She released me and stepped back, clapping her hands once, and a host of black-robed priests emerged from doorways.
“You need to be gone before dawn. I will have one of my boats take you back to the city. My wards will recognize you on the way out, but don’t ever come back here uninvited again, not even to save a life.”
She paused, then inclined her head the barest fraction toward me.
“I hope you succeed.” She gave me a sad smile. “Truly. It would be… refreshing to watch them fall after all this time.”
The boat was sleek,its hull painted a black deep enough to swallow the starlight. An acolyte—lacking the tattoo around his throat—poled us away from Emilia’s island with practiced ease, then turned the motor over once we hit deeper water.
Nico and Dante kept me sandwiched between them on the narrow bench, wrapped in a blanket that smelled strongly of incense. Not that it helped when I reeked oflagoon. Not when I was so cold, I doubted I’d ever be warm again.
Not when I still heard the Underworld calling me home, that dark veil parting to welcome me inside.
No. That was ridiculous.
I was alive. I was here.
I just had to believe it hard enough.
“How do you feel?” Dante asked again, tugging the blanket higher. He’d been fussing with it ever since we’d left the island.
Nico rolled his eyes.
“I’m fine, just cold. I just…” I scanned the lagoon stretching out in all directions and shuddered. “I just want to get off this water.”
“If either of us had any magic left, we would have flown you back to the city,” Dante apologized, pulling me into him. “Anything… still hurting?” he pressed, touching the tender spot on the back of my skull, then lifting my arm to inspect the pink mark on my wrist, where I had the vaguest memory of wire sawing through tendon and muscle as I thrashed underwater.
“Everything,” I admitted, feeling like I no longer fit properly inside my own skin. “But mostly my pride. Gods, I was a fool. I shouldn’t have gone there alone. I shouldn’t have gone at all.”
He winced. “I should have come home faster. Or never left at all.”
“This wasn’t your fault.” I reached out to wrap my fingers around his forearm, instantly regretting it when he hissed, his skin marked by angry, open wounds. Nico wasn’t any better; his skin burned and blistered through the tattered fabric of his clothing.
“I was reckless. Impulsive. And I knew better.” Mymouth twisted. “Uncle Gio always played the long game; he probably saw me coming from a mile away.”
“Did you two… fight?” Dante’s calm tone was edged with the kind of rage that settled deep into bones, that brought down empires.
“I was hit from behind. But I know it was him,” I whispered, watching his knuckles turn white as he clenched his hands, murder written on his face. There had to be something wrong with me because his rage made me feel protected. He made me feel safe. And he made me feel loved.
“He’ll regret tonight,” Nico cut in. “He’s put himself at the top of a very short list of mine.”
My lips twitched. “I didn’t even know you could write, Nico. Now, I find out you have a list. Impressive.” I desperately needed some normalcy right now. Something to light up this darkness that seemed to stretch out all around me.
“It’s a long list, actually,” Nico muttered defensively. “I might not have gone to all the fancy schools, but I’m quite good at writing, thank you very much, principessa.”
“Emilia knows,” I breathed, shooting a look at the silent priest commandeering our boat. “About everything. I don’t like that.”
“Nothing we can do about that now,” Dante turned his gaze away from the city, “We’ll need strong allies. Especially once the tide goes out and Gio finds you gone.”
“There’s no explaining away a missing body,” I leaned into Dante, shivering, weighed down by this mistake I couldn’t take back. “He’s going to know I’m alive. He’ll come after us.”
“Not if he thinks your body was carried away by the turn of the tides.” Nico stared out across the water. “Not if you stay hidden and give him no reason to believe you’re alive.”
I looked between them. “There is no way a body just…disappears.”
“I ripped out an intake grate and the stone around it.” Dante rubbed my hand between his. “Opened the entire basement up to the canal, and tonight’s tide was anacqua alta.When the tide goes out, that’s all he’ll see. A hole, instead of the place where he chained you up.”
For a minute, I mulled this over, weighing the chances that Giovanni DiRavello—master manipulator with overdeveloped paranoia and deep-seated trust issues—might actually believe I’d been sucked out to sea.
