Chapter 12
Bellanca hung up her apron with more force than necessary. For the first time since she’d begun working at Spiro’s, Carver was late coming to collect her. Maybe he’d gone straight home? He’d wanted her to skip going to work today. She hadn’t said she would, even though the pulsing ache in her wrists told her she probably should’ve, but maybe he’d assumed she’d listened to him and stayed home?
Scoffing, she discarded the thought. Carver was plenty of things, but he wasn’t stupid. He must’ve known she’d go to the taverna. Yes, it was a difficult day for her—and definitely painful—but she didn’t shrug off her responsibilities just because she was hurt . She’d have to be incapacitated, especially because her not going to work automatically meant a harder day for Lilika and Theophania.
She didn’t ignore her obligations, and Carver never shirked his duty.
So where was he?
Worry wormed its way under Bellanca’s skin, joining the hot throb of her burns. Who’d have guessed she’d be so eager for Carver’s thundercloud moods, quick smiles, and piercing stares? She walked to the doorway and looked out over the patio, hoping to see him finally appear, but there was only Theophania, singing to herself and wiping down the outdoor tables with a wet, soapy sea sponge.
The longer she waited, the more aggressively unease grew inside her like the big, bright-purple bougainvillea that had practically swallowed up the whole front of the building now. Dimitri was talking about trimming it back, and she wished she could cull her growing panic as easily. She willed Carver to walk through the door, but the gate to the now-closed taverna remained shut, and watching it like a hawk didn’t make it open. Turning away proved impossible, though. She’d spent a lifetime walking on the razor-sharp tips of swords and tiptoeing around monsters that called themselves family, and yet this fear was new. It gripped her heart and twisted it straight from her chest, leaving it beating and vulnerable in front of her.
“What in the Underworld have you got up to?” she muttered under her breath.
Carver was never late. He just wasn’t, which meant he was either locked up, seriously injured, or dead.
Her heart slammed a hard beat.
Or maybe inebriated?
Her nostrils flared. He’d been sober for more than a year. Yesterday and last night hadn’t been easy, but he wouldn’t go down that path again.
Would he?
The possibilities churned inside her, tying her stomach into knots.
Frowning, she watched for several minutes, but the terrace remained empty except for Theophania. Bellanca flexed her hands, trying to get rid of the hot tingle coursing through her fingers. She’d just have to go home on her own. It was unprecedented, but it wasn’t as if anyone could stop her.
Turning around, she stepped back inside as Spiro finished counting the day’s earnings. He glanced up at her and pushed her portion in her direction.
“Your husband’s late.” Scowling, he eyed her as if she had something to do with Carver’s uncharacteristic tardiness.
Bellanca scowled back at him, the word husband stabbing her in the chest in a way it hadn’t just yesterday.
What if it doesn’t have to be fake anymore?
She lifted her chin. “I can go home alone.”
“Hmm.” Spiro narrowed his eyes, glancing past her at the still-empty doorway.
Just wanting to leave and find Carver, Bellanca waved a hand at the coins glinting on the wooden counter. “I’ll just collect double pay tomorrow. I don’t need it this instant.”
Pursing his pink, blubbery lips, Spiro nudged the coins farther down the counter toward her. “You shouldn’t walk around alone at this time of day. Not when we haven’t heard the procession go by yet.”
A wholly unexpected lump rose in Bellanca’s throat. Spiro’s concern wasn’t about giving her wages directly to her instead of to Carver. The evening sacrifice hadn’t happened yet, and until it did, no woman was truly safe on the streets of Atlantapol, especially without a male escort.
She’d seen it a few times already. Atlantians got antsy when Eryx was late with the sacrifice. The more fanatical ancestral Magoi sometimes took it upon themselves to grab a woman and offer her up to the gods, just in case Eryx forgot to sacrifice someone that day. He never did. Bellanca had seen the king glassy-eyed and burning up with fever and still manage to heave someone over the high wall to the stone walkway below. The granite path ringed the harbor at low tide and disappeared under the waves when it was high. Hitting stone ensured death, whereas hitting water might not. Eryx watched the tides and never missed his window.
