It wasn’t funny, the music had been flat. The singing terrible.
Ravenna knew, then, what name to call the emotion she felt radiating off him. “You’re disappointed.”
He stared at her with an inscrutable look on his face.
“By ushumans,” she explained. “Possibly you’ve been hurt.”
Ravenna had the impression that she’d broken off the directed path, veering unexpectedly off course. He was trying to bring her out to a turbulent sea, but she’d found safer ground. And it had surprised him. Saturnino recovered quickly; his expression turned haughty. “That would imply that I have a heart.”
“You don’t?”
He seemed to look straight through her, past flesh and bone. It turned her inside out, that close assessment, and the way his voice turned flat. “I do not.”
“Is that true forallof you?”
He inclined his head.
Ravenna made a low frazzled sound at the back of her throat. Panic bubbled deep in her belly, making her nauseous, unsettled. She’d never crossed paths with anyone like him, likethem.It made her feel unprepared and out of her depth. A state of being that upended her sense of rightness.
“What creatures don’t have a heart?” Ravenna whispered bleakly.
“Creatures on the wrong side of magic. And Ravenna…”
Saturnino came up a step closer to her. Then another. Ravenna’s heart thrummed hard against her ribs. His dark eyes were locked on hers, making her pulse riot under her skin. He lowered his lashes, a heavy black fringe that crested like the wings of a raven. They almost brushed against the smooth curve of his cheeks as he looked down at her. He could have uttered an enchantment and she wouldn’t have noticed. There was no arguing with his immortal beauty and the way it drew her eye.
“I have not always been what I am.”
She let out a whoosh of air.
He had not always been immortal. Which meant that he had once beenhuman.What happened to him? To all of them? She opened her mouth with another question, but he smoothly stepped around her and continued up the stairs. He tossed a glance over his shoulder. “You’re dripping all over the floor.”
Ravenna startled, gave herself a mental shake, getting rid of the sensation that he’d yanked her into a spell. She set out after him, stepping through the door at the top of the staircase as if she’d ventured into a mystical otherworld. A place where the Luni family reigned, and where she was now a subject.
She followed the knight onto a landing, lined by several tallwooden doors. She barely noticed when he went through the first, so caught up in her thoughts.
Whatwerethey?
Ravenna didn’t like not knowing.
Witches roamed the peninsula in secret, constantly wandering, exploring, hardly ever setting down roots, thanks in large part to the pope’s relentless pursuit of them. Vampyres dwelled in the cavernous kingdoms to the north, hidden behind stone and granite. The fae were guardians of the forests that stretched along the eastern side, preferring leaf and fern over cobbled avenues and industry. They dealt with enchantments bartered from witches, and they thrived in the natural world, not with trade or commerce or gold coins but with magic and spells.
Their origins were shrouded in half-remembered stories and whispered rumors, rumors she heard from travelers who stayed at the locanda. Ravenna struggled to piece it all together. The fae were thought to be the descendants of angels, some said, warriors of God who had fallen not out of rebellion, but sacrifice. Custodus Lignorum, they were sometimes called. They’d given their lives in some ancient celestial battle between the light and the dark. Afterward, they lingered on earth, immortal and yet removed. Perhaps it was their devotion in protecting the primordial forests and crystalline lakes, and the pietra magiche, gemstones that held the essence of divine magic. Or perhaps it was punishment.
The stories were never clear.
The Luni famiglia didn’t fit in with any of those categories.
The wrong side of magic, he’d said.
She snuck a glance at Saturnino from the corner of her eye.
He remained close to her side as he escorted her into a grand hall, the four walls painted in a blue and mint-green geometric pattern. On a second look, Ravenna was delighted to find that the pattern also included parrots. Saturnino ushered her through another arched doorway—Ravenna had yet to see any sharp corners—that opened to a long corridor with polished floors that gleamed like rich honey in the candlelight.
Ravenna glanced over her shoulder, memorizing the turn they’d just taken. She had a good sense of direction, but this was the largest home she had ever seen. Like conversations with Saturnino, one wrong turn and she could walk straight into disaster. She was replaying all the turns they’d taken, the number of arched doorways they’d passed, when she felt a curious tingle at the back of her neck.
They were being followed.
She turned around as a black cat approached them. The feline pressed herself against Saturnino’s ankles, purring loudly. Saturnino glanced down and firmly nudged the cat away. It ignored him and darted back to his side.
