Saturnino would leave that moment if he needed to. He’d even drag Marco with him, the pezzo di merda, to better cover more ground. As for the sculptress, he’d have to get rid of her before departing. The others agreed: she was a weakness they couldn’t allow to live. But at that thought, a peculiar and unwanted sensation bloomed across his chest, where his heart beat a steady rhythm.
It felt like regret.
He ignored it.
It didn’t make a difference—itcouldn’t.
The sculptress stood in the center of the circular room, chisel and mallet in hand. Her breath came out in long, ragged exhales. She faced one of the stones, mercurial and foreboding in the glow of the firelight that washed the room in soft gold. Her narrow faceand softly rounded chin were set in determined lines. Sweat dampened her skin, the heat emanating from the stones assaulting her in brutal waves.
Saturnino ought to put an end to it, but his hands stayed at his sides, as if of their own accord. For some unfathomable reason, he wanted her to have every chance. As many as she needed. Some obscure feeling of protectiveness for the human flared, prickly, foreign, inconvenient. He’d never had a feeling like that in his entire existence.
Why was it happening? She wasn’t classically beautiful in the way many Florentine women were that he’d dallied with. But… she exchanged quips with him, even when she was clearly intimidated. That took mettle. Personality. She challenged his jaded perspective on humanity, of all things. And when she had stepped close to him, close enough to see the color of his eyes, it had thrilled him.
Was it because he…liked her? He could, he thought grimly. Despite all reason.
Fool, he scolded himself, but still, he tucked himself against one of the empty crates.
Ravenna approached the virgin stone in a manner much like she would have if she’d crossed paths with one of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s lions. Slow-footed and with mounting dread. She aligned the chisel with the surface, breathing in through her nose in a controlled rhythm, and struck down hard with her mallet. Steam spilled through the hairline cracks, curling her hair, scalding her cheeks. She hissed out another curse, drawing away.
Saturnino let out an impatient sigh and propped an elbow over the surface of the crate, cradling the side of his head in his palm. He could almost hear Ravenna’s voice in his head, observing his human-like behavior.
Good. Let her think it.
It was a deliberate, careful choice, a tool, a means of disarming her, though he knew she saw through it. And yet, he didn’t stop. Because despite her resistance, he could feel it, that slow, inevitable erosion of her defenses against him. A game of seduction she had no hope of winning.
And yet, for the first time, he wasn’t entirely certain he would win it, either.
It was an annoying revelation.
But seducing her was something he no longer needed to do if she couldn’t do the work they needed her for.
Ravenna circled the stones, amber eyes narrowed in frustration and anger.
He liked that expression best on her. Anger was always honest.
She tucked a strand of damp hair behind her ear, gritted her teeth, and approached the stone again. This time she did so without chisel and mallet in hand. This time she came only as herself. With a deep inhale, she placed both palms flat on the surface. Her lips twisted in pain. Saturnino watched, emotion rippling through him. The other humans had blistered, their skin raw and painful to look at whenever they touched the virgin stone.
Ravenna held on.
Saturnino held his breath.
Magic swept out of her, flooding the surface; it was the color of midnight, a deep blue, and it enveloped the stone in a tight embrace. Saturnino straightened away from the crate and crept closer, exhaling sharply, his heart kicking against his ribs.
It hadn’t beaten that fast in nearly a century.
The stone shifted under her hands, the veining spreading out from underneath as if giving her room to work. Ravenna reached for the chisel and mallet, and once again she lined up the flat edge, this time choosing the cleared-off space without any veining, the stone’s lifeblood. She raised the mallet and struck hard. The stone gave easily, and a chunkbrokeoff, dust swirling. It coated her hands, danced in the warm air.
Ravenna let out a shaky laugh.
Every thought fled his mind.
Saturnino couldn’t move, couldn’tthink. He was frozen, stunned, hardly believing his own eyes. Relief made him dizzy, a curious and vile sensation he never wanted to feel again. Nevertheless, it swept over him and he stumbled forward. She still hadn’t seen him, stillhadn’t sensed him, when all his senses suddenly filled at her nearness. Her magic clung to the very air, magic that tasted like crisp, cold air harkening autumn. Her hair was damp from the steam, and it curled around her cheeks, her collarbones, her waist. Saturnino could break her in half, twist her neck, pierce her heart, bury her alive—she was that fragile to him. She was a slight, ethereal thing, who had just done what others could not.
His gaze snagged on the broken chunk of rock in her hands.
She’d performed a miracle.
The sculptress lifted her head, meeting his gaze. She stared at him for one long, torturous beat. Then she shifted, her chin downturned, eyes averted. Her autumn hair curled around her cheeks in a sweep of fallen leaves. Absently, he noted she had pretty eyelashes, thick and dark. “Do you still want to murder me, Saturnino?” she whispered.
