Although relieved Dante will not swirl my blood on vellum, I cannot help but feel a jot of disappointment. If she’s out of sorts for a whole week, then how am I to learn my mother’s location? Could Justus know? Would he share it with me if he did?
As Justus shakes out the dress on his arm, I say, “I could stay with her. I mean, you want to lock me up anyway. May as well stuff me inside the vault. Way more secure. Plus that way, it’d free up my cage, which could come in handy if you end up with a prisoner of war.”
Justus’s eyes harden. “Letting you stay in the vault could be perilous. Meriam can be unpredictable when she awakens from one of her absences.”
“Her ass is stuck to a throne.” I tug hard on the towel, picturing myself collecting all the sticks Justus is tossing in my path and tossing them at his head. “Not to mention that if she kills me, she drops dead.”
“She may wake up disoriented and forget that your lives are bound.” Frown lines bracket his mouth as though he was sucking on a sour plum. “She may even forget that you’re her granddaughter.”
My eyebrows slant as I try to read whether he’s bluffing or speaking the truth.
“Your bruise has healed,” Dante remarks, attention on my hairline.
I pat the skin above my eye, marveling at how the lump I got the night of my kidnapping is, indeed, gone.
He shifts on his boots, which makes both his spurs and the gold beads woven into his hair clink. “How’s that possible?”
My fingers freeze along with the air in my lungs, because the only explanation is magic.
“Quite some time has passed, Your Majesty.”
“Her skin was still yellowish when I fetched her from the cellar.”
“Fine. I confess that I healed her earlier. I imagined you’d appreciate not having to look upon her leprous mien. Especially considering she’s the only female around.”
Leprous mien?I almost snort, but Justus Rossi has just saved my ass, so I will let the leper comment slide.
“How very thoughtful of you, Generali. A shame that traitor Lazarus did away with all our Lucin remedial beads.”
I blink because I clearly remember Lazarus telling me that Dante had refused to lend the Crows Shabbin crystals when I needed succoring after the poisoned arrow.
“I’m working on retrieving them, sire.”
“Well, until you succeed”—Dante grips the edge of the gauze wrapped around his hand and begins to unroll it—“I’ve a wound in need of healing. Would you mind working your magic?”
I side-eye Justus, whose aplomb doesn’t waver.
He takes a step toward me and holds out the dress. “I wouldn’t want to put blood on your gown.”
I take the garment and hold it against my chest, the prickly tulle aggravating my goosebumps. Even though I’d love nothing more than for Dante’s wound to fester and become infected, I keep my fingers crossed that Justus actually knows a sigil for healing, otherwise . . . well, otherwise we’re toast.
When the bandage drops, revealing the imprint of my teeth on the meat of his thumb, I rumple my nose. Not only does pus ooze from the puncture wounds, but the skin around the depressions is blackened as though I’d injected Dante with venom.
Granted I’d felt venomous, but now I have to wonder, am I?
Unless . . . unless the obsidian in my system caused this damage? What if the chemical Dante has been ingesting to immunize himself to iron and salt has made him allergic to the very stone from which he’s built his fortress?
Fifteen
Justus plucks a leather necklace out of his shirt, then uncorks the small vial strung onto the cord and moistens his finger with the viscous substance inside, which I assume is Meriam’s blood.
“It may burn,” he warns, proceeding to loop blood around each toothmark.
Dante doesn’t flinch. He barely seems to breathe as he concentrates on Justus’s spell.
“Do you feel anything, Maezza?”
“No.”
