Page 65 of She Who Was Once the Sea

There was no mistaking Marella’s sister. Slim and muscular, with that waterfall of shining blonde hair cascading down her back, she pushed her way through the crowd at the fountain like a rugby player, not reacting in the least when the people protested against her presence.

She looked over her shoulder just once as she crossed the square, heading towards the library, and after she’d turned her attention back to what was ahead of her, I began to follow, almost without thinking about it.

She circled around the side of the library, following a footpath that was mostly hidden by a row of trees. It was an area typically avoided by the public, as it was often used as a toilet for both animals and drunken humans alike, and it smelled like piss. But there, hidden behind a dense clump of bushes, was a door I’d never seen before. It was old, and the wood was painted to match the gray-brown pallor of the surrounding stones.

Ordina pulled a long skeleton key from her pocket, opened the door, and slipped inside, letting it close behind her. I pushed my hand between the door and its frame just in time to stop it from sealing shut, holding my breath for several seconds before following her.

It was dark, and the familiar smell of sulfur greeted me as I finally crept in behind her. Before me was a set of old stone stairs. They looked to be made of the same ancient material as the ruins beneath the library floor, and as I descended, I realized that was where we must be heading.

Down and down and down I went. I couldn’t hear Ordina’s footsteps ahead of me, but there was no other direction she could have gone. We were on a single track together, heading towards something I couldn’t see.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity wading through the dark, a light appeared ahead of me. I stumbled, not realizing that the stairs had ended and the ground had leveled out. Everything smelled like dust and sulfur and something else that I couldn’t quite place. It filled the air with a sharp tang and only grew stronger the closer I moved towards the light.

There were voices coming from around a bend in the passageway, none of which I recognized. They were speaking in what sounded like heavily accented Italian. I tried to place what little vocabulary I could understand before realizing that they weren’t speaking Italian at all, but Latin.

I was almost to the room, so close that I had to flatten myself against the wall to remain concealed by the shadows, and I only let myself breathe in quiet, shallow gasps.

The first speaker was a woman, but she sounded different from any other woman I’d heard in my life. Her voice tumbled like boulders and cracked like shale. And somehow, without even seeing her face, I knew that this was the Stone Witch.

I swallowed.

When the second voice echoed through the hall, I realized with a lurch that I did recognize it. It was thick and nasally, as if his nose was clogged and something had been shoved in his mouth, but the speaker was definitely Lucas.

And he sounded hurt.

As quietly as I could, my breath beginning to come out sharper and more desperate, I reached into my robes for my knife. My fingers wrapped around the hilt one by one as I tried to steel myself for what I had to do.

I took a single step forward into the light, pulling the knife out as I did, when something hit me from behind, and I crashed to the floor.

There, I was met by a pair of bare feet. And when I let my gaze drift up the cracked skin of her legs, past her torso and thick, sturdy neck, I was greeted by the flat, bored expression of the creature I’d only ever heard about.

"Finally," the Stone Witch droned. "The second Fratello has joined us."

I looked around the room frantically. Behind me, Ordina stood with her arms crossed and her eyes rimmed red. She looked down at me like she was apologizing for something.

Across the room, I saw Lucas. His face was swollen and red, like he’d been recently beaten. His nose was clearly broken, and he sat slumped in a stone chair, his robes tossed into a pile of clothes behind him. He looked past me, to Ordina, who refused to meet his gaze.

At first, when I didn’t see Marella, something inside me relaxed. Despite everything, all I could be was grateful to know that she was somewhere far from whatever was about to transpire.

But then, I looked more closely at the pile of clothes behind Lucas. It moved, ever so slightly, like something under the pile was breathing.

That’s when I noticed the thin line of blood pooling beneath the fabric, and my breath caught in my throat.

Chapter 30 - Marella

Everything around me sounded muffled. Voices filtered through my consciousness like they were being pulled through water. Words came too slow and then too fast, but never at a speed I could quite understand. It was as though everyone was speaking a language I’d never heard, understanding slipping away from me even as I tried to grasp it.

Everything hurt. I could feel wetness pooling beneath my scalp, but I couldn’t lift my hands to check the severity of the damage.

Then, one sound cut through the rest, a voice, angry and panicked and desperate, but here. And then there was something soft on my shoulder, beneath my neck, holding my head as if it was made of glass.

And maybe now it was.

Another arm wrapped around me, cradling my shoulders and lifting me from the hard stone floor. When I was finally able to open my eyes, all I could see was gold. The low light in the room reflected off his hair, making him look as though he wore a halo.

But his face was not magnanimous like ancient images of angels. In fact, he wasn’t looking at me at all. His teeth were bared, and his eyes were bright, and he was shouting something I still couldn’t quite grasp at someone on the other side of the room.

When that someone responded, the sound made the blood in my veins turn to ice.