“Did he hurt you?” Her fingers are balled into such tight fists that her knuckles protrude.
“No, Nonna.”
A little voice in the back of my mind adds,Not yet. I don’t let that bout of insecurity escape. Nonna is anxious enough.
I finally climb back to my feet and turn my attention toward the window, toward the white army tents gilded by the setting sun and the neat row of military vessels bobbing along the narrow island.
Silvius’s boat is empty, but does that mean he’s stopped watching me?
“Justus is accompanying the king to Tarespagia for more betrothal festivities, so my hearing will resume next week upon their return.” I turn back toward Nonna, whose eyes hold a faraway gleam, as though she’s back at court, back in Justus’s household, back in a time and place where my mother’s ears were as sharp as her mind, where I didn’t exist. “Do you think he truly wants peace, Nonna, or do you think he’s trying to squeeze a confession out of me?”
Nonna blinks back to the present, to our little blue house in Tarelexo that has kept us safe until now.
“The Regios abhor animals almost as much as they detest humans, so do not confess to anything. And, Fallon, you never go to the court without me again, you hear? Never.”
I make her the promise even though I won’t keep it. I cannot. Because the only reason I have to return to Isolacuori is to gather the crow, and I refuse to involve Nonna.
Thirty-Five
As Nonna returns to the kitchen to dispose of the broken mug and start on dinner, I head toward my bedroom. My heart jolts as I reach my door, as Mamma’s words clatter inside my mind.
Fallon. Leave.
The crow must’ve fled while I was away! That’s why she was urging me to leave.
I shove the door open so fast, I fall into my bedroom, managing to stay upright only thanks to my death grip on the handle. Although the light is thin, made thinner by the setting sun and my drawn curtains, everything is in sharp focus—the armoire, the desk, the vase of drooping peonies, the crow perched on my bedpost.
My theory sinks like silt, making way to both relief and foreboding. Relief, because losing a bird outfitted with iron appendages would’ve been most problematic, and foreboding, because I’m back to square one on twigging Mamma’s worrisome decree.
I close my door and lean against it, attempting to calm my runaway pulse. The crow watches me with its unnerving citrine eyes.
“I thought you were gone.” I don’t owe him an explanation, but since the bird understands me, I decide to give him one.
The creature’s head doesn’t tilt.
“My mother seems convinced that I must leave. Since she directed me to the vault, I imagine my leaving is somehow linked to you.”
Am I really pouring my mind out to this animal? What exactly am I hoping for? Advice? A directive? The vault could very well have been a fluke. After all, my mother isn’t right in the head.
What am I going on about? It was no fluke. She warned me Bronwen watched, and Bronwen was watching. She spoke of gold in the Acolti vault, and there were piles of it.
Some superior force is using my mother as its mouthpiece.
Is that superior force Bronwen herself?
WhatisBronwen?
My bedroom walls spark out of existence. My ceiling and floor, too. Suddenly, I’m peering down into a ravine. I snap my arms out and bang my knuckles against something hard—a wall of gray stone. The fingertips of my other hand spring open but meet no resistance.
I throw my weight to the side and clutch the rock even though I’m not falling.
I’m . . . I’m floating.
What the Cauldron is happening to me? My gaze slings wildly around for something . . . someone, but I’m alone in—Where am I? Monteluce?
The rush of a stream thunders beneath me.
Far,farbeneath me.
