by A. L. Knorr
“There are a couple of surprise visitors in the front lobby for you.” She gave an enigmatic smile. “Don’t ask me who, I’m not supposed to say.”
My heart leapt. Could it possibly be Targa or Georjayna? It was unlikely to be Georjie, since I’d seen her a couple of weeks ago, but I hadn’t seen Targa since last summer. She had access to a pilot and a private jet and it would be like her to drop in unannounced. If there were two visitors, maybe I’d finally get a chance to meet Antoni in person.
I thanked Christy and grabbed a button-up sweater from where it lay on the bed. Pulling it on over my tank top, I slid my feet into a set of cheap flip-flops I’d bought in Dover. Since I hadn’t planned to be here over the summer, I hadn’t had much in the way of summer clothes or shoes.
The flip-flops thwacked out a staccato beat on the bottoms of my feet as I took the corridor at a fast walk and descended to the lobby. I emerged with a hopeful smile but came to a dead stop, recognizing the woman looking out a front window, even from the back.
“Elda!?”
The lady I had au-paired for in Venice last summer turned, revealing her youngest where he’d been hidden in front of her.
“Isaia!” I smiled and crouched, opening my arms wide.
A grin overtoook his face. He ran across the carpet and wrapped his arms around my neck, his cheek pressed against my ear. He was still small, but he felt so much more resilient than when I’d first met him.
Tears pricked behind my eyelids. Seeing the boy who had passed his fire to me was a shock to my emotions. I’d become good friends with the family last summer, but had only exchanged a couple of emails with Elda since then. I never really expected to see any of the Baseggios again.
“What a surprise.” I stood and met Elda’s eyes as she approached, shifting her designer bag from one shoulder to the other.
We hugged over top of Isaia, and when I released Elda, he slid his fingers into mine, sending a look of adoration up at me. He hadn’t said anything yet. Part of me was frightened for a second that he’d lost his voice again.
“How are you?” I asked him. “Comé stai?”
“Cristiano went to Trentino with Dad,” he replied in his soft Italian accent.
I laughed. “And you came to England with your Mum. How do you feel about that?”
Isaia gave a shy smile and looked at the floor.
“He’s been talking about you a lot lately,” Elda said, then directed her next words at her son. “You can see she’s fine now, can’t you? You don’t have to worry.”
I knelt in front of Isaia. “You’ve been worried about me?”
His gaze flashed to my torso and up to my face again.
“The fire doesn’t hurt me anymore,” I said. “Is that what you were worried about?”
He nodded.
Kristoff and Eira passed through the lobby, studying us.
“Come on, let’s move into the lounge where it’s quiet.” I led them into the nearest lounge. “Can I get you something to drink?”
Isaia wanted water and Elda asked for tea so I directed them to sit at the couches close to the windows while I fixed the drinks at the sideboard.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, setting Elda’s tea and Isaia’s water on the coffee table. “How did you know where to find me? Even I didn’t know I was going to be in England this summer.”
Elda stroked Isaia’s hair. “I had meetings scheduled in London and since Pietro and Cristiano are in Northern Italy for the week, I thought I’d bring Isaia with me. He’s been asking when we would see you next. Enzo told me about this place and I called ahead to see if you were still here.”
I looked at her with alarm at the mention of Enzo.
Attending Arcturus had been Enzo’s suggestion to me when we’d made our deal, but I hadn’t known that he’d been in touch with the Baseggios. Enzo had told me he would leave Elda and her family alone.
“Has he been bothering you?” I gripped the edge of the sofa.
Squirrel-chatter from outside drew Isaia to the window. Elda leaned over and touched his back. When he turned, she pointed out the library shelf across the room.
“Why don’t you see if there are some nice books on that shelf, darling?”
He moved away, going for a little expedition on his own.
When he was out of range, she answered sotto voce. “Not bothering, exactly. But he did give me a bit of a fright. Possibly he didn’t intend to frighten me.”
I frowned. “I highly doubt that.”
