Prologue
10 YEARS EARLIER
The canals are narrow, yet sometimes, feel like glass walls, unbreakable and insurmountable, dividing two worlds: the land of the pure-blooded Fae and the land of the half-blooded ones. Even the water that flows around our twenty-five islands marks our differences—a warm, jeweled-turquoise in Tarecuori and a chilly, muddy-sapphire in Tarelexo.
I was born on the wrong side of the canal, the dark side, the home of the half-bloods or halflings, as we are sometimes called. Cauldron forbid, not to our faces. The high society Fae pride themselves on being too genteel for such vilifications, but I hear them talk because, although the canals are a rift, they aren’t walls.
The voice of merchants carry over the liquid arteries of Luce, skating across the glass bridges garlanded in flowers, before swirling through the teeming Harbor Market.
“We will take one kilo of your golden plums.” Nonna nods to a wooden crate filled with yellow fruit no larger than marbles. “The smallest ones.” Her basket overflows with imported produce that she plans on pickling to last us a fortnight. Unlike pure-bloods, we don’t have enough coin to shop in the Tarecuorin market twice a week.
“Mamma prefers the green ones, Nonna.” Although I want to set down my heavy basket, sprites are renowned thieves, small and quick as they are. I’ve chased my fair share of them across the islands and bridges, but they have an unfair advantage—wings. Although they cannot fly high, they can fly, and I cannot.
“But you prefer the small ones, Goccolina, and this way, we have no need for sugar.”
I tilt my gaze toward my grandmother, whose face is as unlined as my mother’s. “No need or no coin?”
Nonna’s moss-colored eyes close for a heartbeat, then open and lower to my violet ones. “No need, Goccolina.”
Although I’ve no salt to slip upon her tongue to compel her to speak the truth, I know she’s lying. Nonna may be a full-blooded Fae, but her magic cannot cloak the distinctive tells that pucker her face when she’s trying to protect me from some harsh truth.
A lady swishes past us, her emerald skirt catching on the homespun cotton of my dress, pulling at a thread and snapping it. I balance my basket to thumb the snagged fabric until it lays flat against my bony thigh again. If only I could stretch the fabric, extend it down to my ankles, but cotton holds no elasticity.
I may be slight as a droplet, but the summer has lengthened my limbs and grown my fiery-brown locks. The skirt now hits my knees, which is unbecoming of a twelve-year old. Something my peers never cease to remark upon. Although Headmistress Alice punishes the girls who titter and the boys who ogle, she convened Nonna last week to discuss the dress code.
To think my attendance in the private Tarecuorin institution hinges on the length of my skirt.
I’ve begged Nonna to transfer me to the school on Tarelexo, but she says it’s a great privilege to attend the same school as the royal family. I think she hopes proximity to pure-bloods will rub off on my family’s ruined reputation, even though she insists my presence in Scola Cuori has nothing to do with reputation and everything to do with legacy—every Rossi before me has attended that school.
What she leaves out is that every Rossi before me was born with pointed ears and magic.
A blade skims my cheek, just over my rounded ears. Nonna gasps and sends her basket crashing to the cobbles to wind her arms around my shoulders and pull me into her tall, lithe form.
“Since when do guards raise their swords on children?” Her voice is full of venom.
The white-uniformed male sheaths his sword in his leather baldric, his amber eyes skimming over the sharp points of Nonna’s ears. “Ceres Rossi, your granddaughter needs a haircut.”
“Were you planning on giving her one with your sword, Commander?”
The guard lifts his chin to make himself look more frightening. “I’m sure you’d prefer I didn’t. I’m not known for my hairdressing skills.”
“Are you known for any skill?” Her stern whisper flutters the hair that frames my face. The hair that is apparently too long.
“What was that, Ceres?” His eyes narrow because he has, in fact, heard her.
Nonna doesn’t tremble, so I don’t either, but I do swallow repeatedly. Especially when two more patrolling Fae sidle up to Commander Dargento’s sides. “Her hair will be cut tonight.”
Silvius Dargento’s triangular jaw ticks, clicks. “I should measure it.”
Nonna’s callused hand sails through my thick tresses. “But you won’t.”
Their eyes lock, joust.
Although saddled with a witless daughter and a half-human granddaughter, my grandmother’s scrutiny is as sharp as the jewels that adorn the lengthy shells of Tarecuorin ears.
Flickering wings catch my attention. Two sprites have descended upon our spilled loot. I break away from Nonna and fall to my knees, hurrying to salvage the food she cannot grow on Tarelexo. The sprites hook a bushel of rowan branches, and together they heft it away.
“Oh no, you don’t!” I scramble to my feet. Rowan infusions are the only thing that calm Mamma when she becomes restless.
