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,noneof 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. “Bluefire. 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 astatue.
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 shedone? She’d fallen in love with a statue, withstone.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 ismadness.”
“I know, Iknow.” He fell to his knees in front of her. “The witchused 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, themiracleshe was supposed to somehow work was to save Saturnino and the others.
