The Rose Society (The Young Elites #2)(70)

“Adelina.” I look up at my sister as she rises from where she’s sitting and comes to my side. She crouches down and leans toward my ear. I sit back. “Enzo’s link to you is growing stronger by the minute. Like he is strengthening himself by tying himself closer and closer to you.” There is uneasiness in her voice as she says this. “Can you feel it?”

I do, of course. It’s a pulse that rises and falls, pulling and pushing at my chest. It makes my heart feel like it’s beating in an uneven rhythm, and it makes me short of breath. “What is his energy like?” I whisper.

Violetta bites her lip in concentration. She tilts her head at Enzo’s sleeping figure. I can tell that she is reaching out toward him, testing him. She shudders. “Do you remember when we learned needlework together?” she says to me.

Violetta had learned it faster than I did. She’d once switched our two pieces so that our father would praise mine for once. “Yes. Why?”

“Do you remember one time when we each picked out a color of thread, then sewed a pattern together, and our two colors were so interwoven that they looked like a completely new color?”

“Yes.”

“Well, the way Enzo’s energy is tied to yours, the link between you two … it feels like that.” Violetta turns her frown on me. “A new form of energy. His threads are so tangled with yours that it’s almost like you two have become one. For example, I cannot take away his power without taking yours, nor yours without his.” She hesitates. “His power feels like ice. It burns me.”

How ironic. I return to staring at Enzo, trying to get used to the new link between us.

“He’s not the same, you know,” Violetta adds after a while. “Don’t forget that. Don’t …”

“Don’t what?” I reply.

Violetta purses her lips. “Don’t be blinded by your old love for him,” she finishes. “It might be dangerous for you to get too caught up. I can tell.”

I cannot sense what Violetta senses. I know I should believe her, and take her warning. Still, I can’t help staring at him, imagining him awake. When I first met Enzo, he was the Reaper, and I was tied to a stake and left to burn. He had materialized out of smoke and fire as a whirlwind of sapphire robes, a long dagger gleaming in each of his gloved hands, his face hidden behind a silver mask. Now, he looks more like he did on the night we kissed in the Fortunata Court. Vulnerable. Waves of dark hair framed by light. Not a killer, but a young prince. A sleeping boy.

“You’re right,” I finally say to Violetta. “I promise I’ll be careful.” She doesn’t look like she believes me, but she shrugs anyway. She gets up and returns to the other side of Enzo’s bed.

From the corner of my eye, I can see Magiano returning to hang out in the doorway. I don’t know if he heard any of what was said between us, but he keeps his eyes turned away. The song he plays sounds sharp, jolting.

More minutes pass.

Then, finally, Enzo shifts. My own energy twists at the same time, and I can feel our new bond turning with him. The tether is buried deep in my chest, entwined around my heart, and when he moves, his energy flares to life, feeding me as mine must feed him.

His eyes flutter open.

They look just like how I remember.

He’s not the same, Violetta had said. But now he’s here. Saved somehow from the waters of the Underworld. Suddenly, all I can think is that perhaps nothing has changed at all—that we can go back to the way we once were. The thought forces a smile onto my face that I haven’t worn in a long time, and for a moment, I forget my mission and anger. I forget everything.

His eyes turn to me. It takes a moment for the light of recognition to appear in them—when it does, my heart leaps. With it leaps the tether between us. The spark that the new energy gives off makes me want to draw closer to him, as close as I possibly can, anything in order to further feed this new energy.

He tries to sit up, but winces immediately and settles back down. “What happened?” he says. A shiver runs down my spine at the deep, velvet voice that I know so well.

Magiano lifts an eyebrow as he plucks away at his lute. “Well. This may take some explanation.” He pauses when Sergio calls out his name from the barn’s lower floor. I turn to say something to Magiano before he leaves, but he purposefully avoids my stare. I hesitate, knowing what’s bothering him, and feel guilty again. Violetta shoots me a knowing look. Then Enzo utters another groan of pain, and my attention returns to him.

I reach for Enzo’s hand. They are both gloved, as always, and underneath the leather I know I will see the hideous layers of burned, scarred tissue. When I touch his hand, the tether sings. “What do you remember?” I ask, trying to ignore it.

“I remember the arena.” Enzo falls silent for a moment. He stares up at the ceiling. Again, he tries to sit up—this time, he does so easily. I blink. Just a few minutes ago, he seemed as if he would take weeks to recover. Now he looks nearly ready to stand up and walk. “I remember a dark ocean and a gray sky.” He’s quiet. I imagine the Underworld as he describes it, thinking back to my nightmares. “There was a goddess, with black horns twisting out of her hair. There was a little girl walking on the ocean’s surface.” His eyes turn back to me. The link between us soars again.

“Give me some space,” I murmur to Violetta, before fixing my gaze back on Enzo. “I have something I need to tell you.”