“How did you learn so much about energy?” I decide to ask as he works.

Raffaele shrugs once. “Trial and error,” he replies. “We are the first. There is no one before us to learn from. With each new Elite we recruit, I learn, experiment, and record. Someone needs to leave the knowledge behind for the generation after us. If there is another generation.”

I listen in quiet fascination. He’s a Messenger in more ways than one. “Do you know where it came from? I know it began with the blood fever, but . . .”

He reaches for a slender brush. “It did not begin with the blood fever. It began with energy, the link between the gods and the mortal world they created.”

“Energy.”

“Yes. It forms the land, air, sea, and all living things. It is what breathes life into us.”

“And what gives us powers?”

Raffaele nods. He dips the brush in a shallow dish of sparkling powder, then touches it to the edge of my good eye. I frown as he works, trying to imagine this strange, invisible energy.

His brush pauses for a moment. “When you close your eye, you see sparks of colors, do you not?” he says.

I close my eye to test his theory. Yes. In the blackness float sparks of faint blues and greens, reds and golds, blinking in and out of existence. “Yes.”

“You are actually seeing threads of energy.” He touches my hand carefully, and a chill of delight runs up my arm. “The world is made of countless threads that connect all things. These threads give the world both its color and its life.” He nods at the bedchamber around us. “Right now, in some small way, you’re connected to everything in here. The mirror, the walls, the air. Everything. Even the gods.”

His words stir my memory. I think back to the night of my father’s death. When I suspended everything around me, the raindrops and the wind, the world had turned black and white, and translucent threads had glistened in the air. During my burning, I’d seen the color drain from my execution stand before it all came rushing back.

“Most people don’t have enough energy to manipulate their connections to the world. We weren’t meant to. But when the fevers affected you and me, something changed in us. Suddenly it linked us to the world in a way that our bodies were never meant to be linked.” Raffaele turns my hand so that my palm faces upward, then runs his slender fingers along the inside of my wrist all the way to my fingertips. My skin tingles at his touch. I suck in my breath, blushing. “Every Elite is different, and pulling on threads in specific ways will do specific things. The Windwalker, for example, can pull on the threads in the air that create wind. Enzo pulls on threads of heat energy, from himself, from the sun, from fire, and from other living things. From the Sunlands come reports of an Elite who can change metal into gold. Another rumored Elite, Magiano, has escaped the Inquisition Axis so often that the word magic evolved from his name. There are countless ways energy manifests in us. I can only imagine what undiscovered Elites out there can do, those beyond the Daggers and beyond who I know exist. There are even rumors of an Elite who can bring people back from the dead.”

I wonder, for a moment, how many others exist outside of the Dagger Society. Are there rival societies? “And you?” I say.

“I can see and sense all the energy in the world,” he replies. “Every single thread that connects everything to everything else. I can’t do much, save to tug faintly on them—but I can feel them all.”

Here, he pauses to look me in the eye. I feel a sudden tug at my heart, as if the sight of him had set butterflies loose in my chest. My eye widens in understanding. This is why his touch along my wrist left me tingling. “No wonder your clients fall so madly in love with you, if you look like this and can literally pull on their heartstrings.”

Raffaele laughs his beautiful laugh. “Someday I’ll teach you, if you like.”

My heart thrills again at that, and I wonder if it has anything to do with Raffaele’s energy this time. “What about me?” I ask after a pause. “My power?”

“Of all the Daggers, you and I are the most alike. We sense the intangible.” Raffaele turns his eyes to me, and the sun catches the brilliant, shifting colors in his irises. “Think of the lesser gods—Formidite, the angel of Fear, or Caldora, the angel of Fury. Laetes, the angel of Joy. Denarius, the angel of Greed. Threads of energy connect not only physical things, but also emotions, thoughts, and feelings—fear, hate, love, joy, sorrow. You have the ability to pull on threads of fear and hatred. A powerful talent, if you can tame it. The more fear and hate your environment has, therefore, the stronger you are. Fear creates the strongest illusions. Everyone has darkness inside them, however hidden.” His eyes turn solemn, and I shiver, wondering what small darkness might lie within even his gentle soul.

“Was Enzo the first Elite you ever met?” I whisper.

“Yes.”

I’m suddenly curious. “How did you meet him?”

Raffaele starts putting away the powders on the table. “He bought my virgin price.”

I turn quickly in my chair to look at him. “Y-your virgin price? You mean, you and Enzo—”

“It’s not what you think.” He gives me a playful smile. “When I turned seventeen and came of age, I became an official consort of the Fortunata Court. So the court held a lavish bidding masquerade for my debut.”

I try to imagine the scene: Raffaele at my age, young and innocent, more beautiful than anyone else in the world, standing before a sea of masked nobility and preparing to give himself away. “The entire city must have turned out for you.”