Chapter 41
DANTE
Iwaited until Emberline was fast asleep before I grunted out Nico’s name and headed outside to the garden. I was still blindly jealous of the bastard, but for my wife’s sake, I was willing to play nice.
Well, nice-ish.
“Run through this fucking disaster again,” I growled. I could not believe that fucking monk had gotten over on us.
“The Basin is definitely long gone,” he rubbed his jaw.
“The illusion fell apart the second I touched it, the whole thing collapsing around itself. No sign that the fortress or the wards were breached. No idea how they got it off the island and through the gate. The thing just… vanished, and nobody even noticed.”
“How the fuck is that possible?” I snapped, pacing the length of the garden. Sure, this was a plusher version of my stone cell, but I was still trapped inside four fucking walls with no way out.
“It’s not,” Nico shot back. “There isn’t a single hole in our security. I double and triple-checked. None of this makes sense.”
“It makes perfect sense,” Gabriel said quietly from the corner. “I got your message. Came as soon as I could get away. It appears we’ve all misjudged Emilia.”
He didn’t raise his voice, but I winced internally.
“The traces of magic left behind aren’t even what clinched it. Giovanni needs a witch or a high priestess in order to use the Basin. Emilia’s the only one in the Dynasty capable of wielding blood magic. My guess is, she’s been on board since before Enzo was killed.”
The quiet accusation knocked the air from my lungs.
I should stop beating myself up over Enzo’s death, but how could I, when every time I looked at Emberline, I was reminded of my failure? Would her father still be alive if he’d brought his proof to the council, and I’d backed him up?
I’d never know because I’d been too busy getting my head unfucked to do anything productive. I dragged my hands down my face, vowing not to make the same mistake this time.
“No.” As expected, Nico jumped to the old witch’s defense. “Emilia wouldn’t sell us out. This was one of the priests… Giovanni bribed one of them. That has to be it.”
Sometimes, I wondered what Emilia had on Nico, why he was always so quick to trust her. What strange history the two of them shared.
I made myself a mental note to take a closer look.
“Think about it,” Gabriel cut in, sharper than I’d ever heard him. “She’s the only one in the Dynasty who can use blood magic. The only one who could bypass the protections without setting off every alarm on that island.”
“And there were traces,” I added, for good measure. “Residual magic at the scene.”
“So far,” Gabriel replied, “everything we know points to her. Hard to argue with the evidence. Even you have to admit this looks bad, Nico.”
I leaned my back into the rough wall, exhaling hard. “She’s also been around as long as Giovanni. Once Marcello is gone, those two are our last elders. My guess is, we don’t know the half of their history. This conspiracy could go back further than any of us know.”
“She’s not dirty,” Nico said, “she could have taken the Basin to stop him…”
“Or she took it to help him,” I countered.
Then I shook my head, instincts prickling at the wrongness of that statement. “But Emilia doesn’t bend the knee to anyone, least of all that sniveling monk.” No, she had nothing but contempt for Giovanni, which was why none of this felt right.
“No,” Gabriel agreed. “But she does what she believes is necessary, and she bleeds for this Dynasty. If she thought controlling the Basin was the only way to stop Giovanni…”
“She would have taken it out of play.” Nico was nodding along. “Makes sense. Which means she could still be an ally. Shit, Emberline wanted to do the same thing.”
I looked between them, irritation spiking. “We’re going in circles. We have to know what side she’s on, instead of theorizing this to death.”
“Then we find out.” When I shot him an incredulous look, Gabriel spread his hands. “What? We go to the island, poke around. If the Basin is there, it should be easy enough to find a thousand-year-old monolithic, powerful, half-sentient artifact oozing magic all over the place.”
“That’s not how it works,” Nico snapped. “The Basin doesn’t ooze.”
“And you’ve never been to the DiSangue island,” I warned, skin prickling at the memory of what happened the last time we’d arrived there uninvited. “We have, and trust me, if Emilia catches us trying to sneak through her wards, we’re fucked.”
My brother snorted. “We’ll just talk our way…”
“She told us if we came back uninvited, she’d kill us,” Nico said plainly. “And I believe her, but sure, go ahead, test those boundaries and get yourself fried to a crisp.”
