Capitolo 29
Capitolo Ventinove
When Ravenna and Antonio were children, barely taller than the kitchen table, her brother got lost in the woods by the locanda.
She joined her parents in the search, lending her voice as they called his name from morning until dusk.
They poked around fox dens, climbed his favorite trees, went into caves, explored a hollow.
But there was no sign of Antonio. He had vanished from the trail.
Her parents never said it out loud, but Ravenna knew they both believed him to be gone in a forever kind of way.
By death, by magic, or by accident, he was lost to them.
When they returned to the inn, there was Antonio, sitting at the kitchen table, munching on an apple.
They had repeatedly checked the inn, their private quarters, and the vacant guest rooms thoroughly.
But there he was in the first place they’d looked, exactly where he shouldn’t be.
To this day, Antonio didn’t remember where he had gone or how he had come home. That was when Mother began leaving wards against the fae on every windowsill.
Ravenna gaped at Antonio in the same way she had all those years earlier, astonished to find him where he shouldn’t be, miles from home. Her brother was in Florence, standing before her, a tremulous smile on his face.
She lifted her hand, reaching for him, taking a step toward him. “What are you doing here?”
“Ravenna,” he said, stumbling toward her. A second later he was giving her a tight hug. “I did it, I found you,” he whispered in her ear.
She pulled away far enough to look up into his face. She couldn’t get the words out fast enough. “I don’t understand, how are you here? Why are you here?”
Antonio drew away. “What am I doing here? I’m here because of you. Everyone has been worried for you, frantic.”
“How are Mamma and Papà?” Ravenna asked, gripping the ends of his cloak. “Have they been surviving without me? I’ve been so worried they wouldn’t be able to keep up with the demands of the inn.”
He brushed her comment aside. “They’re fine.”
“I can’t believe you are here,” she said in dull amazement.
Blood scented the air with a metallic tang, assaulting her nose.
She couldn’t make herself glance down at Signor Sforza, but looking at her brother was unnerving.
It was like standing on the highest hill in Volterra, the view so big and wide in every direction, and not knowing where to look or where to go.
Antonio peered at her. “Are you all right?”
“I’m…” Ravenna let out a shaky laugh. “I don’t know how to answer that question. I can’t believe you’re here. In Florence. I—” She broke off as the other hooded figures crept closer. She inched toward her brother. “Antonio, who are they?”
“We don’t share names,” Antonio said. “But they are like me. Servants of His Holiness.”
“What do you mean?” Ravenna blinked, finally registering what her brother was wearing. “Why are you dressed like a priest?”
“Because I am one.”
Her jaw dropped. “Since when? And why?”
Antonio stiffened. “What is this? An interrogation? What did you think would happen when that”—he growled the next word—“family stole you away? I had to do something.”
“So you decided to take orders?” Ravenna asked, hardly believing her ears. “Antonio, this decision feels extreme. Why—”
“Perhaps if you listened to me,” Antonio said angrily, “instead of casting judgment—”
“No, I didn’t mean—”
“This is the only way to take back everything they stole from us,” Antonio said, his voice low and intense, matching the fevered gleam in his dark eyes.
“To right the wrongs they committed. His Holiness has invited me to be a part of his plans to root out the corruption in Florence and to dismantle the power of the Medici.”
There was a hardness to his tone that gave Ravenna pause. She lowered her arms, dread building within her, one massive block at a time. “You’re speaking of revenge.”
“No, Ravenna,” Antonio said. “I’m speaking of justice.”
Ravenna could only stare at him, studying the lines of his face, the tension that ran from one shoulder to the other.
When she left Volterra, her brother had already been too thin.
Now he was gaunt, the hollows under his cheeks as deep as caverns.
His eyes looked too big for his face. It was hard to look at him and not wish for the boy he once was, munching on an apple, waiting for his family to find him.
But war had come to their city, and it had leveled their lives down to rubble.
Her family was still trying to pick up the pieces, but her brother refused to forget.
Like she had.
They were both changing, the world around them pushing against who they once were, pulling them into unrecognizable versions of themselves.
It took hearing Antonio say the words to finally understand how wrong she’d been.
