“Shall we go?” Elena interrupted. “I’ve heard wonderful things about Marchelli’s.”
“You mean you’ve been in Milia an entire two weeks and never had Marchelli’s? You poor deprived soul!” Niccolo took Elena on one arm, Joanna on the other, and proceeded down the street, extolling the wondrous virtues of Marchelli’s the entire time and leaving Carlo and the Echoes to trail behind.
***
By the time they actually arrived at the squat building, Niccolo’s praise of Marchelli’s had given Elena quite an appetite, and the smells did even more when they entered. The large room was just as hot as the outdoors, but the rich aroma of tomatoes and herbs and cooking pastas made it feel somehow thicker, in a homey and comforting way.
“Welcome to Marchelli’s. How many are dining with you today?” The waitress greeted them with a smile that was tired but genuine.
“We’ll have a table for seven and menus for four if you please m’lady,” Niccolo said, ushering the group in front of him.
“Are more of your friends joining us?” Joanna asked Elena, but luckily the waitress interrupted before she had to answer.
“Right this way.”
The table was right next to a window, a tad cramped but with a view of the bustle of the street. The Echoes waited until Joanna had selected a seat in between Elena and Niccolo to settle into their own seats, spread out among their garzoni.
“So, Miss Lucciano,” Niccolo leaned in conspiratorially, “you must have some embarrassing stories about Elena you can regale us with.”
“Niccolo!” Elena protested, “you are not to grill my mother about things to make fun of me with!”
“What, you expect me to waste this perfect opportunity? Never!”
“Elena wasn’t what you’d call a ‘funny’ child anyway,” Joanna said with a fond smile, “she’s a good girl, but sometimes she could be such a burden. I’m kidding, of course,” she laughed.
Elena buried her face in her menu. She knew her mother wasn’t kidding, but she was very grateful to her for pretending she was. It was never quite clear to Elena quite how she had been worse than other children her own age, but she knew that she had been.
“Ah, well, what are children for but to try their parents’ patience?” Niccolo said good naturedly. “Ooh, if it isn’t the man of the hour himself. Marchelli, you had me worried that we wouldn’t see your face today.”
A very fat man with a round red nose had approached the table, and he clapped Niccolo on the back.
“My friend Niccolo, how you torture me,” Marchelli’s eyes twinkled as he surveyed the table. “So many pretty ladies you bring to my table, and yet when you leave, it is you who shall take the credit for introducing them to my fine cooking.”
“You’ve figured me out, Marchelli.” Niccolo raised his hands in mock surrender. “But you have enough talent to share. We’ll be having...let’s see...bruschetta for the table, a roast, either turkey or pork, and we’ll let you decide the fruit course. Perhaps a nice wine as well?”
“It’s not as if we wanted to choose our own food or anything,” Carlo remarked dryly, as Niccolo collected all of their menus before they had even opened them.
“You don’t need to worry, Niccolo is like me, he knows food and he knows people, I trust him to pair the two. If he says you shall like something, you shall like it. The wine, on the other hand, I do not trust him to pick,” Marchelli chuckled.
“If you end up not liking the food, Carlo, we can steal something from De Luca’s kitchens when we get back,” Carla said quietly.
“If he does not like the food I provide him, I will hang up my apron and never cook another fettuccine,” Marchelli waggled his finger at Carla, “and that would be a tragedy.”
“A disaster!” Niccolo agreed. Marchelli waddled back towards the kitchen, and only then did Elena suddenly sit up, her eyes widening with realization.
He talked to Carla...
“Marchelli is a Stormtouched!” she said.
“One of the great mysteries of Milia,” Niccolo nodded sagely, “no one knows how the Storm touched him. No one has seen his Echo. No one knows what made him give up the Storm to turn to cooking.”
“Elena knew he was Stormtouched just from hearing him speak?” Joanna asked. “Is there some sign or mannerism that you all pick up on?”
“Ah, my apologies, you wouldn’t know. He spoke to Carlo’s Echo, you see, and as you know, Mortalis cannot see or hear Echoes.”