“We’re going,” my ever-stubborn brother decided.
I dragged my hands down my face. He was right.
We had to know where Emilia landed because if she stood against us, we were fucked. And there was no way Emberline would stay behind, which meant we were all fucking going together, which meant… it was up to me to protect them all from all the dangers waiting for us.
“I can get us past the wards,” I offered, wondering if I’d totally lost my godsdamned mind, “If the Basin is there, then we know she’s involved. We’d still have to decide whether she’s protecting the Dynasty or helping Giovanni, but we’d at least know where the damn thing is.”
Gabriel studied me for a long moment. “You can get us in?”
I rubbed my hand over the pagan tattoos, the new scars breaking them apart. The heat prickling over my skin in anticipation of being free.
I didn’t have to let the demon out completely. If I could access enough of the magic to get us through the wards and keep the thing locked down, this could work.
I was stronger than I’d been a few days ago, and now I had something to fight for.
There were benefits to having this entity trapped inside me—basic healing properties, elemental and celestial magic—but I could also use this primitive magic to override newer, more modern magic… like the wards protecting the DiSangue island.
I cracked my knuckles, a faint glow coating my skin. “I’ll drop them in a way so nobody, not even the high priestess, will know we’re there.”
The southern tip of the island rose out of the black water like a ship’s prow, stone stacked high, magic woven so tightly into the bones of the ancient abbey that the whole place felt alive.
We all agreed—if Emilia had the Basin, it would be hidden in the abbey, the place where her powers ran the deepest. Thankfully, it was also on the remote end of the island with the fewest guards.
Emberline stared up at the building, hair a wisp of curls around her pale face, eyes dark and wide. Reflecting a crescent of silver. Remembering, perhaps, the last time she’d been here.
“Still think this is a good idea?” Nico muttered as we cut the engine and let the boat drift inland, blown sideways by the wind. He and my brother watched me carefully, as if they were waiting for me to crack. Everyone knew something was off; they just didn’t know what.
Normally, I’d dematerialize inside, drop the wards on my way past, and land on the other side without stopping. But there were four of us, and one was the most precious thing in the world to me, and I wasn’t about to endanger a single hair on her head.
“No, it’s a shit idea, but here we all are,” I said, bracing myself against the rocking. “This is how it works. You’ll see the break in the wards, outlined by a thread of orange fire. Get yourselves through, don’t touch anything, and wait on the other side for me to join you.”
Emberline moved closer to my side. “Are you okay? You’re acting strange, Dante.”
“I’m fine,” I flexed my fingers, letting power flow down into my hands like molten metal.
I wished she wasn’t here to see this, but none of us had been able to convince her to stay behind.
Maybe one of these days we’d stop trying, but worrying about Emberline’s safety was the only thing the three of us could actually agree on.
“Get ready, the faster we get through, the more time we have to search.”
She frowned, reaching up to touch my face, but I straightened, pulling away.
“Go, stick close to Gabriel,” I urged gently, “and Nico. I’ll signal when you can move.”
I didn’t want her anywhere near me right now. This magic… this creature living inside me was a curse, a blight on my mortal soul. The moment I’d been infected by the Overseer’s experiments, I’d been well and truly damned, and I refused to let my poison touch her.
Gabriel and Nico watched me with the kind of intensity usually reserved for an enemy, and if they had the slightest inkling I was Emberline’s biggest threat, they would be right to drown me in these waters.
But tonight… tonight my cursed past would come in handy.
I rolled my neck, calling up more and more of the ancient power while holding the demon at bay.
The burning started low—deep in my chest, like something being dragged out by force. My first deep inhale tasted of iron and smoke, the burn of sparks on my tongue.
The dark wards shivered, then tore into thin fissures, outlined by a sliver of fire, like the edge of a smoldering piece of paper burning orange and yellow, bright against the darkness. A hole appeared, growing wider, large enough for someone to step through.
Pain spread like fire through my ribs, my lungs, and my veins.
Emberline’s eyes were wide, her fingers digging into Nico’s forearm as she stared at me as if she’d never seen me before. My blood turned into lava, but I forced my mouth to work. “Go,” I rasped through clenched teeth. “Now.”
