He was hurt first,I repeat.
When I look back at the lifeless serpent, my heart aches less. In truth, my heart ached less since the moment I realized it wasn’t Minimus.
Selfish.
I’m so selfish.
The healer clasps a fire-red crystal and hovers his palm over Dante’s back until the dark-bronze skin of my prince begins to steam and seal. Once healed, the enormous male bows to Dante. On his way back to his vessel, his gaze strays to me, lingers.
Is he looking for fodder to hand Justus Rossi? Something that may incriminate me?
I tear my eyes away from his before he can spot anything and stare at the jewel of Luce—the Regio’s glass and marble castle ringed by limpid canals and golden bridges that sits upon its own island.Isolacuori.The beating heart of our kingdom.
“Phoebus.” Dante nods to my friend, blood-stained fingers curling into his palms. “Take Fal away from here.”
Phoebus’s arm glides around my waist. “It was my intent.” As we make our way back through the famished mob, Phoebus sighs long and deep, before kissing the crown of my head. “Your heart is going to get us into so much trouble someday.”
“Us?” I raise my prickling eyes.
“Yes.Us.You, me, and Syb. For better or for worse. For the rest of our very long lives. Remember? We took an oath and swapped blood.”
Gods, I love this boy. I wind my arm around his waist and squeeze him. Once we’ve broken free of the crowd, I say, “Nonna was wrong.”
“About?”
“About the channel-crossing changing Dante. It didn’t render him boastful. If anything, he seemed repentant, which cements my belief that power doesn’t alterallmen.”
Five
The days pass with no more serpent killings. With no more Dante, either. Hopefully, it’s Marco’s looming betrothal and other stately duties that are keeping my prince away, and not amorous trysts.
The memory of Catriona’s fingers running over his dark skin plays on a depressing loop inside my mind whenever I’m not busy enough, which prompts me to keep verybusy. When not working or helping Nonna accomplish tasks around the house, I lose myself in books.
Reading was one of my mother’s favorite pastimes, and perhaps because of this, it’s become one of mine. But instead of reading stories to myself, I read them out loud to my mother.
“And they lived together, happy, wild, and free.” I close the leather-bound tale of the two Fae from warring kingdoms, who overcame their differences and set aside their beliefs to be together.
The pages are worn thin from how often I’ve thumbed through them, the silk thread binding the pages of the cover unraveling at the bottom. According to Nonna,A Tale of Two Kingdomswas Mamma’s most cherished book. I don’t know if that’s true because she never shows emotion, but it’s definitely become mine.
“This one again?” Nonna always scoffs when she walks into the bedroom during story time. “Of course it’d also be your favorite.”
Nonna says I’m a dreamer, but if I don’t dream, then what am I left with? A mother who gave her body to an unworthy man, and a grandmother who gave her heart to a punitive one? Reality is too heartbreaking. At least, I have Syb’s parents. Their love is a thing of beauty.
Syb gives me such grief for my romantic obsession and claims I have unrealistic expectations. Ironic coming from a girl whose family life is a dream come true, but those who have it all are often oblivious to their luck.
“Bronwen watches.” The whisper leaves Mamma’s lips just as I slot the book on her little shelf, beside a smooth rock with a carving of a V.
“Who’s Bronwen, Mamma?”
Running my thumb over the grooves in the rock, I approach the window and stare out over the brown canal that glitters gold in the setting sun. My thumb freezes because someone stands in our line of sight, beneath the weeping branches of a cypress—a woman with a turban and a dress as black as the shadows engulfing her.
Could it be the same lady I spotted from the wharf a few nights ago?
Her build is the same. Her clothes, too. I squint to make out her features in the darkness, but a gondola glides beneath my window, arresting my attention. I feel the eyes of the men on the boat swivel up to my face, hear one ask if I’ll be at theBottom of the Jugtonight because he, apparently, will.
I want to blow their boat away.
By the time they’re out of sight, so is the woman.
