Antoni sidles in front of me. “Stay behind.”
And I do, but mostly because I’m too startled by the fact that he’s trying to shield me to move. His body is torn and broken in just as many places as my own. That he can still stand upright is a miracle.
“It’s only me, you fools,” Justus mutters.
His footfalls ring anew in the corridor. “I was checking no one was left behind.”
Thank the Cauldron. As my heart rate dwindles, I dip my fingers into one of my many wounds and begin to paint.
Antoni stares around the resounding emptiness. “How long will it take them to reach Isolacuori by foot?”
“It took us almost a fortnight to arrive here from the valley,” Justus says.
My pulse flares with indignation that I was carted around, unconscious, for almost two weeks. The desire to rip this place to shreds makes me draw faster.
“You don’t think they’ll exit before then?” Antoni asks softly.
“Tarespagia is full of Crows. Monteluce belongs to Lore. So no, they won’t risk emerging until they’re back in the eastern Fae lands.”
“Once we’re out of here, the Crows can fly us to Monteluce, and we can—”
“Fallon, once we’re out of here, Lore will keep you under lock and key.” Justus sighs. “Antoni knows those tunnels well. Together—”
“I’m done, Rossi. Lore’s cause is no longer my cause. Don’t give me that look, Fal.”
Slipping my tongue over my lip to purge the taste of my disappointment, I return my gaze to the waves I’ve stopped counting.
“I’ll be leaving Luce.”
“Where will you go?” Justus asks.
“Wherever the wind steers my ship.”
I don’t try to convince Antoni to fight alongside us. In truth, it may be best he leaves.
“Should we open the rest of the doors, Rossi?” Antoni asks, staring at the handles gleaming in the dull torchlight.
“Nothing inside those rooms.”
As I adorn the ceiling with more undulating lines of blood, my mind catches on a thought. “Aoife? Where did you put her, Justus?”
“I dragged her into my mother’s bedroom. Her sister’s there, too. And so is my son.” Does Justus not speak Vance’s name because he doesn’t want Antoni to make the connection?
In the event I’m right, I keep it from my lips. “I thought the house was warded against Crows?”
“Live ones.” When my complexion turns bloodless, he adds, “I meant, not obsidian Crows.”
The ceiling begins to rumble, but I cannot tell how much of the movement is brought about by Lore’s assault on the Rossi home and how much derives from my spell. I swipe my upper lip, tasting salt. Even though I’d like to think it’s the ocean I taste, I’m aware it’s probably just sweat.
“More.” Justus must sense the ocean moving against the obsidian tunnel as well because he whispers, “Add more waves.”
So I do. I paint waves from wall to wall, drawing from every wound on my flesh until the ceiling above drips. I think it’s blood until I spy a wet plop scurrying across the back of my hand, clear as a dewdrop. I hunt the black stone for a fissure, expelling a gasp when bits of stone begin to rain down over me.
“We need to get back to—” A block of obsidian detaches itself from the ceiling and embeds itself inside the hallway floor, blocking our path back into the Rossi house. “Inside the bedchamber!” My grandfather hooks my wrist and tows me through the gaping door.
I shudder as I step over the threshold of the bedroom where Dante put his hands on me, and then I shudder again, but not from disgust. This time, my quaking comes from the floor that rattles like Minimus when pleased. “It’s working!”
Justus must’ve scrubbed at his forehead, probably to mop away the anguish I’ve glossed his brow with, because he’s visible again.
