“Huh . . . so your aunt speaks Shabbin,” the sneering version of Dante says as he flicks his gaze toward the sleigh.
I’m momentarily distracted from my rage by the glint of an amber iris. And, come to think of it, the man’s inflection. Is Meriam’s spell fading, or did she not alter their eye color and voices on purpose? Though I wish to forget the night I was taken into the tunnels, I clearly remember that the soldier Justus had shaped into Nonna had called out to me in her voice.
“Meriam?” Bronwen hollers.
I banish the memory of my first kidnapping and concentrate on the latest one. “Meriam’s currentlyout of order, Bronwen.”
My grandmother’s head hangs sideways, marbled lids closed, and long auburn lashes resting like wings against her colorless cheeks. Tracks of blood fork down her barely-moving chest and bead along the arm of her throne. Though I’m back to hating her, I cannot help but grit my jaw when I catch sight of the ruby puddle in her lap.Heartless demons.
“Those brutes ripped her open and bled—” Something sharp bites into my knee, and I hiss.
“How proficient you are at languages, Fal.” Real-Dante holds my Glacin dagger, the diamond snowflake glittering blue in the cold sunlight that penetrates the ice. “Barely unbound yet already fluent in Shabbin.” He moves the dagger up my leg, and though he doesn’t carve through the leather, the steel point prods my thigh. “You’ll never cease to astound me.”
“And you, me. In all my wildest imaginings, I didn’t imagine you’d actually tuck your tail between your legs and desert the kingdom you so desire.”
His fingers flex around the dagger. This time, he doesn’t tease my trousers, he tears right through them, and subsequently, through my skin.
I don’t wince. “I mean, I know you fear Lore—”
“I didn’t run because I feared your little bird king,” he all but growls. “I ran in order to lay a trap. And look . . .” His scowl morphs into a crazed grin. “You flew right into it.”
“It was so fucking easy,” Tavo adds. “Almost too easy. Dante, here, could hardly believe how quickly you all went down. In all honesty, I was rather stunned myself. But, admittedly, our little plan of changing our appearance”—he gestures between the many versions of Dante—“was brilliant.”
“Myplan.” Dante’s hubris shuts Tavo’s mouth for a full, pleasant minute, but then the redhead’s mood lifts, and he beams.
“Yourplan, but who learned the symbol?” He jabs both his thumbs toward himself. “I caught Meriam drawing it on herself when we were sailing across the ocean. I knocked her out and used her bleeding finger to reproduce the mark on my hand. You should’ve seen Dante’s face when I entered his cabin.”
My eyebrows tip with a frown. So this wasn’t Meriam’s scheme?
“You idiot took Rossi’s face.” Dante shakes his head, which makes the jewels in his long braids clink like a door chime.
“Yes, yes. But that’s who I had on my mind at the time. Thank the Cauldron the sigil didn’t alter my voice or eyes, or I would’ve been down a head.”
I’m tempted to smile because, if he’d spied on Meriam a moment longer, he may have learned the complete sigil. “Though I love nothing more than to hear men boast, I have to wonder, what’s the next step in your brilliant plan?” I press my fingertips against the ice, wait until they adhere before snapping them upward. I run my thumb over them. The pads are slick, but I cannot tell if it’s with water or blood, and glancing at them would draw my enemies’ stares, so I resort to sketching my favorite symbol—the key.
“We were waiting for you to wake before heading back to Luce.” Real-Dante looks at Tavo-Dante.
“I suggested getting it over with while you were asleep, but Dante wanted you to feel it.”
“Feel what?” I press my hand against the symbol and wait with bated breath for my palm to penetrate the ice, but it doesn’t.Merda.
Real-Dante glides the knife farther up my thigh, slicing through more of my trousers and flesh. Though the seam of blood burns, I refrain from making a single sound. Even my breathing stays cadenced and easy. Where some would see torture, the silver lining enthusiast in me sees access to a limitless well of magic.
“What is it you want me to feel, Dante?”
He tows the dagger up to his face and twirls it, watching my blood ooze along the iron with an emotion akin to awe. “Your mate snuff out your life.” He lowers the dagger, a spiteful smile sculpting his cheeks. “Apparently, if he kills Mara’s progeny—anyone of them—he loses his humanity.”
My heart stops. Starts. Stops. “How did you come across this information?” My pitch remains steady even though everything inside of me convulses.
“Soldati Lastra heard you and Justus chat.”
“He understood Shabbin?”
“No. But you didn’t only talk in the sorceresses’ tongue, now did you?”
Fuck. We hadn’t. But Justus always painted a silence sigil. Had he gotten it wrong?
“Anyway, we learned many a useful tidbit while eavesdropping. The most surprising one being that my brother was, in fact, my half-brother. I’m not even certainMarcowas aware of this.”
