The Young Elites (The Young Elites, #1)(16)

The maid finally stops at a tall set of doors at the end of a hall. The double doors are elaborately engraved with an image of Amare and Fortuna, god of Love and goddess of Prosperity, locked in an intimate embrace. I suck in my breath. Now I know where I am.

This place is a brothel.

The maid pulls the double doors open. We step into a gloriously decorated sitting room with a door along its walls that likely leads into a bedchamber. The thought reddens my cheeks. Part of the room is open to a lush courtyard. Translucent lengths of silk drape low from the ceiling, stirring slightly, and trails of silver chimes sing in the breeze. The scent of jasmine hangs on the air.

The maid knocks on the bedchamber door.

“Yes?” someone answers. Even muffled through the doorway, I can tell how unusually lovely the voice is. Like a minstrel’s.

The maid bows her head, even though there’s no one but me to witness it. “Mistress Amouteru is here to see you.”

Silence. Then I hear the soft shuffle of feet, and a moment later, the door opens. I find myself staring up at a boy who leaves me speechless.

A famous poet from the Sunlands once described a beautiful face as “one kissed by moon and water,” an ode to our three moons and the loveliness of their light on the ocean. He gave exactly two people this compliment: his mother, and the last princess of the Feishen empire. If he were alive to see who I’m now looking at, he would add him as a third. Moon and water must love this boy desperately.

His hair, black and shining, drapes across one of his shoulders in a loose, silken braid. His olive skin is smooth, flawless, glowing. The faint musk of night lilies envelops him in a veil, intoxicating, promising something forbidden. I’m so distracted by his appearance that it takes me a moment to notice his marking—under canopies of long, dark lashes, one of his eyes is the color of honey under sunlight, while the other is the brilliant summer green of an emerald.

The maid nods a hurried farewell to us both, then disappears down the hall, leaving us alone. The boy smiles at me, exposing dimples. “It’s good to meet you, mi Adelinetta.” He takes my hands and leans down to kiss me on each cheek. I shiver at the softness of his lips. His hands are cool and smooth, his fingers slender and encircled with thin gold rings, his nails gleaming. His voice is as lyrical as it sounded through the door. “I’m Raffaele.”

A movement behind him distracts me. Despite the dimly lit bedchamber, I make out the smooth outlines of another person turning over in his bed, his short brown locks catching the light. I glance back at Raffaele. It’s a brothel, naturally. Raffaele must be a client.

Raffaele notices my hesitation, then blushes and lowers his lashes in a single sweep. Never in my life have I seen such a graceful gesture. “Apologies. My work frequently continues until morning.”

“Oh,” I manage to reply. I’m a fool. He isn’t the client at all. The man inside is the client, and Raffaele is the consort. With a face like his, I should have known immediately—but to me, a consort means a street prostitute. Poor, desperate workers selling themselves on the sides of roads and in brothels. Not a work of art.

Raffaele looks back at his bedchamber again, and when it seems like his client has fallen back into a deep slumber, he steps outside and closes the door without a sound. “Merchant princes tend to sleep late,” he says with a delicate smile. Then he nods at me to follow him. I marvel at the simple elegance of his movements, fine-tuned to perfection in the way I suppose a high-class consort would be. Does this entire sitting room and courtyard belong to him?

“Sensing your energy this close is a bit overwhelming,” he says.

“You can sense me?”

“I was the one who first discovered you.”

I frown at that. “What do you mean?”

Raffaele guides us out of the sitting room and into the hall, until we reach a large courtyard of fountains. The breeze combs through his hair, revealing several brilliant sapphire strands glistening under the black, jeweled lines moving against a night canvas. A second marking. “The night you ran away from home,” he says as we walk, “you paused in Dalia’s central market.”

I recoil at the memory. My father’s rain-washed face, split into a menacing grin, flashes before me. “Yes,” I whisper.

“Enzo sent me to southern Kenettra for several months, to find those like you. I could sense you the instant I arrived in Dalia. Your pull was faint, though, something that came and went, and it took me several weeks to narrow my search to your district.” Raffaele pauses before the largest fountain in the courtyard. “But the first time I saw you was in that market. I watched you ride off into the rain. Naturally, I sent word back to His Highness right away.”

Someone had indeed been watching me that night. A boy who can sense those like me—like us. That must be his ability, just like Enzo to fire, myself to illusion. “You recruit Young Elites for the Dagger Society, then?”

“Yes. They call me the Messenger, and the hunt is always an adventure. Of every thousand malfettos, there’s that one. After a potential recruit falls into the Inquisition’s hands, though, it’s difficult to save them in time. You’re the first we’ve pulled straight from their grasp.” Raffaele winks a jewel-toned eye at me. “Congratulations.”

The Reaper. The Messenger. A society full of double names and hidden meanings. I take a deep breath, wondering about the other names I’ve heard rumors of.