“Perhaps,” I reply. My voice comes out cold. It’s a voice I am still getting used to.
The man is about to attack when something on the ground distracts him. He looks down at the cobblestones—and there, he sees a tiny ribbon of bright red snaking its way along the grooves. It looks like a little lost creature, wandering back and forth. The man’s brows furrow. He leans down toward the tiny illusion.
Then the red line bursts into a dozen more lines, all darting away in different directions, leaving trails of blood in their wake. Everyone jerks backward.
“What in the gods—?” he starts.
I weave the lines furiously across the ground and then up along the walls, dozens turning into hundreds into thousands, until the entire street is covered in a harsh field of them. I blot out the light filtering down from the lanterns and create an illusion of scarlet storm clouds overhead.
The man’s composure cracks, revealing alarm. His companions take hurried steps away from me as the bloody lines cover the street. Fear clouds their chests, and the feeling sends a surge of strength and hunger through me. My illusions make them afraid and, in turn, their fear makes me stronger.
Stop. I can feel Violetta pulling on my energy again. Maybe I should. These attackers have already lost their thirst for more money, after all. But instead, I shrug her off and keep going. This game is fun. I used to be more ashamed of such a feeling, but now I think—why shouldn’t I hate? Why shouldn’t it bring me joy?
The man suddenly lifts his knife again. I keep weaving. You can’t see the knife, the whispers in my head taunt him. Where is it? You just had it a moment ago, but you must have left it somewhere. Even though I can see the weapon, he looks down at his hand with rage and bewilderment. To him, the knife has vanished completely.
The attackers finally give in to their fear—several flee, while others huddle against the wall, frozen. The ringleader turns and tries to run away. I bare my teeth. Then I snap the thousands of bloody lines across him, pulling them as tight as I can, making him feel the slice and burn of razor-thin threads ripping across his flesh. The ringleader’s eyes bulge for a moment before he falls, shrieking, to the ground. I tighten the sharp threads around him like a spider trapping prey in her silken web. It feels like the strings are sawing through your skin, doesn’t it?
“Adelina,” my sister calls out urgently. “The others.”
I take in her warning just in time to see two others gather enough courage to rush toward me—the woman from earlier and another man. I lash out, washing the illusion over them too. They fall. They think their skin is being ripped from their flesh, and the agony bends them over double.
I am concentrating so hard that my hands are shaking. The man struggles toward the end of the street, and I let him crawl. What must it be like, seeing the world right now from his point of view? I continue pouring the illusion over him, imagining what he must be seeing and feeling. He begins to sob, using all of his strength for every movement.
It is nice, being powerful. Seeing others bend to your will. I imagine this must be how kings and queens feel—that with just a few words, they can ignite a war or enslave an entire population. This must be what I fantasized about as a little girl, crouching on the stairs of my old home, pretending to wear a heavy crown on my head and look out at a sea of kneeling figures.
“Adelina, no,” Violetta whispers. She’s standing beside me now, but I am so focused on what I’m doing that I hardly sense her there. “You’ve taught them enough of a lesson. Let them go.”
I tighten my fists and keep going. “You could stop me,” I reply with a tight smile, “if you really wanted to.”
Violetta doesn’t argue my point. Perhaps, deep down, she even wants me to do it. She wants to see me defend myself. So instead of forcing me to stop, she puts a hand on my arm, reminding me of our promise to each other.
“The malfetto boy escaped,” she says. Her voice is very soft. “Save your fury for something greater.”
Something in her voice cuts through my anger. Suddenly, I feel the exhaustion of using