The Midnight Star (The Young Elites #3)(35)

It seems too easy to be true, but it is my only way out of this prison. I look upward and try to gauge when the next rotation of soldiers will stand at my door.

The strings tug again, hard. A spike of pain shoots through me. I clutch my chest, frowning—this is what I’d felt in my dream, with the current yanking me down. But my nightmare has already ended. A sudden fear hits me, and I squeeze my eye tightly shut. Perhaps I am still in one.

The tug again. This time it hurts enough to make my body seize. I glance toward the door. The pull is from Enzo. Now I recognize the fire of his energy, his barbs in my heart as surely as mine are in his. Something is wrong. When the tug comes again, the door creaks . . . and then, it opens.

The guards are not waiting there. Instead, it is Enzo, swathed in shadows. My breath catches in my throat. His eyes are pools of black, completely devoid of any spark of life. His expression is nonexistent, his features seemingly carved from stone. My gaze darts down to his arms. They are exposed tonight, a mass of destroyed flesh. My heart freezes.

Did Raffaele send him here? He must have told the guards to step aside and let him in. I stare at him, unsure what to do next.

“Why are you here?” I whisper.

He says nothing in return. I can’t even tell if he’s heard me. Instead, he continues to walk forward. His gait seems off, although I can’t quite put my finger on why it looks strange. There is something . . . unrealistic about it, something stiff and uneven, inhuman.

He is gripping daggers in both hands.

I must still be in a nightmare. Enzo narrows the black pools of his eyes. I try to push through our tether to read his thoughts, but this time I feel nothing except an all-consuming darkness. It is beyond even hatred or fury—it is not an emotion at all, but the lack of all emotion and life. It is Death herself, extending out through Enzo’s vessel of a body and pulling me forward through the threads of energy that bind us. The touch feels ice cold. I shudder, pressing myself hard against the wall. But the cold claws of Enzo’s changed energy continue to reach for me, drawing closer and closer—until they hook into me and pull tight.

My energy lurches. The whispers in my head burst free and roar in my ears. I cry out at the overwhelming sensation. The control I have over my energy starts to slip, and the whispers gradually take on Enzo’s voice—and then, a new tone, one from the Underworld.

“What do you want?” I scramble backward against the floor, dragging my chains with me, until I can go no farther. Enzo approaches me until we are separated by nothing but his armor and my robes. His soulless eyes stare down at me as he sheathes his daggers. His hands clamp down on the chains that encircle my wrists and—in a moment that reminds me of the day he had rescued me from the stake—he heats the chains until they turn white-hot. They clatter to the floor. His lips curl.

“You have something that is mine,” Enzo murmurs, in a voice not his own. It resonates within my very core, and I immediately recognize it as the voice of Moritas, speaking through the Underworld.

She has come for Enzo. The tug between us pulls taut again, making me cry out in pain. She will kill me in order to take him back.

“Why don’t you jump, little wolf?” he whispers.

And, suddenly, I feel a desire to step out of my cell, walk up the rampart, and fling myself from the tower. No. Panic flutters in my mind as my energy turns on me and Enzo gains control. An illusion wraps around me—I’m no longer on the top of this tower, but clutching the skeletal hands of the goddess of Death herself, hanging desperately on as I float in the waters of the Underworld, trying not to drown. Cold hands pull at my ankles.

“You belong here,” Moritas says, her featureless face leaning down to me. You always have.

“Don’t let me go,” I beg. The words come out silent to my ears. Magiano! I cry. This must be a nightmare, but I can’t wake up. It can’t possibly be real. Perhaps he will be nearby and save me from my illusion as he always does.

Magiano, help me! But he isn’t here.

I blink, and now I am back in the prison tower, walking out of my cell’s ajar door to stand on the wind-whipped steps outside. Enzo follows behind me as I continue forward. The hands of Death grasp my heart through our tether, and the ice of her touch burns me. Fires protected inside colored lanterns illuminate the path with spots of light. I squint in the darkness, then turn my face to where the stairs wind up and around my cell. I take a step forward, one after another. A narrow gap between the cells appears, where a thin rampart overlooks the night landscape and then the ocean beyond. I strain to see any sign of my ships, but it is too dark. The wind numbs my fingers. I approach the rampart and grip the ledge with both hands. The tether pushes me forward, urging me over the wall.

The whispers shriek over the wind. Why don’t you jump, little wolf?

“Enzo!”

A clear voice cuts through my illusion—the Underworld wavers, then vanishes in a whirlwind of smoke. I’m back at the tower, crouched on the edge of the ramparts. Enzo turns around to see Raffaele standing at the stairs behind us, a crossbow in his hands. He is pale, his face drawn with fear, his lips tightened into a determined line. The wind whips his hair into a furious river, and his pale robes stream behind him in waves of silk and velvet. Had he woken, too, at the strangeness of Enzo’s energy? His eyes dart in my direction before returning to the prince.

Raffaele lifts the crossbow higher. He isn’t aiming it at me.