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“Limone,” Josef said, out of nowhere.
“Excuse me?”
“That’s what Signor Dante chose. If you were wondering. You may not have been.”
“I wasn’t.”Methinks I doth protest too much. “What does limone say about a person? A sour disposition?”
Josef looked mildly offended. “Lemon is notsour, it’start. Not the same at all. The culinary section of the paper called our limone a ‘near-perfect blend of tart and sweet: appealing, layered, and complex. The heart of Saverio in every scoop. A classic.’ Our family has spent years perfecting it. It’s our most beloved flavor.”
Alessa licked a bit of gelato off her spoon. “Of course. The perfect flavor. My mistake.”
Dante eyed them as if he knew he was the topic of conversation.
With an obnoxiously cheerful grin, Alessa spooned anotherscoop into her mouth and promptly got her first taste of the dark chocolate, which entirely ruined the effect. Her eyes slipped closed to fully appreciate the melding of hedonistic chocolate and fruity tartness melting on her tongue.
When she returned to the mortal plane, Josef had moved on to analyzing Saida, and Dante was jabbing at his limone as though it had offended him.
“Quit stalling,” Dante said. Elbows propped on his knees, he watched Alessa pace.
She’d put it off as long as she could, chewing each bite of dinner as slowly as possible.
“We almost died yesterday,” she said, yawning dramatically. “Doesn’t that warrant an early bedtime?”
Dante glared at her through his lashes. “That was your excuse last night. Are we doing this or not?”
She’d already left him unconscious once. A second touch might be too much.
“I’ve changed my mind,” she said. “This was a terrible idea.”
“If we wait for a better one, we’ll all be dead. Look, as someone older than you—”
“Pfft.Not by much, if at all. Do you even know how old I am?”
He dragged out the question like it was sucking years from his life. “How old are you?”
Alessa smiled because she knew it would irritate him. “I am eighteen.”
“Like I said. As someone older than you—”
“How old areyou?”
“Nineteen. Or twenty. Stop interrupting.”
“How can you not know how old you are?”
“I don’t carry a pocket calendar and I lost track of the date a few weeks ago. Do youalwaysask so many questions?”
“I don’t know, do I?”
“Har har. Now, let me finish. As someone older than you…” He paused, anticipating an interruption, but she clasped her hands innocently in her lap instead. “I can tell you, it’s always better to get something unpleasant over with quickly. Drawing out the wait only makes it worse.”
A truth she knew quite well at eighteen, but it was easier said than done.
“First, tell me how this works. Can a ghiotte heal from anything?”
Dante picked at a loose thread on his chair. “No, not anything, or my parents would still be alive. If you cut my head off or drop a wall on me, I’m done for. Regular injuries, I’ll recover. If it’s a repeat injury, it’s easier. The first time I broke my arm, it hurt like a beast. By the third, I barely noticed. Healed faster, too. I think that’s part of the… gift, but I don’t know.”
“Is it like that for all of you?”