Standing by and doing nothing made Bellanca want to self-immolate. Letting Eryx murder his own people went against every promise she’d made to herself since the day she burned her brother to a crisp in his own throne room, and key or no key to igniting magic in Atlantis, she needed to end this—end Eryx —as soon as possible.
“The king’s late tonight,” she agreed. Just like Carver.
Spiro nodded. “We’ll stay here until it’s over. You should stay with us. We’ll have dinner.”
As Bellanca looked down the counter at Spiro, his head bowing again over the carved, olive-wood box he locked his money in, she thought about Carver’s father, Anatole. He’d always been kind to her, but she wouldn’t say they’d had a relationship. Same with Carver’s mother, Nerissa. The older woman had tried, but Bellanca hadn’t been ready to try back. Not really. Living under the same roof as them whenever she wasn’t camped out with the army or on a mission didn’t make them her mother and father. But here…somehow… With Spiro worrying about her safety and Theophania gently humming in the courtyard…
The lump in her throat got bigger. She swallowed. She’d never actually had parents. Not in any way that counted.
“Thank you,” she murmured, her voice a little reedy. “But I really need to go. Carver’s never late. I…have to find him.” She reached out and took the wages Spiro had offered, ignoring the shock to her bandaged wrist when it brushed the inside of her pocket. “Thanks, though.” She found a genuine smile for the man across from her. “I like it when a person surprises me.”
His broad cheeks pinkened. “Bah!” Shaking his head, Spiro turned away from her with a grin he only half hid and hauled his gigantic frame into the kitchen. “Dimitri! Walk Bellanca home. Her derelict husband forgot her.”
Bellanca’s smile faded. Carver was as far from derelict as they came, and Spiro knew it from the exchanges they had nearly every evening. Moreover, she knew it. Even when Carver had been living off wine and bitterness, he’d still managed to accomplish everything he was supposed to.
Panic dug sharp little holes in her armor as Dimitri came out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a cloth that he handed to Lilika. Their fingers brushed, and they both seemed to hold their breath for a moment. Lilika eventually turned and put the cloth into one of the laundry baskets behind the counter. She started sorting the wet and stained material for the washing service that came by every other evening. Dimitri’s eyes lingered on her soft, curving body before he turned, too, and joined Spiro at the counter to collect his day’s earnings. The two men started talking, prolonging Bellanca’s agony. After several more minutes, it was all she could do not to ignite in frustration.
Trying to distract herself, she helped Lilika with the laundry. She might as well be useful while she waited. Walking home alone was still an option, but a bad one. A woman standing out in Atlantis was an invitation to be hunted, which would force Bellanca to hunt back, and blowing her cover before they figured out how to bring magic back to the island was what they’d spent the last six months avoiding.
When they finished the sorting, she helped Lilika bring the two nearly overflowing laundry baskets to the gate, leaving them just outside for the washing service that would come by during the night. Bellanca looked up and down the street for Carver. No tall, dark-haired, storm-eyed man walked their way, and her stomach hollowed, fear gobbling up the empty space inside her.
Theophania walked over and added her apron to one of the baskets. “Your husband’s still not here?” Looking concerned, she closed the gate with a firm clack , keeping them all separated from the street. Atlantians had started spilling from their homes and businesses and lining the road that ran right past the taverna to the high wall of Atlantis, all clearly waiting for the king to parade his sacrifice to her death.
Bellanca shook her head. Husband. Such a sacred word here. Carver had a name and yet no one used it. They gave him a title instead.
What if it doesn’t have to be fake anymore?
Her chest clenched. She wanted a friend and advisor she could trust, but did she want to be truly bound to any man as husband and wife?
She could change the rules for Atlantian women, at least on parchment, once she gained the throne, but that wouldn’t change the fact that Carver was lonely here. His recent odd behavior proved he wasn’t satisfied with the status quo. That dissatisfaction wouldn’t just disappear, and their situation was bound to grow so taut it broke. The possibility of losing him filled her with dread, but opening herself up to physical intimacy was also one of the scariest things she could think of.
