Chapter I
I
Rome, Italy
It’s true what they say, that cities rarely sleep, but there is an hour when they doze.
A perfect stretch of time, after the bars and clubs have shuttered, and before the bakers have risen. When the piazzas are empty, the avenues deserted, the wanderers so few that she can hear their heartbeats.
In that hour, Rome belongs to Charlotte.
She wanders through the streets, pretends that the city is a museum and she’s the only patron. She walks, and marvels at the scale of the buildings, the newer ones delicate, colorful, ornate, the older ones imposing blocks of stone.
But the fountains are her favorite.
She visits them each night, as if they’re friends. Knows the Latin carved into their backdrops and their bases, has memorized the many figures, twisted in battle, or lunging up from the depths, or bowing beneath the weight above.
Charlotte reaches the Piazza Navona and stops, as she always does, before her favorite of the three.
Takes in Neptune, locked in battle with a creature from the depths.
A horse and nymph, frantically trying to escape.
All of them trapped, frozen forever in this desperate moment, this precipice between victory and defeat.
Around her, the night is quiet.
The oil lamps are long gone now, their butter-yellow glow replaced by streetlights that turn the cobblestones blue-white.
The only sounds are the humming power grid and the burble of the fountain.
But as Charlotte leans down to run her fingers through the water, she hears the unmistakable padding of bare feet.
And her world shudders to a stop.
Silly Charlotte.
She was so careful at first, the way a child is after burning their fingers.
Every night, for months, she stretched her senses to their limit, every nerve alert. The first time she saw a glint of red hair, her entire body went cold, before she realized it was only a round-faced girl with a ginger bob.
The next time, it was a mannequin in a shop window.
The third, light glancing off a post.
But as the weeks turned to months, and the months to years, her mind stopped playing tricks. The shadows settled, the shapes resolved, and though Sabine still haunted Charlotte in her dreams, that was the only place she ever found her.
Until now.
Ten years—so long, so short, how could she think that she was free?
—and she knows, when she turns, what she will see, so she doesn’t, not at first. Instead, she sits perfectly still on the edge of the fountain, keeps her gaze locked squarely on the water’s surface, her panicked face rippling as the steps slink closer.
Silly Charlotte.
And then, at last, the most welcome sound in the world.
A heartbeat.
Soft but steady and unmistakably human.
The world stutters back into motion, and when Charlotte allows herself to look, she sees a young woman ambling toward the fountain, sandals hanging from one hand, cigarette from the other.
Her limbs, tan and coltish, in a summer dress short enough to graze her thighs.
Honey-blond hair cut into a bob, eyes a stunning shade of blue—though Charlotte will later marvel at the way they range from teal to stormy gray, depending on her mood.
Everything in Charlotte loosens, and she finds herself laughing softly in relief as the young woman sits and swings her legs over the fountain’s edge, bare feet sinking with a splash into the water.
The stranger slips the cigarette between her lips and lets her head fall back, exposing the column of her neck as she sighs smoke up into the night.
Hunger blooms in Charlotte’s stomach, tightens in her throat.
“Lunga giornata o lunga notte?” asks the stranger lightly.
Charlotte hesitates. She has only been in Rome a month now, is still learning the singsong shape of Italian. “Mi dispiace,” she says slowly. “Non parlo . . .”
At which point the young woman chuckles, and plucks the cigarette from her mouth.
“I only ask,” she says in English, “if this is the end of a long night, or the start of a long day.” She has the kind of voice that carries its own brightness, a smile in the sound, as if she’s on the verge of laughing. A voice that makes Charlotte feel light-headed.
“End of a long night.”
“Stesso,” says the young woman. “Same.”
She holds out the cigarette, and Charlotte takes it, rests her lips where the other woman’s were. She inhales, and the smoke doesn’t burn, doesn’t do anything—it is, after all, an imitation of breath—but she savors the excuse to share space with someone else.
Ten years Charlotte has been alone. A stranger among strangers. A ghost brushing against the mortal world. There have been passing glances here and there, but the closest she’s come to touch is in the bodies she claims, the lives she’s forced to take, and what they feel for her is hardly love.
