Cielo took care of the boy every day, teaching him with an impressive patience. Luciano loved all of Cielo’s forms, and was particularly attached to the black-furred wolf, treating my strega’s most fearsome incarnation as no more than an overgrown pet.
At night, I sat with Luciano in his narrow bed, telling stories—sometimes the strega stories I’d loved when I was younger, but more often tales of siblings who lived in a mountain-clad castle, and the red-haired boy who fell in love with one of them.
I did not leave out Beniamo, but I did not linger on him either.
Golden beams slanted their way in through tall windows, and Luciano grabbed one, twisting it into the shape of a cat, and held it out, a present for Mimì. “It’s mostly cats these days,” Cielo admitted. “Though he did make me a small boat out of the sunset.”
As Luciano and Mimì disappeared down the hall, I thought about the task that hung overhead like a low-bellied cloud. I had not yet started handing off my magic. Cielo was tracing the families of the streghe killed in the Palazza under the Capo’s rule. We had decided that my magic would be spread to new streghe, but in the thick fog of running a country, I could not see where to start.
“You know, you never sit on this thing,” Cielo said, looking over at the throne. It had nearly as many battlements as a castle, the whole thing carved of black walnut from the Uccelli. In building the new capital, this was the one demand I’d made, and then I ignored the uncomfortable perch in favor of a more practical desk.
Cielo put his hands to the arms of the throne, and lowered himself delicately, as if the chair might balk at his presence. When it remained a common chair, he settled in, looking like he meant to stay.
I got up at once. “You can’t refuse to rule and claim the throne,” I said. “That’s not how it works.”
“I thought you were a fervent believer in new traditions,” Cielo said, pursing his lips with challenge.
I tapped my foot against the marble, ticking off the moments until I removed him by force.
Cielo smiled up at me, the bottomless mischief returning to his eyes.
“Usurper,” I said, climbing atop him.
“Fine,” Cielo said. “You sit in your rightful seat, and I will sit in mine.” In an impressive move, my strega somehow spun me so that I was sitting, and Cielo was lounging across my lap, one hand in my loose curls.
I felt a presence in the doorway: something that I would always be good at, a dark gift from Beniamo. For a moment, I thought that everything was beginning again, that my brother was standing there watching and waiting.
But Beniamo had died on the Violetta Coast. Fishermen had found his body in the grotto, and Father and I interred him outside of the di Sangro graveyard. The sea and the rocks hadn’t been kind to him, and yet I felt the need to glance at my brother before he was buried, simply to be sure he was gone. He no longer looked angelic or even cruel. His cheeks were eaten away, his curls lank. Death had been the only one strong enough to pry the smile off his lips. Thank all the gods, Beniamo didn’t have magic. If his bones had become shards of his power, I could only imagine what horrors they would have held.
I turned to find that the person waiting for me was Favianne. Her tour of Vinalia—extoling my virtues—had proven such a success that she’d done it three times.
“What would the Vinalians think if we told them their rulers can’t stop making love all over Prai?” she asked, her true exasperation only half as strong as she pretended.
“They would applaud us, I should think,” Cielo said. “Perhaps we should kiss in public more often.” These were the sorts of helpful ideas that my strega came up with for running Vinalia, and Cielo had them in abundance.
But today I would not be deterred from my task. “There is the matter of your payment, Favianne.”
She dipped at the knees. “No payment is needed, my queen.” But from the depths of her curtsy, she looked up at me with a dark blue glimmer, a stare that held the power of a girl who knew precisely what she wanted.
“We made a bargain,” I said. “And now you’ll have to kiss me.”
Favianne looked to Cielo in slight bewilderment. “I cannot kiss you, Teo,” she mumbled, all formality sliding away. “Is this a trick?”
“It’s simple, really,” Cielo said, shifting with irritation. As he was still on my lap, that made things rather uncomfortable. I nudged him to standing. “This is how the magic inheritance works.”
