“Perhaps not tonight.” She studies my expression. “But I’m certain you’ll be glad for it soon.”
Color rises into my cheeks, betraying my many fantasies of laying with Dante.
“Make sure whomever you choose is attentive and generous. Generous lovers are much too scarce.”
Although I don’t want to discuss sex with my grandmother, I use her advice as an opening. “I’m sure Cato—”
“I’ve had my fun.”
“Really? Justus was attentive and generous?”
The glint in her eyes snuffs out.
“I’m sorry, Nonna.”
For a long moment, we stay silent, waiting for the storm clouds I carried into our little home to roll away.
“Why did you take my ribbon? Why make me believe I wasn’t good enough for Isolacuori?”
Her moss-green eyes sear into me as she reaches over and clasps my hands. “Because I’m scared, Goccolina. I’m scared they’ll find out that you’re different. I’m scared they’ll . . .” Her voice loses all of its power.
“That they’ll try and kill me?”
“No. That they’ll try and use you, because resisting iron and salt and charming beasts makes you an unparalleled weapon.”
I smile because she’s forgetting something essential. “Except I’m a person not a thing, Nonna. I cannot be wielded against my will.”
She sets my hands back on the table and leans back in her chair. “Then make sure your will isn’t governed by your heart.”
“What’s wrong with my heart?”
“It beats for the wrong man.”
I rear back. It’smyheart. If I want to give it away to a sprite, then I’ll give it away to a damn sprite. Who is she to decide what man is right or wrong for me?
I toss away her comment and stand. “At least my heart beats, Nonna. That’s more than I can say about yours some days.”
Nineteen
Ilace up my only remaining pair of shoes—winter boots. The black leather is so at odds with my purple dress that it’s bound to raise eyebrows, but no more than walking around Luce barefoot. In truth, my footwear will probably be deemed an eccentricity, and eccentricity beats poverty.
After attempting to run a brush through the voluminous waves I acquired from sleeping on wet hair, I stop by Mamma’s room to tell her about my evening. I have no secrets from her, partly because she’s a tomb, and partly because I want her to know me inside out in case she ever awakens from her stupor.
Her eyes stay fixed on the Racoccin shoreline during my account of the eventful night. “Cold,” she murmurs.
The temperature is sweltering, made even hotter by the lack of clouds, but I pick up the folded blanket from the foot of her bed and drape it over her lap.
She shakes her head, which shakes her torso, which in turn makes the thin wool pool around her waist. “Cold.”
“That’s why I’m putting the blanket over you, Mamma.”
She becomes agitated. “Gold. Gold. Gold.”
Oh . . .gold.
Sighing, I remove the blanket, cursing myself for worrying her. “I’ll find a way to get it.”
“Acolti.” The warm breeze blowing off the canal amplifies her murmur. “Acolti. Gold.”
