A strigoi with a long neck and black eyes raises their hand. “Why would they take a human?”
“Because I love her,” Diantha says. “That fucking abomination of a god knows I love her.” She turns her eyes, hot and dark and angry, to Misha. “What about your coven? Please tell me they’re okay.”
Misha pulls her gaze away. “I haven’t seen or heard anything.” She looks exhausted, like the last few days have somehow broken her free of immortality and aged her years.
“Clearly, this war is not over,” Leo says, pushing off the bar and reaching for Misha. He closes his hands around her shoulders and pulls her to his waist, embracing her. “But the battle here, in this realm, has been won. Diantha’s mother’s spirit has been released, and the Paquet fire was attributed to Alfredo Mancini, a New York crime boss who went by Alfo, who hadn’t received payments on a multimillion-dollar illegal loan from the Paquet family in a decade.” Leo strokes Misha’s hair. “So, how’s that for a happy ending?”
I tighten my hold on Diantha’s hand. Her blood courses through me. I feel her pride, her affection, her strength, and her pain.
“And Orfeo survived,” Misha says, her voice quiet. “He cheated death.” I look up and meet her eyes. She’s grinning. “How many times will you cheat death,stronzo?”
This cracks the tension in the room. Diantha lets out a wild laugh and leans into me.
We all begin to laugh, quietly and then with our mouths open. Then, it grows. Some of the strigoi whoop and clap; Leo presses his fingers into his teeth and lets out a long, loud whistle. A chant begins:
The vampire lives. The vampire lives.
Diantha reaches for me, takes my face in her hands, pulls me to my feet. She wraps her arms around my neck and presses her lips to mine, and it’s magic.It’s her magic.The same magic that saved my damned and damn-near immortal life.
“The fucking Italian vampire survived,” a strigoi shouts, his voice thick with emotion. “Now, let’s fuckingdrink.”
Three Months Later
DIANTHA
“She’s mostlikely being held captive…” Bowen pauses to take a long inhale of his pipe. “Here,” he says on an exhale, tapping the pipe’s tip against a speck of land, smaller than half a grain of rice.
“L’isola di Ponza,” Orfeo says at once. He frowns at Bowen. “How?”
I lean closer to the map, studying the cluster of land masses off the Italian coast, halfway between Rome and Naples. On this yellowed, faded map, they look like crumbs or ink droplets.
“Yeah, how the hell did you figure that out?”
“Well…” Bowen pushes away from the desk, rolling toward the cluttered window sill on the other side of the room where he grabs a manila folder. Then, he propels himself back toward us, placing the open file on his desk. “Here’s what I found in my research. Feel free to read through, but in summation: many believe Hades has an enchanted fortress somewhere on those islands—a paradisiacal prison, a golden cage.” He takes another inhale of his pipe. The smell of charred, peppery tobacco hangs around us, mixing with the crisp early spring air drifting in through his open window. “Ponza, Zannone, Palmarola—they’re mostly uninhabited. Tourists might take a day trip out, but…” Heshrugs. “There are no hotels, no hostels. It’s a very convenient place to work magic.”
“Poor Evie,” I whisper through the tightening of my throat.It’s all my fault,I think for the hundredth time.It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault, all my fault, all my fault.Orfeo slides his hand off the desk and rests it gently on my knee. The anxious thought quiets slowly, as if someone has turned down the dial on a radio.
I feel Orfeo’s emotions shift through me: his devotion, his care. They move through me, slow traveling wisps of smoke curling around my bones.
Now that we share blood regularly, our bond is titanium. Orfeo was right: this love isn’t human. I don’t just desire him or feel joy and pleasure in his company. I have a primal, instinctual need to protect him, to have him inside me. I dream of murdering anyone who has ever wronged him. His emotions live in me as if they’re part of my own physiology. All of this—it should scare me.
ButIdon’t feel human anymore. I don’t have time to.
All I’ve done for the last three months is try to keep Pandora’s Cup open and Hades House profitable and crime-free while doing everything in my power to find Evie and Davìd. It’s been an all-consuming mission.
I can’t doubt myself. Because a moment wasted wondering if I have what it takes to be a goddess might be one more moment they face harm and suffering.
I had to embrace my destiny.Had to. Because Evie can’t die. She just can’t.
Bowen spins in his chair toward his bookshelf. Since the first time we met in this office—his office, at the very top of the Art History building—I’ve watched him rummage through these volumes time and time again. He yanks a heavy tome free, its pages so deep into disintegration that the little yank produces a cloud of dust.
He holds the book by its cracked, dry spine. “Aeaea island…Aeaea island…” He whispers the words like an incantation until finally he lets out a little victorious yelp. “There we are! Aeaea island, Circe’s dominion.” He drops the open book down in front of us. “Believed to be Ponza—or one of the small islands around Ponza.”
Orfeo shoots me a sideways, skeptical look. “She wouldn’t allow him to build his little mouse trap in her caves, would she?”
“No. Gods, no. But! Where there is one god—or goddess—there tends to be another. Where there is powerful magic, there will be more…powerful…” He raises his brows, flicking his eyes back and forth between us.
Orfeo smirks. “You think I am a powerful vampire?”
