Chapter 2
Capitolo Due
The hour grew late, and the night became longer and darker as Ravenna laid her tools in a neat row on the scarred wooden table in her studio.
The flat and claw chisels, the rasp, a file, her hammer—practically an extension of her palm—her favorite pumice stone, and a soft-bristled brush.
Ravenna glanced at the single window that allowed spools of moonlight to gloss over the cramped space.
She’d lined the sill with eggshells filled with cinnamon and cloves, painted stones, and snips of parchment with poetry, riddles, and fragments of stories written on them.
Offerings to keep the fae at bay.
Her mother was as superstitious as she was practical, and she’d raised Ravenna to be the same. Magic had no place in Volterra. Best to keep it out by any means possible. And stifle her own.
Ravenna turned back to her worktable. It was her favorite time to sculpt marble, during the midnight hours while all the world slept.
She inhaled deeply, comforted by the familiar scents the storage building kept trapped within its stone walls: flour, vanilla, aged wine, canvas, and pine.
Outside, the wind began its nightly howl as winter gave its final cry across the rolling hills of Volterra.
Ravenna tied a clean linen apron twice around her waist, lit another candle, and then eyed the bozzetto critically.
It stood only a foot tall, but there was something about the figurine that seemed to overwhelm the quiet of her studio.
For her subject, Ravenna had chosen Pluto, god of the underworld, and even without his face completed, the air around him swirled menacingly.
The lushness of his clothing accentuated the broad width of his shoulders, and his strong hands were edged with blunt fingers capable of wielding the most dangerous of weapons.
Even without a face, he seemed threatening.
Finish me, topolina, or you’ll regret it, he seemed to say in a deadly hush.
Ravenna had never been called a little mouse before in all her life.
With a burst of annoyance she took the flat chisel and hammer and struck the marble. It gave way easily, the white stone as pure and sparkling as if it had come from the moon.
With expert strikes, she nibbled away at the stone, angling cheekbones, carving the fine line of his eyelids, trapping the shadows that made up the contours of his face.
With the claw chisel, she scratched the long sweep of eyebrows into place, the arched curve both sardonic and stern.
With every step, Ravenna worked to improve each strike: deepening the lines, softening his mouth, adding the wavy details of his shoulder-length hair.
It wasn’t until Ravenna finished that she’d realized what she’d done.
The face that stared back at her belonged to the man from the alley. Not the Capitano, but the one with the perfect face, coldly beautiful and aloof. Ravenna gaped at the statue, annoyed at herself. How could she have immortalized his face in a work that was meant to save her brother?
She shook her head, furious at herself.
The wind outside the studio gave a sudden howling protest, and the wooden door burst open with a sudden slam.
She jumped at the sound, dust swirling off the worktable, covering her homespun dress in speckles of white and gray.
She gaped at the whirlwind as if she were caught in snowstorm, but then the wind abruptly retreated, as if satisfied with the mess it had made. The wooden door swung shut.
Her mother would say it was an ill omen.
Ravenna stepped away from the bozzetto and tilted her head.
There was still something missing from the piece, an elusive something that would set her work above the rest of the competition.
Her calm demeanor wobbled. She’d never presented her work before, other than to her own family.
But now there would be an audience, critics evaluating her work.
And she knew exactly what they would say.
She was an impostor.
Her creation was amateur, with no heart and soul.
She was a woman doing the noble work of a man.
Ravenna set her tools on the table, thrust her hands on her hips. She couldn’t control what the others thought, but she could control what she did now.
And that was to create something to save her brother.
“Ravenna!”
She half turned. Her littlest sister, Tereza, stepped shyly inside her studio, dragging her favorite blanket behind her, a ratty thing that had kept company with all the Maffei children.
“Amorina,” Ravenna said. “Little love, did you come here by yourself?”
Tereza walked to the tall wooden worktable and stood on tiptoe, clutching the edge to keep balance.
“All by myself. Who is it?” she asked. Her dark brown hair was fitted in a braid that draped over a slender shoulder.
At only five, Tereza exuded a calming presence, at odds with the rest of the family who spoke in loud and louder volumes.
She tucked her index finger inside her mouth, a habit their mother had tried to curb.
“Pluto,” Ravenna said. “Do you know who he is?”
Tereza nodded once, her delicate features scrunching. “Not the hero.”
“Depends on who you ask,” Ravenna said with a wink. “I’ve always thought villains are misunderstood.”
Tereza pulled her finger out of her mouth with a small pop. “It’s not done.”
The corners of Ravenna’s lips deepened. “I agree. What’s missing, do you think?”
“Something shiny,” Tereza said, shrugging.
Ravenna pulled at her bottom lip with her teeth. Something shiny. An idea flickered in her mind, one that terrified her even as it sunk deeper in her, a stone tossed into a river.
Tereza dropped down from her tiptoed position and turned back to the door. “Mamma says for you to come inside. That your eyes will suffer in the dark. That your work is done, and no one is asking for perfect. But she said to tell you it is perfect. I don’t know why. She hasn’t seen it.”
