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After some very loud throat-clearing on her part (and one small but heartfelt foot-stomp), Dante looked up long enough to log his vote by grunting in the general direction of a crimson dress. She didn’t bother asking for his input on jewelry or shoes, but arranged her picks beneath the dress so she wouldn’t have to rummage in the morning.
Wandering back toward the sitting area, Alessa picked up the small, leather-bound book he’d left open on the side table and ran her finger over the words inside the cover.
Per luce mia.
“Is this for me?”
Dante glanced over and bolted upright. “No.”
“Sorry.” She jerked her hand away. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“No. It’s fine.” His cheekbones darkened. “You can look at it. It’s in the old language, though.”
Alessa opened to a page at random. “O mangiar questa minestra o saltar della finestra,” she read, stumbling a bit. “Something about ministers… jumping out windows?”
“Minestra is soup. Eat the soup or jump out the window. It meanstake it or leave it.”
“Ah,” she said, closing it. “I’d begun to wonder if you’d memorized a book of ancient proverbs, and voila, here it is.”
“More than one, actually. Theholyman who took me in after my parents died made me read the Verità every day. It was big enough to hide other books behind it.”
“Oh.” She chewed her lip. “How long did you live with him?”
“Too long. Took me three years to get away.”
“That’s awful.” She wanted to ask more, to understand what he’d been through, both during his time in captivity and the years after, but instinct told her a true friend would change the subject.
Her fingertips detected grooves on the back of the book, and she flipped it over to see letters carved into the leather.
E. Lucente.
“I knew it!” Alessa crowed. “Your nameis Eustice!”
Dante shook his head with a crooked smile. “TheEis forEmma.It belonged to my mother.”
“Drat,” Alessa sulked. “Well, at least I know your last name now.Lucente. Light.AndDantemeans…”
“Enduring.”
“Enduring light,” she mused. “I like it. You called me that before:Luce mia.”
Dante crossed and uncrossed his arms with a soft throat-clearing. “She used to call me that.”
Her heart ached for the little boy he must have once been. “What are you reading now? Anything good?”
He slid a glance her way. “You tell me. I found it by your bed.”
The blood drained from her face. “Give it back.”
He pulled it close. “I will. I’m just borrowing it. Fair trade.”
“You can’t. It’smine. I mean, it’s notmine. I found it. It was clearly not meant to be in the library, so I removed it. To discard it.”
“Why would you do that?”
“It’s… inappropriate.” The tips of her ears went hot.
“Well, someone’s enjoyed it. Half the pages are dog-eared.” His lips twitched.
