No air, no air.
He pushed her backward, until she was half over the wall, nothing at her back except the wind’s cold, crooked finger, dragging her down. Ravenna couldn’t think about the immense space betweenher and the ground below. She tried not to picture how long her fall would last, if it would hurt, smacking against the stone floor. Her lungs burned between her ribs. She writhed, punching at Pietro’s arm, but it could have been made of granite, it was that immovable.
Black spots crowded the corner of her vision.
“Although…” Imelda said slowly. “I suppose His Holiness is in need of her particular talent.” She gave a long, drawn-out sigh. “Best to keep her alive, Pietro.”
He yanked her forward, loosened his grip, and backed away from her. Ravenna collapsed onto her hands and knees, gasping, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Air, she needed more air.
“You’ll receive a new set of instructions soon,” Pietro said in a voice edged in ice. “And remember tonight when death knocked on your front door.”
“This is your only warning,” Imelda said, in a singsong voice, her posture losing its stern rigidity, her hands swaying at her sides as if she were frolicking in a meadow. “I will always be watching, Ravenna.”
They left her fighting to regain her breath, and she was dimly aware of them walking to the other end of the path, that door creaking open, and their voices lowering to a hush as they disappeared into the dark. A minute passed, or it might have been an hour.
She didn’t know or care.
Ravenna stayed on the ground, eyes clenched, struggling to master the hard beating of her heart. Finally, she opened her eyes slowly, found her hands clenching the flagstone. It bit into the tips of her fingers, her palms. The dirt had gotten under her fingernails.
She straightened, somehow climbed to her feet, her long hair tangled around her face. The marble dust clung to her gown, nearly covering it fully, and for one mad moment, she thought she was a ghost. Her skirt swayed around her, the red like blood spilling down her legs. Ravenna stumbled toward the door, managed to pull it open, and inhaled before shutting it behind her, the moonlight winking out in the sudden dim of the stairwell.
Ravenna wanted out of the dress, out of the dust speckled all over her, out of Pietro’s punishing grip. She went down, one miserable step at a time, her hand dragging against the wall, helping her to keep upright. She reached the door to the map room, went through the chamber, not caring if she dragged dust and dirt onto the plush rug. Somehow, she made it to the bottom floor. Walking the length of the corridor was the hardest, but she made it to the fork in the pathway. It took only a few minutes before she heard the blessed sound of water running, until she could smell its sweetness clinging in the air like dewdrops.
The walls turned craggier and sharper as she went on, until they eventually stretched higher, curving and jagged, dripping moisture. The path split again, and Ravenna followed the sound of the rushing water, until she at last found what she was looking for.
The grotto.
She smiled in relief, eyes prickling with unshed tears, and she untied the front laces of her gown, pulling it over her head. The hose came off next, until all she had on was the thin camicia. Someone had carved steps from the rock at one end of the pool and she walked straight into the water without pause. Ravenna bent her knees, sucked in a mouthful of air, and went under its warmth.
When she resurfaced, a blur of movement in the shadows caught her eye. She turned, gasping, and too late spotted the pile of clothing at the other end of the grotto. A colorful sweep of fabric, the glint of silver from the edge of a slim sword. And sitting above it all was Ombretta, paws folded in front of her. She meowed at Ravenna, loud and insistent.
A warning come too late.
The water rippled around her as a lithe figure materialized from the dark end, his black hair touched by candlelight. He drew closer, pale, muscled arms parting the water. The air shifted, sending a ripple of alarm over her skin. Ravenna tensed.
Saturnino.
Ravenna’s stomach somersaulted as she dipped low into the water,her hair floating around her, shielding the column of her bruised throat from his gaze. Saturnino stared at her, an arm’s length away, his eyes raking over her; the wet grasp of the chemise against her skin, her slim hands edged in calluses, the terrorized expression on her face.
She retreated until her back hit the ragged stretch of stone at the water’s edge. Saturnino pressed forward slowly, eyes never leaving her face, until he was a breath away from her. Gently, he reached forward, soft fingers brushing against her collarbone, and he parted the curtain of hair, revealing her neck, splotchy and red.
He hissed under his breath. “What the hell, Ravenna?”
Capitolo Ventidue
Ravenna flinched at his tone, lowering herself deeper into the water’s warm embrace. Her camicia billowed around her bare legs. Saturnino removed his hand from her throat, the murky green of his eyes feverishly bright.
The air around him burned hot with fury. “Who did this to you?”
Her mind blanked under his intense focus on her face. She had to come up with something, anything, to keep him from guessing the truth. If anything happened to Imelda—clearly the courier’s contact—His Holiness would find out. There would be no saving Ravenna’s soul then. No saving her family.
She cursed her rattled thoughts. They were of no help to her, dwelling on the parapet under the light of the moon. Ravenna still felt the bite of the evening air on her skin, the harsh grip around her neck.
Imelda’s eerie singsong voice trilling in her ear.
Saturnino seemed to be at war with himself, his attention drifting to her throat, to the bruises marring the golden skin. His lips tightened at the corners, his shoulders a rigid line. Ravenna watched, transfixed, as he fought to keep his anger under control. Watched the way a strange bewilderment overtook his face, and she would have given anything to know what thought made him furrow his brow into a tight knot.