Nico vanished, dragging Emberline with him, then my brother, all three reforming fifty feet away, outlined by the burning opening I’d created.
Before I could stop it, fiery power crawled up my arms, jagged lines etching themselves into my skin until they reached my tattoos, and when they did… every scar flared to life, glowing brighter by the second.
Burning through my shirt.
From far away, Nico swore under his breath.
I ripped that opening wider and dematerialized, became nothing but smoke, transporting myself across fifty feet in a millisecond, crossing through the wards before they snapped shut, sending a shower of sparks spilling over the rocky shoreline when I landed.
The second I was on solid ground, I closed my eyes and pushed, shoving the demon back down, the marks on my body still glowing.
“What the hell was that?” Emberline hissed, straining against Nico’s hold. “Dante, tell me what the fuck is going on? Why are you glowing?”
I trudged past them, dragging in a breath that felt like broken glass scraping down my lungs. The light beneath my skin dimmed by degrees, the burning receding to a dull, throbbing ache in my bones.
“What the fuck, Dante?” Nico hissed, practically treading on my heels. “What just happened?”
“Something we will deal with later,” Gabriel cut in, ever the picture of control. “This is not the time. Let’s move.”
The abbey wasn’t big, and the two priests guarding the doors went down without a sound. It didn’t take us long to search every crevice, every alcove, behind every red candle.
“The Basin could be up at the temple.” Gabriel finally said, his voice tight. “And we’ll never get close to that place without Emilia knowing.”
“What if she doesn’t have it?” Emberline stared at the block of stone in the center of the room with her hands on her hips, “Maybe you were wrong about the magic at the scene.”
“I’m never wrong,” Nico grumbled. “I know what I saw.”
“And what, pray tell, did you see?” Emilia blocked the only entrance, backed by a host of priests, sigils glowing bright. She’d rushed to get here. Her long red dress was tangled around her legs, and her normally perfect hair was askew.
And her stare promised a slow, painful death.
I moved to my right, blocking her view of Emberline.
“You and I have a special arrangement, Nico Draconi, but I warned you what would happen if you ever stepped foot on my island again uninvited.” That rageful gaze bounced between Nico and me, each word precise, controlled.
“Yet this time, you brought everyone along for the ride,”—her gaze narrowed slightly—“a motley crew, even on your best day.”
No one spoke. Not even Nico, which was a first.
Emberline stepped forward. “Emilia, let me explain…”
“No.”
The single word cracked like a whip.
“I know why you’re here,” Emilia snapped. “You suspected I took the Basin. You think I would stoop so low to become a thief. To align myself with your uncle, with his mad schemes of power.”
I decided fuck it and stepped between the high priestess and my wife, not caring if it got me killed. “Yes,” I answered, knowing this could very well be the last thing I said.
“And?” she demanded. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
The answer sat heavy on my tongue. “You know we did not.”
She dragged her eyes over me, gaze catching on my now-dormant scars, the heat radiating from my body. Something changed in her face, realization or professional interest, but I wished we had never come.
The last thing I needed was Emilia DiSange curious about me.
“Because you were wrong.” Her chest heaved with one violent breath, such a look of offense crossing her face, that I instantly knew two things. Emilia didn’t have the Basin. And any hope we had of keeping her as our ally evaporated.
“If you’re looking for a traitor,” she said slowly, “you’re looking in the wrong place. Since I’m in a generous mood, I’m giving you two minutes to get off my island. Word of advice. Don’t dally.”
The air around us tightened, a sharp cold pricking at my skin.
I paused, looked around at the priests one last time, wondering if one of them was a traitor, or if we’d truly fucked up.
“We’re leaving,” Gabriel ordered, striding toward the door, priests slowly clearing out of the way. We were almost clear when my wife hesitated.
“Emilia, I am so sorry, I just…” Without stopping, Nico snagged Emberline’s arm and dragged her away, then the four of us were racing for the shoreline, the wards rising like a wall of angry black shadows.
I didn’t delay. Ripping the fiery magic up out of me like a whip of flame, I lashed a line straight down through the protections, leaving them in shreds. We didn’t stop moving until we were knee deep in the water, then dematerialized to the boat.
Looking back, the last thing I saw was Emilia staring after me like she’d seen a godsdamned ghost.