Chapter 21
Capitolo Ventuno
Early-morning light cast Via del Corso in a dreamy, golden haze.
Ravenna stood at her bedroom window, Ombretta curled in her arms, and stared down at Saturnino.
His leather doublet cinched over a cream linen shirt, the high collar grazing the sharp line of his jaw.
A wool cape fluttered around his shoulders and his feet were encased in knee-high boots, dyed a rich burgundy.
His black hair gleamed in the gathering sunlight, and his pale skin had an uncharacteristic healthy flush, the soft blue of an iris petal.
He looked impossibly perfect.
Ravenna pressed her lips into a flat line, hearing his icy voice weave through her thoughts. You have three days.
Three days to achieve the impossible.
Ravenna pressed her hand against the glass, the cold seeping into her palm. It reminded her of Saturnino’s touch. His voice. His implacable stare.
He would not be happy to hear about her failure.
Her heart beat at a dizzying pace.
The best thing she could do, the only thing, was to extract the Nightflames from the stones.
Her progress on the virgin stones might buy her time. A way to appease the bear. She stared down at the immortal, Ombretta purring loudly, and wondered if whatever work she did would be enough to save her life.
Saturnino brushed a gloved hand in his horse’s mane before grasping the reins and lifting himself up onto the saddle in one fluid movement. Then he stilled. Slowly, he turned in his seat, tilted his head backward. His dark eyes unerringly latched on to hers.
Her body locked up. She wanted to fling herself away from the window, but her limbs refused to cooperate. Her hand trembled against the cold glass.
Saturnino held up his hand, showed her three fingers.
Then he turned, abruptly breaking the hold he had over her. Severing the connection so fully that she stumbled on her feet a little. He dug in his heels and took off down the wakening street.
For the next three days, Ravenna kept to the dungeon.
Ombretta was her constant companion, showing up at her bedroom door every morning, as if summoning her to work.
Ravenna would make the trek to the bowels of the palazzo, escorted by Imelda, while sipping sage water and nibbling on a thick slice of freshly baked bread.
Imelda cast worried looks at her. She knew exactly what her maid observed: hollowed cheeks and tired eyes as the nights wore on, filled with nightmares of her attacker’s skeletal face, mouth left open in an eternal scream.
Imelda never asked her what was wrong, and Ravenna didn’t tell her.
The first day, Ravenna tried carving the virgin stone, but it refused to work with her, hissing steam whenever she approached, cobalt veins widening and pulsing.
It was as if the stones recognized her after what she had done.
They sensed the danger they were in, and now they all stood like silent sentinels, guarding their Nightflames.
The air had been thick and heavy from the oppressive guilt she felt. Her teeth ached from clenching them, from the constant effort of controlling her magic. The magic fed on her grief; it fed on her anger and self-loathing.
On the second morning, the guards opened the door and steam poured out of the dungeon, scalding hot. Ravenna tried to step inside, but her lungs burned, eyes watered. Imelda grabbed her arm, pulled her back, her own cheeks flushed.
Ravenna gripped the ends of her hair in panic.
She barely had two days left.
What was she going to do?
She sank onto the floor, and Ombretta crept into her lap. Imelda stood over her, brows pinched into a tight frown.
“Perhaps it will clear?”
It finally did, hours and hours later. By the time Ravenna made it inside the dungeon, it was early evening.
When she approached one of the stones, she let her magic seep out of her, a little at a time.
It didn’t work, and Ravenna wouldn’t let her magic take the lead again.
It frightened her too much. But still she tried to strike the stone, again and again, using as much of her magic as she dared.
Shards and small chunks of the virgin stone finally broke off.
“What shall I do with all of this?” Imelda gestured to the piles of chipped stone.
Ravenna carefully wiped her brow with her sleeve. The air in the dungeon stayed motionless, growing more stale by the second. She wanted to jump into a lake. “Throw it out.”
Imelda nodded, as if expecting that answer. She glanced at the stones, mostly intact save for the one Ravenna had been working on. “There’s a lot of clutter down here. Shall I bring someone down to get rid of all the excess?”
“Please,” Ravenna said.
