I only remembered snippets of that day. Burning in the depths of hell. Nico dragging me away, ignoring my demands to wait for my husband, dropping me here, where I’d screamed Dante’s name. Until darkness fell and my throat bled.
After that, everything was a blur.
I remembered Nico telling me tobreathe, principessa, just breathe. Gabriel’s hand on my shoulder as he told me Dante had vanished into thin air. His promise they would find him.
But so far, they hadn’t.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to make the ache disappear.
I’d told myself our marriage wasn’t real. And then… suddenly… it was. As real as anything in my life. More real than I’d ever dreamed a marriage could be, and now it was over.
“So, you’re awake,” a familiar voice drawled from the doorway. “No sense in pretending any more, principessa. You really are a terrible actress. Good thing you were born rich and didn’t have to tread the boards for a living.”
I squeezed my eyes tighter as Nico stepped into the room. Glass clinked against wood, then Isensedhim staring down at me, probably with that worried tilt to his mouth.
“You need to feed,” he observed. “You’re white as a ghost, and frankly, you’re starting to scare me a little.”
“I’m not hungry,” I said automatically. “Go bother someone else with your annoyingly cheery personality.”
“You love my cheery personality.” A pause, then, “Emberline, look at me.”
He used my name the way Dante did when he was out of patience—with that tight edge of warning. I ignored him, turning my face further into the pillow, breathing in unfamiliar linen and Nico’s sweet, cherry scent.
“It’s been two days,” he pointed out, as if I didn’t know how many minutes had passed since I’d last seen Dante. “You need to eat so your wounds heal. You haven’t even insulted me properly. I mean… cheery personality? I’m starting to worry you’re losing your edge.”
The mattress dipped behind me as he sat on the edge of the bed.
Far enough away, he didn’t touch me.
The safehouse wards hummed faintly, as though they’d been laid down centuries ago and maintained with the bare minimum of effort. Not nearly as strong as Dante’s had been, though that hadn’t mattered, in the end.
No one will look for you here. You are safe,Nico had promised, over and over, until I almost believed him.
“We’re still searching.” Nico’s voice was low. “We haven’t given up, and you shouldn’t, either. Gabriel. The Brotherhood. We’ve scoured the rubble, the canals, the islands…”
A pause. The kind that told me he was choosing his next words very carefully.
“And?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“And there are no new developments,” Nico’s tone held an edge of frustration. “The only blood they found at the scene was yours… and some of his. Spilled, clearly,afterthe explosion. Not enough to be… fatal.”
We already knew that.
I stared at the ceiling until it blurred again.
“What about the traces of magic you discovered around the crater?” I asked flatly. “You said there were signs of containment sigils. Anything familiar?”
“Spent magic is like smoke.” He shifted his weight. “But there’s always a… specific flavor left behind. A signature, of sorts.”
My stomach dropped. I opened my eyes to find him staring into the distance, eyes narrowed, lips pinched.
“Who took my husband, Nico?”
“Whoever this was,” Nico spoke carefully, “covered their trail well enough, even I cannot track them. The containmentfield means they didn’t kill him; they captured him, Ember. That is a good sign. He’s still alive.”
Warmth bloomed inside my hollowed-out chest, filling the empty place my heart used to be. Only to be replaced by a simmering rage—growing like a tangled, thorny vine, crowding everything else out.
“My uncle or Marcello?” I wondered aloud. “Which one, do you think, is behind this?”
