“But it wasn’t a fae who enchanted you,” Ravenna said, remembering. “It was a witch.”
Saturnino inclined his head. “I was created as an act of revenge. The witch was furious at her lover, the pope, who refused to acknowledge their child. An illegitimate son.”
“The pope has ason? Who is it?”
Saturnino hesitated.
“You don’t have to tell me,” she whispered.
“We’ve never revealed his identity,” he said. “It’s another secret, a condition of the spell we are under, to always protect him, whatever the cost.” He closed his eyes, nostrils flaring slightly. When he opened them again, he met her gaze. Steady and sure. “It’s Lorenzo de’ Medici.”
Ravenna’s hand flew to her mouth. “No. The pope is hisfather?”
“Yes.” He brought his fingers to her collarbone and gently caressed her. “No one in Florence knows of his true parentage. It’s a way to protect him and his family. Our single purpose, the reason we were made in the first place, is to safeguard the Medici family, to keep them safe, not just physically, but in their financial security, too.”
“And what of the witch?” Ravenna asked. “What happened to her?”
Saturnino frowned. “A mystery. After she created us, we came toFlorence, where we met her son. Her relatives were helping to raise him, distant cousins who lived with her in the Palazzo Medici. But then she disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” Ravenna repeated. “What do you mean? How? When?”
“We’ve been trying to find her for one hundred years, to no avail. She’s gone,” he said. “Fortuna thinks she was one of the early witches rounded up for the pyre when the pope first started his campaign against them. Back then, no one was safe. If there was a rumor you were harboring or assisting a witch… many people died by fire.” He paused. “The pope never gave up looking for his stolen statues.”
“You,” Ravenna breathed. “But why the obsession, why search the world over?”
“As statues, we are considered priceless,” he said wryly. “Stone made not from anything on earth, but from heaven itself.”
“Stardust,” Ravenna said with a little smile. “You’re made of stardust.”
Saturnino smiled back. “I think we’re all made of stardust.”
“What did you all do then?”
Ravenna watched his hands for a moment, and as she impulsively reached for his palm, his familiar cool touch sent a thrum of wonder through her—this man had once been stone, no different from the rock she worked with to create beauty.
He spoke slowly, in a measured tone, almost halting.
“Silvio and Juno decided the best way to achieve our goals was to form a family, since we were bound together in magic and purpose. We each of us had our strengths, but in many ways, we were young. Innocent of the ways of the world.” His lips twisted. “Of the way that humans can be. I learned my lesson soon after our arrival in Florence. I’d befriended a group of nobles, around the age I was supposed to be. We were seemingly aligned in our politics and loyal to the Medici, but that proved to be only a ruse. I was a means to an end, and one evening they caught me unaware. It was at night, near the Arno River. They beat me with their fists. They stabbed me with swords,daggers. They broke bones, carved my skin. Everywhere they could reach. It was the first time I’d felt pain.”
His voice dropped, and Ravenna had to lean closer to hear him. Her heart pounded, breaking for the young man he had been all those years ago, part of a community that had turned against him.
“I thought I’d go mad from it,” Saturnino said bleakly. “My body kept healing itself, but I wanted to die. None of them were satisfied until they’d hurt every inch of me. But that wasn’t the worst of it. When they were finally done, they pitched my body into the river.”
“No,” Ravenna whispered, horrified. “No.”
Saturnino lifted his eyes, blue-rimmed with unshed tears. “My nature is a blend of marble and human, both. It’s a duality that keeps me in limbo, in between. Not one thing or the other. I’m heavy, I cannot swim.”
“You drowned,” Ravenna said, tears streaming down her face.
“Many, many times,” he said, his body shuddering. “It took me a full day to get myself out.”
Anger coursed through her. At the people who had pretended to be his friend. At the power struggles that made monsters of men. At the world for its cruelty and harshness. She raged at the injustice. “You werealone.”
“I am afraid of that river, Ravenna,” he said. “I vowed never to go near it again. Except fate had other plans for me, and this time, she gave me you.” A tender, tremulous smile crept across his face. “You didn’t abandon me. You are everything I’m not. Decent, loving, brave, hopeful, kind—”
Ravenna leaned forward, climbing on top of him, overcome with the need to touch him, to be near to him. She kissed him and held on to him, hungry, desperate, in search of healing.
For both of them.
