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You are lonely. You will die. Maybe Dea chose wrong.

This was hopeless. She couldn’t afford to get trapped in a never-ending spiral of worries, and the only way out was to get answers.

Alessa sat up, letting the blanket slide to the floor.

If no one inside the Cittadella would tell her what was going on, she’d find someone who would.

Three

Dio mi guardi da chi studia un libro solo.

Never trust a man who only studies one book.

She hadn’t had many opportunities for rebellion since leaving home, but Alessa was making up for lost time. With a lightweight cloak under her arm, boots clutched in one hand, and a rough sketch of the tunnels going soft with sweat in the other, she crept past the kitchens where Lorenzo was attempting to flirt with unimpressed kitchen maids.

She stopped before the banquet hall, listening for the rise and fall of conversation within. She was only asemi-prisoner, with free rein inside the Cittadella, but she’d blow her cover if Renata saw the guilt scrawled across her face. At the scrape of silver on ceramic, she held her breath and dashed past on the balls of her feet.

“Where”—Alessa tensed at Renata’s words—“do we even begin tomorrow?”

Alessa sagged against the wall until her wobbly knees got their act together, then tiptoed on. Through an archway off the courtyard, a spiral staircase connected the Cittadella above to the Fortezza below it. Narrow and dim, the ancient stone stairs dipped in the middle, worn down by countless feet over centuries.

The Cittadella was formidable, but it was nothing compared to the stronghold beneath. The maze of tunnels and caves carved into the island dated back to the original settlers who’d expanded the natural volcanic tunnels to make the entire island into a fortress.

A Finestra did not, by nature, explore. Under normal circumstances, Alessa only entered the Fortezza to attend temple with Tomo and Renata, but the master key she’d never used slid easily into the lock.

Shivering from nerves rather than cold, she pulled on her cloak and let herself out the first gate beyond the line marking the border of the Cittadella above.

Outside, the warm, thick air carried the wafting sweetness of roses from the Cittadella’s gardens, but she turned away from the high walls to follow the humble scents of home. The sun set over quiet avenues and shops closed for the evening.

Each terrace bloomed with sounds and smells so distinct she could have navigated the city with her eyes closed. In an area ripe with peppers and cumin, nimble fingers tripped out a melody on a guitar as heels clicked the tempo. In the next, garlic and green-onion dumplings sizzled in hot oil while a voice so tender it must belong to a mother sang a lullaby that sounded like spring rain on a rooftop.

Nearly every house had a lemon tree, often standing alone on a tiny island of soil amongst the stone, and dried boughs hung over thresholds, marring otherwise pristine windowsills with sticky drips of dried juice. The gesture was rumored to ward off Crollo’s demons—named “scarabeo” for their resemblance tohorned beetles—but if it actually worked, Saverio wouldn’t need a Finestra.

Urging herself to keep walking, to pretend it was a stranger’s home, she paused by a blue-shuttered window.

Inside the small kitchen, her mother tended to a pot on the stove. She reached for the salt, resting her hand on it, as though she’d forgotten what she’d meant to do. The small table in the middle of the room was only set for two. Maybe Adrick refused to eat meals with them anymore. Maybe family suppers didn’t feel right without her.

Wishful thinking. He was probably just working late.

Supper smelled like something hearty, simmered for hours, with lamb and red wine. Memories tangled around her. A crowded table, stories repeated so many times they lost all meaning, becoming poetry, children falling asleep in soft laps—

Alessa swiped at her eyes and moved on.

She might never be a normal girl who clipped rosemary for supper again, but they had to survive.

The alleys narrowed as she descended, until buildings butted into each other, and the island made its presence known with wildflowers pushing through cracks in the cobblestones and vines creeping up walls.

Alessa pulled up her hood as she passed the guards who manned the city gates, but they paid her no mind. They were there to watch for incoming threats, not girls running off to the docks, where folk stayed up late getting into trouble.

On Saverio, criminals were marked with tattoos for their crimes, and those who’d committed irredeemable offenses were banished to the continent, where they’d perish in the next Divorando without any protection from the Duo Divino and their army. The restwere merely forced to wear their shame, but when Saverians barricaded themselves inside the Fortezza, those with marks were left outside to fend for themselves. Past curfew, no one marked was permitted inside the city walls without an official pass from the Cittadella.

There was no one else on the dirt road to the docks, but the night sounds expanded to fill the emptiness, with tiny creatures scurrying and invisible wings thrumming in the grass.

The whine of insects succumbed to the creak of ships as the road widened and became clogged with people and vendor tents. If the city was a four-course meal for the senses, the docks were a hearty stew. The din of myriad languages was intoxicating, and the crush of bodies made one girl in a cloak practically invisible.

As the largest of the four original sanctuary islands, Saverio had drawn the widest array of people from nearby regions before the first Divorando, and even now, almost a millenium after Crollo’s first siege had stripped the continents to bones and dirt, Saverians boasted of being the entire world in miniature. An exaggeration, to be sure, but there was no one left to dispute the claim.

Alessa slowed at the sound of chanting as a dozen cloaked figures emerged from an alley, their white robes stark against a backdrop that was dark and grimy. She squinted to make out the crimson words embroidered on their backs.Fratellanza della Verità.