“Echoes?” Joanna sounded confused, and Elena’s stomach dropped.
“It doesn’t really matter, Mama-” she tried to head the conversation off, but Niccolo was already talking.
“People who exist solely in the sight and hearing of Stormtouched? Surely Elena must’ve told you about Ele, each of us have a companion like that.”
Joanna opened and closed her mouth a few times. After a few strangled attempts, she turned in her chair to face Niccolo.
“You can see Ele?” she asked, studying his face as if he might be joking.
“Of course I can, all Stormtouched can,” Niccolo looked back and forth between Joanna and Elena, “what, did you think Elena was making him up?”
“I thought...I just assumed she was being stubborn...she always had spells of spitefulness like that...I thought she was being childish,” Joanna stammered.
“Wait, that’s why you forbid her from talking to him?” Niccolo asked incredulously. “You stopped her from talking to her lifelong companion because you thought she was being childish?”
“I...I didn’t know. How was I to know?” Joanna turned back to her daughter, and Elena was surprised to see tears welling in her mother’s eyes, “and I punished you!” she gasped, her eyes wide with horror. “I punished you for talking to your friend! Ah deos, Elena...”
“This is too perfect,” Ele commented from next to Elena, watching the scene unfold. “I never thought I’d see this day. Joanna Lucciano, displaying self-awareness?”
“Elena...” her mother continued, unaware of Ele’s commentary, “...I can’t believe you would do that to me!”
“What?” Niccolo looked startled.
“Ah, that’s more like normal,” Ele sighed.
“All that time, and you didn’t once explain the truth to me!” Joanna continued. “You could’ve just told me it was due to your Storm, you could’ve said something, and I wouldn’t be feeling so horrible right now!”
“I didn’t know, Mama I swear!” Elena protested, but her mother was actually crying now, fumbling with a handkerchief.
“I can’t remember ever feeling so low! Did you really hate me that much, that you would let me punish you for something you had no control over? Was it because you wanted to cast me in the role of the villain? Oh, Elena why did you make me think it was just childishness? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Elena mumbled at the table. If her mother’s tears made her uncomfortable, the presence of the other garzoni at the table made her feel ten times worse. Of all the things they could find out about her, she would’ve wished anything but finding out how much her mother struggled with her.
“No, you’re right, it was mine. I should have been able to tell what my own daughter was thinking. I’ve been such a bad mother to you, E-e-elena!” Joanna sobbed into her handkerchief.
“No! Mama no, don’t say that,” Elena wrapped her arms around her mother, trying to console her while at the same time feeling as if her heart might break.
“Of course not, lots of wonderful mothers break their daughters’ wrists,” Ele said bitterly. Elena whirled on him, her grief turning to anger in a second.
“You’ve said quite enough, Ele!” In her sudden rage she didn’t even realize that it was the first time she’d talked openly to him in front of her mother in eight years, “why can’t you leave well enough alone?”
“She broke your wrist?” Niccolo had been silent up until this point, but his voice had a strange tone to it now. Elena didn’t
like how he was looking at her mother, although for different reasons than before.
“No, it wasn’t like that, Niccolo, it was just a mistake,” Elena said, “I was being obstinate, and it made her frustrated, and sometimes she doesn’t know her own strength-”
“When I say this is the best food in all of Milia, you may rest assured it is only because-oh my, do not cry lovely lady!” Marchelli gasped, setting the tray of bruschetta down and hovering around Joanna like a fly, “I know it was hard to wait, but the food is here now!”
“Marchelli, you must forgive me,” Niccolo stood suddenly, kicking his chair back. Elena suddenly noticed how he towered above them, and how dark his eyes were. The arrows in his quiver and the knife at his belt seemed more ominous, and for the first time she wondered why he always carried them. She wondered how often he had used them. A shiver ran down her spine as he continued, his voice low. “You know how much it takes to turn my stomach, so you’ll appreciate it when I say I’ve lost my appetite.”
