I turn my head. “Uh, yes.”
“I’ve seen you before.” He pats Piero’s hair. “My poor thing fell asleep while waiting for her to talk to him.”
“Oh—his boyfriend!” I force a smile to brighten my fumbling voice. “He complained that he had a date after Mistress Vincenza put him there. She hasn’t talked to him?”
He nods his head and clicks his tongue. “Wouldn’t open her door. Is she okay?”
I bite my lip. “I-I don’t kn-know.” Maybe a spell to test if she’s still patronizing me? “You—Are you a mage?”
He smiles mischievously. “I guess Itryto dabble here and there, now that I can. A bit of necromancy, a bit of the rest.”
“What spell did you do first?”
He—extremely chalantly—covers his burning cheeks. “I just turned off a candle. Not much.”
“Okay. Thank you.” I open back up the hallway door.
“Are you leaving? This place opens soon, doesn’t it?”
It’s so strange to see the same still scene I left last night. Half finished pasta and a dirty bowl on the table. I didn’t even have much time to think about what room I was in, but I do now. We have a whole kitchen and living space—an entire ritual circle marked in chalk!
Still, it’s easy to tell why Mistress Vincenza kept this locked. There’s a truly torturous amount of memories hung about. She must’ve been so proud to call Nascia her wife, and Nascia must’ve been proud to call Mistress Vincenza hers.
A wave of chill runs down my skin.This isn’t a space I belong.I’m intruding.
Shallow breathes. I search near the ritual circle for candles, and lay one down in an arbitrarily chosen circle. Sadly, there’s just a gun in my pocket, no lighters.
I used to keep one on me for when Lucia needed it. But she would sooner ask me for another one than ever return any.
There’s at least one next to the fireplace. It needs to be refueled, so I guess Mistress Vincenza doesn’t use either that often. Especially so with how full the aged can of naphtha feels.
Light the candle, sit down, and shut my eyes. Imagine the feeling of her touching me, the way her fingers folded around mine, and just… impose it. Conceptualize her grabbing the wick, violently and with an authority that’s unmistakably hers.
At some point, I release my breath instead of waiting for the spell to go through.
Fucking, nothing. There was some giddiness in my heart, but nothing like that warmth, that music, that played last night.
“Catarina, I should apologize to you,” the beautiful and dominating voice of Mistress Vincenza calls from the doorways.
Sorrowful.
I fall over sideways to quickly blow out the candle. “I’m sorry! I just was going to see if you were—still… before I knocked on your door.”
Her eyes sweep every part of the room that I’m not in as she nears. “Could you manage something before?”
“I h-healed my ghoul bite with a rabbit cadaver last night.” I hold up my hand.
“Ghoul bite?” She sharpens her gaze onto my formerly injured hand. “You should’ve told me. I’m impressed, but you absolutely cannot—“ Her hand clenches. “I’m impressed that you independently completed a ritual. In the future, I do not want you to do so again without my permission. Absolutely no more dead things of inhuman origin; it’s unhygienic.”
“Yes, Mistress. I understand.”
“I don’t make exceptions in any case. There are alternatives we can use for the rituals.” She sits on the opposite side of the ritual circle, brazenly casual. “First and foremost, I’m the one who’s apologizing. I made a mistake and didn’t explain it to you.”
“Mistake?”
Her hands circle over each other rhythmically. “After a Ringborn, such as I, patronizes someone, it slowly gets easier to keep it up with smallerand smaller acts. For me and my wife, a hug would suffice on the rare occasion she went long enough to lose my gift. I engage in physical contact rarely, and nothing close to a hug until last night… This room has a lot of memories, and half of magic is memories on strings, hung up and danced around.”
“Is that bad? I liked having magic—even just for a little while.”