And yet, the idea of him kissing her didn’t frighten her quite as much as it had yesterday. In fact… She swallowed. She almost wished he had.
Her skin flushed hot with a rush of fire magic through her blood. Bellanca whirled. “Dimitri!” she called from the patio. She couldn’t wait another second. She had to find Carver before considering anything else.
“Coming,” he hollered back. He didn’t emerge, though, and her gut wouldn’t stop plummeting with the certitude that someone she cared about was in trouble and that she wasn’t there to help.
Or couldn’t .
The awful feeling reminded her of her younger sister, Lystra—the only one in the Tarvan royal family without magic. “A useless Hoi Polloi aberration,” their parents had said. Lystra suffered horribly for it, and Bellanca hadn’t known how to help. She hadn’t known how to help her other closest sister, either. Appoline’s seer magic had saved her from some of the physical abuse that came with having elemental magic—or a lack of it—but not from the constant pressure to perform or else see other people suffer the consequences. Most days, Bellanca could barely protect herself from the daily brutality of the royal family and court, and it had been a victory when she could protect anyone else. Her entire life up until killing her cruel and murderous older brother had been about putting out fires instead of burning monsters to the ground.
No more. Magic cracked in her veins. Soon, there would be fire in Atlantis’s sky, just as the Chaos Wizard prophesized, and a new world would rise from the ashes. Bellanca knew she wasn’t perfect, but she could do better than this .
She stormed back inside. “I’m leaving. Now. With or without you.” She glared at Dimitri.
“Remind me never to make you angry,” he teased. Her sharp inhalation hissed across the room, and Dimitri’s eyes widened. “Sorry. I’ll be ready soon.”
Bellanca did her best to smooth out her expression. “I’m just worried about Carver. He’d be here if he could.”
Dimitri nodded and slipped out the back, probably to relieve himself before his long walk home. Her path took him in the wrong direction, which just irked her more.
Lilika, who’d followed her inside, lowered a jug of wine from the shelf behind her and passed it over the counter. “Here, take this for your dinner with Carver. You have those nice, big windows overlooking the harbor. It’ll be romantic. And I’m sure nothing’s wrong.” She pressed the wine into Bellanca’s hands with a reassuring nod.
“Uh, thank you.” Bellanca took the gift because she wasn’t sure how to refuse. They didn’t keep wine in their house. There was no point in tempting Carver with a vulnerability he’d let pull him under twice. She’d only witnessed one of his drunken spirals, but it was enough to make her want to keep wine out of his reach and Konstantina off his mind.
She stifled a grimace. Honestly, she’d like to keep Konstantina off her mind. She’d never met the woman, and yet Konstantina kept barging into her thoughts, a faceless beauty with smooth dark hair, gentle curves, and golden-tan skin. The exact opposite of Bellanca, all fair and freckled and thin.
A sour taste coated her mouth. “You know, I think this will be useful.” Maybe she’d drink the wine and forget about the perfect little villager who’d stolen Carver’s heart and then broken it into a million parts.
Bellanca yanked the stopper from the jug and took a sip. She had to force the liquid down. Despite not really liking it, she took another swig.
“Thirsty?” Lilika raised her eyebrows. They were dark and delicate and lifted into perfect arches as she smiled at Bellanca in support. While maybe a bit rounder, with her glowing, tawny complexion, thick, dark-brown hair, and wide chestnut eyes, Lilika looked a lot like how Bellanca imagined Konstantina. Maybe she was wrong, though. No one had ever actually told her what Konstantina looked like, but if a southern Sintan Hoi Polloi village girl had snagged a rich Magoi on beauty alone, she must’ve been spectacular to look at.
Ugh. The acidity flooding her palate was only partly due to the wine she no longer had any taste for and happily lived without.
She jammed the stopper back into the potbellied jug. “Worried,” Bellanca answered truthfully. And… jealous? She bit her lip, an uncomfortable tightness banding around her chest. Even if she wanted Carver to love her in that way, she’d be competing against nostalgia and a dead woman for the rest of her life.
