Chapter 13 #2
“I was young once and interested in what the world had to offer. The experience taught me several things, but chief among them was that humanity is the worst sort of parasite on an otherwise pleasant landscape.”
Ravenna had never met anyone so jaded, and she had met hundreds of people filtering in and out of her life. An inner knowing spoke to her in a hushed voice: This was a man who had visited everywhere, but saw nothing. Who closed his eyes to wonder and the ordinary alike.
For some unaccountable reason, the thought saddened her.
“Maybe to you,” she said softly. “But I tend to think even the ordinary is fascinating. I have to, to sculpt hands and fingernails, the curve of someone’s jaw, the line of their gown.
Every block of stone holds a secret, has a soul of its own that’s trapped within.
I unearth something new every time I take a chisel to rock.
It’s the slow reveal, the thrill of discovery that urges me to take a second look, and third, and then another.
For example…” Ravenna straightened from the door and took a step closer to him.
Then another. Saturnino stayed absolutely still, only his chest rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm.
She peered into his face. “Your eyes aren’t brown. ”
He dipped his chin in acquiescence, his attention fixed on her.
“They are a dark green,” she murmured. “Like the deep end of a pond.”
His breath fanned across her cheeks. “Well observed.”
She smiled, a bit self-conscious. “It was there all along. It only required a second look.”
Saturnino tilted his head, and that stubborn lock of black hair fell across his smooth brow.
Ravenna felt a mad impulse to brush it back.
A shadow of curiosity flickered in his expression.
Then he turned, and she followed him, matching his long stride with two quick steps of hers.
Ombretta slinked after them, silent and watchful.
Everything came back into sharp-edged focus.
His connection to the Medici, the way he had hunted her down outside of that inn, his role in her captivity. She must not lose sight of her circumstances ever again. Saturnino seemed to agree, because he didn’t say a word to Ravenna all the way down to the bowels of the palazzo.
As before, they traversed across the same cracked black-and-white tile, but they seemed to be taking a different route to the dungeon. Ravenna scowled at him. This was another one of his tactics. He was showing her that a veritable labyrinth existed below the palazzo.
“Are you trying to make sure I can’t find my own way down here?”
He gave her a quick grin over his shoulder, a flash of quicksilver that disarmed her.
The long corridor stretched ahead of them, lined by craggy walls adorned only with torches set into bronze sconces.
The guttering flames illuminated the space, casting long shadows as the two of them walked over the cobbled stone.
The air smelled like dew clinging to leaves after a thunderstorm.
“This path leads to the grotto, and then out to the garden,” Saturnino said. “The other will take you to the cisterns where the rainwater is collected from above.”
Imelda had told her, but Ravenna pretended surprise. “There’s a grotto?”
“Man-made,” he said. The path split in two directions and he tilted his head to the right. “Through there. You’ll run into it first, but if you follow the path, it will lead you out into the garden.”
“Is the water cold?”
He arched a brow. “Why not try it for yourself?”
Ravenna looked at the descending path as they passed by.
She thought again of the small lake by the locanda and how it was a place she ran to when she needed space to breathe.
Whenever she had a spare moment, she’d disappear from the kitchen and its hot oven and blazing fireplace to escape into the water.
She would let it sweep over her head, embrace the sudden quiet.
Ravenna would visit the grotto.
But swimming wasn’t the only reason why she would.
Why had Saturnino had given her another way out of the palazzo? It was a careless tidbit of information to reveal unless … A warning flitted through her mind, the quiet voice of her intuition whispering in her ear. She had only known Saturnino for a handful of days, but she understood who he was.
He liked to hunt; he liked to plan. He liked to win.
He wasn’t careless.
Saturnino knew the palazzo, top to bottom. He could find anything, no matter how well hidden.
If she chose to run, he’d know which path she would take: the one he provided.
Cavaliere Saturnino was clever.
Ravenna smiled to herself, watching him walk a half step ahead of her. He stared straight ahead, confident, light-footed, shoulders straight. Of course Saturnino had a handsome profile; the sharp line of his jaw was incongruous with the full lushness of his mouth.
“There must be many hidden passageways in the palazzo,” Ravenna said, keeping her tone nonchalant.
Without checking his stride, he said, “Oh, dozens.”
“And you know them all, I’d wager.”
“Why do you ask?”
“Passageways are another kind of road, I suppose,” Ravenna said with a delicate shrug. “So many to explore, so many places where one might end up.” And I will keep you busy guessing where I might go, she thought.
Without missing a beat, he said, “So many places where one might end up lost and forgotten. Not every path is a way out.”
His words were a warning that scraped against her skin. But Ravenna would not heed them. If the Luni famiglia turned on her, she would have to flee.
Saturnino glanced at her. “I’ll always find you, Ravenna.”
Ravenna found her voice with considerable effort. He was a terror, but she would be damned before she let him see how much he scared her. “Because I’m your captive.”
His not-quite-human eyes slid away from her. “Because I need you.”
In this case, it was the same thing.
They continued on the path, the air close and sweet, smelling of earth and stone, slightly damp.
Only the sound of their breathing and Ombretta mewing occasionally broke the still quiet.
Ravenna couldn’t keep from running her hand against the dips of the wall, the jagged scrape against her palm.
She loved imperfections, the texture that came from pebbles embedded in stone, fissures she could explore with the brush of her finger.
