She knewno one.She didn’t have a name or a description of the person she was supposed to meet. The clink of glasses and murmuring conversation paused as the people in the room began noticing her.
“This way,” someone whispered from close by. A hooded figure stood to her left, and he gestured to stone steps descending into a lower level of the tavern. Ravenna squinted, trying to make out his features. His clothing concealed everything but his mouth, pressed into a pale, thin line. She recognized him anyway.
“Ravenna,” the courier said. “Now.”
Then he strode forward, disappearing down into the dark. Ravenna swallowed and trailed after him. She gripped her walking stick tighter. He led her through a narrow corridor that opened to a wine cellar. When she walked through, he shut the heavy wooden door behind her and then barred it. The clanging noise reverberated in the small room. Thick walls surrounded Ravenna on all sides; if she were to scream, noone would hear her from above. Oak barrels storing wine were stacked on wooden racks, sweetening the cramped air. She glanced at the courier, her hands tightening again on the walking stick.
His attention landed briefly on it. He arched a brow, as if to ask,What the hell do you plan to do with that, idiota?She remembered, too late, that he had his own staff, one equipped with five of the pietra magiche. Hot embarrassment lanced her. But the courier merely pulled out a chair and sat down at the small wooden table situated in the center of the wine cellar. He indicated the opposite chair. “Sit,” he said curtly.
She sat and waited. The courier pulled back his hood and leaned against the back of his chair, folding his arms lightly across his flat belly. He assessed her from the other side of the table. He was as rugged and tired as the first time she saw him, the circles under his eyes deep caverns. She wondered when he’d last slept a full night.
“You’re not as chatty as I remember,” he commented.
“I was scared.”
He gave her a humorless smile. “I’m not scaring you now?”
“No, you are,” Ravenna admitted. “But this time you need something from me. I don’t think you’ll harm me before then.”
“And afterward?”
Ravenna lifted a delicate shoulder. “Perhaps I might be chatty, then. Plead for my life. Beg you not to hurt me.”
His expression shifted, his smile smaller, but this time she noted the real humor in the curved mouth.
“Providing you remain useful, I will not harm you.” His blunt-edged fingers tapped against his gray doublet. A serious color, like him. “His Holiness would like an update.”
Ravenna stared at him. “Update? What—”
The courier’s manner flipped. He regarded her coldly. “What have you learned about the Luni famiglia?”
Here it was. The first chance to play both sides. Thankfully, there hadn’t been much opportunity to spy on the immortal family. She’d seen only the inside of the dungeon and the Palazzo della Signoria. Which, now that she thought about it, had been interesting. She’dforgotten about that tense exchange in Lorenzo de’ Medici’s office, and the curious artist she’d met. Her mind drifted to the drawings she’d seen, the ones the politician hadn’t wanted her to dwell on.
They’d looked like plans of some sort.
It could have been nothing, and so she said, “I haven’t learned anything useful since I saw you last.”
He was motionless and silent, save for his fingers.Tap, tap, tap. “You’ll have to do better than that. You were seen walking around Florence. What was the nature of that outing?”
Ravenna squirmed in her seat. The courier registered the movement, and he narrowed his eyes. They were the only thing that exuded any kind of warmth, and only because of the color. An unusual light brown, lit golden at the center, the color of pale whiskey. Ravenna had once glimpsed a stag on a hunting tapestry, its golden eyes wide and alert, standing motionless in a forest clearing as the hounds closed in. The courier’s gaze held that same edge, knowing he was being hunted but refusing to run.
“Ravenna,” he snapped.
Nervous energy pulsed deep in her belly. She was stuck between two powerful entities and she needed to make both happy. Ravenna bent her head, her attention fixed absently on the graining of the wooden table. She dragged her thumbnail across the bumpy surface.
“Don’t tell me you’ve come to care for them,” the courier muttered.
Ravenna stilled. He meant the whole family.
But that wasn’t who popped into her mind.
Saturnino’s handsome face filled her mind: His lips gathered into a sultry grin that made her head spin. The keen intellect he used ruthlessly, every word honed to dissuade, dismantle, destroy his opponent. But she remembered the alert quality in his face while she talked, as if he had found something unique to her that he hadn’t experienced before. Something that had intrigued him. She remembered, too, how he had melted against the door frame when she had correctly named the color of his eyes.
As if no one had noticed before.
Whatever she said to the courier—to the pope—would hurt him.
But he was a threat to her life. She needed to forget about the color of his eyes. Ravenna lifted her head and met the courier’s suspicious gaze. “I’m silent because I don’t have anything significant to share.”