No thanks.
She gripped the clay container, the aftertaste of the wine as bitter as her thoughts. How could Konstantina still hold Carver’s heart in such a fierce grip? Was it because the stupid woman died only months after breaking her promises to him? She left Carver without anywhere to channel his anger and pain, and Carver spent years fooling everyone into thinking he was fine. That charade came to a crashing end after his brush with death—and an unexpected brush with Konstantina on the fringes of the Underworld—left him in total chaos.
Bellanca met him just after that. He seemed to be wasting his potential, and she took it upon herself to irritate him nearly to death anytime he even looked at a jug of wine. It had seemed the only way to get through to him, to make him react . It had also taken a private talk with Cat to finally snap Carver out of his pickled wallowing, and Bellanca wasn’t sure she could unpickle him by herself, no matter how annoying she got.
“You and your husband have always seemed to have a special connection,” Lilika gently said. “I’m sure you’d know if something was wrong.”
The blood crashed from her head, leaving her vision spotted. That was the problem. She did .
Abruptly pivoting, Bellanca walked toward the door. “I have to go. Just…tell Dimitri I left.” She’d take her chances with the feral, magic-hungry ancestral Magoi of Atlantapol. She knew for a fact she could be twice as feral as any of them.
“Don’t.” Lilika lunged after her and grabbed her injured wrist. Long, fitted sleeves and sealed lips meant no one here knew about her burns, and Bellanca held back a gasp as pain leaped up her arm from under the other woman’s grip. She held still, not wanting to startle her friend. “Dimitri will just be a moment. Stay,” Lilika begged.
Giving in, Bellanca nodded as she carefully extracted her wrist and mentally snuffed out the pain, spark by spark. Mastering it, she glanced toward the back exit. “He should be walking you home.”
That shy, for-Dimitri-only smile touched Lilika’s face. “He does sometimes. But I have my father. You need someone this time.”
Bellanca nearly spat out her usual mantra—that she didn’t need anyone and never had. But maybe that wasn’t true anymore. She’d been ready to come to Atlantis alone. She’d told Carver not to come. But he had anyway, and now the thought of anything happening to him left her queasy with dread.
“Dimitri kissed me this morning,” Lilika whispered, leaning in so she wouldn’t risk being overheard. “Our first.”
Bellanca turned to her, her mind so far from kissing and courtship that it took a moment to adjust. “Did you like it?” she asked hoarsely.
“ Of course I did.” Grinning, Lilika blushed.
Bellanca’s lost opportunity on the beach rushed back to her with surprising vengeance. She’d been startled, confused, nervous… She hadn’t meant to reject Carver with a burst of magic. And she hadn’t had time to figure out what she wanted before he stormed off in a huff.
Restless and worried, she glanced out the door again, but she’d given up hope of seeing Carver walk in. “I’m glad it was nice.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say. Asking what it was like didn’t seem right, especially because Bellanca was supposed to be a married woman with experience. She’d never talked about anything like this with her sisters. Appoline, Lystra, and she had mostly talked about avoiding the rest of their family, trying not to get caught in a Power Bid or, worse, married off, and how to keep their maniacal brother from leveling an entire neighborhood—again.
“I was wondering…” Lilika said shyly. “What’s the next step like?”
Bellanca stared at her. She had no idea—well, some idea, just no personal insight—but luckily, Dimitri finally showed up. “Ready to go?” She moved toward the door without any intention of stopping this time.
He nodded, and they said their goodbyes, her with an apologetic look at Lilika for abandoning their conversation. Lilika waved her off with a smile and a don’t-worry, we’ll-talk-about-this-later gleam in her dark eyes. Finally on their way, Bellanca and Dimitri crossed the table-filled patio, opened the gate, and stepped into the street side by side. Dimitri immediately offered her his arm, signaling that she was protected and belonged.
Oddly enough, she did feel as though she belonged in Atlantis. Everything was familiar now, except the evening streets of Atlantapol didn’t feel at all the same without Carver, and being with Dimitri didn’t make her feel any less alone.