Her maid brought down a man with a clipped beard, who took a long look around the dungeon and proceeded to clear the space of broken tools, extra buckets, pails filled with dirty water, and old rags.
Ravenna barely noticed; she kept chipping away at the stone like a god who’d been cursed to perform the same monotonous task.
Whatever progress she made, the stone took it back in some way or lashed out at her like a mercurial troll who denied her access to the other side of the river.
By the third day, she still hadn’t made significant progress.
Ravenna dripped with perspiration, her palms slick with sweat.
She sat on the ground with an inelegant thump, glaring at the virgin stones.
She would not be defeated by the marble.
She would not give in to the sinister magic that filled her lungs, that filled up all her empty spaces like blight.
This was how Imelda found her.
She had taken to stopping by more frequently, often looking on with a troubled frown as Ravenna worked.
Sometimes Ravenna didn’t know she was there, not until Imelda made her presence known.
And then Ravenna would accept the odd cup of herbal-infused water or plate of sugared fruit with a grateful smile.
“I’ve never not known what to do before,” Ravenna whispered, staring vacantly ahead of her, the stones blurred and out of focus. “What if there isn’t a way?”
Imelda stared down at her pensively. “It’s late.”
Ravenna nodded to herself. So it was. She had failed.
She was the capable one, the one everyone turned to for answers and a firm hand.
It seemed incredible that she would be bested by blocks of stone.
Saturnino’s voice pierced her thoughts, low and dangerously seductive: My family would not hesitate to kill you for your treachery. Ravenna had no doubt that was true.
“Signorina,” Imelda said.
Ravenna blinked at Imelda’s extended palm.
She accepted it, getting to her feet on sore, wobbly legs.
Ombretta curled around her legs, her slitted gaze intent on Ravenna, who gave her a weary smile.
Now she was her little shadow. The guards stationed at the door gave her a brisk nod before disappearing inside.
Part of their job was to tally her progress, write up a report, and hand it to Saturnino upon his return.
He had her thoroughly cornered.
Ravenna and Imelda went down the long corridor, and as they passed the fork in the path she thought of the grotto, imagining the water’s sweep over her head as she scrubbed away the sweat and toil, her fears, all of it out and away from her.
She shook her head reluctantly.
She was too tired, and fear of drowning kept her moving forward, rubbing her eyes and yawning hugely as she trudged after her maid.
Ombretta darted forward, tail swishing, every now and then looking over her shoulder to Ravenna as if to make sure she was still behind her.
Then she stopped, alerted to something, and raced back the way they had come, toward the grotto.
Imelda glanced at Ravenna. “We’ll take a shorter way to your room.”
“There’s a shorter way?” Ravenna asked accusingly, or it would have sounded accusing if she had the energy.
“A passage through the walls,” Imelda said.
Ravenna brightened a fraction. The work had sucked up all of her energy and time, she’d had little left for exploring the palazzo.
Imelda gestured for Ravenna to follow after her into the Sala delle Carte Geografiche.
The room of many roads, thought Ravenna.
And it made her think of Saturnino, and the way a lock of his hair had darkened his brow, and the look on his face when she had told him the color of his eyes.
Stop, Ravenna.
What was the matter with her?
“Through here,” Imelda said, knocking on the paneled wall.
A door swung inward, opening to an ascending spiral staircase.
Her maid disappeared as she began the climb and Ravenna scuttled after her, gripping her dress to raise it several inches off the ground.
She loved this particular shade of red, which complemented her autumn hair and amber eyes.
The pale blue embroidery made Ravenna think of the wildflowers that grew by the locanda.
She was loath to ruin it, and she’d tried, she’d really tried, to keep it pristine, but the leather apron she wore only covered so much.
Her efforts didn’t matter.
The dress had been lost within an hour of her work, caked in dust and sweat.
They continued climbing upward, one step after another. Ravenna wiped her brow, wishing for an icy milk bath. Finally, Imelda reached a wooden door, opened it, and then darted through. Ravenna trudged after her, and it took a moment to comprehend the sensation she felt on her face.
Cold, blustery wind.