I frown as something dawns on me. “Antoni knows Vance. How did he not recognize him?”
“Meriam painted face.”
Is he saying that he and Meriam disguised Vance? “Do I know his real face?”
“No. I made certain paths no cross.”
“Why?”
“Because he like you”—he surveys the spiraling racks of bottles—“much impetuous.”
I’m so stunned that the heap of questions stacking on my tongue pile up like the fishing boats in the Tarelexian wharf.
Eventually, I manage to smooth out my train of thought. “Are you hiding any more little Rossis I should know about?”
“No.”
For a long moment, neither of us speak, but then the pileup of questions fluidifies, and I ask, “Earlier, when I was walking toward Dante’s chamber, I touched the tunnel walls and they trembled. Why?”
“Because chamber beneath ocean. The serpents feel you. Hopefully, they not give your location to Crows in Tarespagia.”
“Here I’m hoping they did. I know, I know . . . it’s selfish. I need to get rid of Dante to avoid Armageddon, or whatever happens to Luce if I don’t.” I mull over the prophecy for the trillionth time, parsing out each word, each syllable, each consonant. “Bronwen said that Lore would lose his humanity. Why is that?”
“Because Dante’s blood hold Meriam’s magic, and Crows cannot harm your bloodline. It was a—how you say?” He must not find the adequate phrasing because he drops his voice and finishes his sentence in Lucin, “Acaveatthat Queen Mara of Shabbe—or Mórrígan, as she’s known to the Crows—saw to when she gave humans the power to shift. A guarantee of sorts that the race she created couldn’t turn against her.”
A candle sparks to life inside my mind, casting light on all the scattered pieces of information Meriam gave me the night of my unbinding. “Lore didn’t lose his humanity when he beheaded Marco because Marco wasn’t Andrea’s true son.”
Justus nods even though it isn’t a question. “He recognized him as his heir only to placate his wife who threatened to have Andrea’s lover murdered.”
My eyes round with shock.
Justus marches over to the tunnel entrance and paints a second sigil. Since blood penetrates stone, I wonder why he adds a new one? As an additional guarantee that our conversation cannot travel down the hallway?
“Only Dante is his legitimate heir. And the sole reason Andrea even had an heir was because his wife made him ingest some Fae-made potion that confused him and made him believe she was Lazarus.”
I’m so shocked and appalled that I almost feel pity for Dante, but Dante doesn’t deserve my pity. “Does Bronwen know why the Crows cannot kill Dante?”
“Yes.”
My relief is so great that it rids me of breath.
“You asked me the other day why the blood-bind was necessary, and I promised to explain everything. I will keep speaking in Lucin, because my knowledge of the Shabbin tongue is insufficient.”
I take it that this is what prompted him to draw an additional silence spell.
He retraces his steps toward me. “The enchantment Meriam cast on the Regios created a new breed of Faeries—ones with Shabbin magic in their blood. Once she understood the gravity of what she’d done, she gave Costa the thing he desired most—a blood-bind.” Justus traces the interlocked circles that mar both his palm and Meriam’s. “It was the only way she could think to keep him in the dark about the amount of power she’d gifted him.”
“And it worked?”
“It worked. He bled Meriam for years. Toted around vials of her blood thinking it was the only way for him to spellcast. The problem was that he passed on this new power to his son Andrea, and Andrea passed it down to his son.”
Holy Crow . . . “So Dante didn’t need to marry me to blood-cast?”
“No. But now he cannot spellcast without using your blood. He’s stuck.”
“But so am I.”
“I’m sorry, Fallon, but we couldn’t risk him realizing he had magic.”
