I couldn’t imagine what preparations would take so long unless they included baking a sense of honor from scratch. “I will have to hold the room until he arrives,” I said. “Has he sent any priests to represent the church?”
MacCartaigh looked to Cinquepalmi frantically, as if trying to hand off a heated stone. “The high council will not allow any priest to sit in such close quarters with a strega,” Cinquepalmi said, “but they have vouched their army to your use in stopping Beniamo’s coup from reaching its full potential. They believe that God means for the Malfara line to continue its unbroken rule of the nation.”
“I’m sure that God was in no way swayed by the fact that the next Malfara up for succession had been a priest for the last twenty years.”
Neither of them answered.
“So . . . you are the delegates of the church?” I asked.
The two men saluted with brisk hands. I went to the sideboard and, instead of sighing or raging, poured a glass of wine to the brim, even though it was far too early and I hadn’t even had espresso to spark my senses to life.
So this was how the church chose to play the game: by winning a round against Beniamo while proving that they did not have to directly condone the existence of streghe.
As long as they were not burying us up to our necks as the Order of Prai had a reputation for doing, I would have to take it. I spent a few minutes making the most of the soft cheese and ciabatta laid out on the sideboard as I drew battle plans in my head. They were the only things that calmed me, as familiar to my di Sangro senses as a lullaby.
Then the doors crashed open and the five families, the soldiers of Erras, and the streghe were upon me.
Cielo slid in while everyone was taking a seat and posted himself in a corner, making it clear that he did not seek a place at the table. I left one open at my side, but there was no way I would begin this meeting with what could only sound like a lovers’ quarrel.
“We will begin as soon as our leader arrives,” I said as every side of the table filled to bursting.
Mimì, Xiaodan, and Vanni sat together, with Mirella and the baby serving as a bridge to the five families. I’d seated them the farthest away, for the sake of being sure my dull ear didn’t miss anyone’s comments. The five families tended toward shouting even when the matter at stake wasn’t one of life and death. Father kept company with the oil-and-water duo of Lorenzo and Pasquale, as well as Signora Moschella. The third side of the table played host to the soldiers of Erras, a half dozen arrayed with Dantae at the center. She stretched her legs up and let her boots fall to the table with an impressive thud.
She was still wearing the vest of snakes I’d created at our last meeting.
Father pursed his lips. MacCartaigh and Cinquepalmi shot each other the cannons of meaningful looks, as if they weren’t sure whether Dantae’s boots displeased God enough to remove them from the table by force.
The fourth side of the table was mine alone. I could feel Oreste’s absence, like the darkly rotted place where a missing tooth should be. I glanced to Cielo, who shrugged, as if he couldn’t be expected to herd his father, along with everything else I had asked.
There was a great knock, and MacCartaigh disappeared for a long moment. When he returned, he looked flustered. His cheeks were two hothouse peaches. “Signorina di Sangro, there is someone waiting outside who wishes an audience with you.”
I trapped a sigh of relief in my throat so no one would know how close we had come to ruin. “Of course, of course.” It all seemed ridiculously formal since everyone gathered knew who we were waiting for.
The double doors flung wide, the gilded panels splitting to reveal a young woman in a ragged dress that had once been as white as the snows of the Neviane, trimmed in gold thread and set with a fur collar and cuffs.
Our unexpected guest was Favianne—the girl who had offered her lips up to mine when she thought I was a son of the five families.
Cielo stared at her like she was a bowl of bitter grapes he was being asked to stomach. My strega had never particularly liked Favianne.
“Aren’t you going to bow?” she asked as she ripped through the room to the sideboard and filled a tiny plate with as much food as she could grab. “Really, people showed more respect in towns where they had only one goat. This is the great city of Prai, and most of us in this room are old friends. I thought I would find a better reception.”
“Why would we bow to you?” I asked, though the answer was already naked in front of me.