Ravenna tugged at her sister’s long braid. “And what else?”
“She doesn’t want you to go tomorrow.”
Her heart squeezed. “You’re a good little messenger.”
“She also said your breakfast is cold,” Tereza said seriously. “And that it serves you right. She says you are too thin and lonely.”
“Five more minutes,” Ravenna said, rolling her eyes. “Will you tell her?”
“Yes, but Mamma won’t like it,” Tereza said before slipping out the door.
Ravenna stared at the door, unseeing.
Her idea tugged at her.
She flicked her eyes to the long wooden shelves lining the storage walls, where she’d hidden a terrible secret. It was locked in a box, out of sight, but the air seemed to pulse around it. The hidden magic swirled around her. It whispered against her skin, coaxing her to come closer.
No one in Volterra knew she had a whisper of that magic living inside her.
Only her parents, her best friend, Maria—and Antonio.
She’d told him back when they used to tell each other everything. Before the Medici battle had made him someone she barely recognized. Now she bore her secret on her own; even her parents refused to mention it.
As if she carried the plague under her clothes.
The magic seeped into the air, curling around her. She felt the familiar rise of it inside her, answering the call. Wanting to be let out. She gritted her teeth, resisting. But her gaze landed on her marble statue, well-made but plain. It wasn’t good enough.
Her Pluto had no chance of winning.
Not without magic.
Ravenna went to her shelves, pushing aside a platter piled high with extra tools, blocks of extra pumice stone, samples of alabaster from Cava della Luce.
She found the box she was looking for, a box she’d carved herself.
Her hand hovered above the lid, fingers trembling.
Suddenly, she was thirteen again, lost in a tunnel, and the man was reaching for her, trying to save her from falling.
The dark magic within her stirred, fed by the onslaught of a powerful emotion she couldn’t control.
It was revulsion.
Bone-deep revulsion at what she could do and who she was.
With a fortifying breath, she lifted the lid and peered inside.
The pietra magiche glittered back at her.
She felt its heat without touching the surface, as if she’d drawn near an uncontrollable blaze.
The color was a moonstone blue with a single cobalt flame in its center.
It went by many names. Little flame. The fiery one.
Ignis lapis. But Ravenna had always called it by the name her aunt taught her, born in antiquity: Nightflame.
One of the seven kinds of magical gemstones mined from the fae lands, and the hardest to find.
Her fingers closed around the gemstone and she flinched as she felt the initial burn—a burst of pain, lasting only a second, before it turned icy in her palm.
Shame burned hot at the back of her throat.
She hated how it felt like she held the fires of hell in the palm of her hand.
And the worst part was that she had no way of getting rid of her ability.
She didn’t know a lot about magic, but she knew at least that much.
She knew, too, that only witches and wizards could bear the touch of the magical gemstones, depending on how powerful they were.
Full-blooded witches could use and manipulate all seven, but those born with weaker magic might only manage two or three.
Ravenna had been born with just enough magic to handle one pietra magiche—a small inheritance from a forgotten and unknown witch ancestor that had left her tainted.
It was magic that endangered her life, like it did for all other witches, who lived a nomadic existence, constantly on the move for fear of discovery, and only sometimes visiting cities that welcomed magic within their borders. Cities like Florence, where they were revered.
But even then, witches had to be careful.
The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III welcomed magic in his court, but his rival, His Holiness Pope Sixtus IV, called it heathenism.
It was widely known that the pope had a particular hatred of witches.
His Holiness used his power and influence to block trade between them and other magical creatures.
For decades he’d hunted and executed them, a reign known as the Veil of Fire.
Witches went into hiding or fled the peninsula.
Where the emperor might bestow favor on a witch, the pope only handed out a death notice.
For this reason, all magic existed in a gray area, living between two powerful rulers who were at each other’s throats over what to do with the odd werewolf or vampyre or witch.
Only the fae, who were known for their otherworldly beauty and immortality, were exempt from such scrutiny.
Ravenna didn’t precisely know why, but she suspected it involved gold.
Lots of it.
Ravenna held up the Nightflame to her Pluto.
If she used it, then everyone in Volterra would know she could hold hellfire in her hands.
They would come for Ravenna with pitchforks.
And that was just with her ability to bear the heat of the Nightflame.
If they ever found out about her other magic, hiding deep under her bones, they would tie her to a stake and laugh when the flames consumed her.
She bit her lip, considering.
If she carved a place for the Nightflame, the Luni famiglia would notice and approve of her choice. They might pick her.
But if they didn’t … then her life in Volterra was over.
Ravenna closed her eyes, the weight of her decision pressing down on her, making it hard to breathe.
She cleared her mind, letting the quiet of the studio soothe her thoughts.
When she opened her eyes again, she knew what to do.
She walked to the worktable, picked up one of her charcoal pencils, and marked the spot where she’d place the Nightflame.
A place where Pluto’s heart might be, the flame flickering under his collarbones.
The blue stone would be a sharp contrast to the pure white marble, creating a unique and wholly unexpected work of art.
A work of art that might win.
Or seal her fate.