“Quae est ista licet, my friend, I get paid either way. Next time perhaps,” Marchelli seemed truly concerned for Niccolo as the Saggitari walked towards the door. In the doorway he stopped and turned, so suddenly that Nicci accidentally stepped through him and paused on the other side.
“You’re not a bad mother, Miss Lucciano,” Niccolo said over his shoulder, “you’re a bad human being.”
“Niccolo!” Elena gasped, but he was gone, and Nicci followed. There was a brief and awkward pause as Marchelli looked back and forth between the guests at the table.
“Kitchens,” Carla said quietly to Carlo, and the pair stood and left without a word.
“Eat what you will, Niccolo’s garzona friend,” Marchelli said, not unkindly, although he ignored her mother, “I will have the remainder sent on to Master De Luca’s studio for them to use in the kitchens. And the bill.” He walked back to the kitchen with just a little more haste in his waddle than he had before.
“Mama...please eat, Mama, the food is good, and it can be just the two of us.”
“You don’t...you don’t agree with him, do you?” Joanna sniffled into her handkerchief. “You don’t think I’m a bad mother do you, Elena?” Ele opened his mouth as if he might speak, and Elena shot him a furious look of warning.
“No, Mama, of course not,” she reassured. The food did smell good, and Elena pulled a plate toward her mother and piled it with the best-looking pieces of bruschetta.
“I’ve always loved you and only wanted what’s best for you, you know that don’t you?”
“I’ve always known that, Mama. I love you too.”
The Luccianos spent the rest of their meal in silence.
Chapter XVIII
The Calm...
“It’s almost a shame that we’ll be using these up,” Elena smiled as she emptied the box of cylinders onto her workstation. The little silver tubes jangled musically as they rattled across the desk.
“What else are we going to do with them, besides using them up?” Ele stood next to her, leaning with his back against the bench so that he could view the entire workshop. His arms were crossed, and his gaze flicked back and forth across the room, settling on each garzoni for just a few moments before it moved to the next. It was rare for all of the garzoni to occupy the room at the same time, and the subtle hum of eight craftsmen working with their various projects was comforting to Elena. For Ele it seemed to have the opposite effect, and he had been on-edge for the entire afternoon.
“I just like how it sounds when I play with them. They’re like tiny bells,” Elena rolled the cylinders back and forth, smiling at their melodic jingling. She glanced at Ele, his arms crossed, a scowl on his face. “You don’t have to be so cranky,” she murmured, quietly enough that the other students couldn’t hear her, “you’ll have to get used to other garzoni being around sooner or later.”
“It’s not them being around that’s bothering me, and I’m not cranky,” Ele didn’t turn to her as he spoke, softly, barely moving his lips, “I’m high-strung, because something bad’s coming.”
“What do you mean ‘something bad’?”
“I don’t know how to explain it. I just just smell it on the air, like a storm about to break. I can feel it. Something bad.”
Elena gave him a look of exasperation as she began sorting the metal tubes on her desk, organizing them into small groups by type and by size. “Honestly Ele could you be any more cliched? ‘You feel it in the air’, what garbage.”
The brush handles were not the right sizes, and Elena frowned as she held the thin pieces up against the tubes. Most of the tubes she could force into place on the end of the handles, but a full quarter of them would have to be cut down to size.
“Do you think we could get Frederica to carve the ends of these down to fit the silver caps?” she asked Ele, holding up the ill-fitting tubes and the brush handles that were supposed to slide right into them.
“You think she’s going to help you make brushes for Carlo and Vittoria?” Ele raised an eyebrow. “Something that makes one garzona look good and helps two garzoni produce better work? She’s smart enough to not help her competition, so no, I don’t think we could get her to.”
“We’ll just have to re-order them then. Adtono,” Elena swore, “well we can make the smaller brushes at least.”
“Because apparently, unlike Frederica, we’re not smart enough not to help our competition.”
Elena didn’t answer for a few moments, instead focusing on carefully twisting bunches of bristles into groups. When she was done, she would slide the bristles into the other end of the tubes, then crimp the tube on both sides. She’d never made paintbrushes before, but the buzzing along her fingertips told her she was on the right track.