The Capo had gotten married to a young Vinalian woman who was possessed of beauty and a strong will, who loved opera and culture and all fine things. The last time I’d seen her, Favianne had been engaged to Pasquale, and at the same time flirting her way through the Capo’s court.
Now Pasquale was staring at her as if she had died and come back to life.
“As long as this country has no ruler, I’m still the Queen of Vinalia,” Favianne said, whirling to face me. “And I’m here to save you from your vile brother as well as yourselves. I only want one thing in return.” She looked my body up and down, and I remembered the way she had tried to claim me.
“What’s your price?” I asked, stifling a thousand other questions.
Favianne patted her elaborate crown of amber braids, lifting her arms in a way that showed off her breasts to perfection. “Isn’t that part obvious?” The smile she thrust at me was as blinding as sunlight on snow. “I want magic.”
It felt as if several pistols had been fired at once, shattering the peace, filling the room with the smoke of argument.
“You can’t just stroll in here making demands,” Mimì said.
“I didn’t stroll,” Favianne corrected. “I hiked miles in a gown and completely unsuitable shoes.”
“The Capo’s widow has no place in these proceedings,” Father muttered.
“Why?” Signora Moschella asked with a leathery bellow. “Because she’s a wife, instead of a husband? If I’m sitting at this table, so can she.”
“Get her out of here,” Pasquale said, standing and pointing a trembling finger that would have been at home in a cheap ballad of love and revenge. “Favianne can’t be trusted. She will break any vow, take any man by the balls and . . .”
“I have to agree with Pasquale,” Cielo tossed in. “Which is so unsettling, I’m dizzy.”
Dantae let her feet drop from the table. All eyes swept to her as she pushed to standing and approached the former Queen of Vinalia as her vest of snakes writhed. “How clever,” Favianne said, running a finger along one with scales the color and sheen of blackberries. “I’m sure this would catch on in Vari. They’re so far ahead of us in fashion, and not afraid to wear any sort of animal, though they’re usually dead first.”
“How do you imagine we’re going to hand you magic?” Dantae asked. “It’s passed by blood, and I don’t mean fancy lineage.”
“Give me a knife, then,” Favianne said, holding out a blunt palm.
No time for fighting, I told my magic.
Every glass of wine in the room iced over with a cracking sound. Vanni pouted at his, tipping it slightly to see if he could still drink. “No one is attacking my allies to gift themselves power,” I said, now that I had everyone’s attention.
Favianne’s lips formed a frown that was somehow no less charming than her smile. “And yet you’ve just proven how useful magic can be. Everyone knows you, and what you are capable of, Teodora, and you didn’t have to fasten yourself to a man with all the subtlety of a pond leech. I thought that if anyone in Vinalia would understand why I’m tired of living that way, it would be you.”
It struck me that I was doing the same thing in a different way: I had fixed my hopes on Oreste so he might wield the power I could not. I didn’t admit that to Favianne, of course. I wanted her to see me as she did now, as a strega beholden to no one. Her blue eyes wo
rked their way back into my graces, lashes beating swiftly.
“You’re flirting with Teo as we speak,” Cielo said. “You don’t seem ready to give up your old ways.”
“Well, I can’t help breathing, either,” Favianne said with a hand clapped to her chest. “Do you want me to train myself to stop breathing? It seems a waste of time, considering that Beniamo is marching to Amalia as we speak. Have you heard what he’s getting up to along the way? I walked here from the Neviane, stopping in several towns he’d already ravaged. How do you think he treats the women there? Do you suppose he spares the children?”
Mirella clutched Luciano tighter, and his cry filled the room.
“I was the only woman in a camp of five thousand men. How many times do you think Beniamo tried to slither into my tent when the Capo wasn’t looking?” Favianne asked. “If you imagine that I walked here because I fancied a bit of fresh air and a stab at magic, if you truly believe I have no quarrel of my own with your brother, you aren’t sharp enough to best him. And you certainly aren’t the friend I believed I made in Amalia.”
