Chapter 8 #2
“This way,” Signor Luni said, pulling her forward toward his family; they parted to reveal an arched doorway, the wooden planks banded in iron.
Signor Luni released her and pulled out an iron key that hung on a thick chain underneath his doublet, then inserted it into the lock.
Marco stepped toward it, impatient, and pushed the door, its hinges groaning like a creature in pain as it swung open.
“Through here,” Signor Luni said.
Trepidation stole over Ravenna. Within the dark space she could make out a stairwell, hewn from ancient stone. It looked like a secret entrance down into the bowels of hell itself. Ravenna’s magic stirred at her rising panic.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, fighting to stay calm. She didn’t want to fall to pieces in front of them, especially not Saturnino, whose cold presence bit into her skin like standing out in the snow without a coat.
“No questions,” Marco said, yanking one of the torches out from an iron sconce flanking the door. Then he stomped through, the light from the fire illuminating the narrow curve of the wall. Signor Luni, his wife, and their daughter followed.
Saturnino stared at her, his expression devoid of any emotion, save for a hint of impatience glimmering in his dark eyes. It seemed to say, What the hell are you waiting for?
“What is this?” Ravenna asked. “What’s down there?”
“The reason why you’re here.” He inclined his head in the direction of the door. “If you want answers, you’ll have to walk through.”
“What if I don’t?”
He smiled slightly. “But you do, Ravenna.”
The knight was correct: she did want to know why they had kidnapped her, why they were flaunting her presence in Florence as if she were a heroine in a folktale. Ravenna knew if she tried to run, he’d intercept her. She also knew he would drag her down there, kicking and screaming.
Above all, she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of provoking such a reaction from her. Summoning every ounce of courage she possessed, Ravenna walked through the doorway and began her descent.
The Luni famiglia were waiting on the steps, and when she was close enough they continued their trek.
The guttering light of Marco’s torch cast long, wavering shadows against the cold stone walls.
Their footsteps reverberated on the stone, echoes layering over one another, the heavy sounds pulsing around her, making it hard for her to think.
A faint dripping noise came from somewhere deep, irregular and maddening, like a clock that told the wrong time.
She was crowded ahead and behind, the knight following close at her heels, his breath brushing up against the back of her head.
When she stumbled on one of the steps, he clasped her arm, steadied her.
She glanced at him from over her shoulder, instinctively, a breath away from thanking him, only to meet his stern, shadowed face.
Her words died on her tongue. Ravenna looked away from him, unnerved.
She concentrated on taking the next step without tripping and then the next.
The walls felt too close, too narrow, and the ceiling dropped as they went lower, forcing Ravenna to hunch slightly as they went down, down, down.
Finally, they reached the bottom.
A long corridor stretched into the distance, lined with alcoves where statues rested under layers of dust. Their empty eyes seemed to watch her progress.
Ravenna shivered, wrapping her arms around herself.
The tile beneath her booted feet was black and white, severely cracked, revealing the rough stone beneath.
Ravenna glanced up, feeling the weight of the rock pressing down onto her shoulders.
The path broke off in two directions, and Marco led them to the one on the left. Ravenna paused in front of the fork. The palazzo must have many tunnels running beneath it. Where did they lead? And more importantly, could any of the tunnels provide Ravenna a way out?
“Keep moving,” Saturnino said quietly.
Ravenna quickened her steps until, at last, Marco stopped in front of another iron-bound door, this one massive.
Signor Luni took out another key and unlocked it.
The door swung open, and the air changed—suddenly hot and dry, carrying the unmistakable feeling of magic.
Ravenna often felt it when she worked in her studio; it was a subtle beckoning that came from the marble box where she’d hidden the Nightflame.
It was easy to ignore, but what she felt right then was not.
Marco, Fortuna, and their parents filed inside. Once again, she was alone with Saturnino.
The look on his face was unfathomable. “In you go, Ravenna.”
She went, tugged forward by the pull of magic, a growing sense of dread and curiosity unfurling in her chest. The walls were carved directly from the rock, curving to create a circular room.
