All I know is that somewhere across the veil and the catacombs, our people are struggling.
But I’m so close to being able to save them.
“We’ll be back there soon,” I say.
His eyes are worried. He’s probably thinking about his family. Personally, I’m less concerned about them. The House of Morandi had the most water to begin with, and they’ll hoard as much as they can.
“So you have a plan?” he says. “Can you just tell me what it is?”
“Does it matter if you know?” I say.
“It’s just…” he says. “I want to know if you actually have an idea for how to stop the vide, or if you’re going to”—he glances out the window behind me, at the burning cathedral—“destroy more things.”
“And what’s wrong with destroying things in this city?” I say. “Do you feel bad for them now? The people who stole our city’s water for two years? Did they tell you they were going to use the vide to send us to a prison at the very bottom of the catacombs?”
“Well, I don’t want that,” he says, looking unnerved. “I don’t. I just… I wonder what would have happened if we hadn’t done it this way. If we had just told them we were in trouble and asked if they might help.”
“They would have sent us to their prison at the very bottom of the catacombs,” I say, unimpressed.
“Maybe,” he says.
“Yes,” I say.
He puts down the blanket and runs a nervous hand through his hair, trying to smooth down his bedhead.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I can’t really explain it. I just think maybe they’re just doing the best they can in a bad situation. That doesn’t make them bad people who need to be totally… ruined.”
Apparently, Ale missed the part where Verene looked me in the face and told me she was going to kill me. I, for one, haven’t stopped thinking about it.
“Have I explained how little it matters whether or not you feel like someone is bad?” I say.
“I’m not necessarily saying that they’re good people, either,” he says. “But they care about their city. And one another. The look on Theo’s face when we found you both bleeding—and you should have seen all the work in his study. He did so much to help Verene realize her vision for Iris. I think he’d probably do anything for her.” He pauses. “Surely you can understand that.”
He looks at me. I look at him. I feel like he’s trying to trick me into something, and I don’t like it.
“Is there a point to any of this?” I say.
He turns away. If I’m not mistaken, he’s a little annoyed.
“Never mind,” he says. “It’s too late to try and reason with them anyway. It’s gone way too far. But you seem happy about that.”
“Yes, I am,” I say. “I’m happy to fight for our city’s water—”
“Are you?” he says. “Or are you just happy to fight her?”
“I—” I stumble on my words, suddenly. “Well—she—”
“You like fighting her,” he says. “Because she’s powerful. More powerful than you. It gives you a rush to take her down. I know you, Emanuela, and I see the look on your face when you go after her. You’re enjoying it.”
My ears are very hot. “Should I not enjoy being able to best her at everything?”
“Did you enjoy it when you killed the watercrea?” he says.
I open my mouth. I shut it.
“You did.” His voice is trembling. “I was there. I watched you do it. I watched you stare over the balcony and realize that she was dead, and you looked… you looked so triumphant. You looked like that when you killed the housekeeper, too. It was like you were amazed at what you could do.”
I want to tell him that it wasn’t like that. I want to tell him that I only did it because I had to.
But that’s only half the truth. Maybe when I think about the crunch of the watercrea’s bones, and the spray of glass as the housekeeper flew through the window, I also think about how incredible it is that I could put my hands on someone and have that much power over them. Maybe he’s not wrong. But it seems like we both know it, so there’s not really anything else to say.
“What are we going to do?” he says. “If our city dies? If our families die? Where are we going to live? We can’t live here, because now this city is ruined, too.”
“Occhia’s not going to die,” I say.
He bites his lip, like he wants to say something.
“What?” I demand.
“I just… What if you’re wrong?” he says.
“When was the last time I was wrong?” I say.
“Well, there was the time we were about to go into our wedding,” he says. “You told me to stop worrying so much. You told me that nothing bad was going to happen.”
Silence. Now he’s staring at me in a way that looks distinctly accusing, and it gets right under my skin.
“Oh, are you upset about that?” I say.
“Am I upset about watching you get arrested at the altar?” he says. “Am I upset about finding out that you were hiding