Ten years, and as glad as she was to finally be free, somewhere along the way the freedom soured, turned to loneliness. She misses the warmth of company, the lightness of a life shared with someone else.
The young woman reaches to reclaim the cigarette, their fingers grazing as she does.
“Giada,” she says, and Charlotte waits for her to repeat the word in English. But she only laughs, and taps her chest. “My name.”
Charlotte blushes. “Oh. Sorry. Charlotte.”
“Ah,” says Giada, “Carlotta.”
And that small change, from English to Italian, makes her feel rechristened, new. Charlotte is forever scarred, but Carlotta hasn’t spent the last decade running from Sabine. Carlotta never belonged to her at all.
“It isn’t safe, you know,” says Giada.
Charlotte stiffens at the warning, as if she’s read her mind. “How so?”
She crosses her legs and flicks her toes through the water. “To be out here, in the dark, alone.”
Charlotte relaxes, then. “I could say the same to you.”
“Ah,” says Giada, cheerfully patting her purse. “That is why I carry rocks.”
“Rocks are heavy,” says Charlotte. “Your shoulder must get tired.”
“It does. But the longer I carry them, the stronger I feel.”
Charlotte stares at Giada—this strange and stunning girl—as she stubs out her cigarette. As she swings her legs out of the water. As she slips her sandals on and stands, and studies Charlotte. “I can see you don’t have any rocks,” she says, “so I will walk you home.”
And it is ridiculous, absurd, but Charlotte hears herself say yes.
Even as her teeth prick against her bottom lip.
Even as the hunger aches inside her jaw.
Even as she listens to the steady beat of Giada’s human heart behind her fragile ribs and wants it for her own, Charlotte knows she will gladly starve if it means letting Giada walk her home.
It turns out they live on the same street.
What are the odds? Charlotte on one end, and Giada on the other.
They laugh— she laughs, the sound so sudden and bright, it feels like something coming loose inside her, some great unraveling.
By now, the darkness is dissolving, the dawn soon on its way, and Giada squints up at the sky as if gauging the time and says she knows a place they can get coffee.
“At this hour?” Charlotte asks, and she’s met with a smile, a shrug.
“They like me there.”
Of course they do, she wants to say. Who wouldn’t?
If Charlotte were an ordinary girl, she would be left to wonder if Giada is just being friendly, but she can taste her interest on the air, like spice.
If Charlotte were an ordinary girl, she would say yes.
But she’s not.
“I can’t,” she says, even though that isn’t strictly true. After all, the sun won’t kill her. She could stomach the early-morning light, suffer through the sickness as the day swept in, but it would be a weight around her neck, a stain seeping through the memory she wants to make.
So she says no, and Giada—who cannot see or taste Charlotte’s hunger on the air, who cannot feel her desire, her loneliness, her want—wilts a little, her brightness dimming, until Charlotte offers dinner instead.
“Tonight,” she says. “My treat.”
And just like that, Giada is glowing again. Her smile, bold as brass. “You should know,” she says with a wink, “I eat a lot.”
With that she spins and strolls away, down the narrow block.
“Pick me up at eight!” she calls over her shoulder, and Charlotte cannot help but smile as she watches Giada’s honey-blond bob bounce and sway and vanish through a matching door.
Hope flares in her chest, and she thinks, This, this, this is where her story starts.
How clearly Charlotte can see it, even now.
Giada skipping down the steps at dusk in white sandals and a pink sundress. A giddy glee as she announces that she’s planned a tour. Not of the Roman monuments, or ruins, but of her favorite foods.
She leads Charlotte through piazzas, over bridges, and down winding roads, explaining that they simply cannot eat at just one place, since each has its own specialty, and so, as the night settles over Rome she leads Charlotte on a pilgrimage, from coffee beneath white canopies in Regola to arancini passed through a window in Trastevere.
Charlotte is well-versed in the art of blending in, has spent long enough pretending to be human that she can manage in mixed company.
It is, of course, an illusion that works better at a distance, and stumbles under scrutiny.
But thankfully, when Giada eats, or drinks, the experience devours her in turn, and by the time she finally looks up to see what Charlotte thinks, the cup has been tipped out, the food disturbed.
