“What do you mean?” Ravenna blinked, finally registering what her brother was wearing. “Why are you dressed like apriest?”
“Because Iamone.”
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—“familystole 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 theonlyway 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 tomurder,” 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.”