Silence came for us all. Even Luciano’s cry thinned to a watery gruel.
Xiaodan stood, shaking out her skirt, and moved to Favianne’s side. “Are you hurt? I can help you feel . . . less. If that’s something you need.” I realized, with a dull stab, that Xiaodan was offering to perform a reversal of her magic for Favianne. To lessen the ache of whatever horrible things Beniamo had done to her.
“No magic will be performed in the Mirana,” Cinquepalmi recited from his place at the door.
Dantae shook her head and sputtered with indignation. “You invited us to a feast, yet all these priests offer are stale crumbs.”
“Teo just did magic a moment ago,” Cielo reminded the guards.
“No more magic will be performed, anywhere on the grounds, including the gardens,” Cinquepalmi said, splitting a meaningful look down the middle, offering half to Cielo and half to me.
“It won’t be necessary, in this case,” Favianne said, gifting a smile to Cinquepalmi that made him blink as hard as staring directly into the sun at noon.
Then she slid her arm through Xiaodan’s, treating the girl like they were already great friends. Xiaodan blushed a gilded pink. “I was Fabiana Malfara for less than a year. Favianne Rao should have lived a comfortable life, but the girl I once was, Favianne Compagnari, wasn’t even a noble let alone a queen. I grew up in the darkest reaches of the Oscurra Valley. Do you know that place?”
Xiaodan shook her head, upstaged for perhaps the first time in her life.
“I shouldn’t think anyone of your talents knows the Oscurra Valley,” Favianne said, doling out the overly sweet compliment like a bit of candied orange. “There’s not much call for opera there. No cities, and only the poorest of towns. Most of us lived in a stretch of woods where the trees are as twisted and ugly as the hearts of the people. The branches there are fingers, throttling the sun. It creates a sort of false night and closes girls in with all sorts of monsters. I learned how and where to strike a man until he couldn’t perform any sort of aria, if you see what I mean. Of course, no one expects a queen to kick and bite. It was probably the surprise alone that saved me.” Her face brightened several notches, and she turned to Dantae. “Oh, does Beniamo have magic? I’d be more than happy to slice it free.”
“No, and we must keep it that way,” I said.
“You’re the most ruthless woman in all the provinces,” Pasquale spat as he leapt to his feet.
“Why do you think the people love me?” Favianne asked.
I stepped between them, not willing to let a quarrel between former lovers crumble an entire nation. “Why were you called Fabiana?” I asked.
“Oh, Cristoforo thought my name wasn’t properly Vinalian enough,” she scoffed. “My mother chose it because she spent time in the countryside near Vari as a girl, but I’m as Vinalian as the soil beneath this blessed building.”
She hung her head in a show of piety. It didn’t fool me, but it seemed to be enough for MacCartaigh, who hung his head with her, and Cinquepalmi, who looked ready to burst into applause.
“Oh good, she’s got a new set of fools,” Pasquale muttered.
I spun around to face him. “Pasquale, if you’d prefer to live your days as a barn cat, that can be arranged, but if you mean to stay here, please stop scratching around for trouble and sit down.” Pasquale returned to his chair with a scrape of wood against marble, trying desperately to make it look like his own choice.
I turned to Favianne, aware that how I handled her now would set the tone for a great many negotiations. “If you want to help us, you can sit, too. Though there will be no more talk of killing streghe to claim their power. That was the Capo’s chosen path, and if you follow him down it, only God can help you, because I certainly won’t. However . . . if you win the Vinalian people to Oreste’s cause, I’ll find some way to give you what you ask.”
Favianne’s eyes gleamed as if I’d promised her a hoard of gold, or something she valued even more highly—secrets. “If magic is passed through death, nobody has to be murdered,” she said reasonably as she claimed the seat at my side that I’d reserved for Cielo. “There must be some old strega lying around Prai, simply waiting to fly to heaven.”
