by Heloise Hull
“Uh, Nonna? I think you mixed up Tiberius’s chipmunk kibble with our dessert,” Aurick said.
Nonna whipped the platter out of his reach. “Disrespect me like that again, and I will give Tiberius your share.”
Aurick put his hands in a prayer position and bowed his head. “Say no more. I am deeply embarrassed. Please accept my sincerest apology, greatest of all nonnas.”
Haughtily, she set one of the brown balls on his plate. “That felt sarcastic, but I’ll let it slide.”
I picked up one. It had a fragrant, nutty scent. “What are these?” I asked, taking a small nibble.
“Brutti Ma Buoni. They mean ‘ugly but good’ in Italian.”
“Apt,” I said after swallowing a delicious mouthful. “I’ll take a second.”
“They’re just hazelnuts, egg whites, and confectioners’ sugar,” she confided. “Dead simple. Maybe add a touch of vanilla if you have the good stuff.”
We finished off the meal with a small glass of limoncello and told Nonna to get some sleep. “You cooked, we’ll clean,” Aurick promised, grabbing a dish towel.
My insides went a little mushy at the sight of him elbow deep in suds. Then he handed me a glass of wine and told me to sit my cute butt down while he finished and well that was it. I almost dragged him off cave-woman style, but managed to keep it classy by oogling him from afar.
“Care for a night cap?” he asked, his voice husky and low.
I swallowed once, hard. “With you? Always.”
Aurick moved closer, his hand reaching out for something. My hair, my lips? It made my stomach clench tighter in anticipation, until he grabbed two clean glasses and a bottle of chianti.
He bent down and his breath tickled my neck. “You look divine,” he whispered before giving me one kiss beneath my ear at the top of my jaw.
Before I had time to compose myself, he pulled away and beckoned me to the living room. I followed, barely keeping my balance as my whole attention was on him. He certainly knew how to hold it.
We hardly used the living room because the kitchen was where the heart was. It was beautiful, though. Cedar beams arched to a point in the middle, and the quarried stone fireplace was as large as Mino.
Aurick flicked a glass globule and a roaring fire sparked to life. It crackled and danced merrily while we chose the two leather chairs closest to the fire. Unfortunately, Nonna had no couch, but Aurick managed to make it feel romantic. His fingers played at my knee, skimming my jeans and kneading my sore muscles every once in a while. As beautiful as the evening was, I knew I had to come clean before anything else happened.
“Aurick?”
“Mm?” he asked, drawing lazy circles over my thigh. His eyes were hooded and dark in the shadows of the warm room.
“I sort of overheard you and Manu.”
His fingers stopped their slow circuit, but his hand remained on my leg. “Oh really.”
“Well, when I say me I really mean Piero overhead you. He’s the Renaissance Romancer ghost.”
“I’m familiar,” he said dryly.
“Oh right.” I’d forgotten they’d met briefly at my first lunch back on Aradia, after my imprisonment in St. Louis. “He kind of… stumbled across you and thought I’d be interested.”
“So you didn’t send him to spy on me?”
I waved my hand back and forth like a miniature see-saw. “Such a heavy word, spying. What is the difference between spying and eavesdropping anyway? It seems like some fine sort of line and…”
Aurick’s lips drew straight, and I dropped the excuses.
“Fine, yes. I had a Medici-era spy listen in, because I got worried. I’m sorry. And I'm sorry that you are getting in trouble with the Council over me and that you could lose your job. Or worse. I don’t really know what the Council does to employees they think betrayed them. Do their severance packages include literal severances? Because that’s what Piero thought, and now I can’t get the imagery out of my head.”
Aurick got down on his knees, both hands cupping mine completely. His blue eyes were earnest. “Ava, you can spy whenever you want if it will make you feel better. I don’t want to be any source of anxiety. Which is why I kept my conversations with Manu quiet. Yes, it’s true. The Council is not happy that you’re walking around free. They know about Mestjet and found traces of powerful magic on her during the autopsy.”