She was nervous to speak, worried that she might say the wrong thing and launch him into a fury. But she had to say something.
“Antonio,” Ravenna whispered. “It’s good to see you.”
His mouth softened. “And you, sorella.”
Questions piled up in her mind. She wanted to know how long he had been working for the pope, she wanted to know what plans His Holiness had in store for him. She wanted to know if there was a way to get her brother back.
But a dead body lay between them.
The silence stretched, filling with tension that yanked them together in a terrible knot. Ravenna’s gaze flickered to the other two men. They too had their weapons ready for firing, and unlike her brother, they had chosen to keep their hoods up, their faces shadowed.
They drew closer to Antonio, one of them whispering in his ear.
Her brother glanced at her, eyes narrowing. His demeanor changed in subtle degrees. Ravenna didn’t like the hooded strangers, quietly guarding and influencing her brother. As if they needed to protect him from her.
“Why haven’t you retrieved the Nightflame gemstones for His Holiness?” Antonio demanded. “What is taking so long?”
Ravenna gaped at him. A hot flush bloomed in her cheeks. “Why did you kill Signor Sforza? Wouldn’t it have been better to seek a partnership?”
“We do not question the orders from His Holiness,” Antonio said, his voice taking a sharp edge. “And neither should you.”
“Of course you ought to question the orders when they amount to murder,” Ravenna said. “This isn’t like you. Please stop and think—”
“No one has seen you leaving the palazzo?” her brother cut in.
“No, but—”
“Good,” he said. “We will need you at the end.”
“The end? What end?” Ravenna demanded. “The pope has given me a specific task to complete, and I’ve done it—not that I was given a choice. I don’t want to have anything to do with what you’re planning.”
The wind howled between them, sweeping across her, tangling her hair. It bit into her elegant clothing, whipping the fabric around her legs. It teased Antonio’s cloak, but he seemed immune to the cool air, as if his heart were already iced through.
“It’s far too late for that,” Antonio said coldly. “We are at war. You will have to do your part for Rome.”
“What do I care for Rome?” Ravenna cried. “I only want to keep our family safe. I would think you’d have the same goal, the same desire.”
He reared back, as if she’d said something offensive. His nose wrinkled in distaste.
“Antonio, you’re scaring me,” Ravenna continued, and she let her composure slip for a moment, revealing a glimpse of her terror.
Not for herself. But for him.
“Will you please—”
A thundering sound came from the other side of the bridge. It sounded like a horse. Ravenna turned around, her eyes widening.
It was a horse, carrying a lone rider.
Saturnino.
He was still dressed in his bloodred doublet, his dark cloak fluttering like the wings of a raven.
The horse galloped toward them, and from the corner of her eye, Ravenna saw Antonio raise his crossbow.
His companions followed suit. They formed a line, effectively blocking Saturnino from crossing to the other side of the bridge.
“You led him here,” one of the men seethed. “Your sister laid out a trap.”
Ravenna recoiled from his bruising tone. “I didn’t. More fool you for underestimating him.”
Saturnino yanked hard on the reins. The black horse reared high, and then it dropped its front two legs with a smack against the stony ground. The knight dismounted in one fluid motion, his gaze immediately dropping to the bloodied corpse of Signor Sforza.
A muscle jumped in his jaw.
An image of her statue of Pluto, god of the underworld, leaped to her mind.
She had carved his face in perfect likeness of Saturnino, and as he loomed ahead of them, grim and foreboding, it was hard not to see him as a guardian of a fiery domain, the keeper of lost souls.
He lifted his eyes and stared at Ravenna, fury emanating from him in widening ripples.
He could kill her so easily, so quickly. There was nothing stopping him from finishing her off. Ravenna glanced behind her, but the men blocked her escape. There was nowhere for her to go, unless she decided on meeting a watery grave.
“Who murdered this man?” Saturnino asked. His tone was deceptively mild, and it reminded her of a volcano hiding a river of fire, bubbling and rising, waiting to burst forth.
Ravenna pressed her lips together. She would not betray her brother.
Saturnino shifted his stance, his attention moving to the three men. His lip curled when his eyes latched on to Antonio.
“Was it your brother, Ravenna?” Saturnino asked in that same hair-raising mild tone.