Bracing herself, she walked up the path to the kitchen entrance to find her parents already seated at the wooden dining table. Expressions were grim, lips flattened and tight.
Mamma glanced pointedly at the pulled-out chair directly across from her.
Impatience gathered deep in Ravenna’s belly, but she sat, calmly laced her fingers in front of her, and raised her brows. They regarded her silently, as if waiting for her to come to her senses.
She would not.
Nothing was said for several tense beats.
Ravenna held Mamma’s gaze. She had her mother’s angled cheekbones, tanned skin, and thick brows. Her father had gifted her his autumn hair that shimmered gold and red in the sunlight, and his brown eyes, the color of pale amber. She had his flat feet, and her mother’s trim waist, and from both, a gift for hospitality.
“We just received word Capitano Lombardi is missing,” Mamma whispered. “No one has seen him since last night.”
“But I saw—” Ravenna’s hand flew to her throat as if to trap the rest of her words.
Papà gaped at her. “What? What did you see?”
The image of the tall stranger from the night before crossed Ravenna’s mind. The cold dark eyes and flat voice, the beautiful symmetry of his face. She had last seen the Capitano withhim. A man clearly not from Volterra. Ravenna recovered her voice. “I just saw him the other day.”
Papà nodded, his expression grim. “Always patrolling the streets, helping wherever he could.”
“Not anymore,” Mamma said. “There’s a rumor he was paid off to stop interfering with the Medici soldiers.” Her next words were edged in a sour note. “Anyone can be bought.”
“Who told you that?” Papà scoffed.
“Emilia,” Mamma said in a way that suggested Ravenna’s father better not argue with her.
Papà waved this off. “Oh, you’ll believe anything. She’s a gossip.”
“She heard it from Angelica,” Mamma said.
“Anothergossip.”
Ravenna leaned back against her chair. Capitano Lombardi hadaccepted abribe? She didn’t know him well but knew enough of his character for the news to shock her. Dimly, she was aware of her parents’ continued squabbling, but it took them saying her name a few times for her to notice.
“Ravenna,” Papà whispered, hoarse. His eyes turned pleading. “These are dangerous times, even if the rumor isn’t true. Please don’t do this.”
She bit her lip and averted her gaze. His terror was a palpable presence, a ghost hovering between them, an ill omen that promised doom and heartache. Ravenna tucked her hands under her thighs to keep them from trembling.
Papà continued in the same hushed whisper. “If you reveal what you are, what you can do, it’s not just your life at stake, but ours, too.”
“The villagers will come for us. Our neighbors, friends. They won’t allow us to stay in Volterra,” Mamma said. “The Church will cast us out, too.”
“They will schedule his execution any day now, like the others. Do you want me to do nothing, let my brother die?” Ravenna asked quietly. “Is that it?”
“There has to be something else,” Mamma fretted. “Anything other than…” She swallowed audibly, shaping a word silently before finally spitting it out.“Magic.”
Ravenna lived for the moments when Mamma looked at her with love. But there were furtive glances between her parents Ravenna caught from time to time that made her blood freeze in her veins. Terror that she might release the magic she worked so hard to hide away. It bubbled under her skin, waiting like steam to be released from within a burning pot.
They were right to fear her.
Ravenna didn’t know what her limits were. Tension curled between Ravenna and her parents, a widening chasm. It grieved her, and the ever-present shame she carried rose to the surface. She stareddown at the scarred table, their words washing over her, testing her resolve.
What she wouldn’t give to be somebody else. Anyone, so long as her own parents weren’t ashamed of her and the secret they had no choice but to keep.
But there was a chance her magical ability could save her little brother.
His life was at stake. Wasn’t that more important?