Enzo was head of the oldest and most powerful family in Venice. He wouldn’t admit to being mafia, not even to his own men, but if it walks like a duck and sounds like a duck…
“He came to the villa,” she said in a small voice.
My nostrils flared. Enzo never did himself what he could send a man to do for him. Visiting Elda’s home bordered on an act of terror in my opinion. “What for?”
“He wanted to see Isaia. I think he still doesn’t fully believe that there’s no fire left in him.”
“That’s ridiculous.” It took effort to keep my voice down. “How can he think Isaia has fire when I’m here at fire mage school?”
She shrugged. “We non-supernatural folks are clueless when it comes to these things. He wanted to see Isaia for reasons beyond my understanding, but my guess is that he wanted to remind me that if you don’t come through on your part of the bargain, I’d still be on the hook. It put pressure on me, to put pressure on you, I’m sorry to say.”
My tummy shriveled. “Why? I understood that he’d cash in his chit after I’d graduated. I still have another two years here.” I kept to myself that I had hopes to graduate in one. I wanted to delay paying this debt off for as long as possible.
She sighed. “I don’t know what goes on in that man’s mind, but when Enzo shows up at my door with his eyes on my son and his mouth running off small talk, something is up. He didn’t look good. He’s aged. Whatever is going on in his life, it’s a rough patch. Maybe he’s considering you for something, and wanted to make sure what we owe him hasn’t been forgotten.”
“What I owe him, Elda,” I reminded her, not liking the worry on her face. “Our deal was that he’d forget he ever knew Isaia as long as I did him a favor. He won’t go back on that, it wouldn’t even make sense for him to go back on it. Isaia has nothing to offer him, Nicodemo’s son or not.”
Elda nodded and took a sip from her teacup, glancing at Isaia. He’d taken an atlas from a bookshelf and was flipping through it, the big book balanced on his lap, feet sticking straight out on the sofa.
“Is that why you came? To tell me that Enzo is gearing up to cash in?”
“I don’t know, Saxony.” She sighed and rubbed at her forehead. “I came because I was close by, and because Isaia wanted to see you. It wasn’t enough to tell him that you’re fine, that you’re no longer in pain. He wanted to see you with his own eyes. Now that he has, maybe he’ll stop nagging me.” She raised her gaze to mine. “And I wanted you to be aware that something is going on in Enzo’s life. I don’t know what, but it might spill over into yours and I wanted you to be forewarned. I think that’s why he came to our villa. He’d rather I gave you a heads up. It’s not his style to do it himself.”
I chewed my lip. I didn’t have time to be concerned about Enzo right now. We were halfway through the games. I had to focus on getting Arcturus clear of Babs.
“How are you, really?” Elda asked. “How is”—she rolled her gaze around the lounge— “this place? Is it good for you?”
“Yes. I’m mostly happy here.”
I told Elda about my classes and the developments leading up to the games, watching Isaia with one eye. When he was finished his journey through the atlas, he wandered around the room, looking at the paintings. He seemed especially drawn to the ones featuring fire. I wondered how he felt about fire now that it wasn’t part of his life. When he’d made his circuit of the room and came back to us, I asked him if he was happy.
He nodded, leaning into his mother’s side.
“Do you ever think about your fire?” I asked, laying a hand over my rib-cage.
He nodded, dropping his gaze to my hand.
“Do you ever wish you still had it?” I held my breath while he thought about his answer, but I wanted the truth.
I wondered if one day, a grown-up Isaia might have regrets about giving away his fire. But then, if he hadn’t given away his fire, he’d never have become a grown up. Still, the mind had a funny way of looking back through rose-colored glasses. Maybe he’d forgotten how close to death he’d come and missed his flickering companion.
Eventually, he shook his head. “It’s better if you keep it.”
“So you’re happy you gave it away?”
“I’m happy because Mum and Dad are happier now. I can do more things. I can play football,” he said stoutly. “I’m as good as Cristiano.”
