The Young Elites (The Young Elites, #1)(83)

Perhaps I’d simply switched one dark prison cell for another. No one ever gives me their kindness without hoping for something in exchange.

Are they any different?

Are they all the same?

They all want to use you, use you, use you until they get what they want, and then they will toss you aside.

Everything Raffaele saw in me on my testing day is true. Together, my alignments with energy swirl inside me, shifting and powerful. I am shaking.

Raffaele feels the rising power in me, because a note of fear hovers over him. Still, he doesn’t move. He faces me with grim determination, refusing to back down. Don’t. Concentrate. Control it. The only way to clamp down on my energy is to erase my emotions, and so I fold them each away, one by one. My sorrow turns to anger, then to ice-cold fury. My soul curls in on itself in defense. I am gone. I am truly gone.

I am not sorry.

“You have no right to judge me,” I whisper, looking around at the others. “You belong to a society that thrives on murder. You’re no better.”

Raffaele only returns my look with his level gaze. He nods at the others to leave. Lucent starts to protest, then sighs and casts me one last glare before following Gemma and Michel out the door. Raffaele and I are the only ones left in the room. For a moment, however brief, the gentleness on his face fades away to reveal something hard and dark.

“Murder is a means to an end,” he finally says, tilting his head slightly at me. This time, the gesture looks more cunning than flirtatious. “Not an activity of pleasure.”

If you cast me out of the Dagger Society, then I will form my own. I am tired of losing. I am tired of being used, hurt, and tossed aside.

It is my turn to use. My turn to hurt.

My turn.

“You’re making a mistake,” I say. My voice emerges flat and cold. The voice of someone new. “By not killing me now.”

“No,” Raffaele replies. “I’m not.”

He finally stands. His hand separates from mine. He walks toward the door with his signature grace, then stops right before it.

“Adelina,” he says, turning. The look in his eyes threatens to break me. “I loved him too.”

Then he leaves me, and I am truly alone.





I pledge myself to the Rose Society until the end of my days,

to use my eyes to see all that happens, my tongue to woo others to

our side, my ears to hear every secret, my hands to crush my enemies. I will do everything in my power to destroy all who stand in my way.

—The Rose Society Official Initiation Pledge, by Adelina Amouteru





Adelina Amouteru



Night has fallen, and it is quiet again. Out in the estate gardens, a few candles flicker in mourning for Enzo. I don’t know where the other Daggers are; perhaps they’ve long ago left this place. Perhaps they’ve fled to the Skylands, where Beldain might give them shelter. Tomorrow morning, things will be different—the uprising has been crushed, Giulietta will rule as the queen of Kenettra, and Teren will bring his wrath down on all malfettos. Enzo’s supporters have gone into hiding to lick their wounds. Violetta and I will flee Estenzia. Where we’ll go, I’m not sure. I’ll settle in another port capital, perhaps, one far from here. Maybe I’ll start my own society to strike back against Teren. Maybe we’ll run across other Young Elites. The Daggers can’t be the only ones.

I sit before the mirror of my vanity in my chamber, leaning weakly against my chair. My chest wound hurts every time I breathe. The knife tucked into my boot is my only remaining weapon, and now I take it out and set it on the vanity’s surface, its point facing me. Through the window, I can see the dark blue silhouettes of the estate gardens. Enzo walks down there, gliding through the grass surrounding the main fountains. His sapphire robes trail behind him. I know he’s not real, that it’s only another vision that I cannot control.

Everyone will talk about me. Word of the prince’s death is going to spread through the country like wildfire—Lucent has already sent doves to deliver the news to other Dagger patrons. People will say that the prince had fallen for me, and that I killed him in order to help Teren gain the throne. They will accuse me of tricking Enzo into loving me, and then trying to seize his position of power. I will be whispered about. I will have enemies lurking in every shadow.

Let them talk. Let their fear of me grow. I welcome it.

I stare silently at my reflection in the mirror, studying my long silver locks, the broken side of my face, all of it illuminated by the blue-white hue of moonlight. I think back to the night when I screamed at my reflection and shattered my mirror with my brush. Has anything changed since then? My father’s ghost blurs in and out of the mirror’s reflection, gliding behind me, his face a dark, menacing portrait. I try in vain to make him go away, but I can’t. My powers overwhelm me, creating visions of things I don’t want to see.

I suddenly seize the knife on my table. Then I grab a lock of my hair and frantically begin to cut it off. Strands glitter across my vision—for a moment, I can’t tell if they are strands of energy or strands of my hair—and then fall, shining, to the floor. A strange fever seizes me; my wound twists in protest under my bandages, tearing open again, but I don’t care. I hate everything about my markings, I want them gone, they have brought upon me all of the pain and suffering in my life, they have taken from me everything that matters. In this instant, none of my powers give me joy. I am still alone, broken and small, the butterfly fighting for life in the grass. Maybe it will be for the best if Teren wins. Let him destroy us all. Let our markings die out from this world and end our fight.