“This is what I do, Ele,” she finally replied, just as quietly.
“I know it’s what you do, you’re a Fabera, I’m just asking if you have to do it for them.”
“No, I mean helping them is what I do. I can’t be mean like you and Leanarda want me to be, it’s just not who I am. I want to help people, I want my work to be useful, and even more I want to see the beautiful things other people can make. Don’t you? Doesn’t everyone? Isn’t that why we’re all here, because we were inspired by the beautiful art people make?”
“Naive,” Ele said. “I want to see pretty art too, but not if it’s Carlo painting it while we’re seeing it from the street.”
“We’ll be more valuable to Master De Luca if he sees us helping all of his other garzoni,” Elena replied confidently, “he’s been missing out on a good Fabera in his studio, so it’s up to us to show him what a good Fabera can do. A Fabera in his studio will help every other garzoni’s work.”
“Or he’ll decide that we can’t produce anything of our own and wonder what we contribute to art.”
“Your arguments would hold a lot more weight if you weren’t this pessimistic all the time.”
“I’m not pessimistic, I’m realistic.”
“You mean like ‘something bad is going to happen’?” Elena teased. “Was that ‘realistic’, or just you being-”
“Maledictus a matre!” Frederica shrieked the curse above the quiet murmur of the workshop, and work ceased as the assembled garzoni turned to look at her, startled. “Who did this? Which one of you pathetic, ignorant, Storm-forsaken perniciosu stulti did this?” Elena paled at the look on the older girl’s face, contorted in such rage that it was almost unrecognizable.
In Frederica’s outstretched hand lay a small bird carved from maple wood. It was almost complete, from its lifelike beak to the small delicate cuts that defined the feathers, a tiny and beautiful little masterpiece. It was marred only by the fact that one of its fragile wings had fractured, and lay separate in her hand.
“Frederica,” Vittoria approached with a gentle tone. Elena didn’t know whether to admire the girl’s bravery or warn her away, since Frederica still held the small detailing knife in her other hand. It didn’t seem to bot
her Vittoria, her face serene as she rested a hand on the Caelator’s arm, “you don’t know that someone did this on purpose. Maybe someone was just admiring your work and accidentally dropped it, something of that nature.”
“Knife marks,” Frederica held up the severed wing as she spat the words, “this wasn’t an accident, it was sabotage, and someone used my own tools to do it. Which of you was it?” She gestured with her other hand, pointing across the room with her knife to indicate Lorenzo, Leanarda, Mella and Elena. “Which one of you thought they were being clever?”
No one answered, even as the silence began to stretch. It was a different kind of silence than Elena was normally used to in the workshop, one not of solitude but of high tension.
“Whoever did this, it’s only going to go worse for you from here on out,” Fred seemed much calmer than his counterpart, but his hands were clenched in tight fists, “Master De Luca will be back in a few days, and if the culprit hasn’t stepped forward by then we’ll have no choice but to bring the bird to him. We’re not stupid, we know what this is.”
“Maybe I’m stupid, ‘cause I’m not sure I do,” Niccolo had been silent up until that point, resting his arm on his knee and watching the scene unfold, “what is it you think ‘this’ is, Fred?”
“It’s the provisionals trying to look good to Master De Luca,” Frederica was the one to answer, “they think if I have one less project to show him that’ll make them look that much better.”
“Why are you so sure it a provisional garzoni?” Leanarda finally spoke up. Frederica’s gaze snapped to where she sat, the knife pointing in her direction as if Frederica wasn’t even aware of it.
“It was. I know it was. Probably you, Leanarda. Did you do this?” Frederica’s voice was slowly growing quieter, but that only made the hum of anger in it even worse somehow.
“I was just asking. You seem pretty quick to rule out Carlo, Vittoria, and Niccolo.”
“Leanarda’s right!” Mella was usually one of the most quiet in the group, but she spoke up now with a kind of terrified defiance. “You’re so sure it was one of us trying to get ahead, but all eight of us are competing for the four spots. It could’ve been one of them,” she pointed back across the room.
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