Tereza dropped down from her tiptoed position and turned back to the door. “Mamma says for you to come inside. That your eyes will suffer in the dark. That your work is done, and no one is asking for perfect. But she said to tell you itisperfect. I don’t know why. She hasn’t seen it.”
Ravenna tugged at her sister’s long braid. “And what else?”
“She doesn’t want you to go tomorrow.”
Her heart squeezed. “You’re a good little messenger.”
“She also said your breakfast is cold,” Tereza said seriously. “And that it serves you right. She says you are too thin and lonely.”
“Five more minutes,” Ravenna said, rolling her eyes. “Will you tell her?”
“Yes, but Mamma won’t like it,” Tereza said before slipping out the door.
Ravenna stared at the door, unseeing.
Her idea tugged at her.
She flicked her eyes to the long wooden shelves lining the storage walls, where she’d hidden a terrible secret. It was locked in a box, out of sight, but the air seemed to pulse around it. The hidden magic swirled around her. It whispered against her skin, coaxing her to come closer.
No one in Volterra knew she had a whisper of that magic living inside her.
Only her parents, her best friend, Maria—and Antonio.
She’d told him back when they used to tell each other everything. Before the Medici battle had made him someone she barely recognized. Now she bore her secret on her own; even her parents refused to mention it.
As if she carried the plague under her clothes.
The magic seeped into the air, curling around her. She felt the familiar rise of it inside her, answering the call. Wanting to be let out.She gritted her teeth, resisting. But her gaze landed on her marble statue, well-made but plain. It wasn’t good enough.
Her Pluto had no chance of winning.
Not without magic.
Ravenna went to her shelves, pushing aside a platter piled high with extra tools, blocks of extra pumice stone, samples of alabaster from Cava della Luce. She found the box she was looking for, a box she’d carved herself. Her hand hovered above the lid, fingers trembling. Suddenly, she was thirteen again, lost in a tunnel, and the man was reaching for her, trying to save her from falling. The dark magic within her stirred, fed by the onslaught of a powerful emotion she couldn’t control.
It was revulsion.
Bone-deep revulsion at what she could do and who she was.
With a fortifying breath, she lifted the lid and peered inside.
The pietra magiche glittered back at her.
She felt its heat without touching the surface, as if she’d drawn near an uncontrollable blaze. The color was a moonstone blue with a single cobalt flame in its center. It went by many names. Little flame. The fiery one. Ignis lapis.But Ravenna had always called it by the name her aunt taught her, born in antiquity: Nightflame.
One of the seven kinds of magical gemstones mined from the fae lands, and the hardest to find.
Her fingers closed around the gemstone and she flinched as she felt the initial burn—a burst of pain, lasting only a second, before it turned icy in her palm. Shame burned hot at the back of her throat. She hated how it felt like she held the fires of hell in the palm of her hand. And the worst part was that she had no way of getting rid of her ability.
She didn’t know a lot about magic, but she knew at least that much.
She knew, too, that only witches and wizards could bear the touch of the magical gemstones, depending on how powerful they were. Full-blooded witches could use and manipulate all seven, but those born with weaker magic might only manage two or three.Ravenna had been born with just enough magic to handle one pietra magiche—a small inheritance from a forgotten and unknown witch ancestor that had left her tainted.
It was magic that endangered her life, like it did for all other witches, who lived a nomadic existence, constantly on the move for fear of discovery, and only sometimes visiting cities that welcomed magic within their borders. Cities like Florence, where they were revered.
But even then, witches had to be careful.
The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III welcomed magic in his court, but his rival, His Holiness Pope Sixtus IV, called it heathenism. It was widely known that the pope had a particular hatred of witches. His Holiness used his power and influence to block trade between them and other magical creatures. For decades he’d hunted and executed them, a reign known as the Veil of Fire. Witches went into hiding or fled the peninsula. Where the emperor might bestow favor on a witch, the pope only handed out a death notice. For this reason, all magic existed in a gray area, living between two powerful rulers who were at each other’s throats over what to do with the odd werewolf or vampyre or witch. Only the fae, who were known for their otherworldly beauty and immortality, were exempt from such scrutiny. Ravenna didn’t precisely know why, but she suspected it involved gold.
