His face returned to its usual lines of boredom. “I think you might be.”
Her fingers stilled, but then she rolled her eyes. Another one of his tactics to disarm her. “One way or another, you always planned to catch me.”
“I have you right where I want you,” he said. “And you don’t even know it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Consider the sculptors who came before you and what happened to them,” Saturnino said.
“I can hardly forget when you take care to remind me.Repeatedly.”
Saturnino’s black hair spilled across his brow, giving his beauty a subtle boyish quality. But it didn’t diminish the smile curving his mouth, sharp like his blade, and just as unapologetic. “We are all of us ruthless creatures.”
Ravenna blinked. That sounded like he was saying his whole family had killed people. “So youall—”
“Yes.”
Ravenna flinched, the air in her chest feeling tight. She wantedto yell, wanted to scream, but she brought her emotions to heel. It was one of her greater talents. It wouldn’t serve her to fall to pieces in front of him.
Saturnino crossed his feet, leaned back on his hands. Ombretta curled around his right thigh, resting her head on his knee. This time he didn’t push her off to the side. She thought again of the white bear reposed in his frozen cave, only his dark eyes alert. They latched on to her, piercing and unsettling, a beam of dark green, terrifyingly intelligent. She would have to fight hard to keep her secrets, bargain be damned.
But she was desperate to learnhis.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“To properly motivate you,” he replied lazily. “Tell me, is it working?”
He can’t kill me yet, and neither can his family. I am safe.
She glowered at him. “Well, it certainly makes me angry.”
“How are you getting messages?”
Ravenna jerked her head back. The question had come from nowhere. “I don’t—”
“We have a bargain,” Saturnino said in a hard voice. “Don’t lie to me.”
“The last note was left on my pillow,” Ravenna said, thinking quickly. “I don’t know who put it there.”
“A kitchen maid, most likely. Give me the name of the man you met tonight.” He raised his eyebrows and waited for her answer with diabolical patience, having all the time in the world to interrogate her.
“He’s never given me his name. And I’ve never asked. It hardly matters when it’s His Holiness who has me in his thrall.”
“It matters a great deal,” Saturnino said. “You will get his name for me.”
“Impossible.”
“I want it by the time I return.”
“You’re leaving?” Relief coursed through her. But the rest of hiswords registered, and her stomach lurched. The courier’s stern face swam in her mind. He would never give up his name. Not ifanyoneasked nicely or threatened to take it by force. He would die with his identity known only to himself.
“Never say that you will miss me?”
“Stop teasing me.”
“Why? It’s fun, and you make it so very easy.” Saturnino stood, and drew close to her, close enough for her to see the smooth texture of his skin. Unblemished, unlined, despite the long years of his life. His fingers skimmed the inside of her wrist, the lightest touch. “I think it’s time you understood me, Ravenna.”
“I understand you fine,” she replied stiffly.
