Chapter 57 #2
Elio was waiting for us when we arrived at the ferry dock a short time later.
He was dressed for travel in a fine linen shirt and a dark green doublet, his chestnut hair curling damply at his temples. He looked rested and happy to see me.
Beside him stood his sister.
Danila Ferraro wore the traveling clothes of a prosperous merchant’s daughter—practical and unadorned, but made from expensive fabrics. Her clear amber eyes, so like her brother’s, found mine across the dock and held them for a beat too long.
I understood her silent message: I know what you are to him. I do not approve.
I nodded to her. She did not nod back.
We would all travel together on the ferry downriver and via the canal to the Port of Felicitas Victoria, where the sea-going ships anchored.
From there, Elio and Danila would board one of their parents’ ships, a fast coastal trader bound directly for Baleares.
Mira, Juno, and I would go to the berths for the imperial mail ships, find the Sea Spray, and begin our long, meandering voyage to the Western Isles.
We boarded the ferry in silence. The twins claimed a bench near the bow, where they could watch the countryside slide past. Danila installed herself at the stern, her back very straight, a book open across her knees.
Elio took my hand and pulled me over to the port-side railing.
His arm went around my shoulders. Mine went around his waist, and I pressed myself close against his side, soaking in his touch against the long separation ahead.
“I’m going to miss you,” he said. His voice was low, meant for me alone. “Every day. Every hour. I’ve already calculated it. Two months is approximately sixty days, which is 440 hours, or 86,400 minutes, or 5,184,000 seconds.”
“Stop,” I said. “You’re making it worse.”
“I’m making it accurate.” He grinned at me with his usual cockiness, but I sensed the sadness just beneath the surface… because I felt it, too.
The ferry cast off, and the academy receded rapidly in the ferry’s wake. The last thing to vanish from sight was the dining hall’s white bell tower.
An hour later, we reached Neapolis Capitola. The now-familiar confusion of domed temples, grand mansions, and tenement blocks crowded along both banks of the river. We passed the imperial palace with its lush gardens and purple stone buildings.
“I’ll write you,” Elio said. His thumb stroked my jaw. “Every day. I swear it. I’ll tell you everything. The weather. What my mother cooked for dinner. How many times Danila scowled at me for mentioning your name.”
“And I’ll write back and tell you all about my new stepmother and stepsisters, and whether Lady Adalburga helps me with the correct scholarship forms,” I promised. “But the mail ships only stop in Herrewick once a week. It might take a while for my letters to reach you.”
“Then I’ll have more to read when they arrive.” He turned to face me. “Talisa. There’s something I want to give you. Before we reach the city.”
He reached into the inner pocket of his doublet and withdrew something small that caught the morning light and threw it back in a single, crimson flash. A ring. Gold, set with a heart-shaped polished garnet the color of red wine.
He took my left hand. His fingers were warm and slightly calloused. The ring slid onto my fourth finger, and it was a perfect fit, as if it had been made for me.
“So you won’t forget that I’m yours,” he said. “I love you, Talisa.”
The words landed in the center of my chest and bloomed there, hot and bright and terrible, because we would have to part soon. My vision blurred. The garnet swam in a halo of tears.
“I love you too,” I said. My voice cracked. “Elio, I—”
He kissed me. His mouth was warm and hungry against mine.
I burned for him with a desperation that came from knowing I was about to lose the person I wanted most.
As I deepened our kiss, his hands came up to frame my face, his thumbs brushing my cheeks, and I kissed him back with everything I had, my fingers tangled in the curls at the nape of his neck, my body pressed against his from chest to knee as if I could memorize him through touch alone.
We broke apart, breathless. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Danila was staring at us with an expression of such profound, theatrical disgust that under any other circumstances, I would have laughed.
∞∞∞
Just as they’d been when we first arrived, Felicitas Victoria’s ferry docks were noisy and filled with chaotic activity. Vendors and dockworkers shouted, carts clattered over cobblestones, and the stink of tar and rotting fish and coal smoke was so thick it coated the back of my throat.
Our trunks had been unloaded from the ferry and sat on the quay. Elio’s luggage was there too, alongside Danila’s trunks.
Gulls wheeled overhead, their cries sharp and melancholy.
As my sisters and I peered around, I felt more than a little lost. I knew that the seaside docks were only a short walk from the riverside ferry docks, but I couldn’t remember which way to go. I’d only been here once before, and Mama had been our guide then.
Then Elio briskly hailed a cart driver for us.
He was a wiry man with a face seamed as a walnut and a cart hitched to a patient-looking draft horse.
His price was more than reasonable for loading up our luggage and driving us over to the seaside docks, where our ship, the HIMMS Sea Spray, was ready for boarding.
As the driver began loading our trunks onto his cart, Elio grabbed both of my hands.
“Don’t forget to write to me,” he said, his tone sounding a little desperate. “Every day. I don’t care if the mail from the islands is slow. Write anyway.”
“I will.” My throat felt raw. “You too. Promise me.”
“I promise.” He leaned in and kissed me one last time. Then he stepped back. “Go. Before I do something dramatic and embarrassing.”
I climbed into the cart next to Mira and Juno. The driver flicked his reins. The cart lurched forward.
I turned for one last look.
Elio stood on the dock, his hands shoved into his pockets and tears shining on his smooth brown cheeks.
Our eyes met, and he raised one hand, touched his fingers to his lips, and blew a kiss across the widening gap between us.
I lifted my hand in return, making sure he saw I still wore his ring, and blew him a kiss back.
Then the cart rounded a corner, and he was gone from sight.
We were officially on our way home to Bernswick.