My voice sounded like a strangled kitten. My throat was dry at that name. It never occurred to me they’d conduct an actual autopsy. “Did they say what type of magic they discovered?”
Aurick’s fingers clenched once. “Yes.”
I thought about the chaos from my training earlier today. “Are you afraid of me?”
Swiftly, Aurick scooped me out of the chair and hugged me close. “Ava, I will never be frightened of you. You’ve taken this whole thing in stride, went to the brink, and managed to pull yourself back. I am in awe of you.”
“Even though it’s chaos magic?” I whispered against his neck. The feeling of being consumed by the rage and fire within me frightened me still. If what Nonna said was true, I’d never be able to control it.
Aurick pulled back, his eyebrows knitted together. “Chaos? That’s not what the report said. It was an unidentifiable god magic with a hint of desert storms. Why do you think it’s chaos magic?”
“I attempted to train today with Nonna and Tiberius, and they found... Well, they found something uncontrollable,” I said.
Aurick nodded slowly. “Either the Council is keeping the report vague on purpose or they really have no idea who you are.”
“Join the club. Nobody does.”
“I know who you are,” Aurick said. He drew closer, and I found myself leaning into his orbit.
“How can anyone truly know another person? It turns out that I barely know myself.”
“You’re Ava. Ava is strong, powerful, and unafraid to shake up her life. Ava is capable of anything her supernatural life throws at her and accomplishes it with panache. And she looks good in a pair of mom jeans.”
A blush crept up my cheeks. “That’s the sweetest thing you’ve said yet. Wanna make-out?”
Aurick laughed out loud at that. His fingers gripped the base of my neck, and his lips were rough as they found mine and claimed them. The flames died down in the fireplace, but it simply felt like they had moved to my belly.
I let myself fall into his lap, and his arms kept me secured. We didn’t go further, but the kiss was enough. For now, it was enough.
It took all my willpower to finally pull away, but after such long days, with emotions that ran the gauntlet of human existence, I needed some sleep. I thought it would come easy. Or at least, easier.
I was wrong. As usual.
Chapter Fourteen
For some reason, I’d thought that alcohol would put me in a drunken, dreamless stupor, but I’d gambled poorly.
I will always find you.
Was it a threat or a promise? His voice, now as familiar to me as my own, hunted the abandoned tunnels of my sleeping mind, finding the spaces where my unconscious thought it could hide.
I felt myself running, searching for shelter. My sons were back home. Aradia was supposed to be my safe space. Except, it felt as if the gates to my castle had been breached, and now the god and his tricks were pouring in. All bets were off.
Only, I didn’t just dream past lives anymore. The god took me to some mist-filled blank space to paint illusions of my memories onto the air like it was a canvas.
You thought your little daemon’s trick would shield you, but you can barely comprehend my powers.
Even though the back of my neck prickled and I wanted to run like the prey I felt I was, I commanded myself to stay still. His shadow continued to hunt around the edges of my vision. He was here in the mist, and despite its vastness, I felt cornered.
“Show yourself,” I demanded.
The god laughed, sounding truly delighted. I got the feeling he liked it when I fought bac
k.
Would you like to see what happened after Cleopatra? You were too uncontrollable when I left you on your own. Almost taking over the world in one lifetime? The god tutted. I had to reign you in. A few lifetimes as the dregs of society, like the lupa you are, helped tame some of that chaos.
I blanched at the word chaos. He knew. He must.
“Leave me alone, or I will find you and make you pay,” I threatened, desperately trying to follow his shadow’s path. There—
I flung my magic, blistering and hotter than normal. The god’s laugh was sour in the air as he swept me into a memory of a former life.
Constantinople during the Byzantine Empire
January 13, 532
Macedonia
My nipples were rouged with ochre, and white lead powdered my breasts, neck, and face. Red lipstick, the mark of my trade, shimmered on my mouth as I curved my lips into a smile. As if a ‘real’ lady could ever walk with this level of confidence through the Hippodrome. They wouldn’t dare.