Ravenna blinked into the dim space, shrouded in oblique shadows Marco’s torch failed to illuminate—except for what was in the middle of the dungeon.
She cast her eyes over the immense blocks of virgin stone, their surfaces untouched and rough, hewn from a fae mountain.
For a second, she lost the ability to breathe.
Magic radiated off the blocks in widening ripples, invisible but to her.
She flinched at the onslaught of raw power that curled around her in a suffocating embrace.
She couldn’t believe her own eyes; she blinked and blinked again.
These stones acted as a protective shell, guarding a magical gemstone at their center.
She’d never seen one in person before. They were too rare, too precious, ingredients for a witch’s spell.
And the Luni famiglia had five of them.
“Give her more light, Marco,” Signor Luni said.
His youngest son drew nearer to the stones, the firelight washing over their tall, squarish shapes, almost at the level of his hips.
Each was a pale silver-gray with translucent patches that glimmered faintly with an eerie blue glow, like trapped moonlight.
Wide veins of deep cobalt blue and faint streaks of fiery red and orange stretched across the uneven surfaces.
“Place your hands on them, Ravenna,” Signora Luni said. Her voice held a subtle tremor, as if she stood on shifting ground. “Tell us what you feel.”
Ravenna didn’t have to touch the virgin stone to know what lay trapped within. The dark magic within her sang in response, recognizing the gemstone’s power.
Nightflame.
“What are you waiting for?” Fortuna asked. “A written invitation?”
Marco caught Ravenna up in two strides, his hands like iron chains around her wrists, and then he half dragged her forward until she stood in front of one of the stones. His fingers would leave bruises on her skin. “Do it.”
“Why can’t you?” she tossed back.
Marco shook her. Hard. “I said do—”
Saturnino’s voice cut between them. “Marco.”
Marco stilled, glancing at his brother over his shoulder. Saturnino looked at Ravenna, his face imperious and aloof, but when he’d said his brother’s name, it held all of his quiet malice and hostility. That frightened her more than Marco’s brutish treatment.
Ravenna placed her shaking hands onto the stone.
The heat scalded her skin, a second of sharp agony, and then vanished, the stone cooling under her palms. She let out a shuddering breath, dizzy from the abrupt relief flooding her body.
Her gaze dropped to the stone’s surface; it seemed to shift under her fingers, as if it were alive, as though the Nightflame itself reached for her.
The magic trapped within the stone leaped into her, communing with her own.
They felt like reacquainted friends, recognizing each other.
Terror coated her mouth.
The Nightflame she’d inherited had been roughly the size of her palm, the magic potent but small, a mere whisper compared to the Nightflames bound in the large stones.
She sensed their presence, loud like the booming sounds of cannon fire.
Ravenna drew away, not wanting to hear anymore.
The magic in her protested the loss of contact, roiling inside her until nausea gripped her.
Dimly, she was aware of Signor Luni drawing closer to her, until he stood at her elbow.
“This is why you are here,” he whispered.
“I don’t understand,” Ravenna said through numb lips.
“We need you to extricate the five gemstones by the tenth of May,” Signor Luni replied. “You have twenty-nine days, Ravenna.”
“What happens after twenty-nine days?”
He spoke in the same quiet voice, solemn and grave, and said, “I’ll let you go.”
Ravenna didn’t look at him. She kept her gaze on the virgin stones, her mind latching on to his words. They didn’t sit well with her, as if she’d eaten something foul. They had been spoken by an immortal she didn’t trust.
But she did understand him well enough to intuit something crucial.
Signor Luni had just lied to her.
They were all silent the whole way back up to the courtyard.
The steward was sent for, and he once again began directing the staff to haul everyone’s trunks to the upper levels.
The courtyard filled with chatter as the orders were swiftly obeyed.
Amid the hullabaloo, the Luni family left and Tomasso approached Ravenna, his manner quick and efficient.
“This way, if you please,” Tomasso said.
