I’d never slept so heavily before—like I’d slept for years. I scrunched under the blankets. Maybe I could simply not wake up. Ever.
Footsteps pounded outside my room as other guests went about their business. It was no use. I couldn’t stay like this. I couldn’t give up.
I climbed out of bed, the wooden planked floor rough beneath my bare feet. I stood in front of the mirror over the bureau and smoothed my newly shorn hair.
What would I do? The only thing I could do.
Kill everyone responsible.
I jerked on my hair, pinching my scalp. I pictured Val in his leathers, leaning against an alley wall as he kissed me. I saw him laughing, his smile lightening the mood. Then my chest constricted as I pictured Emile as he tried to outrun bedtime. And my father, removing his glasses and massaging the bridge of his nose where they always rubbed him sore.
I pictured Rafeo dead in the tunnel, his leathers soaked in blood, his skin cold.
My throat burned. I coughed, then swallowed. If Val had been a part of the fire, I’d have to kill him. If he’d helped kill my Family, then he deserved to die. It was that simple.
Even if I loved him.
Even if more killing wasn’t the answer.
I paused, my fingers entangled in my hair. “I’m a clipper, a disciple of Safraella,” I said to my reflection. “Murder is always the answer.”
I pulled out my leathers and set about dressing myself. I needed to verify that it was the Da Vias who’d attacked us. Then I’d make a plan. The Da Vias numbered over fifty active clippers. I couldn’t take them out one by one. They’d catch on.
No, I needed to kill them the way they’d killed us.
If I found their home, I could burn them out.
If only I had help . . .
The Caffarellis. Maybe I could reach out to them. There had been the marriage prospect, and my mother had belonged to them, once.
But why would they offer aid? The Da Vias were now the most powerful Family. The Caffarellis ranked fifth. They couldn’t defeat the Da Vias even if they agreed to help me.
Probably they would just hand me over to the Da Vias to curry favor.
I tightened the buckles on my boots until my calves ached. No other Family would assist me. Not now, even if they hated the Da Vias.
No. I couldn’t trust them. I couldn’t trust anyone ever again.
I could give it all up. Bury my clothes, the mask. Become a different person. I could be a glassblower. A seamstress. No one need ever know who I was, what I could do.
Safraella would know. I couldn’t abandon my duties to Her and Her subjects.
I paused. My mind turned. I did need help, though. Someone who couldn’t abandon me. Someone who could help me fix things.
Time to visit the king.
The three Loveran cities that bordered the fields in front of the dead plains, Ravenna, Lilyan, and Genoni, pressed against one another like drunks in a barroom, their boundaries blurred by buildings that spilled across the city lines. Lilyan was smaller than Ravenna, but because the Caffarellis didn’t have to share territory, like the Saldanas and Da Vias in Ravenna, they had more space. The southern cities and territories spread out more freely, with farmland and room between them.
The king’s palace, located in Genoni, sat in the center of Addamo territory. Even if I could avoid the Addamos, and they were lacking in the skills of stealth and fighting technique, it would take too long to travel on foot. I’d need my horse if I wanted to speak to the king, Costanzo Sapienza.
As we did with our myriad safe houses, the Saldana Family hid stables throughout the city, moving our horses between them as needed. I headed to one as the shadows and dark night kept me hidden from the common. And the Da Vias.
I reached the stable and slipped inside.
Surrounded by the sweet smell of hay and the sounds of sleeping horses, I made my way into the secret stalls where three horses were kept well groomed, exercised, and fed.
My gray gelding, Dorian, nickered softly as I tacked him up. In the next stall Rafeo’s stallion, Butters, stomped his hoof, anxious for a night ride himself. Rafeo never believed in giving animals serious names. The final horse was Matteo’s gelding Safire, who ignored us all in an attempt to sleep.
I led Dorian out of his stall. Butters whinnied loudly.
“Butters!” I whispered. “Quiet yourself!”
He kicked at the stall door, the loud banging waking the other horses. If he kept it up, he’d wake the whole neighborhood. Better to bring him along, even as just a packhorse.
I tied Dorian to his stall door and tacked Butters up as well. He barely calmed, even when he realized he was coming. Rafeo thought . . . had thought . . . spirited horses were funny. I just thought they were a pain.
I threw the extra bags and weapons onto Butters but kept my spare money on Dorian.
Something slipped from a saddlebag and drifted to the ground. The white poppy Val had left me.
I stared at it between my boots. My throat tightened. It would be so easy to crush it beneath my heel, to grind it into the ground until it was dust.