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“No,” she said. It would be hard enough without a witness. “Just come back as soon as you’re done.”
It was almost closing time, and the bakery was empty, the display case lacking its usual goods. Cloaked in the lingering scents of yeast and sugar and her childhood, Alessa locked the door behind her and flipped the sign.
“We’re about to close for the day, but there are a few loaves—” Her father walked out from the back room, dusting his flour-coated hands on his apron, and jerked to a stop at the sight of her.
His hair was longer, more salt than pepper, and his face was slightly more drawn, but his expression matched the last one she’d seen on his face—dismay and awe, tempered with melancholy.
“Finestra.” His arms lifted, then dropped. “What brings you here?”
She ached for the hug that wouldn’t happen. “Hello, Papa. Please, use my name.”
He darted a look around the empty kitchen. “Alessa. My little love, you’re all grown up.”
“I’ve missed you.” Tears slipped down her cheeks.
He came out from behind the counter but stayed out of reach. “We’ve missed you. I’ll never understand why the gods make the choices they do, but I have faith. I know this can’t be easy.”
An understatement if she’d ever heard one. If she let herself, she’d dissolve into a sobbing puddle, so Alessa allowed herself one sniff and pulled the tainted cookie from her pocket. “Do you know who made this?”
Papa furrowed his brow. “I haven’t made a batch in a while, but Adrick was manning the kitchen yesterday. He might have. Why?”
Her heart rate kicked up, escalating at the sound of footsteps on the back stairs.
“Marcel, have you turned the sign?” Her mother stopped mid-step as though the floor had taken hold of her shoes.
“Mama.”
“Finestra.” Her mother dropped into a low curtsy. “With all due respect, you shouldn’t be here.”
Her foolish heart sank. “I know what the Verità says, Mama. I won’t stay long.”
“If you know what it says, then you know what the gods ask of us. You aren’t supposed to be here.”
“I know, but I needed to—” The words caught in Alessa’s throat. Whywasshe there? To unravel a mystery she didn’t want the answer to? In search of love she knew she wouldn’t find? Or simply to find closure? “Say goodbye.”
Her mother was already turning away, so Alessa couldn’t see her face when she said a curt, “Goodbye.”
Papa moved his fist in the sign forI’m sorry.
Alessa didn’t respond. It wasn’t fair to expect him to take sides, but it hurt that he wouldn’t.
Thirteen years. Thirteen years of being the sun in her daughter’s sky, and now her mother wouldn’t even look her in the eye for one last goodbye.
In that moment, something inside her withered and died.
“Is Adrick here?”
Papa winced at her cold tone. “No, he’s at the apothecary. Why—”
She was out the door before he finished.
She should have waited for Dante, but her mother’s rejection and the pain in her father’s eyes drove her away. She needed to find Adrick, to pull out the sliver of fear that she might have no one left.
Around the final corner, she nearly ran into a group of white-robed Fratellanza members clustered in front of the apothecary.
Shielding her face as if blocking a glare, Alessa darted into the narrow alley between the apothecary and the tailor next door.
For once, Dea was on her side. Adrick was out back, holding an empty crate. The tiny walled yard behind the building was crowded with them, overturned and arranged in a rough semi-circle.
