How strange to feel so altered yet look so ordinary.
“I will release you from your paralysis now.” Her speech slows. “Remember to act . . . as though my unbinding spell . . . has failed.” No wonder Meriam is spent. Most of her blood is currently out of her body. “And, Fallon, darling . . . remember to keep loathing me.”
Acting magicless should be a cinch. After all, I don’t know the first thing about sketching sigils. Acting like I loathe the woman who was used by a vicious man and misunderstood by all others . . . now that will be a feat.
The devil on my shoulder tiptoes nearer to my ear and susurrates:What if all she fed you were lies? It wouldn’t be the first time the gullible girl that you are fell for untruths.
Though I mentally flick the devil off my shoulder and smother him beneath my boot for good measure, his words linger . . . fester. I will not rush into pinning Meriam to my family tree, but doesn’t my fellow convict deserve the benefit of the doubt? After all, wouldn’t forging me into a weapon be illogical if she wanted me weak?
A tiny whisper gusts from beneath the sole of my shoe:What if she’s forged you intoherweapon?
Instead of flattening my boot some more, I shift on it, allowing the devil to rise back to my shoulder, for I prefer to be guided by the devil I know than the ones surrounding me.
Twelve
Meriam scrapes her cool thumb across my lips before slashing it through the intricate pattern on my chest. With a shake of her head, she looses an exasperated growl.
“What?” Dante’s posture hardens until his shoulders are so square, they jut out at harsh angles from the gold plastron. “What happened?”
Meriam flattens her lips. “We forgot to factor in that it was still summer and that dawn rises early.” She lifts a trembling hand to her head and knuckles her perspiration-glossed forehead. “Next month, I will need to start the unraveling the very minute the moon illumines the sky.”
As she speaks, the invisible bindings of her magic peel away from my skin. Though she’s given me no wings to spread, I feel as though I’m emerging from a cocoon, equipped to soar.
“We?” Dante’s eyes bulge. “Do not place the blame on me, strega! If we’re confined underground an extra fortnight, it’s becauseyoufailed.” Like a child throwing a tantrum, Dante wallops her gold throne with his sword. The only thing he achieves, besides displaying his high temper, is fracturing his obsidian blade.
A smile worms itself across my mouth, but I banish it before anyone can see it and drop my gaze to the ground. On its way, it hits the crimson whorls, and I shudder. Using the remains of my tattered shirt, I wipe at the gory mess until the fabric is as reddened as the band binding my breasts. My stomach rolls again, and this time, I retch. Nothing but bile bastes my palate, and Gods does it burn.
Another wave of nausea surges through me, and I hinge at the waist, splashing the vault’s floor with the measly contents of my stomach. “Can someone—wash away—the blood?”
Although not the only water-Fae in attendance, Justus Rossi is the one to oblige me. He circles my body, glittering palms already held aloft. As he hoses me down, his gaze scrolls over every millimeter of my face. Is he friend or foe? Meriam didn’t actually say.
Not that you can trust her, murmurs my trusty devil. I do wonder whether he’s aware that the blood he washes off me stoked my magic. As he raises the spray to my face, I shut my eyes and seal my lips, feeling the lingering heat of Meriam’s spell stream off me in rivulets.
“Rossi, have the smith who made this ridiculous sword tossed into Filiaserpens and command Tavo to find one capable of fashioning weapons worthy of the fucking Lucin Crown.” Dante tosses his crumbled sword at a white marble bust, clipping off the point of the model’s ear.
My heart twinges, because the ruined whorl makes me think of Mamma’s ear, the one Justus chopped off with an iron blade to punish her for having me out of wedlock. Does he regret it now that he knows that I do not belong to Agrippina Rossi?
“Serpent-charmer, back in your cage!”
My gaze vaults off the broken bust and lands on Dante. If anyone deserves to be locked in a cage, it’s him.
“No cage. I’ll behave. I s—” I almost speak an oath before remembering that, now that I am unbound, it will adhere to the bargainee’s skin.
Dante lets out an ugly laugh. “You? Behave?”
“Maezza, if I may make a suggestion?” Justus’s query stops Dante at the vault’s door.
Is it foolish of me to pray that Justus will back me up? If he did, though, that would answer the question of his allegiance. How wild would it be if Justus Rossi were working with us instead of against us? Of course, that would beg the question of why, and since when?
“Let the smith live.”
So much for hoping Justus Rossi had a conscience . . .
“He’s working on a foolproof design that interlocks the obsidian into the iron—”
“Are you calling me a fool, Rossi?” Dante’s soft delivery spears the air.
Oh, how the nerves at Justus’s temples jump. “Of course not, Maezza.”
