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Lucrezia regarded him with arched brows. “May I not visit my own mother?”
Enzo stared at her.
“But yes,” Lucrezia added, turning to address the group as a whole. “There is something else. This conversation will not continue past sunset. Officially it is not occurring at all. I am not here.”
Enzo expected no less. Giovanna likewise made no argument. And whatever authority the Duke of Wolfwater felt she possessed as their mother, she proved wise enough not to undermine her eldest daughter’s princely purview by questioning the terms in front of her other two children.
Still, Enzo did have one question. “May I ask for what purpose you haven’t gathered us here?”
Lucrezia shot him a very familiar sidelong glance reserved for younger siblings who made annoying inquiries. “I intend to bring Mother up-to-date on your adventures in her absence.”
Giovanna cut in before Enzo had a chance to express his indignance. “I’ve already told her.”
Lucrezia looked only slightly less annoyed at this.
Enzo, meanwhile, panicked.
“You’ve heard of the duels, then?” Lucrezia asked their mother—in almost the same instant that Enzo blurted at Giovanna, “What did you tell her?”
Giovanna looked to their mother for the answer.
Yet their mother’s gaze remained fixed on Enzo. “I know of your duel against the Delfini heir. And of your withdrawal from university. And of the challenge you issued to the impresario.”
Enzo knew the human heart could not literally shatter in its cage. Yet his felt just the same. From the moment Lucrezia had withdrawn him from university and through every misadventure since he’d wondered how to explain it to his mother upon her return. Even just in the past day—the hours spent fretting over what impression he would make on her after a half-decade’s absence—only for her to arrive and, within minutes, he found himself robbed of the opportunity to make any impression on his own behalf at all. In the wake of this he could but stare aghast.
“Then you’ve heard tell of Fiore,” said Lucrezia.
Enzo, jolted out of his bitter spiral at his beloved’s name, cut in. “And everything he’s suffered?”
“Most of it, I think,” Giovanna replied. Her tone suggested she may have just begun to realize what she’d stolen from him. “All I knew of, at least. Which is what you’ve told me.”
“What I and Lucrezia’s spies have told you, you mean,” Enzo spat.
Giovanna balked at this rebuke. Lucrezia didn’t so much as blink.
“I’m curious to hear what you make of it,” Lucrezia told their mother.
“Aren’t any of you the least bit curious what I think of the matter?” Enzo demanded.
Lucrezia regarded him archly. “Your actions have made your thoughts quite plain.”
Enzo seethed.
Giovanna’s voice rang out above the both of them. “I will say, since Fiore’s arrival, Enzo is the happiest I’ve seen him after university.”
Lucrezia gave her the sidelong glance she used whenever she considered a matter not worth the energy of rolling her eyes. “Thank you for your contribution. On a more pertinent note—”
“No, youwilllisten!” Giovanna snapped, startling all. “You may have made the choice to withdraw him from university, but it was I who bore witness to the consequences. He wouldn’t speak. He wouldn’t sleep. He wouldn’t eat. In daylight hours he’d lurch from room to room, a silent, miserable, ghoulish shade haunting the halls. By night he simply sat and stared. I tried everything—reading, theatre, music, sport—and nothing provoked more than resigned and perfunctory participation from him. Nothing of his life before would draw him out. Even bringing him back to the city and letting him wander under his own devices barely changed him. His routes were altogether aimless until he stumbled upon Fiore. Just a corpse wandering in search of a soul. Why do you think I fought so hard for him to return to fencing? Because if you put a sword in his hand, he would at least stand upright andmove!”
Enzo stared at her. He well recalled how miserable he’d felt in those months, true enough. But he’d never suspected anyone else had noticed his suffering.
Their mother and Lucrezia likewise appeared astonished.
Lucrezia recovered first. Rather than address Giovanna direct, she turned to Enzo. “I’m glad to see you’ve revived since then. You look very well.”
A wise man would’ve accepted this with a silent nod. Enzo instead replied, “Thanks to Fiore.”
Lucrezia raised her brows. Giovanna stewed behind her.
