Chapter 19 #2
Privately, she added: Unlike me.
His fingers curled harder around the hilt of his weapon. “Tell me, Samaritan, what are you doing out here?”
Ravenna glanced at her attackers. One was a skeletal husk and the other lay still—but she could tell he was awake.
Saturnino looked over his shoulder, following her line of sight.
He made an exasperated noise at the back of his throat before striding away from Ravenna.
She exhaled, pressed her palm hard to her throat.
No blood. She glanced down the street. Her earlier thoughts rang back at her.
She could make it if she ran.
“Go ahead, Ravenna,” Saturnino said, with half a glance over his shoulder.
“Run and see how far you can make it.” His smile was mean.
Heartless. “You won’t make it to the end of the block before I fucking catch you.
” Then he yanked the injured man up to his feet, got close to his face with another snarl.
Ravenna flinched at his tone, at his language. No one in her life spoke that way. It shocked her, as much as witnessing the current of anger rippling through him.
Saturnino’s voice was low and cruel. “Do you know who I am?”
The man nodded, sweating and pale-faced.
“Then you better run.” Saturnino shoved him, and her attacker staggered, then regained his balance. He took off, hobbling down the street and around the corner.
Saturnino wheeled back around to Ravenna. “Answer me.”
Her attention dropped to his knife, stained with blood. To Ravenna, it looked like his whole body was working to restrain himself from launching at her. The realization sent a sharp shiver down her back.
There would be no one to rescue her from him.
“Tell me,” he said softly. “Who got to you, Ravenna?”
Panic tore at her. “I don’t know—” She abruptly broke off. There was no point in lying. The game was up. She had been caught. Nothing she said would be accepted or believed. But she could negotiate. She had one move to play. Something she had known ever since the competition.
He needed her.
His family needed her.
According to the courier, she was a rarity and not so easy to replace. She held on to that truth like a shield. She prayed it was strong enough to withstand Saturnino’s anger. It reminded her of the hot center of a flame, a sharp blue.
“You said you’d kill me if I failed,” Ravenna whispered. “I tried to escape one night, made it just outside the palazzo, but got caught by a guard. A man helped me and offered … more.”
He cocked his head. The movement was swift, inhuman.
Her nerves sparked.
“Who was it?” he asked. “The archbishop of Pisa? The king of Naples? The Pazzi family?”
Ravenna shook her head. He named powerful men as if she existed in their sphere, but these were men who would never pay her any attention.
Men who shouldn’t know she existed, which was what Ravenna preferred.
But they were now all sitting down at the same table, playing a political game, and her match piece was sitting in the middle of the board, waiting to be tossed over.
Annihilated.
But they need me, Ravenna thought again fiercely.
She shook her head. “None of them.”
“Then it must have been the mercenary,” Saturnino said. “The Duke of Urbino.”
“Not him either,” Ravenna said, thinking of the map of the peninsula in the Sala delle Carte Geografiche. Pisa to the west, Naples to the south, and Urbino to the east. And Florence at the center—trapped by those loyal to the pope, and his vast territories to the north.
Saturnino looked away, his jawline taut. Understanding settled on his face. “Then it’s much worse than I expected. The pope found you.”
“His Holiness has my family in his grip. Threatened excommunication of me, them, and the whole of Volterra,” she whispered.
“He would confiscate the inn, our home, cast us from society. Financially ruin my family, leave us destitute. Everyone in Volterra would be painted with the same brush, tainted, morally ruined. Their civil rights would be stripped from them. And everyone in the village would know it was because of me.” Ravenna’s voice shook as it dropped to a haunted croak. “What would you do?”
He nodded, seemingly not surprised the pope would use such tactics. “What have you been tasked with doing?”
“I was to do the opposite of whatever your family hired me to do,” she said. “Instead of extracting the stones—”
“You’re to destroy them,” he said flatly.
An inner warning caught her tongue. Careful, don’t reveal too much. Ravenna didn’t correct him, didn’t so much as blink an eye.
