“Have you seen Balthazar?” I asked with a mixture of trepidation and unwelcome desire.
Giovanni shook his head. “Not for a while now.”
He rubbed his weathered face with his palm.
“Do you know a man named Malik?”
Giovanni frowned and scratched the white stubble on his jaw. “That’s a name I don’t recognize.”
After we exchanged a few pleasantries, I left him. I needed to find Malik.
I strolled down the cobbled walkway, past the hens pecking the dirt, and onto the dirt road leading into town.
A man approached me. When he got within touching distance, he exclaimed, “Alina?”
I squinted at him. “Raul Costa?”
He was much older than when I was sixteen, and he was my eighteen-year-old lover, but still looked the same, sans the boyish features.
I didn’t know whether he would hug me, so I stood awkwardly, waiting for his response.
He glared at me. “What are you doing back here?”
He removed his hat and crumpled it between his hands as if he wished to do that to me.
I took a step back. “I’m looking for a man named Malik. Do you know him?”
“No,” he said abruptly. “But I would not be inclined to tell you if I did.”
My jaw dropped open for a second. “What did I ever do to you?”
He poked my sternum with his forefinger. “You chose Lord Balthazar over me, that’s what.”
“I thought you were interested in the Contessa,” I lied. I knew Raul had wanted me.
“I was never interested in the Contessa. You were the one I longed for,” he said, his eyes growing sorrowful.
I cast my gaze at the ground. “Well, I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, Balthazar broke my heart.”
Raul seemed to like this answer. “And I would have made you my queen. You got what you deserved.”
I ignored his slight and said, “Does your family still make tonics, potions, and the like?”
Raul squinted. “Why do you ask me this?”
“I need something from you—I need poison.” I wanted to use poison on Olivia’s blade. If she ever tried to time travel, she would die. It was a better fate. I didn’t want Balthazar to find her.
My stomach lurched as I read this. Now I knew why I was so sick when I arrived in Rome. Still, it was hard to digest the knowledge that my mother wanted to kill me to supposedly “save me” from my fate as a time traveler.
“I would grant you your wish, Alina, but I want something in return, and then I will give you what you need.”
“What would you possibly want from me?”
“You know my family makes the best potions and poisons, which you won’t find anywhere else.”
I believed him because I knew what his family would doto people—they killed with their poisons. When Raul leaned into my ear and whispered what he wanted, I had no choice but to do as he said, even though it came with a price and would be a huge risk.
I became his lover again.
