The Young Elites

Then Enzo steps away. The heat running through me dissipates as he pulls his energy back, leaving me cold and aching. My illusions vanish. For the first time since I’ve known him, he’s not the cool, confident, deadly Reaper . . . There is a flicker of vulnerability in him, even guilt. I stare back with the same confusion. My cheeks are still hot. What happened between us? He’s the leader of the Dagger Society, the crown prince, a notorious killer, the potential future king. And yet, I’ve somehow managed to unsettle him. He has unsettled me. The unspoken secret sits heavily between us, a dark abyss.

Then his moment of vulnerability fades, and he resumes the aloofness that I’m so familiar with. “We will see about your missions,” he says, as if nothing has happened. Maybe nothing has—perhaps our little moment has been nothing more than an illusion I accidentally conjured, like everything else that popped up around us. Like my father’s ghost.

My shoulders sag at the close call. I say nothing in return. Perhaps I’ve narrowly avoided certain death.

Enzo gives me a courteous nod, then turns his back and exits the cavern, leaving me alone with my pounding heart. When I look to my side, I notice that the wall where he had rested his hand is now blackened and charred with his handprint.

Raffaele Laurent Bessette

Any changes in opinion about her?” Enzo asks in a low voice.

Raffaele turns away from the prince. Today they both stand at the entrance of the caverns, looking on as several of the Daggers train. Both of their gazes are focused on the same thing: Adelina, who sits in a corner with Michel and practices weaving threads of her energy into small, familiar objects. A golden ring. A knife. A piece of lace. With each gesture, Raffaele feels her energy shift. Watching her learn to create illusions reminds him of the energy he feels when he watches Michel at work. Trying to imitate life. As she goes, Michel critiques her work with a string of halfhearted insults, but Raffaele can tell that the young painter is impressed with her. Nearby, Lucent stops training now and then to shout out challenges for Adelina. Make a gold talent! Make a bird! Make a statue! Adelina obliges, her illusions growing in complexity. Lucent nods in admiration.

“Adelina was right,” Raffaele finally replies, noting the growing friendships. Perhaps he had misjudged her in the beginning. “I was training her too slowly for her to work with her powers.”

Enzo nods once in agreement. “She’s learning at a pace I’ve never seen.”

The words make Raffaele uneasy. He thinks back to the way she reacted to the amber and nightstone, how he warned Enzo that night to get rid of her. He thinks of the alarming shifts in her darkness lately, how the new speed of her training is affecting her energy, how frequently she seems anxious, scared, and alone. The emotions seep from her. Something about Adelina . . . there is a frailty underneath the dark shell she has started to build around herself, a small remaining light. A light that wavers precariously from day to day.

“There is a reason I trained her too slowly, you know,” Raffaele says after a moment.

Enzo looks at him. “You were holding her back on purpose.”

“I was holding her back to protect us.” Raffaele chooses his next words carefully. “It’s true, she may become the most powerful of us all. She can already create illusions that trick the eyes and ears. Eventually, she’ll realize that she can also trick one’s taste, smell, and touch.” He casts Enzo a sideways glance. “You know what that means, don’t you?”

“She will be able to fool a thirsty man into drinking liquid metal. She will be able to make someone feel pain that isn’t there.”

Raffaele shivers at the possibilities. “Make sure the control she learns doesn’t eclipse her loyalties to you. Adelina may have aligned the strongest with fear and hatred, but she also aligned with passion and ambition. The combination drives her to recklessness, makes her unreliable and hungry for power.”

Enzo looks on as Adelina slowly conjures a detailed illusion of a wolf, so realistic that it looks as if the animal were really standing there on the cavern floor. Michel claps his hands in approval. “She will be magnificent,” he replies.

This time, Raffaele feels Enzo’s energy shift at the mention of Adelina, flickers of an emotion not usually associated with the Reaper. Not for years. Something happened between them, he realizes. Something dangerous.

“She’s not Daphne,” Raffaele reminds him gently.

Enzo looks at him, and in that moment, Raffaele feels a pang of deep sympathy for the young prince. A memory comes back to him of the afternoon when he’d accompanied Enzo to the apothecary to see the shop’s young assistant. When he’d witnessed Enzo’s proposal. Even though quiet rain fell outside the shop, the sun still shone through, painting the world in a glittering haze of light. Daphne had laughed at the affection in Enzo’s eyes, teased the gentleness in his voice, and he’d laughed with her. Raffaele had glimpsed her touching Enzo’s cheek and pulling him close.

Marry me, Enzo had said to her. She’d kissed him in reply.

After she died, Raffaele never again sensed that emotion in Enzo’s heart.

Until now.

Finally, Enzo nods a brief farewell and turns to leave. “Prepare her,” he tells Raffaele before he goes. “She’s coming with us to the Spring Moons.”

I joined the Spring Moons festivities for the first time,

and it was as if I had come into a strange land. The people have transformed into visions of faeries and ghouls. I cannot decide

if I want to stay or leave.