Come to think of it, wouldn’t my father have told me? He has to know, right? After all, even if he and Daya lived only a handful of months together, surely they discussed this, right? Could the Crows not be aware of this connection?
Unless . . . unless it isn’t true! “Was Meriam the one to supply you with this information?”
Dante’s eyes narrow. “I’d heard it from other mouths before Rossi made me aware of it.”
“Rossi?”
“Justus Rossi. Your grandfather.”
I roll my eyes. How dippy does he think his slumber spell made me? “That man is not my grandfather.”
“Interesting.”
“What is?”
“That you’d consider Ceres and Agrippina kin, but not Justus.”
“I don’t see how that’s interesting. Or relevant. Or even new information.”
Back in the day, back when Dante and I were friends, back before he’d sailed off to Glace, he and I had had many conversations. Have they slipped his mind or did they just never register? I cast these thoughts away because what do they matter.
“So how did Justus come by this information? He wasn’t alive when Meriam raised the wards, so he mustn’t have learned it from Shabbins.”
Dante watches me, waiting for me to connect the dots.
Justus used blood magic to get us into these tunnels.
Which means . . . I gasp. “Nonna is Shabbin?”
An air of smugness drapes over Dante’s face. “Not the nonna you’re thinking of.”
I blink so many times and so fast that my lashes wallop my cheekbones. “Justus is married to Meriam?”
When Dante nods, all the blood deserts my extremities and I shudder.
“After he swam back to Isolacuori and transported Meriam out of the dungeon to—” He stops talking so abruptly that it jostles my pulse.
“To . . .?” I prompt him, hoping he’ll let slide where in Luce we are. Beneath Lore’s mountain? Beneath Tarecuori?
Dante dips his chin. “Come to think of it, his marriage to Meriam makes him even more of a grandfather now.”
Even though I’m aware he’s skirting my question, I cannot help but growl, “That man willneverbe my grandfather; the same way I will never consider that malign witch family.”
The same way I will never call you Husband.I don’t utter this out loud because my molars have wedged themselves together, but I must transmit the sentiment loudly and clearly because Dante’s easygoing air morphs into a hardened mien.
He turns and starts back down the tunnel, the jewels in his long brown braids clinking like his spurs.
Where the room we left behind rose to incredible heights, the ceiling here is so low that it just about grazes the top of Dante’s head and presses against my skin and airway, thinning the oxygen around me. However fast and hard I breathe, I cannot seem to get enough air into my lungs.
“Dante, wait!”
He doesn’t.
“I’ve a bargain for you!” I call from where I stand stubbornly still, Faerie soldiers breathing down my neck.
He snorts. “Bargains don’t adhere to your skin.”
Merda.I forgot he knew that.