I grinned, knowing well that Isaia was nowhere near as talented as his older brother with a football. Just the thought of Isaia running around after a ball was startling. I’d only ever seen him play with Lego, do puzzles, read or draw. Now he was living the life of a healthy seven-year-old.
As long as Enzo stayed away from Isaia, the Baseggios’ life was perfect.
Almost perfect.
As Isaia moved away again, drawn by voices coming from the lobby, I asked Elda how things were between her and Pietro. She’d had to admit to her husband that Isaia was the result of an affair. An affair with a now deceased fire mage, Nicodemo. Poor Pietro had had no idea why his son was so sickly or why he’d lost his voice, until Elda made a full confession. After a period of uncertainty, Pietro chose to stay in the relationship. They’d agreed to counseling, but I was sure it was still a bumpy road.
Elda told me that their marriage was up and down, that there were days Pietro had locked himself in his office and wouldn’t speak to her, or where he didn’t answer his phone all day. But most of the time he seemed okay. She didn’t think he’d fully forgiven her but she had hopes that one day he would. Her concern was that when the boys grew up and left home, Pietro might leave too.
“It keeps me focused,” she explained, watching as Isaia leaned on the doorjamb and observed the goings on in the lobby. “Relationships take effort. In the beginning, everything is easy and exciting, but time passes, and soon real work is required.”
I nodded, thinking of Gage with a stab of longing and dismay. We were supposed to be enjoying the exciting phase, but we couldn’t with the fire coming between us. If it was this difficult already, how could we last long enough to reach the hard work phase?
“Hey there little man.” Tomio appeared in the doorway, looking down at Isaia. He smiled at me, then Elda. “This one is yours, I take it?”
“Hello. Yes, that’s Isaia. I’m Elda.” She waved.
Tomio waved back and Isaia ran to his mother’s side, suddenly shy. Tomio grinned and disappeared.
“Friend of yours?”
I nodded.
Elda cocked a brow. “More than a friend?”
I laughed. “No. He’s more of a sparring buddy.”
“Have you got a more-than-a-friend?” Elda squeezed Isaia in to her side, he melted into her and yawned.
I nodded. “But he’s not here right now. Funnily enough, he’s in your country.”
“Really?” Elda’s interest kindled.
“Not in Venice, though. In Naples.”
I told her a little bit about Gage, editing out the details of why he was really there, and telling her that he was on working holiday with his mum. Elda was charmed. She thought the idea of a guy in his late teens going on holiday with his mum was the most adorable thing she’d ever heard and that she hoped Isaia and Cristiano would want to holiday with her when they were older.
We spent another hour chatting and then Elda stood and stretched, looking at her watch. “I have a dinner meeting somewhere in Angel and I’m not sure about the navigating the tube. Also, I need to get Isaia back to the hotel and settled with the babysitter, so I’d better catch the next train.”
I walked her and Isaia to the front door and hugged them both goodbye, feeling weighed down by the feelings their visit had triggered, not to mention the questions. After their cab drove away, I sat on the front step of the school, listening to the birds and lost in my own thoughts. I don’t know how long I was there before Tomio found me.
“What was that all about?” he asked, sitting down beside me.
“That was the boy who gave me his fire,” I replied, pressing my hands between my knees. “His mum says he’s been wanting to see me and she was in London for business, so they popped out to Dover. I haven’t seen them in almost a year.”
“That was him, huh? What a cutie.”
I nodded.
“How did it feel to see the original host of your fire?”
I tucked a hair behind my ear and looked at Tomio. “I’m just glad he’s healthy and that he doesn’t want it back.”
“You babysat him for a summer, right?” Tomio’s brow wrinkled in the glare of the noonday sun.
“Yes.”
“So you got pretty close?”
“Somewhat.”
He looked down at his sneakers. “Still, it seems a little strange. You’re not family or anything. You haven’t talked to them for ages and suddenly she’s here at the school?”
“It’s more complicated than that. We’re still … entangled.”
“What do you mean?”
