Chapter 43
"Oh my god. Oh my god. It's real. Oh my god," Marcella whispered over and over.
Cosimo laughed softly at her excitement.
"Told you there would be a magical door," Bas said smugly.
"Actually, I was the one who thought of the blood ward," Valentine corrected.
"Hush, you were both right," Cosimo intervened. He took the dagger from Marcella, handed it back to Valentine, and passed Marcella a small torch. She shone it around in the darkness.
"It opens out after a metre or so. Follow me," she said and crawled into the cupboard.
"This is so fucking exciting," Bridget said, bouncing up and down. She touched the piece in her ear. "Are you getting this, Lay Lay? Fuck yeah, we are going in. If we lose connection, we will let you know when we are out again."
"Make sure you close the wooden door behind you," Cosimo reminded them and crawled into the tight space. He struggled with his broad shoulders but managed to get through and stand up in the rough tunnel.
Marcella was shining her light all around her. "You boys will have to watch your heads. Men used to be a lot smaller when these were built."
Once they were all inside, Marcella touched the slab of stone, and it slid back into place. "This is incredible."
"This is magic, love," Cosimo replied.
Bridget dug into her backpack and began to pass out beanies and headlamps. Cosimo straightened Marcella's for her. "You look so cute in a beanie."
"I look cute in everything," she replied, her eyes shining with excitement. "Let's go."
"You first, in case your ancestors decided to set traps for everyone but them," Yelena suggested. They all turned to stare at her. "What? Makes sense. I can't feel any, but it's better to let Marcella handle it."
Cosimo's dragon writhed under his skin, hating the idea of Marcella walking into any trap.
"Cosimo always lets me go first, don't worry," Marcella said with a devilish grin that made Cosimo hot all over.
"Gross," Valentine muttered.
Cosimo wrapped his fingers around Marcella's. "We go together."
"Always," she said and winked.
"We are right here," Bas complained.
Cosimo ignored his children and turned back to the tunnel. "How long is this?"
"It's about two kilometres to the castle," Bridget said from behind them. "The university's digital scans didn't show any cave-ins on this route."
"Probably reinforced them with magic to make sure that if the castle were having the shit blown out of it by cannons, it wouldn't collapse," Cosimo replied.
In front of him, Marcella was shining the torch on the tunnel walls. In the dim light, Cosimo could make out tears in her eyes.
"What is it?"
Marcella sniffed, letting go of his hand so she could touch the rough walls. "My family made these. I don't feel any ghosts, but it's similar to being alone in a lounge room and somehow knowing someone is in a room upstairs. That probably isn't right. It's the feeling of a presence?"
"I know what you mean, tesoro. Take as long as you want. We are in no hurry," Cosimo said, resting his hand on her back.
"I don't want to break up the moment, but do you guys see that?" Bridget asked and pointed further down the tunnel. "All the walls are rough but that looks like a corner of some kind."
Cosimo shone his light where she was pointing. The stone was smoothed out, and there was a defined edge. They hurried down to inspect it. The polished stone formed a large archway, but there was only rough stone in the middle of it.
"It was like they were making a doorway and didn't bother building a tunnel that way," Yelena commented. "Seems like a waste."
"No, it's not a waste," Marcella said and bit into the cut on her finger again. She ran the blood over the wall, and it melted away, revealing a large room covered in dust.
Valentine conjured a fireball in his hand and touched it to the torches on the walls.
Marcella put her hands over her mouth. The room had long wooden work counters covered in pots of brushes, quills, ink, half-finished sketches, and piles of old paper and vellum scrolls.
Four bookshelves were crammed with books.
The Sforza insignia was painted on a wall, as well as frescoes of Roman gods, saints, angels, and allegorical symbols.
"They really were magicians," Marcella said, her eyes filled with unshed tears. "My magic isn't wrong at all. My family just forgot they had it. I'm not broken."
Cosimo put an arm around Marcella's shoulders. "No, my love, you are perfect in every way."
"I… We need to keep looking," she said, wiping the tears off her cheeks. "Everyone, take a bookshelf and start searching."
Cosimo stayed close to Marcella without trying to crowd her.
