“Come here. Come to me and it won’t hurt anymore.” His voice was almost tender.
In the circle Alessandro was screaming.
I needed one more. I almost had him. I turned, trying to crawl away.
The serpent swarm engulfed me. This time I couldn’t escape into the darkness. They wrapped around me, biting, striking, pulling me to Benedict, as my power wound around their bodies. It hurt. It hurt worse than anything I’d ever felt. The agony pierced my mind again and again.
I crawled forward, striking small lines along the boundary with every move of my hand.
In the circle Benedict crouched, waiting for me. “That’s it, you’re almost there. A little more. I want more. I need more.”
I collapsed a foot from his circle. He reached for me, pulling me up to my feet, and as he dragged me upright, I struck the last line, long and sharp against the boundary of the larger ring.
Benedict pulled me to him, hugging me to his chest, his eyes insane, the pupils tiny specks of black in the pale blue irises. The serpents wrapped around us, shredding my wings. My feathers bled.
“Mine,” Benedict said. “Mine . . .”
“Hit him now!” I barked.
Magic detonated around Alessandro. The lines of the larger circle flashed with orange. The outer boundary cracked along the faults I had added. The circle exploded, melting into nothing.
A single gunshot cracked. A bright red dot blossomed between Benedict’s eyes. His deadweight hit me. I dropped him, and then Alessandro caught me, my Beretta smoking in his hand.
“You’re crazy,” he snarled, and kissed me.
The cupola above us groaned, tilted, and was lifted up, like the lid off a jar. Arabella peered down into the room and saw us hugging, me draped over a nude Alessandro with dead Benedict at our feet.
Silence reigned.
My sister opened her nightmarish mouth and laughed.
I walked up the iron steps to Alessandro’s lair. Shadow bounded ahead of me, no doubt expecting a treat.
Three days had passed since we raided the lab. I slept for two of them. I had dim memories of being moved and Alessandro sitting next to me, but I couldn’t tell if it had been real or wishful thinking.
Today was the first day I was up and moving around. While I slept, the rest of the wall near my former room had collapsed. The warehouse resembled a crushed shoebox, with one side still up, and the opposite wall in shambles. We had to move into the nearest building while we figured out what to do. At least we managed to save the servers.
Runa did rescue her sister. I met Halle this morning. She was just like her sister and her brother. Ragnar wouldn’t stop touching her to reassure himself that she was really alive, and she finally told him to knock it off or else.
Linus left a cryptic email for me, consisting of exactly two sentences: “One down, four to go. To be continued.” I assumed it meant the National Assembly wouldn’t be coming for our heads.
Nevada would be on her way home in four days.
Ahead, Shadow barked.
I climbed the last of the steps and walked into the old fire station rec room. Alessandro turned and my world stopped.
“Hey,” I said. An intelligent human being, that’s me.
“Hey,” he said.
So far this conversation was going splendidly.
It dawned on me that the folding tables in the middle of the room were gone and so were all his weapons. Two suitcases and a duffel bag waited in the corner.
“You’re leaving,” I said.
“I have to go.”
He said something else, but I couldn’t hear it over the sound of my heart breaking.
Embarrassment flooded me in a hot rush. I was an idiot. I loved him, so I thought he loved me and wanted to be with me, and he had never considered it. The job was over, and he was leaving.
He was leaving.
I had this whole speech planned. I was going to tell him that I loved him, but I could never join him in Italy. I planned to explain that a fling with him wouldn’t be enough for me, that I knew it was presumptuous because we hadn’t even gone on a date, but I’d made a deal with my grandmother and I had responsibilities to my House. I wanted to tell him that I would help him break free of whatever forced him to do what he was doing now no matter how he felt about me. I wanted to get it all out in the open, so if he wanted to try to be with me, he would know everything before we even started.
I had built a fantasy in my head again, and the sight of his packed suitcases shattered it. He wasn’t even thinking about introducing me to his family or taking me with him. If he had, I couldn’t, but I still thought . . . I wanted . . .
I was a moron.
“Catalina?” he asked.
I forced myself to look up and meet his eyes. “Are you going back to Italy to your family?” My voice didn’t shake. It was a small miracle.
“No,” he said.
“Too bad. I’m sure you must miss them.” The words came out on autopilot. I was babbling but it was better than crying. “If they are ever in the States, I would be happy to meet them.”
He crossed the floor and put his hands on my shoulders. “I’ll never take you to meet my family. They wouldn’t understand. They don’t deserve it.”
Of course. Who was I to meet House Sagredo?
“I have to go,” he said.
He looked like he was about to kiss me. I waited for another breath, but he didn’t move.
“Let me help you, Alessandro.” The words escaped before I caught them.
Alessandro let go of my shoulders and stepped back. “You can’t.”
“Are you coming back?” Tell me you’re coming back. Tell me you’ll move mountains to get back here to me and I’ll wait for you, no matter how long it takes.
“I won’t lie to you.”
And just like that it was over. I turned around and walked down the stairs, out of the building and all the way back to our makeshift house.
He did not come after me.
Arabella stepped out of the doorway and saw my face. “What happened?”
“He’s leaving.”
“What? He can’t leave! You fed him the pepper! You joked. You were happy!” She spun toward the fire station. “I’ll make him stay. I’ll bring him back here . . .”
I held up my hand. “No. I don’t want anyone to force him. It’s for the best.”
“Catalina!”
“It’s for the best,” I repeated, my voice wooden.
She hugged me and we walked into the house together.
Epilogue
He sat on the roof and watched her through the window. She was trying to cook with a hot plate and utensils she’d salvaged from her ruined kitchen. That was just like her. Instead of buying a new pan and knife set, she had dug in the rubble and fished them out. They meant something to her. She never left things she cared about behind. Or people, no matter what it cost her.
The look on her face when he said he was leaving nearly broke him. He thought of walking away from it right then and there. He’d almost kissed her, but if he had, he couldn’t have torn himself away. But he didn’t leave things unfinished and he’d sunk too much of his life into this hunt to abandon it now.
A soft chime sounded in his headset.
“Go ahead,” he murmured in Italian.