Her body locked up. She wanted to fling herself away from the window, but her limbs refused to cooperate. Her hand trembled against the cold glass.
Saturnino held up his hand, showed her three fingers.
Then he turned, abruptly breaking the hold he had over her. Severing the connection so fully that she stumbled on her feet a little. He dug in his heels and took off down the wakening street.
For the next three days, Ravenna kept to the dungeon.
Ombretta was her constant companion, showing up at her bedroom door every morning, as if summoning her to work. Ravenna would make the trek to the bowels of the palazzo, escorted by Imelda, while sipping sage water and nibbling on a thick slice of freshly baked bread. Imelda cast worried looks at her. She knew exactly what her maid observed: hollowed cheeks and tired eyes as the nights wore on, filled with nightmares of her attacker’s skeletal face, mouth left open in an eternal scream.
Imelda never asked her what was wrong, and Ravenna didn’t tell her.
The first day, Ravenna tried carving the virgin stone, but it refused to work with her, hissing steam whenever she approached, cobalt veins widening and pulsing. It was as if the stones recognized her after what she had done. They sensed the danger they were in, and now they all stood like silent sentinels, guarding their Nightflames.
The air had been thick and heavy from the oppressive guilt she felt. Her teeth ached from clenching them, from the constant effort of controlling her magic. The magic fed on her grief; it fed on her anger and self-loathing.
On the second morning, the guards opened the door and steam poured out of the dungeon, scalding hot. Ravenna tried to step inside, but her lungs burned, eyes watered. Imelda grabbed her arm, pulled her back, her own cheeks flushed.
Ravenna gripped the ends of her hair in panic.
She barely had two days left.
What was she going to do?
She sank onto the floor, and Ombretta crept into her lap. Imelda stood over her, brows pinched into a tight frown.
“Perhaps it will clear?”
It finally did, hours and hours later. By the time Ravenna made it inside the dungeon, it was early evening. When she approached one of the stones, she let her magic seep out of her, a little at a time. It didn’t work, and Ravenna wouldn’t let her magic take the lead again. It frightened her too much. But still she tried to strike the stone, again and again, using as much of her magic as she dared. Shards and small chunks of the virgin stone finally broke off.
“What shall I do with all of this?” Imelda gestured to the piles of chipped stone.
Ravenna carefully wiped her brow with her sleeve. The air in the dungeon stayed motionless, growing more stale by the second. She wanted to jump into a lake. “Throw it out.”
Imelda nodded, as if expecting that answer. She glanced at the stones, mostly intact save for the one Ravenna had been working on. “There’s a lot of clutter down here. Shall I bring someone down to get rid of all the excess?”
“Please,” Ravenna said.
Her maid brought down a man with a clipped beard, who took a long look around the dungeon and proceeded to clear the space of broken tools, extra buckets, pails filled with dirty water, and old rags. Ravenna barely noticed; she kept chipping away at the stone like a god who’d been cursed to perform the same monotonous task. Whatever progress she made, the stone took it back in some way or lashed out at her like a mercurial troll who denied her access to the other side of the river.
By the third day, she still hadn’t made significant progress. Ravenna dripped with perspiration, her palms slick with sweat. She sat on the ground with an inelegant thump, glaring at the virgin stones. Shewouldnotbe defeated by the marble. She would not give in to the sinister magic that filled her lungs, that filled up all her empty spaces like blight.
This was how Imelda found her.
She had taken to stopping by more frequently, often looking on with a troubled frown as Ravenna worked. Sometimes Ravenna didn’t know she was there, not until Imelda made her presence known. And then Ravenna would accept the odd cup of herbal-infused water or plate of sugared fruit with a grateful smile.
“I’ve never not known what to do before,” Ravenna whispered, staring vacantly ahead of her, the stones blurred and out of focus. “What if there isn’t a way?”
Imelda stared down at her pensively. “It’s late.”
Ravenna nodded to herself. So it was. She had failed. She was the capable one, the one everyone turned to for answers and a firm hand. It seemed incredible that she would be bested by blocks of stone. Saturnino’s voice pierced her thoughts, low and dangerously seductive:My family would not hesitate to kill you for your treachery.Ravenna had no doubt that was true.
“Signorina,” Imelda said.
Ravenna blinked at Imelda’s extended palm. She accepted it, getting to her feet on sore, wobbly legs. Ombretta curled around her legs, her slitted gaze intent on Ravenna, who gave her a weary smile. Now she was her little shadow. The guards stationed at the door gave her a brisk nod before disappearing inside. Part of their job was to tally her progress, write up a report, and hand it to Saturnino upon his return.
He had her thoroughly cornered.
Ravenna and Imelda went down the long corridor, and as they passed the fork in the path she thought of the grotto, imagining the water’s sweep over her head as she scrubbed away the sweat and toil, her fears, all of it out and away from her.