Favianne took a step forward, then another, and when she reached the throne, all of our near kisses came into season. Her lips were gentler than I’d expected, with a tenderness that she did not wear on the outside. I kept my mouth against hers to make sure that magic passed. When she pulled away, she blinked dizzily and touched her face.
The strict architecture of Cielo’s frown collapsed. “I’m not sure why I was quite so opposed to that.”
Favianne looked down at herself, as if magic should be springing from her in great fountains. She waited. And waited. “Nothing is happening.”
“You might have a subtle ability,” I offered.
“That’s exactly the word I would choose for Favianne,” Cielo said. “Subtle.”
Favianne touched her face again. Perhaps that was where the magic had taken up residence. “I do feel different,” she whispered.
I felt a change too. I was lighter.
I folded my hands and put on my best queenly manner. “Whatever your magic turns out to be, I have an idea of where you will use it.”
“You’re sending me away?” Favianne asked, slightly bewildered.
“You are so well loved in the provinces that you could topple my reign at any moment, now that you know the Vinalians will accept a queen on the throne,” I said.
Favianne preened a bit, tucking a sunbeam of hair back into the deceptively complicated knot that she wore. I felt sure it was all the rage in Vari. “That’s probably true.”
“I need a spy in Eterra,” I said.
“Have there been northern grumblings?” Cielo asked, all of the strega’s concerns waking up, as if I’d fed him several cups of espresso at once.
“Worse,” I said. “There has been a pallid sort of silence. I think they’re plotting something. I’ve chosen the very best to deal with that. Favianne will have to charm and magic her way through every castle on the continent.”
“Don’t forget the islands,” Cielo added helpfully.
Favianne nodded, her solemnity touched with delight. She had accepted my challenge, just as I knew she would.
“Now, if you don’t mind, the king and queen have to finish what they’ve started,” Cielo said, flicking a wrist and sending her off.
Favianne turned, showing us the low dip in the back of her river-blue dress. “Eels,” she muttered.
“What is that about?” Cielo asked.
“How I claimed you and refused to let you go,” I said.
“You are going to have to prove that last bit,” Cielo said, helping me up from the throne.
“Is this the twenty-seven-part favor again?” I asked.
Cielo spent a moment counting on long, lovely fingers. “We’re only up to part nine.”
“The rest will have to wait,” I said. “We have a country to run, a small strega to raise, and magic to restore.”
I was inventing excuses—the truth was that I never wanted the other eighteen parts to reach their end. “You once told me that we would be doing this until the day we died,” I admitted. “I plan to hold you to your word.”
“I would never cross a di Sangro,” Cielo murmured, brushing those long fingers across my hand, pulling me away from the papers on the desk that I seemed to hover over constantly. I started scheming all the favors Cielo and I might trade as we left the confines of the throne room, stepped into the amber heart of the day, and became a part of Vinalia once again.
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Acknowledgments
The true life of a fantasy series is not found in silent pages. It’s made up of every hour someone spends walking away from the mundane, down a path cobbled in words, not knowing where it might lead. Thank you for coming with me to Vinalia. I hope you found something worth the journey.
Kendra Levin, you believed, and belief is always where magic starts. Aneeka Kalia, Maggie Rosenthal, Jennifer Dee, Kate Renner, Theresa Evangelista, Karen Dziekonski, and the whole Viking/Penguin Young Readers team, your efforts lifted up these stories and shaped their path.
Sara Crowe, you make every word possible.
Leilani Bustamante, thank you for the art that graces two impossibly glorious covers. Carlotta Brentan, thank you for lending your (perfect!) voice to this story. Zoe Keating, you might never see this, but thank you for the spellbinding music that I listened to over and over as I wrote every chapter.
Love to my family, always.
Cori, you surprised me with Italy, and understanding who I am in all ways.
About the Author
Amy Rose Capetta has written several novels for young adults and holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from VCFA. She first dreamed of writing about Vinalia when she was younger than Teo. Once upon a time her father's family lived in Italy, in a small town in the mountainside. Now Amy Rose lives in her very own mountains in Vermont, with her partner and their young son. To learn more, visit amyrosecapetta.com.
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The Storm of Life Page 31