Ravenna drew toward him, her hand light on the stone balustrade as she climbed.
“I’ll take her.”
Everyone in the courtyard froze as if suddenly turned to stone.
It would have been comical if the voice hadn’t sounded like the crack of lightning.
It seemed no one had realized one of the Luni family had remained behind.
Ravenna knew who had spoken, but looked over her shoulder anyway, bracing herself to meet Saturnino’s eyes.
Staring into them unnerved her, as if she looked into a pitch-black cave and nothing at all reflected back at her. Not even the smallest glimmer of light.
He stood at the bottom, his chin tipped up.
Ravenna held his stare. She’d thought him handsome at first glance; beautiful, a perilous cliff rising above the horizon.
But now all she could see was an immortal who liked to play with humans, who aligned himself with a family who had no qualms about conquering her hometown.
People who had put her brother in a cage.
She could still hear the way he had said his brother’s name down in the dungeon, an ominous note from the first letter to the last.
Saturnino climbed up the staircase, only stopping when he stood on a step two lower than hers. Without taking his eyes off her, he said, “Go about your business.”
His voice was equal parts bored, dismissive, and autocratic.
Tomasso cast an uneasy look in Ravenna’s direction.
There was enough in his expression to alert her that Saturnino’s behavior was both unusual and unexpected.
He was the eldest son of a powerful family who had very likely never troubled himself with the housing details of a guest. The steward gestured for the staff to continue their work, but it was laborious and slow.
The trunks were heavy and awkward to maneuver up the flight of stairs, and large enough to block the way up.
An older servant fumbled with one of the corners and dropped his trunk with a loud clatter that reverberated up and down the hall.
“Leave it,” Saturnino said in a flat voice. “And take the clumsy idiot with you.”
Tomasso’s color was high, twin red flags streaked across his cheeks. “Of course, Cavaliere Saturnino.”
The servant averted his gaze, but not before Ravenna caught the sharp flare of mortification on his face.
Hot anger burst from her. She might have been from a small village, but her parents employed many servants, and they were considered part of the locanda family.
Treated with respect and dignity. Furthermore, it was late into the evening, and she had just spent a harrowing interval down in the dungeon. Her anger triumphed over her nerves.
“He’s not an idiot,” Ravenna said.
Saturnino’s head snapped in her direction. “What did you say?”
She licked her lips, tried again. This time louder. “He’s not an idiot.”
“No, he’s worse.” A look of scorn flashed across Saturnino’s face. “He’s old.” Still maintaining his eyes on Ravenna, he added, “I thought I told you to leave it.”
Tomasso froze in the act of picking up the corner of the trunk.
Then the steward straightened, slowly, as if he were in the presence of one of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s infamous lions.
He gestured for everyone to leave the hall.
Saturnino paid them no heed, the whole of his attention fixed on Ravenna.
She fidgeted under his scrutiny, not liking that she was once again alone with a man who looked as if he reigned over the underworld, a dangerous god whose cunning ways resulted in doom and destruction.
Who was also rude and dismissive and callous. Who had argued with poor Capitano Lombardi hours before he went missing, abandoning his post for who knew what reason. Who had killed a guard for the unforgivable offense of falling asleep in the middle of the night.
Ravenna tried not to let her unease show.
But she had reproached the son of a duke. His heir. She might have been from a good family belonging in a middle-ranking guild, but they were not equals. He was titled, wealthy, and immortal. She was solidly merchant class, from a family who served people of his ilk.
Even so, he deserved it.
Though it might cost her now that she stood in his own little kingdom. She regarded him warily, stiffly, a rebuke ready in her mouth should he cross another line. But he surprised her.
“Still afraid of me,” Saturnino commented. It wasn’t a question.
“That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Ravenna countered.
“What do your human instincts tell you?”
She flinched at the reminder that he was indestructible, while she was decidedly not. “That I should run far, far away from you.”
“That won’t help you.” Then he splayed an elegant hand, ungloved and bare, and said, “Shall we?”