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The scarabeo were the last thing Alessa wanted to talk about.
Joseph cleared his throat. “Have you chosen, then?”
Fine.Secondto last.
“Not yet.” Alessa’s smile pulled tight as a violin string about to snap.
As the silence stretched from uncomfortable to painful, Alessa caught the eye of a passing server, who extended his tray as far as his arms would reach so Alessa could snag a sweet.
“You should try one,” Alessa said to the others, smiling too brightly. “They’re absolutely to die for.”
The words stuck in her throat as everyone flinched. Where was a scarabeo when youwantedto be torn to bits?
She cast up a silent apology.Dea,I didn’t mean that. Please give me as much time as possible.
The paving stones didn’t open up and swallow her as she requested, so she pinned on a smile and excused herself from the group.
Saida Farid sat alone, scribbling what appeared to be a recipe in a small notebook.
Alessa cleared her throat so she didn’t startle the girl. “What are you writing?”
Saida flushed and put the notebook in her lap. “It’s just a pet project. I like to analyze food, try to figure out the ingredients of dishes so I can recreate them. My goal is to write a culinary history of Saverio, to memorialize our ancestors’ respective cultures through food.”
“That’s ambitious.”
“It started as a school assignment, but it got me thinking about how most families have special dishes they’ve passed down for generations that aren’t written down anywhere else. I want tomake sure they’re recorded, just in case…” She trailed off. “How’s your…” She gestured at Alessa’s ear.
Self-consciously, Alessa checked to be sure her hairstyle was still covering it and took an empty seat. “It’s fine. Really. Barely a scratch.”
“Still. Must have been scary.”
At the other girl’s sympathy, tears pricked Alessa’s eyes. She smiled harder to force them back. “Knives are the least of my problems, right?”
Saida’s tawny complexion went ashen. “But you’ve been working to get that, um, sorted out, right?”
Damn. She’d been referring to the scarabeo, not her Fonte-killing problem.
“Absolutely.” Alessa stood quickly. “I amconfident,and I have everythingunder control.”
Whoops. She hadn’t meant to say the last part out loud. It seemed to reassure Saida, though, so for once, her tendency to say the quiet part out loud hadn’t made things noticeably worse.
It was past midnight when Alessa returned to the relative peace of her rooms. Sleep offered the only escape from the hum of anxious energy twitching through her body, but her bed loomed rather than beckoned. Insomnia never felt more inevitable than when she settled herself in the middle of the massive four-poster monstrosity, acres of cold emptiness on either side.
Alessa flopped onto the couch instead.
She still didn’t know who to choose. The strongest? The person whose gift was most practical? If her chosen Fonte didn’t live long enough to fight, what difference did it make? She needed a Fonte who wouldlive.
Choosing Emer, her first Fonte, had been so easy. His funeral, unbearable.
At first, she’d been so angry when people insisted he was a bittoogentle, but the thought became a lifeline. It was still her fault for choosing him, but maybe not entirely her fault he’d died.
Her naive, selfish heart had wanted the golden boy with a sweet smile, and the gods had not approved. Message heard.
She’d chosen more wisely the next time.
Ilsi, Josef’s older sister, had been so confident, beautiful, and powerful she might have stepped out of the Cittadella’s mosaics. Everyone knewshe’dbe strong enough to withstand Alessa’s power, including Alessa, who’d been awestruck by the older girl, and for one brief day, Ilsi illuminated the Cittadella with her charismatic presence and sly sense of humor. Alessa hadn’t even decided whether shewantedIlsi or wanted tobeIlsi before Ilsi was dead, too.
Once, she’d followed her heart. And Emer died.