“And then?” Saturnino advanced on her. “Where were you tonight? Who were you meeting?”
Ravenna swallowed, her mind whirring.
The knife flashed again, faster than she thought possible. It was back up, this time with the tip poised over her heart. Any pressure from Saturnino, and her cloak would give, her midnight-blue gown would give. He could spear her through.
Ravenna had misjudged him.
“Stop trying to come up with a lie,” Saturnino said through gritted teeth. “And tell me.”
“We both know that you can’t hurt me,” Ravenna said, shaking horribly. “But I will make a bargain with you.”
“A bargain?” He let out an awful, humorless laugh.
Ravenna reached forward, slowly, deliberately. She placed a soft hand on the cold fingers that gripped the handle of his blade. He froze, stared at her as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. Couldn’t quite believe that she would dare.
“I need to stay alive,” she said. “I need to live for my family.” And privately she thought, I need to save my soul.
But she wouldn’t ever speak such a thing out loud.
It was too raw, too personal, and the immortal standing before her with a weapon aimed for her heart would be cruel and dismissive.
“But I will tell you what I can—I will tell you enough so that you might make a plan.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I’d be a fool to accept.”
“Then kill me, but you’d be worse off,” Ravenna said.
“Left with nothing. No one to extract the Nightflames, no one to feed you useful information.” She thought of the grand reveal his family had announced to the city of Florence.
A curious deadline, but they had seemed adamant it had to be the tenth of May.
“We both know you can’t afford to waste any more time. ”
He remained frozen, his only response a slow blink.
Tension seeped between them. He stood close enough for her to see his locked jaw. The agitated line of his brow. No one else existed. Florence had faded away, the imposing buildings lining either side of the street. The flickering torches tucked into iron sconces.
It was only Ravenna and Saturnino.
“You will play both sides,” he said flatly.
She nodded. Once. “I will have to.”
Anger rippled across his handsome face, making him appear godlike, untouchable.
His rage knew no boundary but the one he made for himself.
He kept it banked; Ravenna could almost see a host of flames reflected in his eyes.
“You will tell whoever it was you were meeting tonight exactly what I want them to know.”
Ravenna was already shaking her head, and beneath her palm, she felt his hand flinch.
“I will tell him the truth.”
His voice was fire and smoke. “Some of the truth.”
Ravenna bit her lip. His hand was trembling underneath hers.
“I will tell him enough to keep my family safe. The minimum I can get away with.” She stretched out her hand. She was proud to see that it wasn’t shaking. “Do we have a bargain?”
“You’re wrong,” he whispered.
She kept her hand stubbornly raised. “About?”
“You’re wrong to assume that you’re not replaceable. My family would not hesitate to kill you for your treachery. You better pray that they never find out.”
Her heart thumped against her ribs. “And what will you do?”
Saturnino lowered his blade. “My terms, Ravenna.” He began ticking them off with his gloved fingers.
“You will work to restore the stones. Do whatever you have to, I don’t care how it’s done.
You will give me information—providing it does not endanger your life with His Holiness.
I understand appearances must be maintained, but you will drop the charade when I need you. ”
Ravenna lifted her chin. “And in return, you will protect me from your family.”
His eyes gleamed. “Agreed.”
It was the best she could hope for. Ravenna extended her hand, but pulled it out of Saturnino’s reach at the last moment. She had almost forgotten. How many times had the stories warned never to make a bargain with a fae?
Saturnino wasn’t human. He was immortal. The color of his blood was a silver blue. But she didn’t know what he was. “Are you a fae?”
He stared back at her, cold and remote like a glittering star. “A little late to ask the question, isn’t it?”
“Are you?”
“No,” he said shortly. Then he arched a black brow. “What’s it to be?”
Again, Ravenna extended her palm, and he took it, pulling her forward until her hand lay flat against his chest. Her fingers shivered under his cold touch.
“We have a bargain, Ravenna. And you will keep your end of it tonight.” Then he took her hand and dragged her back to the palazzo.