Page 35 of She Who Was Once the Sea

I raised an eyebrow. "It doesn’t seem strange to you? That he claims to have been so in love, but he can’t remember the name of the woman?"

His lips pulled down into a deep frown. "I don’t think he’s lying, if that’s what you’re implying."

"Don’t be naïve, Garrett." My stomach flipped as I said his name, but I tried my best to ignore it.

"It’s not naïveté, Marella." The sensation in my belly grew stronger when he spoke my name. "You weren’t there. You didn’t see his face. Whoever she was, he definitely loved that woman."

"Men are great liars. It’s one of the few things I’ve learned for certain over the centuries."

"Do you think I’m lying to you?" His blond hair fell across his eyes as he looked up at me through his thick eyelashes.

I almost choked. "I think you’re too afraid of me to lie to me," I answered, standing up and walking across the room as an excuse to break his heavy eye contact.

The sound of his low laughter followed me as I moved towards the window and looked down towards the piazza.

Towards my family.

Watching as herds of people surrounded them from all sides, snapping pictures and tossing coins into the water at their feet.

"I just find it hard to believe that one of my sisters would have had an affair with a human—with a Fratelli, nonetheless, and that I wouldn’t have known about it."

"Do you keep tabs on your entire family every time you wake up? It seems like you’re alone most of the time."

"No, I guess—"

"And are you sure it was one of your sisters?" he asked. "Was your family the only one still here when the curse fell?"

It was my turn to frown. "No," I said quietly. "Honestly, we had no way of knowing. We had been trying to evacuate everyone for a long time before… it happened. But I know that there were stragglers. I’ve run into a few over the years."

"Tell me again why you didn’t leave." The sudden proximity of his voice made me flinch. His footsteps had become so light that I hadn’t heard him walk across the room to where I stood. "Sorry," he said, more quietly this time. "Did I scare you?"

I felt his breath against my neck as he spoke, low and quiet, and when I whipped my head around to look at him, I saw that he was following my gaze, staring intently at my family’s prison.

Even I wasn’t fooled by the sardonic laugh that broke from my lips. "There’s nothing scary about you." I meant for it to sound dismissive, maybe even a little sarcastic. But instead, it came out breathy and soft.

He pulled his attention away from the piazza to look down at me. We were nearly the same height, but somehow, those eyes found a way to tower over me.

We stayed like that for a long time, held in suspended animation, both of us refusing to break eye contact. I could feel my heartbeat in my throat. Could see his pulse at the spot on his neck where I’d bitten him the night before. Just as I was about to lean forward and erase the space between us entirely, he turned his head to the side and stepped away, shattering the tension like crystalline glass.

"I should get to the library." I didn’t miss the way his throat caught on the words. He coughed once. "Lucas is probably waiting for me to start our research."

I still hadn’t moved. "Do you want my help?"

A beat.

And then, "No. I don’t think you should meet him just yet."

It was clear that this was code for I don’t trust you around my brothers. But I wasn’t going to fight him.

"Fine." I ran my fingers through my short, dark hair so that the ends stuck out around my ears like little spikes. "Then I’ll go looking for her."

As had been my experience throughout my time in this city, searching for the Stone Witch proved to be an impossible and frustrating task. The lair my mother had found was burned into my memory, but I’d never be able to find it aboveground. Even if I were able to access the network of canals beneath the city, swimming through them on legs would be nearly impossible; I’d likely drown before I so much as caught a glimpse of her.

She would not be found unless she wanted to be found.

So the question became, how could I make her want to find me?

I wandered aimlessly through Rossaia, tracing my fingers across the sun-bleached stone walls lining the city’s claustrophobic streets. Hundreds of people moved around me like schools of fish, but not one of them seemed to notice me. None of them recognized the shark in their midst.