Chapter 32
Capitolo Trentadue
Ravenna gaped at him. Her knees crumpled, and his hands slid down, wrapping around her waist. He managed to keep her upright, but she felt as if she were still falling. “No.”
“I’m under a spell.”
The words clattered between them. Ravenna slumped against the door, her mind racing to understand. Her reply was hushed, nearly inaudible. “A spell,” she echoed dumbly.
“All this time, you’ve been wondering what I am,” Saturnino said. “And I’ve never told anyone, none of us have. It’s been our secret for one hundred years.”
Ravenna felt as if it were just the two of them beneath the water again. Cut off from anyone else, trying to survive something terrible. “What is your secret, Saturnino?”
He released her. With shaking fingers, Saturnino unlaced his midnight blue doublet, and with his index finger he dragged the collar of his cream tunic down to his heart.
Beneath the pale ivory of his skin, there was a gossamer pale blue light where his heart ought to be.
It danced under the pad of his finger, moving like a single flame, flickering.
“Saturnino,” she breathed. “Blue fire. Is that … Is that—”
He nodded. Once. “Yes, it’s a Nightflame. And it’s the only thing keeping me alive, but on the tenth of May, when the sun sets, the fire will go out.”
She reached for him, slowly. She laid the flat of her hand against his heart. It was beating fast. She looked up in wonder. His expression was raw and vulnerable, restless. Green eyes brimstone bright.
Saturnino covered her hand with his own.
Her voice was barely above a whisper, but the question struck like a thunderclap in the quiet room. “What will happen to you when the flame goes out?”
He let out a shaky exhale, his gaze fixed on the floor. “I will turn back into stone.”
“Stone?”
“Yes.”
“But—” she sputtered. The words tumbled in her mind; she couldn’t make sense of them. Blood roared in her ears, drowning out all reason. “What?”
“I was once a statue.” Saturnino looked up at her, grimly determined.
“Carved by a fae sculptor more than a millennium ago. The pope bought us for his private collection. But one hundred years ago, a witch stole us. She placed us under an enchantment.” He broke off, his breathing uneven. “You’ve gone pale. Are you all right?”
“Am I … no.” She tugged her hand free, covered her mouth. “Madonna santa.” She ducked out of the circle of his arms and began pacing the bedroom in frantic circles.
Saturnino was a statue.
Him and the others. His parents. Siblings.
Were they even a family?
Her mind was a tangled web of confusion, of warring emotions, and she didn’t know how to unknot any of it. All this time, she thought something had happened to him when he was human, a spell that had gone wrong, cursing him to be an immortal being. She couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Dio, what had she done? She’d fallen in love with a statue, with stone. A statue who had lived as a human with a Nightflame for a heart, and a doomed soul. She let out a hoarse, bitter laugh. The irony was not lost on her.
It was a horrible, shocking, cruel revelation.
“Saturnino.” She dropped down onto the bed. “This is madness.”
“I know, I know.” He fell to his knees in front of her. “The witch used Nightflame gemstones to turn us into humans.” He tapped his chest, where his heart would be. “But once used in a spell, the magic is spent. It burns out. The power in a pietra magiche lasts only one hundred years.”
She nodded, comprehending what he was telling her. “Your time is up on the tenth of May. The reason for my deadline.” Her mind raced, as if she were in a too-fast carriage ride. “Why did the witch turn you into humans in the first place? Why—”
He placed his hands on the tops of her thighs. “It doesn’t matter. The point is that I’m dying—unless you can help me. But you haven’t made any progress, and I’ve lost hope that you can carve out the Nightflames.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “That’s why I regret kissing you.”
“So it’s my fault,” she said dully.
“No,” Saturnino said. “It was always going to be impossible.” His lips twisted wryly. “It was always going to take a miracle.”
She remembered the long-ago conversation she had with her aunt on that fateful day in the quarry. She had tried to tell her about the Nightflame, about her magic and how it was connected to the gemstone. The missing piece fell into place, a shard that cut too deep.
Ravenna clutched at her heart.
This whole time, the miracle she was supposed to somehow work was to save Saturnino and the others.
“Saturnino,” she whispered back. “After all these years, I finally understand what the Nightflame can do. It has the power to give life. I’m right, aren’t I?”