Soon, he got lost in gently pulling out books and inspecting their contents.
He could feel older variations of Marcella's power seeping out of the pages of the books from her ancestors' writing and handling them.
He was so used to that feeling that when he touched a stiff cover of red leather, it was like cold water had been splashed into his face.
Next to it was a book with a strangely woven spine of cream and red leather. Cosimo dropped his hand like he had been burned.
"Marcella, come here and look at this," he asked, his mouth suddenly dry.
Marcella's hand touched his arm. "What is it?"
"Red covers," he whispered.
Marcella shone her torch on the shelf, and on the spine of the red volume was a faded triangle-shaped mark with small circles and an outline of the Florentine lily.
"Cosimo, it's the Medici coat of arms," Marcella gasped. Her fingers touched the woven spine next to it. "My god, this pattern is the Sforza's ondato."
Cosimo nodded, unable to look away from them. "Take them out, Marcella. They are yours after all." The room went silent as everyone crowded around. Marcella pulled the volumes free and set them down on the nearest wooden counter.
A lump lodged in Cosimo's throat as he stared at the Medici coat of arms stamped into the red leather cover. The one next to it had the Sforza crest on it.
"You open one, and I'll open the other?" Marcella said.
Cosimo's fingers trembled as they both opened the books at the same time. In faded brown ink on the first page was written the name, Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici.
Marcella's small gasp had him tearing his eyes away from the page. She had her hand on a portrait drawn inside another book. Cosimo would recognize that profile anywhere.
"It's her, Cosimo. We found it," Marcella said.
Cosimo pointed at the name in his book. "No, tesoro. We found them. You were right. They were together all this time."
Marcella stared at the name in the red book before she threw herself into Cosimo's arms. "We found them! And all of this! Oh, my god. How are we going to get it out of here?"
Cosimo knew exactly where he wanted to put the collection. He kissed her smiling mouth. "I have one or two ideas. Let's take these two grimoires home first, and we can come back for the rest."
Marcella made a small, helpless sound as she stared at the piles of her family's history around her.
"They have stayed safe under a blood ward all this time. Another week or so won't hurt them," Cosimo reassured her. "Looks like our agreement is over, tesoro."
The words were barely out of his mouth when pain shot under his skin, and he let Marcella go with a gasp. "Fuck. Oh, no. Not now, you infernal beast. No."
"Cosimo? What is it? What's wrong?" Marcella asked.
"You have found the grimoires. The agreement is done. Now it is my turn," his dragon declared through his mouth.
Marcella backed away. "W-What?"
"Oh, fuck, his dragon is taking over. I can hear it in his mind," Bas said, moving in front of Bridget.
Cosimo clutched at his head. "No. Stop! We can't here… We can't."
"No more waiting. No more." Scales burst through Cosimo's skin, tearing flesh and bone. He opened his mouth and roared, loud enough to shake the tunnels. Rock and debris fell from above them.
"He's starting to shift," Yelena said urgently. "Marcella is the only one safe from him right now."
"Mine. My mate. Mine!" Cosimo snarled, falling to his hands and feet.
Marcella whirled on Valentine. "Make a portal somewhere safe! He can't stay in here, or he'll hurt himself and destroy the tunnels."
"Fuck, Dad, your timing is the worst. I warned you this would happen," Valentine snarled. He moved into the tunnel ahead of Cosimo, and his magic formed an opening.
Marcella gestured at them, making sure she stood between Cosimo and the others. The part of his mind that was still him wanted to say he wouldn't hurt them, but the dragon wasn't listening. His blood was boiling, his soul shredding, and he couldn't control it any longer.
"Cosimo? Follow me, amore mio. Come with me," Marcella crooned softly. Her magic was a shimmering aura of gold and black around her, mesmerizing the dragon. His mate. All his.
Marcella disappeared through the portal, and the dragon roared, plunging in after her. It barely registered the change in weather, his eyes fixated on his mate as she thrust something at one of the people near her. They reached out to touch her, and the dragon roared.
"Mine," he snarled. The beast pulled itself free of the man, its claws picking up his mate so that no one could touch her. No one was ever touching her again.