The Rose Society

More minutes pass.

Then, finally, Enzo shifts. My own energy twists at the same time, and I can feel our new bond turning with him. The tether is buried deep in my chest, entwined around my heart, and when he moves, his energy flares to life, feeding me as mine must feed him.

His eyes flutter open.

They look just like how I remember.

He’s not the same, Violetta had said. But now he’s here. Saved somehow from the waters of the Underworld. Suddenly, all I can think is that perhaps nothing has changed at all—that we can go back to the way we once were. The thought forces a smile onto my face that I haven’t worn in a long time, and for a moment, I forget my mission and anger. I forget everything.

His eyes turn to me. It takes a moment for the light of recognition to appear in them—when it does, my heart leaps. With it leaps the tether between us. The spark that the new energy gives off makes me want to draw closer to him, as close as I possibly can, anything in order to further feed this new energy.

He tries to sit up, but winces immediately and settles back down. “What happened?” he says. A shiver runs down my spine at the deep, velvet voice that I know so well.

Magiano lifts an eyebrow as he plucks away at his lute. “Well. This may take some explanation.” He pauses when Sergio calls out his name from the barn’s lower floor. I turn to say something to Magiano before he leaves, but he purposefully avoids my stare. I hesitate, knowing what’s bothering him, and feel guilty again. Violetta shoots me a knowing look. Then Enzo utters another groan of pain, and my attention returns to him.

I reach for Enzo’s hand. They are both gloved, as always, and underneath the leather I know I will see the hideous layers of burned, scarred tissue. When I touch his hand, the tether sings. “What do you remember?” I ask, trying to ignore it.

“I remember the arena.” Enzo falls silent for a moment. He stares up at the ceiling. Again, he tries to sit up—this time, he does so easily. I blink. Just a few minutes ago, he seemed as if he would take weeks to recover. Now he looks nearly ready to stand up and walk. “I remember a dark ocean and a gray sky.” He’s quiet. I imagine the Underworld as he describes it, thinking back to my nightmares. “There was a goddess, with black horns twisting out of her hair. There was a little girl walking on the ocean’s surface.” His eyes turn back to me. The link between us soars again.

“Give me some space,” I murmur to Violetta, before fixing my gaze back on Enzo. “I have something I need to tell you.”

Violetta tugs once on my energy. I suck in my breath. I know Violetta meant nothing by it, nothing more than a gesture to comfort me—but something about her tug feels like a threat, a reminder to me that she is now more powerful than I am. She gets up and walks out of the room.

“Tell me what?” Enzo asks quietly.

He looks so natural, as if he had never died at all. Perhaps the ominous things we overheard from Gemma about the dangers of bringing him back were unfounded. His energy is darker, true, a strange and tumultuous mix, but there is life under his brown skin, a glow to the bright slashes of scarlet in his eyes.

“Teren stabbed you at the arena,” I say. “When you dueled with him.”

Enzo waits patiently for me to continue.

I take a deep breath, knowing what to tell him next. “There is an Elite who has the ability to bring us back from the dead. To pull us straight from the Underworld. That Elite is the Queen of Beldain.”

The scarlet lines in his eyes glow brighter. He hesitates, then says, “You are telling me that I died. And that I was revived by an Elite.”

Here is the moment I’ve been dreading. I made a promise to myself that if Enzo came back from the Underworld, I would have to set things right between us. And to do that, I must tell him the truth. I lower my gaze. “Yes,” I reply. Then, in the silence, I add, “It is my fault that you died.”

Suddenly, the weight of the air in the room feels unbearable. Enzo frowns at me. “No, it’s not,” he replies.

I shake my head and reach out to brush his hand. “It is,” I say, more firmly this time. The confession pours out of me. “In the chaos of that final battle, I mistook you for Teren. I had disguised you as him and I couldn’t tell the difference. I lashed out at you with my powers, and I brought you to your knees, thinking you were him.” My voice turns soft, meek. “I am the reason Teren was able to deliver a killing blow, Enzo. It is my fault.”

Telling the story makes me revisit it, and revisiting it stirs my energy enough that I start to unconsciously paint the arena around us—the blood under our feet, the image of Teren standing over Enzo, his sword dripping scarlet.

Enzo straightens. He leans forward. I forget to catch my breath as he touches my hand, returning my gesture. I search his eyes for anger and betrayal, but instead find only sadness. “I remember,” he finally says. “But our powers are dangerous, as is what we do.” He gives me a grave look, one I know well. The same look that cuts through every shield I can put up, that weakens me at the knees. Immediately I am reminded of our old training sessions together, when he surrounded me with walls of fire and then stood over me as I cried. Broken so easily, he’d said. That was the push I’d needed to keep going. “Do not blame yourself.”

The complete lack of doubt in his voice makes my heart beat faster. Before I can respond, he looks around the room and settles on the door. “Where are the others?”

This is the second piece of what I must tell him—the harder piece. The one that cannot be all truth. If I tell him what I did to Raffaele at the arena, if I reveal to Enzo that I had twisted an illusion of pain around Raffaele that left him unconscious on the ground, I will never be forgiven. He’ll never understand that. So instead, I tell him this. “The Daggers aren’t here. It is only me, my sister, and several Elites you may have heard of.”