“The greed in your eyes is not the last thing a strega should see before dying,” Cielo said. “Not if she wants to rest peacefully. And you needn’t worry about your inheritance. Teo and I will arrange that ourselves.”
“After we stop Beniamo,” I slipped in.
Cielo’s stare grappled with mine, but I did not give way. We couldn’t go after Veria’s Truth until Beniamo’s rampage was ended. Otherwise we would split our forces, and my brother would have a greater chance of killing the people in this room. The people I loved.
Cielo’s mouth worked, chewing the gristle of a response. Before he could spit it out, I turned back to the table.
“Now we come to the part where we plot our next move,” I said.
“Which everyone knows is Teo’s favorite sport,” Vanni added.
Mirella blanched. “This is not a game, Vanni.”
I pushed on, past all of these small indignities, to the point. “We need to stop Beniamo before he takes the Capo’s place. As soon as people see him as the rightful successor, we lose our claim and Oreste becomes the usurper. Right now, we can still twist the story, bend the path.”
“Toward another Malfara,” Father said, playing the music of displeasure with a series of stiff taps against the table.
“The answer seems clear to me,” Lorenzo said, in one of his rare but welcome bouts of speech. He stared openly at Mimì. “We must use magic to overcome Beniamo. Our streghe are powerful. Why would we deny them the chance to use that power for the good of everyone in Vinalia, and Salvi?”
Mimì stared back at him, history and passion swelling to the point that half of the people at the table noticed their locked stares. It did not escape me that Lorenzo had listed Salvi separately from Vinalia—an issue I hadn’t even brought up with Oreste, who might not be able to talk the priests into relinquishing their grasp on the largest island in the Terrano.
Dantae tapped her boots on the table, and several sets of eyes jumped to her. “I like the way this lordling thinks. But here’s a problem. The Capo had a ring that made it impossible to touch him with magic, and my guess is that Beniamo has no trouble stealing from the dead.”
I saw my brother’s dry lips open, his tongue searching out the Capo’s blood along the curve of the metal. “He does wear that ring,” I said thinly, as if my voice had to travel all the way from the Neviane. “Which means that whatever magic we spend against him will be wasted.”
The streghe shook their heads, a ripple of doubt moving through the room.
This is what he always wanted, my magic said. To be untouchable.
I feared that my magic was wrong this time.
Beniamo is only starting here, I pointed out. Now he can take everything he wants, without a single consequence.
A dry, hollow sound pulled me away from my thoughts. Mirella was tapping on the table in a perfect imitation of Father. I had spent so much of my life counting and sorting the ways that I was like him that I’d skipped clean over the fact that Mirella practically was Father in a younger, girlish form. “He can’t use that ring to protect an army. And if you take them away, my brother won’t have any toys to play with.”
“I thought this wasn’t a game,” Vanni said with a sour note.
“It’s not,” Mirella said. “And neither were our childhoods.” She nodded at me, and I felt close to her again for a brief, bittersweet moment before she turned to face the table. “Beniamo is the same now as he was then.”
“Which means he is most dangerous when he has nothing,” I reminded her.
Father pushed back his chair and stood.
He will fix things, my magic said. It wanted Father to make some kind of grand statement, to release a flood of healing and stitch the broken world back together. But I already knew that would never come to pass. When it came to my father, I no longer drew from the bottomless trust I had as a little girl.
He hadn’t always protected me, even then.
“My daughters are right,” the great Niccolò di Sangro said, his voice snapping in several places. The words came out broken, but a broken offering was better than none at all. “My son must be stopped. I will do it with my own hands if I have to.”
Father could drain the life from a man with a reversal, which meant he’d always had the ability to stop Beniamo. But how could Father make that choice? Should he have fractured his own family to heal it? When should he have known that it was right to break a bone to set it, instead of sitting back and hoping time would do the hard work on its own?
The Storm of Life Page 20