I consider using my powers on him. But then what? All I can create are illusions. I can’t hurt him. Not even Enzo can hurt him.
“My word is as good as yours,” he replies, eyeing me pointedly. “But it may not be good for long.”
Whatever it is that Teren has ordered done to the city tonight, it has brought with it a cloud of terror. I study him, sensing the swirling darkness in his heart, the madness glinting in his eyes.
Collect yourself. Concentrate. I steel my heart, sharpening my fear into a razor-sharp blade. “Take me to my sister. Or I’ll tell you nothing.”
Teren tilts his head. “Demanding, aren’t we?” His eyes narrow. “Something has happened to you since the last time we crossed paths.”
In my chest, my alignment with ambition surges. “Are you interested in capturing the Young Elites, or not?”
My answer coaxes a single laugh out of him. His smile wavers for a moment, diminishing his madness, and he gives me a more serious look. “What made you turn your back on them?”
I withdraw. I don’t want to revisit what I heard. “Isn’t it enough that you threatened my sister’s life? That you threw me against a wall?”
His eyes pulse with curiosity. “There’s more.”
The heat of Enzo’s kiss springs unbidden to my mind, the way his eyes had softened at the sight of me, the way he’d pushed me against the wall . . . the conversation between him and Dante. I push the emotion away and shake my head at Teren. “Let me see my sister first,” I repeat.
“What if I tell my men to kill her now, unless you give me what I want?”
My jaw tightens. Stay brave. “Then I’ll never talk.” I meet his stare with my own, refusing to back down. The last time we met, he had taken me by surprise and I cowered before him. This time, I can’t afford to do the same thing.
Finally, Teren nods at me to follow him. “Come, then,” he says, gesturing to the Inquisitors. “Let’s play your game.”
Success. The Inquisitors lower their swords and drag me to my feet. Gradually, I start to gather energy in my chest. I’m going to need everything I have, or there is no hope of escaping this place with Violetta.
He leads us farther down into the dungeons, down, down, until I stop counting the number of stony steps we’ve covered. How far does this go? As we continue, I hear the cries of prisoners ringing from other floors, a chorus of haunted wails. I have to hold my breath down here. Never in my life have I felt so much fear and anger concentrated in a single place. The emotions swim around me, hungering for me to do something with them. My own anger and fear threaten to overwhelm my senses. I grit my teeth, hanging on to my powers. I could do so much down here. I could conjure an illusion like none of them have ever seen.
But I continue to hold back. Not until I see Violetta myself.
Finally, Teren guides us down to a floor quieter than the rest. Small wooden doors covered with iron bars line the walls. We walk through a narrowly lit corridor until we stand before a lone door at the very end. I nearly stagger, so powerful is my darkness here. I was in a place like this once.
“Your sister,” he says to me, giving me a mock bow. One of the other Inquisitors unlocks the door, and it groans open.
I blink. Behind the heavy door is a tiny, cramped cell. Candles burn along small ledges on the wall. A bed of hay is piled in one corner, and on it sits a girl with a sweet, fragile face and a head of dark locks that now look tangled and dull. She is thin and frail, shaking from the cold. Her wide eyes find me. I’m ashamed by my rush of mixed emotions at the sight of her—joy, love, hate, envy.
“Adelina?” my sister says. And suddenly I remember the night I ran away from home, when she stood in my bedchamber’s doorway and rubbed sleep from her eyes.
Inquisitors immediately file in and surround her. She shrinks away from them on the bed, tucking her knees up to her chin. As she does, I notice the heavy shackles on her wrists and ankles that keep her chained to the bed.
Darkness roars inside me. What illusion can I perform that could get us out before