Chapter 21 #2
She blinked as she stepped through the door, flanked by two guttering earthenware bowls filled with oil.
A large flame danced across the surface of each.
Ahead of her stretched a long parapet walk with another wooden door at the end, flanked by the same lighting.
A low wall edged the path, and Ravenna gaped as she followed Imelda across.
Overhead, a full moon illuminated their way, accompanied by a million shimmering stars.
Ravenna breathed deeply, tasting that crisp apple bite in the air.
Ravenna paused at the center of the parapet walk, admiring the view that stretched in every direction: the Arno River, sleek and silver under the moonbeam; the city of Florence below, the skyline marked by the cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore.
Ravenna itched to visit. Maybe a change of scenery would help unlock an answer to her problem. Maybe—
The door at the opposite end of the walk creaked open.
Ravenna turned her head, frowning slightly, but relaxed when she recognized the man who helped collect the clutter in the dungeon. Pietro, she thought absently. Then her mind sharpened as he approached, his tense expression stern and unforgiving.
“What’s happened?” Ravenna asked, anxious, her mind immediately moving to the virgin stones. Maybe they were still hissing steam, maybe the stone she’d worked on had healed itself entirely. Maybe the guards had passed out from the scalding heat.
At that point, anything was possible. “Is something amiss?”
“Yes,” he said curtly. He kept marching forward, and didn’t stop until he had wrapped his hand around Ravenna’s throat. His fingers were blazing hot, his thumb pressed hard on her pulse.
Ravenna didn’t have time to scream, didn’t have time to utter a sound before he pushed her back against the low wall, until her feet left the ground.
Ravenna flung her arms up and reached for him, her hands gripping his long, muscled arm so she didn’t fall.
The wind tore at her hair, and she gasped, fighting for breath.
Pietro gave her a centimeter of margin, allowing her just enough precious air to keep from suffocating.
She held on tight to his forearm, relieving some of the pressure.
“We need to ask you a question or two,” Imelda said, drawing forward. Her young, girlish voice had vanished. She stood straight and poised, appearing to have aged by a decade. Ravenna saw an experienced older woman staring back at her with eyes that had seen too much.
Ravenna nodded, frantic, terrified.
“Pietro, bring her forward,” Imelda said softly. “If you scream, my companion here will have no qualms about throwing you over the wall. Do we understand each other?”
Again, Ravenna nodded.
Imelda’s companion inched Ravenna forward until her feet hit the ground. He loosened his hand around her throat, enough for her to inhale deeply. His fingers brushed her throat in a soft caress, and Ravenna flinched.
“Only a warning,” he said languidly. “A reminder that your life is in my hands.”
“Stop playing with her,” Imelda said. She stood behind Pietro’s broad shoulder, peering at Ravenna in concern. “She won’t be of use to us if you hurt her too badly.”
“She’s putting you at risk, Imelda.”
Ravenna looked between them, trying to follow along with their exchange over the roar of her beating heart. It thrummed loudly in her ears. “Who are you people?”
“We’re asking the questions,” Pietro snapped. “Tell us who you really work for—”
“I don’t understand—”
Pietro tightened his grip around her throat.
“The pope,” Ravenna gasped.
They looked at each other, conversing silently.
Then Imelda visibly came to a decision. “His Holiness gave you instructions,” she said accusingly.
Her hand dove into the pocket of her tunic and she drew out Ravenna’s letter, creased and wrinkled, but with the pope’s seal clearly visible.
“He demanded you thwart the plans of the Luni famiglia, gather information, and extract the Nightflames. I have it right here.”
Ravenna stared at the letter in dull amazement.
She had hidden the letter inside the wardrobe in her bedroom. She thought someone might go looking through her things, Tomasso, perhaps. She hadn’t thought it could be Imelda. Ravenna had been fooled.
Cool air glossed over her skin and she licked her dry lips. Her voice came out shaky and garbled, Pietro’s hand like a noose around her throat. “That’s what I’m doing.”
Imelda narrowed her eyes. “It does not appear so. Why were you taken to see Lorenzo de’ Medici?”
Her mind scrambled; she couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
“What are you planning with the Lunis’ allies?” Pietro demanded.
“Nothing,” Ravenna gasped. “I was only negotiating on behalf of Volterra. The lifting of the curfew. For the Medici to stop arresting citizens. I asked that citizens be restored of their property, their homes. That’s all, I swear it.”
“Lies,” Pietro growled. “If that’s all it was, why not tell the courier?”
Ravenna thought quickly. “None of it seemed useful, I was only trying to find a way back home so Volterra might accept me.”
“You’ve become dangerously ambitious,” Imelda said. “Those weren’t part of your orders.”
“Three days have gone by and you’ve made no progress,” Pietro growled.
“I’m still experimenting, trying out the best way to extract the Nightflames,” Ravenna said, stumbling over the words. “You’ve seen them, Imelda. The stones are volatile.”
“Not our problem,” Pietro snarled.
Ravenna’s eyes darted from left to right. They were alone, but perhaps someone could hear her scream?
“You’re up to something,” Imelda accused her. “And whatever you’re up to hinders the work I’m doing for His Holiness. Do you understand? What you do reflects poorly on me. And I can’t have that, not when I’m so close to completing his task, to finally becoming a part of his inner circle.”
“I need more time,” Ravenna gasped. “Per favore.”