Giada, meanwhile, holds no allegiance to the order of savory and sweet, and so they take gelato in Campitelli (the dessert melts swiftly in the late-spring warmth, seeming to eat itself) before settling at last beneath the red umbrellas of a bistro in the corner of a piazza in Monti.
There, over a plate of carbonara, Charlotte twirling noodles round her fork, she learns that Giada is a model. Not the kind that poses for magazines, or strolls down runways in the latest fashion. No, she is a life model, surrounded not by flashbulbs but the scratch of pencils.
She poses for artists, sometimes in loose clothes, so they can capture the light and shadow of the fabric’s folds. More often in nothing, she says, grinning between mouthfuls of pasta. “I’m very popular.”
“Of course you are,” says Charlotte. “I mean, you’re gorgeous.” The words spill out, and yet, she is the only one who ends up blushing. Giada simply smirks and shakes her head.
“Beauty matters more for photos,” she explains. “In art, it’s better to be interesting. But no.” She sets her fork aside. “They like me because once I strike a pose, I can hold it. I will not move. Watch.”
It is hard to imagine Giada stationary. In the brief time they’ve spent together, she’s been an object constantly in motion. Feet sliding through fountain pools. Hands hooking round light posts. Even her honey bob seems caught in a constant sway.
And yet, as Charlotte watches, she goes still.
She doesn’t slow, limbs dragging to a stop.
It is a sudden, overwhelming stillness, like flesh being turned to stone.
The fingers of one hand raised off the table mid-gesture.
Her mouth parting slightly, as if about to speak.
Her eyes trained on some distant sight over Charlotte’s shoulder.
The overall effect is at once impressive and uncanny.
Charlotte applauds, waits for Giada to dissolve back into motion.
But she doesn’t so much as blink.
Charlotte dips her hand in the glass of water, flicks the drops half-heartedly at Giada’s face, expecting her to recoil, laugh, or wipe her cheek.
Nothing.
Charlotte bites her lip in thought, then reaches out and runs her fingertips along the back of Giada’s hand, tracing, skimming her wrist. She can feel the heartbeat quickening beneath the skin, can see the color spreading through Giada’s cheeks, and yet those are the only parts that answer.
Just when Charlotte thinks nothing in this world will cause Giada to break, their waiter arrives, depositing a plate, and she springs back to life, hands clapping in delight.
“Seada! My favorite,” she says, before dissolving into a flurry of Italian with the waiter. Charlotte watches, mesmerized as all that briefly pent-up energy comes spilling out. The waiter eventually withdraws, and Giada explains that it’s a gift from the owner.
“They’re dumplings, dipped in honey,” she says, before popping one into her mouth and moaning in pleasure. A sound that seeps right into Charlotte, warms her from the inside out.
“Go on,” urges Giada, nudging the plate toward her, “you have to try.”
Charlotte takes one, the honey sticking to her fingers.
She tries not to think about how much she misses food.
Now and then, when she drinks, she catches ghosts of old familiar flavors in the blood, but it’s not the same.
She misses the earthy sweetness of sun-warmed tomatoes, the vivid tang of blackberries, the sugar dusted over biscuits.
Though in truth, it’s been so long she struggles to remember, doesn’t recall the taste as much as how it made her feel, the way a perfect bite could make her heart go fizzy and her whole mood lift.
The same way Giada looks now as she licks the honey from her thumb. Her eyes close briefly as she savors each and every flavor, and in that instant, Charlotte palms the seada, lets it drop beneath the chair, where a pigeon quickly rushes in to claim the prize.
When Giada returns to herself, Charlotte asks her how she manages to stay so still.
“I go somewhere else, in my head.” She takes another seada. “Sometimes, memories.” Then, eyes dancing, “Sometimes, fantasies.” She winks and pops the dumpling in her mouth, and sighs, limbs loosening like syrup. Warring urges rise in Charlotte, but she allows only one to surface.
“I’d love to draw you.”
“Ah!” Giada breaks into a grin. “So Carlotta is an artist, too.” Charlotte blushes at the nickname, the glee in Giada’s eyes, the sunlight in her voice when she bobs her head. “All right,” she says. “Your place or mine?”