“Is he… going to the mattresses?” Donatella’s face is a picture of delight, her hands clasped together under her chin. “I’ve always wanted to say that!”
“This isn’t a joke,” Luca snaps. “It’s not a Hollywood movie. We’re talking blood and death and destruction.”
She sticks her tongue out at him. “Spoilsport. And I know how serious it is, testa di cazzo.”
Donatella has just called the most dangerous man in the room a dickhead, and I see now how tired she really is. She hides it behind her giggles and her glamour, but like me, she’s been dealing with too many Calls for too long, and on top of that, she’s got the stress of Paola’s situation. Luca isn’t as forgiving, and his face darkens at the insult.
“Pack it in, both of you.” I slam my hand down on the table before he can react, and Moonface startles and lets out a little whimper. I immediately feel bad and apologize to her.
“Look, we don’t have time for squabbling among ourselves,” I explain. “We need to put some pieces together. Kurt told us that the Grand Ball Sack hired him a decade ago for small jobs. For the last couple of years, though, they’ve been planning what’s happening now—the escalation in the Calls, the attack on Paola. He was intending to take out both the other Seers, leaving me as the most precious and special princess at the ball.” I sound bitter, and that can’t be helped. I am bitter, and that feeling isn’t going anywhere fast.
“In addition,” I continue quickly before anyone interrupts, “he’s been building up his knowledge base about the Coscas and quietly assembling a giant-ass private army and weapons supply. Everything about that suggests he’s not only looking to take over the Vecchissime, but to make a move against them as well. Vincenzo has gotten wind of it all and is preparing to defend himself—or to take him out. Have I missed anything?”
“Yeah,” Pietro pipes in, looking up from the laptop. “He’s here. In New York.”
“What?” Luca growls. “He’s here?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said. I’ve been in his diary. He hasn’t even changed his fucking password. It’s still your birthday, Rosa.”
I look at my brother and shake my head sadly. “Not my birthday. Serena’s.”
Pietro looks like he wants to argue but must decide against it. He knows I’m right.
“That’s your twin sister who died in the mysterious fire?” Minnie says, frowning. The stress she places on “mysterious” raises my hackles.
“What do you mean by that?” I ask. Pietro’s attention is now fully engaged. The fire was his tragedy too, and no matter what has happened between us since, we will always share that awful bond.
“It means I don’t like mysteries,” she answers. “You never found out what caused it, did you?”
“No, but back then the investigations were basic. Tomasso—the Grand Ball Sack said he thought it was started by an electrical fault. Ours was one of the first houses in the area to have electricity, and it was still considered a bit newfangled. What are you saying, Minerva?”
I use her full name to show that we are not yet friends, and a quirk of her eyebrow tells me she noticed and understood, but her expression remains placid. “When you and your sister were born, it was the first time a Vecchissime family had twin girls. The Capellis were the first to skip a generation, and then got two Seers at once. There was a lot of talk about it. About whether you would both be as powerful as each other, whether there would be an imbalance. Whether you might only have the power of one Seer, shared between the two of you.”
I nod, slightly freaked out at the concept of being the subject of so many whispers in the supernatural world. “We both had powers, but I’d say she was stronger. She was more… subtle, I suppose. More attuned to it. She actually liked being a Seer—I just wanted to forget all about it and have a good time.”
“There was a theory, only a theory,” Minnie says carefully, obviously aware that she is stepping onto already fractured ice, “that if one of you died—say, in a mysterious fire—then the other would become more powerful. That it would concentrate in the remaining child.”
I turn it over in my mind, examining it from every angle, and find that it doesn’t quite add up. “He’d never do that.” I shake my head, adamant. “Not even he would do that. He loved Serena, loved the very bones of her. And my mother was his own daughter.”
“From what I’ve heard, though,” she continues relentlessly, “Serena wasn’t supposed to be there that night, was she? It was you who should have been in the house. And as for your parents… Could they have known something, figured something out, about Anna Lombardi? Something that he didn’t want made public?”
I blink hard, suddenly short of breath. Luca is at my side in a flash, his hands on my shoulders in an attempt to soothe me. I push him away. This is not a time for soothing.
I look at my brother in shock as he thinks it all through with his practical Maker mind.
“It could be true, sis,” he says, slipping back into a term of endearment I can’t fight. “You swapped with Serena. I was sleeping over at his place. I don’t want to think it, but bearing in mind everything he’s done since, she could be right.”
I nod and carefully arrange my hands on my lap. They’re trembling, and I shove them between my thighs to hide it. I can’t come apart now. I can’t break. He cannot fucking win. I have always felt responsible for Serena’s death, always thought it should have been me who died, and it’s possible I was actually right all along. And my parents, Angela? Collateral damage for a psychopath. Pietro, he kept safe at his house—probably already planning how to brainwash him and shape him in his own image.
“Okay,” I say, amazed at how calm my voice sounds. “Well. That’s a theory, and one we can look at later—assuming we’re all still alive. For now, we have to deal with what’s right in front of us. Vincenzo’s prepping for war, Tomasso’s in town, and we’re stuck right in the middle. We have to stop them. If we don’t, a lot of people will die, and I could end up as a pawn in his sick game. That is not going to happen. So now, we put aside the mysterious fire, and we deal with the more immediate problem, okay?”
Everyone around me nods, and I realize that maybe I didn’t sound quite as calm as I thought. Luca’s arm goes around my shoulder, and Donna reaches out to pat my cheek like a nonna comforting a child. Moonface creeps under the table and licks at my fingers. Even the dog sees through my bravado.
“You’re right,” says Minnie, offering a small smile. “And I’m sorry to have upset you. We do have a lot to deal with, and I suppose one of those things is the blood spell.”
Luca’s arm tightens around me, his fingers digging painfully into my flesh. I look up at him, and he gazes sorrowfully back as I ask, “Blood spell? What blood spell?”
CHAPTER 23