As for the rest of my body?
Bare, except for the grains of wheat I sprinkled from the top of my triangle to the bottom.
A great white swan honked in anticipation as it winged to my makeshift bed. Its beak was hard and cold as it nudged apart my legs, but I bore it as I always did. Acting out the myth of Leda and the Swan was my most popular performance.
The low rumblings of men in the darkened audience were just below my hearing, but they always made the same, salacious remarks and thought themselves so clever. I was too focused on making sure the hungry bird didn’t get overly cozy while we danced our parts.
All went as planned until a high-pitched hiss caught my attention. Feminine and familiar. Then louder.
“Macedonia!”
I jumped to my feet, a single white feather floating to rest on the bed. I gathered the sheets and knotted them around my chest while the goose and the men honked in protest.
“Show’s over,” I called, sashaying away. I could afford the affront. Besides being the most sought-after courtesan in Constantinople, I was also an informant for Emperor Justinian. I knew everything about him, including his taste in women. It was I who introduced him to his beloved Theodora.
Now, Empress Theodora’s maid beckoned from the shadows. What my lady commanded, I completed.
I hurried through the alley ways of piss and animal manure, and of homeless denizens of the grand empire that huddled around their winter fires. There was malcontent in the air. If only Theodora could finally convince the emperor.
Glancing around me, I hopped into her carriage, and her driver smacked the horses into motion. Beneath her cowl and robes, her face was pinched.
“And?”
I marveled for a moment at the complete power behind her voice. It was a far cry from the lackluster, at best, dancing girl I found all those years before, both of us with babes at our breasts, although I nursed two to her one. My sweet boys who were hopefully sleeping now in a bed of hay outside the city.
“It is inevitable,” I said simply. “The Blue and Green factions are united for the first time in their miserable lives, and unluckily for you, it’s against Justinian.”
“Shit,” she swore softly. I smirked at that. You can elevate a woman to empress, but you can’t take the curse words out of her mouth.
“You really should kill your hangman,” I said mildly. “I’m fairly certain even I could have done a better job at hanging dissidents. Two of the three men escaped. The factions have rallied around them. It’s only a matter of time before they are organized.”
“Where are they hiding?” she demanded.
“Does it matter? Some church or other, but this is beyond their popularity now. For the Blues and Greens to actually agree…” I let it hang in the air. We were both of the Blue faction. Fighting between the two was as common as a bad tip from a worse lover.
Even from the rolling carriage, we heard the shouts rising and falling like waves. If a full-scale uprising did not happen tonight, then it certainly would tomorrow as tonight’s ashes smoldered through the city. That wasn’t to mention the malcontent of the court nobles who, no doubt, had their hands guiding the factions’ spears.
I peered outside the curtains for a moment. It would be tonight, I thought. “If I were you, Theodora.”
“Yes, go on!”
I appraised my former confidante and friend. Power had changed her. It was in her eyes; she grasped for it. She could never go back to the way she was.
“If I were you, I would consider this. You could flee right now and reach safety, but you would be no one in exile. I think royal purple suits you. As they say, royalty makes the best shroud.”
“Royalty makes the best shroud,” she murmured. The rising shouts of the rioters came closer. There were no more falling interludes. All of Constantinople was set to burn in the dry, winter winds. Theodora took me by my hand as we used to do before a performance. “Flee, Macedonia. Go to your boys. Don’t wait to be slaughtered.”
The mad cries of the mob marched nearer.
“Nika!” they shouted, eager for the bloodletting to begin. “Conquer!”
I gave Theodora a final look. “Remember, peace between the Greens and Blues is fleeting. Don’t let the Blues forget that you are one of them.”
I turned and fled, the streets running red on the heels of my feet.