The wall curved and came to an abrupt stop where the massive wooden door blocked their path. Saturnino withdrew an iron key from under his silk brocade doublet and inserted it into the lock. He shoved the door with his shoulder and it gave way, opening into the circular room.
Ravenna expected to encounter the same darkened chamber like she’d done earlier, but someone had taken care to light all the oil lamps. As before, the raw magic arced through her, and she gritted her teeth against the sensation. She turned her eyes to the rest of the space.
It was filled with chests and trunks, and rows and rows of marble statues, ranging in heights.
Five crates, left open, were thrown off to one side.
Against a wall stood a long workbench, littered with ceramic pots that were filled with brushes, chisels, hammers, and the like.
Someone had thought of every tool she might need to work, and more besides.
A small fortune. Ravenna drifted closer, frowning.
Some of the tools looked worn down, aged by time and toil.
“Who did these belong to?” she asked.
Silence stretched between them. She was conscious of the air changing, heavy and tense. Ravenna looked at Saturnino, noted how his face suddenly looked aloof—out of reach. “Is it supposed to be a secret?”
He shook his head. “We’ve invited sculptors to try their hand at excavating the Nightflames. The tools belonged to them.”
Something about his tone gave her pause. “What happened to them?”
“What happens to all humans,” he said, shrugging. “They died.”
Ravenna studied him closely. “How?”
“The stones are volatile, filled with raw magic to protect the Nightflame within. Some were incinerated, others went mad.”
A chill scraped across her arms. It was a morbid altar, and she had the uncanny sense that he wasn’t telling her the truth. She rubbed her fingers against her brow, trying to smooth away the gathered lines. “What are you keeping from me?”
“Plenty, but none of that matters right now.”
“It does if they were murdered.”
His lips twitched with barely suppressed emotion. Annoyance, probably. She didn’t care. She needed to know. “Were they murdered?”
His deep-water green eyes pierced her. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“They were liabilities and posed a risk to the family.”
She inhaled sharply. “But—”
“That’s enough, Ravenna,” he said silkily.
“You have a job to do. Never forget the reason why you’re here.
” He took a step closer. His boots graced the hem of her gown.
He used his index finger to tip her chin upward.
A light, icy touch. She was close enough to see the murky depth of his eyes, close enough to watch his pupils dilate.
“It must be the only reason. Do you understand?”
Ravenna lifted her chin and moved her head away a fraction of an inch. The place where he’d touched her seared. She stayed close, and she let his breath wash over her again.
“It isn’t to save your brother, or to find a way back home,” he said softly. “It isn’t to prove yourself to Volterra so that they might finally accept you for who you are. You are here to do work. Nothing more. Stop fighting me with your questions and your scheming.”
“I’m not scheming—”
A muscle in his jaw leaped. “Stop lying.”
Ravenna licked her dry lips and Saturnino registered the movement.
His attention locked on to her mouth. His expression turned grave and still.
Heat bloomed between them, potent and alluring.
Her senses understood the danger she was in before her mind did.
Saturnino could pull her into his arms in a moment, drawing her to the dark.
But that way led to madness and despair.
She fought against it with everything she had. Ravenna stepped away. “How much progress did the other sculptors make?”
Saturnino breathed deeply, as if he needed air that hadn’t been tainted by her scent, her presence. He gestured to the virgin stones. “See for yourself.”
Ravenna turned, studying each block with a critical eye.
The magic dragged across her skin, a cold hand capable of destruction.
She felt its warning in her bones, as if the magic whispered directly into her ear, a menacing hiss: sssssstay awaaaaay.
Ravenna shivered, casting an uneasy glance toward the workbench.
“What is it?” Saturnino asked. He stood at the edge of the torchlight, half in shadow. “What do you feel?”
“The magic is possessive, formidable. A troll guarding a bridge. I’ve never felt anything like it,” she said in a hushed whisper. “It does not wish to be disturbed.”
“Do it.”
“The magic is powerful. Ancient like the mountains, the sea itself,” she protested. “I need time—”
“You don’t have time.” Saturnino’s gaze was fixed on her, intense and unyielding. “Do it, Ravenna.”
She glowered at him, her dark magic coiled tight, readying to lash out.
Their wills clashed, immortal against mortal.
He drew close, out of the shadows, firelight dancing across the planes of his face. “Do you want to end up like the other dead sculptors?”
Ravenna exhaled sharply, fear smothering her anger down to ash. It coated her skin, her tongue, crossed her vision. “If I can’t do it, will you kill me?”
For one torturous beat, Saturnino didn’t answer.
They stood facing each other, enemies preparing for war.
He was coldly formidable, all traces of humanity wiped clean off his features.
An immortal gazed back at her, and she was again reminded how different they were.
He was made of moondust and time eternal; her flesh and bones were dust and rock.
“Do the work, Ravenna.”
He wouldn’t reveal anything to her, and it was the not knowing that made a slow curl of fear wreathe through her.
But then she thought of his attempts to soften her, to lure her closer in his game of seduction.
He was a bastard for doing that to her. She tilted her chin upward angrily, a way to combat the clawed terror circling around her.
“If you’re threatening me, I suppose I can count the seduction as over? ”
Saturnino loomed in front of her, tall, dark, and grim. He said nothing; she would have preferred one of his insufferable winks. But gone were his quicksilver grins, the amusement lurking in his eyes as they verbally sparred.
“I wouldn’t say so,” he murmured.
Ravenna picked up a chisel and mallet. The imaginary chessboard sat between them, but that game was for children.
Now she had to fight for her life.