I let out a long breath. “Elda cheated on her husband with a fire mage named Nicodemo. That’s how Isaia came to be. He was an accident.”
Tomio absorbed this in silence.
“Her husband, Pietro, had no idea what was wrong with their little boy. When Isaia passed his fire on to me and started to speak again, Elda had to tell Pietro the truth.”
“Sounds complicated.”
I pulled out my topknot and raked it back up again with quick, almost violent movements. I hated thinking about what the Baseggios and Isaia had been through.
“Before Isaia was born, Cristiano, Elda and Pietro’s oldest son, was kidnapped while Pietro was out of town. They’re pretty well off, the Baseggios, so some wise guy thought to hold Cristiano for ransom. Everyone in Venice knows of Enzo Barberini, and Elda went to him for help.”
“Bloody hell,” Tomio muttered. “Not the police?”
“In Venice, going to Enzo is basically going to the police, their invisible head, if you catch my meaning.”
“Okay. Things are that corrupt there?”
I nodded and carried on, not bothering to say that things were that corrupt everywhere. In Italy, the further south you went, the worse the corruption became.
“Enzo sent his fire mage, Nicodemo, to rescue Cristiano. When he delivered the boy back to Elda, they fell for one another. It all happened very quickly. Her husband was away, and she was emotionally fraught. She accepted … comfort from Nicodemo.”
“That’s one word for it,” Tomio murmured.
“She wanted to pay Enzo back for his help but he wouldn’t take money or even shares in her company. He said he’d let her know what he wanted at some later date. Fast forward to after Isaia was born and Nicodemo died during an attempted Burning. That’s when Isaia lost his ability to talk.”
Tomio’s eyes widened.
I left out the fact that the Burning which had resulted in Nicodemo’s death had been facilitated by Dante, Enzo’s only son, and that Dante was the one who had locked me in a cell, hoping to bring me close enough to death that I would pass him the fire which Isaia had passed to me, in exchange for water.
“Enzo found out that Nicodemo had a son through these video clips he’d recorded before he died. Enzo went to Elda and told her that’s what he wanted.”
“The video clips?”
“No, the son.”
Tomio blinked. “What do you mean?”
“He knew from the clips that Isaia was Nicodemo
’s son, and likely a fire mage. He wanted to take Isaia and train him up. His only fire mage was dead, and in his line of work, which is not exactly clean as the driven snow, he could use a supernatural. So he told Elda he would take Isaia when he was a little older, as payment for rescuing Cristiano.”
Tomio shook his head, horrified. “That’s barbaric and insane.”
“Yep. So when Isaia gave me his fire, I went to Enzo and made a deal. He would forget all about Isaia, who was now useless to him anyway, and I would owe him one favor.”
“What favor?”
I shook my head. “I have no idea. I just told him I wouldn’t break any laws.”
Tomio raked both hands through his hair. “Whoa.”
“Yeah. So Elda showing up here isn’t just a random visit. Enzo went by her villa. Elda thinks he did it because he might need to cash in his chit, sooner rather than later.”
“That’s crazy, Saxony.”
I wrapped my arms around my knees. “You know what is even crazier? Enzo is the reason I’m here at Arcturus. He said I needed training before I would be able to do any work for him.”
“How does he know about Arcturus?”
I shrugged. “Maybe Nicodemo told him, I don’t know, but Enzo gave me Basil’s card. That’s how I came to be here.”
Tomio let out a long breath. “That’s heavy stuff.”
I nodded, thinking that it was only some of the burden making me weary; he didn’t know about the problem between Gage and me. I’d never told Gage about Enzo or Isaia but here I was spilling my past to Tomio. A flash of irritation stifled the guilt. If Gage had been back by now, then I’d be sharing this with him, not someone else. So whose fault was it that Tomio and I were becoming closer?
Twenty-Three
What Waits for No One
“Here is your blindfold, Ms. Cagney,” said Guzelköy, handing me a black silk scarf. Beside me stood Kristoff, taking his scarf from Davazlar.
