The Rose Society

“Yes,” I agree, taking the parchment from Violetta. “This is his writing, without doubt.”

“Yes,” Violetta echoes.

I run my hand along the parchment, imagining Raffaele’s deft quill gliding across the surface. I remember him writing pages and pages of notes about Elites back at the Fortunata Court, how he would always record everything he saw in my training. He is the Messenger, after all, tasked with immortalizing us and our powers in writing. I begin to read the parchment.

“He talks about Lucent,” Violetta says. “Do you remember the night at the arena, when Lucent broke her wrist?”

I nod. My hands start to tremble as I read each of Raffaele’s notes.

“Raffaele says … that her wrist did not break because of combat. It broke because her powers … her ability to control the wind, to move the air …” Violetta takes a deep breath. “Adelina, Lucent’s wrist broke because her power has started to eat away at her. Wind is hollowing out her bones. It seems the more powerful we are, the faster our bodies will crumble.”

I shake my head, unwilling to understand. “What is he suggesting? That we …”

“That, in a few years, Lucent will die from this.”

I frown. That cannot be right. I stop and start again at the top, analyzing Raffaele’s sketches, reading his writing, wondering what I’m missing. Violetta must be misinterpreting this. My gaze lingers on the sketches Raffaele has drawn of threads of energy in the air, his observations about Lucent.

Wind is hollowing out her bones. Lucent will die from this.

But that means … I read further, looking at a brief note about Michel at the bottom of the parchment. The faster I read, the more I realize what he is saying. He is saying that, someday, Michel will die because his body will bleed from pulling objects through the air. That Maeve will succumb to the poisons of the Underworld. That Sergio’s body will starve from being unable to retain water. That Magiano will go mad from mimicking other powers.

“This is impossible,” I whisper.

Violetta’s voice trembles. “Raffaele is saying that all of us, all Elites, are in danger.”

That we are doomed to be forever young.

I’m silent. Then I shake my head. The parchment’s edges crinkle in my grip. “No. But that makes no sense,” I say, turning my back on Violetta and walking close to the windows. From here, we can make out the commotion down below, the noise of thousands of uncertain civilians and anxious malfettos, none of whom know what rule under an Elite will be like. “Our powers are our strengths. How can Raffaele possibly know such a thing, just from one broken wrist?”

“It does make sense. None of our bodies were ever designed to wield powers like this. We may be the children of the gods, but we are not gods. Don’t you see? The blood fever left us tied to the immortal energy of the world in such a way that our fragile, mortal bodies cannot possibly hope to keep up.”

As Violetta speaks, the sound of her voice changes. The sweetness of it, which reminds me so much of our mother’s voice, is transformed into something eerie, a chorus of off-pitch voices that send a shiver down my spine. I lean away, wary. The whispers in my head shove a memory forward at me—I remember my sister and me, alone in a chamber, her power used against mine.

I think of Enzo’s burned hands. Then, of my uncontrollable illusions. My hallucinations and bursts of temper. My trouble recognizing familiar faces around me, twisting them into strangers. I know it is true, with chilling certainty. My power of illusion is destroying my mind as surely as Lucent’s power is breaking her bones.

No, something hisses in my mind. The hiss sounds urgent, the whispers more agitated than usual. She is lying to you. She wants something from you.

“We will all die,” Violetta says, again in her new, frightening chorus of voices. It sends a jolt of fear through me. Why does she sound like this? “We were never meant to be.”

“This cannot be happening to all Elites,” I murmur. My gaze goes back to her. “What about you? You’ve felt no effects.”

She only shakes her head. “I am not powerful, Adelina,” she replies. Her teeth flash. Did I see that? It seemed for a moment as if she had fangs. “Not like you, or Lucent, or Enzo. I take power away. I don’t even have markings. But someday I may manifest something too. It’s inevitable.”

I move away from her. She is dangerous, the whispers in my mind say, louder now. Stay away from her. “No. We will find a way,” I whisper. “We are chosen by the gods. There must be a way.”

“I have thought about this. The only way will be to remove our powers permanently,” Violetta says.

The whispers let out a deafening howl in my mind at that. The fear crawling along my spine turns from a trickle into a river. It roars through me.

What kind of life will that be, the whispers say to me, without powers?

I try to imagine my world without my ability to change reality. Without the addictive rush of darkness and fear, the sheer power to create anything at will, anytime I want. How can I live a life without that? I blink, and my illusions spark out of control for a moment, weaving for me an image of what my life once was—the helplessness I felt when my father held my finger between his hands and snapped it like a twig; the way I pounded weakly at my locked door and begged for food and water. The way I cowered under my bed, sobbing, until my father’s hands would seize me and drag me out, screaming, to face his bloody fists.

That is life without power, the whispers remind me.