“Is she in trouble?” Nico asked, then, more sharply, “How much trouble, Dante?Fucking talk to me.”
“I… think she’s somewhere under the palazzo, beneath the waterline.” The image that popped into my head lodged under my ribs like a knife. “And it’s high tide,” I rasped, rubbing the knot closing off my air. “We’re close to the turn. The canals are already swollen.”
“The basement… of the palazzo…fuck.” Nico swore softly. “Why would you think that?”
“Because after you left, she confided that might be where her uncle hid the stolen documents.” I paced to the edge of the roof, trembling, heart racing wildly, “I’m going to get her, bring her back.”
“Ember… she can’t swim, Dante.” Nico’s nostrils flared, “She told me before the wedding on the boat when we…” he shook his head. “Never mind. She can’t fucking swim.”
“You can come or stay, I don’t give a fuck.” I turned, and Nico grasped the back of my jacket and dragged me back.
“You charge in there like a bull, and you’re dead. If Giovanni doesn’t kill you outright, he’ll order the Draconi guards to, and you won’t be able to help her.”
My hands curled into fists. “Then take me there,” I panted, chest heaving. “You’re keyed in for security. You can dematerialize past their wards.”
Nico hopped onto the roof. “Take my arm.” I crossed the distance in three strides and gripped his forearm, eyes fixed on our destination, reaching, reaching down that long, empty bond between me and my wife.
“I’ll shield you from the Draconi protections around the palazzo. I can get you close, and with luck, Giovanni won’t even know we’re there. Hold on,” he warned, and the world dropped away.
We reformed on rough stone beside the swollen canal, and I staggered, boots scraping against the edge before Nico caught the back of my coat and hauled me back. The palazzo loomed above us, reflected all around us.
The canal overran the edges of the Fondamenta, water lapping hungrily at the stone in small, greedy waves.
High tide—and then some.
Nico swore under his breath. “If she went into the basement…”
“She did. I fucking know she did.” The bond was completely dark now, nothing but a void. I peeled off my coat, yanked off my boots, stripped off my weapons, anything that would weigh me down.
“The basement’s warded by some old ass magic.” Nico’s pale eyes danced between my face and the canal. “Had to do a thorough inspection before Gabriel’s wedding, part of standard security protocol.”
For one second, my eyes flicked to those heavy wooden doors, debating. We could break in, cut through the house. Find the kitchens, this storage room, then the steps to the lower levels, but that would take time, and every second was precious.
“Dante, you should…” Nico warned.
I dove.
Water closed over my head in a freezing rush, heavy and suffocating. The cold punched the air from my lungs for a heartbeat before I kicked hard, letting instinct guide me now that the bond had gone dark.
The hazy world below the surface was another universeentirely, where the palazzo’s foundation was a wall of ancient wooden pilings and softened stone, algae clinging to every surface. The weak moonlight from above was swallowed by murk until everything was a dim blur of shape and shadow.
But I didn’t need to see.
The bond grew colder the deeper I went, but I’d fed recently, so I sensed her on the other side of this wall. I angled my body, threading between two thick pilings, fingers brushing nothing but rough stone, and then…
Cold metal.
A thick-barred grate set into the foundation. Water rushed through in a steady, forceful stream, dragging at my clothes, my hair.
She was right here.So close I could almost smell her.
I planted my feet against the stone, wrapped both hands around two of the bars, and yanked. With a grinding shriek, the iron gave way. One bar tore free, a jagged and twisted mess, then the next, ripped out of the stone itself. Another.
This was taking too fucking long.
Punching my fists into the wall around the grate, I pulverized ancient sandstone, clouding the water with blow after blow and opening up a hole. I forced my shoulders through, rough edges scraping skin raw as I let the water suck me down into complete and utter darkness.
My lungs burned, I couldn’t see a thing as I was dragged through a chute of some kind, blind and starving for air, then spat out into an open room, and there… movement, illuminated by the vague flicker of golden light on the surface of the water.