The scene dissipated, and I held my head high as if it never happened. I couldn’t let the god see me sweat. If he even had eyeballs behind all that smoke and mirrors.
I spoke first. “You can’t hurt me with memories.”
Don’t worry. You won’t die in the Nika Riots. You and your twins will die of the Black Plague a few years later when it sweeps through Constantinople.
I staggered back, appalled. “And this riot?”
What is thirty thousand lives in the scope of human history? The god paused. She used your speech, you know. It was the only thing that salvaged her reputation as empress. Theodora cajoled her emperor to stay and face the mob, and she managed to keep her crown another day. They eventually convinced the Blues not to accept a Green replacement emperor.
“Interesting,” I said, as if we were having a pleasant conversation between old friends. “Even in my dregs, I still changed the world. Maybe that should scare you.”
Ah, but look how easily I can change your circumstances. This, my little wolf, was a warning.
The cold, dark scrabbling that beat in my veins deepened as the shadows seemed to lean in.
Don’t think I can’t do it again.
Chapter Fifteen
As always, I awoke way before my alarm clock, this time with the dying remnants of magic in my palms, a gift destined for the god of my nightmares. It probably would have given him another fit of laughter.
Don’t think I can’t do it again.
What had that meant? Would the god try to kill me so he could turn me into another lupa in my next life? Could he?
Something wet and cold touched my ear, and I yelped, a blossom of mother magic bubbling around me. A small, furry creature hurtled across the room.
“Tiberius!” I jumped out of bed and scooped up the chipmunk, cradling him like a baby, which apparently, he didn’t appreciate. He climbed up my arm and appraised me with those ancient eyes.
“Have you been here this whole time?” I asked.
“Only when I feel things get weird,” Tiberius sniffed.
I nodded. “That’s one way to put it.”
“So what was weird?” he asked. “There was a definite weird vibe coming from this room.”
“The god from the cave found me again. I don’t know how, but he showed me another past life. Despite that thing you did.”
“Hm.”
“What does ‘hm’ mean?”
“Well, I’m a daemon. Not a god. They have powers I wouldn’t dream of touching. I’ll think about it though and figure something out.”
I sighed. I knew the drill. Sleep was done for
the night, so I got dressed and ran a comb through my hair. Counting on my fingers, I realized I was only averaging four hours of sleep a day. That couldn’t be healthy.
Perhaps Coronis knew of an herbal remedy that would help. I used to drink guava leaf tea at home, but I had a feeling this was bigger than human remedies.
Obviously.
How did he keep finding me? How did he continue to pull me into memories when the gods were locked in another realm?
Outside, the only noise came from a confused bird who twittered a few times before deciding I was crazy and she was cozy. She snuggled her beak back under a wing. But then I heard something mournful. It rose and fell like ocean waves, dissipating into the moonlight. I cocked my head.
Someone was singing. I followed the voice across Nonna’s yard, but the music made my throat ache. It felt as if my soul needed to escape, to throw itself on some desolate rock and beg for forgiveness.
Nothing was more important than getting to its source. Not jagged rocks or my life. I fell at one point, thick blood pouring down my knee, but I didn’t care. I had to bow before that song.
In the back of my subconscious, I realized I was climbing down the cliff face, but I couldn’t stop. I had to get closer. I had to prostrate myself before the beauty of the singer.
The waves licked at my calves and then my thighs. There was a figure, a beautiful woman, standing on the rock. She needed me as much as I needed her.
The waves got higher, so I started to swim. I pitched myself forward, breaking nails as I scrabbled up the rock. The woman turned, and the sight of my friend’s face shocked me out of my haze.
“Thessaly?”
Her ever-present blanket was pulled tight over her chiton and her complimentary Villa Venus robe. Her blue hair stuck up at odd angles, and her Tyrrhenian purple eyes burned a little too bright. They stared past me over my head. I snapped my fingers in front of her face. Not another sleepwalking incident. Could demons even sleepwalk?