Saturnino leaned back onto his haunches and nodded, his gaze intent on hers.
“And because my magic is connected to the gemstone, I have the same power, but in reverse.” She swallowed hard. “My magic kills.”
“Ravenna,” he said, tenderly, softly. “It’s why you’ve been able to make any progress with the virgin stones at all. You are killing the protective magic embedded in the stones.” He regarded her with tender amusement. “Just very slowly.”
“I’ll work harder,” she said swiftly. “Day and night, if I have to.”
“We don’t just need the Nightflames, we need a witch, too. Someone capable of casting the same spell to extend our life for another one hundred years. We have one chance to live, but if you can’t do it, then I must find someone who can. That’s also why I’ve been searching for your replacement.”
The words settled between them. She knew, as well as he did, that she wasn’t powerful enough to cast that spell.
Her magic could only help him so far. The silence stretched, tension curling around them both.
Saturnino had never looked more human to her, faint smudges underneath the flat green of his gaze, tousled black hair that reached his shoulders in a tangle, cheeks that were flushed a blue gray.
“How close are you to finding a witch for the spell?”
He shook his head grimly. “It’s a near impossible task.
Witches have gone into hiding, using spells to cover their tracks and homes.
Ever since the Veil of Fire, the pope’s reign against them has made any news of them rare.
It’s why I came up with the idea of a sculpting competition, hoping to find a sculptor and a witch in one place. ”
“A witch might still think participating is too much of a risk,” Ravenna said.
“Which is why the prize is a boon,” he said. “It’s well-known that we are powerful allies to the Medici. Any winner could ask for our protection against Rome and it would be given.”
Ravenna looked at him narrowly. “Because it serves your interests, too.”
The corners of his lips twitched, the merest hint of a smile. “Yes.”
“You’ve thought of everything.”
“I didn’t plan for you.” He shook his head at her in wonder. “And now you know our secret. I’ve never told anyone what I am. What we all are. It’s a weakness, and if our enemies were to find out, it would be the end of me, the end of us all.”
“Saturnino, I’m not your enemy.” Ravenna reached for him, but he jerked away from her and launched himself to his feet.
He narrowed his eyes, furiously bright, and his voice dropped to a lethal murmur. “Aren’t you?”
“Maybe at first, but not anymore.” Ravenna held out her hand, coaxing him to take it. “You can trust me.”
“If it were me or your brother on the line, who would you choose?” he asked in that same soft whisper.
Ravenna dropped her hand, stunned. That wasn’t fair.
There was the briefest flash of devastation on his face before his expression shuttered.
“You didn’t ask me what happened to Sforza’s body,” he said, voice oddly flat.
“What I ought to have done was to tell the others of his murder, to warn them we have a spy in our midst working with the pope to kill off our allies.”
She covered her face with her hands, understanding coming swift. He’d had the chance to ruin her, to drag her in front of the others and reveal her treachery against them. “Saturnino.”
“Instead I went back for it, and dumped Sforza’s body into the river,” he said. “Now no one knows where he is, or that he was murdered tonight.”
Ravenna lowered her hands, gripped them tight in her lap.
His voice was quiet, edged in heartache. “I did it to save you from my family.”
Saturnino closed himself off, slamming a door between them. No matter what she said or did, he would not answer. His face lost all expression, even the pain she knew he felt.
He’d never let her near him again. He’d never let her touch him again.
He swept out of the room without another look in her direction, leaving her alone with her jumbled thoughts about statues and spells and witches who dabbled with both.
She drew her robe tight against her body.
Despite the heat from the fire, she was chilled through.
The fury on his face had shaken her. Ravenna didn’t know where she stood with him.
He took all the answers with him and left her not knowing what tomorrow would bring for her.
For them.
But she’d seen also seen his confusion—he’d been wrecked, hadn’t he? As baffled and unnerved as she was by what happened in the river, and just now when he’d held her in his arms.
He couldn’t dismiss it. He wouldn’t treat her as he once had, as opponent and nothing more. Ravenna flung her arm across her eyes and drew her knees up tight, close to her rib cage.
Yes, he would, and she knew it.