“Don’t play coy,” he warned. “This is not a parlor game. This is life and death.”
A brooding grimace crossed his face, and the lines of age deepened into something that looked like grief.
I sat up straighter, feigning nonchalance while my heart thudded like a frantic drum. “What do you mean?”
“When you first traveled,” he said quietly, “at only a month old… your darkness was born. It was forged from your innocence, power, and first act of tearing open time.” He leaned forward, eyes piercing. “And now it’s roaming Italy, looking for you.”
I snorted, unable to suppress the sound. It was crude and unbecoming, but I couldn’t help it. “This story is preposterous.”
His glare chilled me to the bone. “Think so?”
He leaned even closer. “Your lover—Lord Balthazar—is one of the darkest of the dark.”
Despite the thick crimson mantle wrapped tight around my shoulders, a shiver coursed through me. The fire crackled quietly but did nothing to warm the sudden frost spreading through my chest.
I narrowed my eyes. “And how do you know of my association with Balthazar?”
Zampa laughed, hollow and joyless. “Child,” he said, “I make it my policy to know about Timebornes and their movements. Your dalliances with Lord Balthazar are far from private. They are… shall we say, common knowledge in certain circles. Circles to which I belong.”
I flinched, drawing my velvet cloak tighter around me. Thethought that anyone might be watching, tracking—my most intimate moments made my skin crawl.
I sat up straighter, jutting out my chin in defiance. “So, tell me, Signor,” I said with icy calm, “what do you think you know about me—or any activity I conduct in my private time?”
The drawing room fell into an oppressive silence. The fire popped once, as if in protest.
Signor Zampa’s gaze settled on me with unnerving calm, and a sly smile curved at the corners of his lips.
“I know Balthazar wants to kill you,” he said, his voice low, measured, and devastatingly clear.
My heart plummeted into my stomach.
He spoke so simply and matter-of-factly that it felt less like a warning and more like a certainty already unfolding.
I swallowed hard and forced myself to remain composed. “How do you know this?”
“I told you,” he said with a careless shrug. “I monitor Timebornes. I monitor their darknesses. It’s what I do.”
“Wait,” I said, my voice tightening as I leaned forward. “Are you saying that Balthazar is my darkness? That he came into existence the moment I was born—like some twisted shadow of me?”
Zampa let out a scoffing chuckle. “Oh, child, no. He’s far older than that. Older than you, older than this village, older than time itself. Balthazar didn’t begin with you.” He tilted his head, eyes gleaming. “But he may end with you.”
I stared at him, the ornate edges of his drawing room blurring as my mind spun in disarray. The man before me seemed ancient in his own right—a keeper of secrets, with the quiet arrogance of one who had known kings and watched dynasties crumble.
His words echoed inside me like a curse.
“Lord Balthazar will grow tired of you, my child,” Zampa said, reclining slightly. “He always grows tired of his lovers.”
An unexpected surge of jealousy stabbed through me.
Other lovers.
The thought sizzled under my skin like poison. I had always assumed he was mine and mine alone. That when he left me for days, weeks, months, it was for reasons that didn’t involve the touch of another.
But now... now I wasn’t so sure.
Was I just another fleeting flame in a long history of burning women?
Zampa seemed to sense my shift, the roiling emotions I tried to suppress. He leaned forward and gently rested a hand on my shoulder.