“I don’t like it,” Pietro continued, flicking a look at Imelda. “She’s too crafty.”
“The other sculptors,” Ravenna blurted. “I don’t want to end up like them. Please, I’ll try harder.”
Imelda had been about to reply to Pietro but at Ravenna’s words she paused. Disappointment twisted her expression, her lips crimping, eyebrows lowering over her wide-set eyes.
“Do you think only your life matters?” Imelda asked.
Ravenna flinched at the quiet intensity. Imelda stared back at her with her chin held high, shoulders straight, eyes filled with desperation. She looked like a woman starved of all hope.
“His Holiness still doesn’t trust me, even though I have given a year of my life to this endeavor,” Imelda continued. “I’ll never get that time back. I won’t see it ruined by your bumbling.”
Pietro was nodding along with her. Panic built within Ravenna, block by suffocating block. “I don’t understand—”
“That much is clear,” Imelda said. She looked at Pietro. “I don’t think it’s worth keeping her. Drop her. I will tell Signora Luni some story, perhaps she succumbed to the pressure of the work.”
Pietro surged forward, his hand banding around her in a viselike grasp.
No air, no air.
He pushed her backward, until she was half over the wall, nothing at her back except the wind’s cold, crooked finger, dragging her down.
Ravenna couldn’t think about the immense space between her and the ground below.
She tried not to picture how long her fall would last, if it would hurt, smacking against the stone floor.
Her lungs burned between her ribs. She writhed, punching at Pietro’s arm, but it could have been made of granite, it was that immovable.
Black spots crowded the corner of her vision.
“Although…” Imelda said slowly. “I suppose His Holiness is in need of her particular talent.” She gave a long, drawn-out sigh. “Best to keep her alive, Pietro.”
He yanked her forward, loosened his grip, and backed away from her. Ravenna collapsed onto her hands and knees, gasping, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Air, she needed more air.
“You’ll receive a new set of instructions soon,” Pietro said in a voice edged in ice. “And remember tonight when death knocked on your front door.”
“This is your only warning,” Imelda said, in a singsong voice, her posture losing its stern rigidity, her hands swaying at her sides as if she were frolicking in a meadow. “I will always be watching, Ravenna.”
They left her fighting to regain her breath, and she was dimly aware of them walking to the other end of the path, that door creaking open, and their voices lowering to a hush as they disappeared into the dark. A minute passed, or it might have been an hour.
She didn’t know or care.
Ravenna stayed on the ground, eyes clenched, struggling to master the hard beating of her heart. Finally, she opened her eyes slowly, found her hands clenching the flagstone. It bit into the tips of her fingers, her palms. The dirt had gotten under her fingernails.
She straightened, somehow climbed to her feet, her long hair tangled around her face.
The marble dust clung to her gown, nearly covering it fully, and for one mad moment, she thought she was a ghost. Her skirt swayed around her, the red like blood spilling down her legs.
Ravenna stumbled toward the door, managed to pull it open, and inhaled before shutting it behind her, the moonlight winking out in the sudden dim of the stairwell.
Ravenna wanted out of the dress, out of the dust speckled all over her, out of Pietro’s punishing grip.
She went down, one miserable step at a time, her hand dragging against the wall, helping her to keep upright.
She reached the door to the map room, went through the chamber, not caring if she dragged dust and dirt onto the plush rug.
Somehow, she made it to the bottom floor.
Walking the length of the corridor was the hardest, but she made it to the fork in the pathway.
It took only a few minutes before she heard the blessed sound of water running, until she could smell its sweetness clinging in the air like dewdrops.
The walls turned craggier and sharper as she went on, until they eventually stretched higher, curving and jagged, dripping moisture. The path split again, and Ravenna followed the sound of the rushing water, until she at last found what she was looking for.
The grotto.
She smiled in relief, eyes prickling with unshed tears, and she untied the front laces of her gown, pulling it over her head.
The hose came off next, until all she had on was the thin camicia.
Someone had carved steps from the rock at one end of the pool and she walked straight into the water without pause.
Ravenna bent her knees, sucked in a mouthful of air, and went under its warmth.
When she resurfaced, a blur of movement in the shadows caught her eye.
She turned, gasping, and too late spotted the pile of clothing at the other end of the grotto.
A colorful sweep of fabric, the glint of silver from the edge of a slim sword.
And sitting above it all was Ombretta, paws folded in front of her.
She meowed at Ravenna, loud and insistent.
A warning come too late.
The water rippled around her as a lithe figure materialized from the dark end, his black hair touched by candlelight. He drew closer, pale, muscled arms parting the water. The air shifted, sending a ripple of alarm over her skin. Ravenna tensed.
Saturnino.
Ravenna’s stomach somersaulted as she dipped low into the water, her hair floating around her, shielding the column of her bruised throat from his gaze.
Saturnino stared at her, an arm’s length away, his eyes raking over her; the wet grasp of the chemise against her skin, her slim hands edged in calluses, the terrorized expression on her face.
She retreated until her back hit the ragged stretch of stone at the water’s edge.
Saturnino pressed forward slowly, eyes never leaving her face, until he was a breath away from her.
Gently, he reached forward, soft fingers brushing against her collarbone, and he parted the curtain of hair, revealing her neck, splotchy and red.
He hissed under his breath. “What the hell, Ravenna?”