The Raven

  In any case, she couldn’t go back.

  She whispered a farewell to the figure of Zephyr and slowly walked from the room.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  After her birthday party, July fifth, Raven returned to her apartment late at night.

  She was wearing a vibrant green dress she’d bought herself. The neckline exposed her collarbone and a hint of cleavage; the skirt was full and flattering.

  It had been a good evening. Gina and Patrick had hosted an excellent party, filled with food, music, and laughter.

  She’d met Roberto and they’d struck up a conversation about their mutual interest in Italian literature and the rapier wit of Boccaccio. Afterward, she’d driven him home on her Vespa before making the trek to Santo Spirito.

  She entered her apartment and closed and locked the door. She tossed her knapsack to the floor and hit the light switch.

  She looked into the kitchen and screamed.

  William was sitting on one of her chairs, waiting. As was his custom, he was clad all in black, his expression guarded.

  She clutched a hand to her chest. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was under the impression it was your birthday.” He smiled cautiously, his gray eyes searching.

  She leaned back against the door. Her body was tense, her hand gripping her cane tightly.

  “What are you doing sitting in the dark?”

  His smile faded. “I’ve always been more comfortable in the shadows.”

  He broke eye contact then, as if he were unsure of her reaction. He placed his hand in his pocket awkwardly.

  Something about his lack of sureness pierced her.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Her words were sincere. She was sorry, very sorry, for a great many things, not least of which was his loneliness.

  At the sound of her sincerity, he lifted his head. Cautious optimism flared in his eyes and it almost broke Raven’s heart.

  He approached her slowly, his eyes burning into hers. He moved as if to touch her face, but dropped his hand at the last second.

  “That dress suits you. You look beautiful.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I have gifts.”

  She scowled and brushed past him, moving to the support of the kitchen counter.

  It was as if he were an instrument that played only one tune. He’d tried to convince her to stay with him by promising riches. Now he was repeating the act.

  She was insulted. And hurt.

  “Your possessions don’t interest me.”

  “Please.” His tone was low, almost pleading.

  Raven focused on his face, surprised. This was the first time he’d ever pronounced the word, she was sure of it.

  She tried to soften her defensive posture, at least in appearance.

  “It was nice of you to remember my birthday. But you’re making this more difficult.”

  “I don’t think anything could be more difficult than the past month.” His expression was grave.

  She arched an eyebrow at him.

  “I mean it, Raven. I’ve known loss before, incalculable loss. It paled next to losing you.”

  She held out her hand, stopping him.

  “William, please. I—”

  “I want to show you something, then I have a gift I wish to give you. After that, you’ll never see me again.”

  Pain lanced through Raven’s body. Seeing him, hearing him, and being reminded that they were separated was almost more than she could bear.

  He was gazing on her with what appeared to be hope. The hope was restrained, but still visible.

  She could not kill that look.

  “All right.” She sighed in resignation. “But nothing has changed. I need you to understand that.”

  He moved toward her and gently took her hand in his, pressing it against his heart.

  “Everything has changed,” he whispered.

  His eyes were focused and intense, as they’d always been. But there was something else in them. Something Raven hadn’t seen before.

  “What’s changed, William? Tell me.” Her voice hardened.

  “I’d prefer to show you.” He kissed the palm of her hand. “Leave the cane. Tonight you fly with me.”

  She leaned into his chest, internally cursing herself for reacting in such a way.

  Then she snatched back her hand and placed the cane against the counter before following William to the bedroom window.

  He held her with his left arm, clutching her close as he lifted her through the window and up to the roof. Then he ran with her, jumping from building to building, dropping to the ground only to cross the Ponte Santa Trinita.

  Raven held on tightly, the speed both dizzying and exhilarating. The gentle midnight breeze blew her hair across her face. She fought with it, unwilling to have her vision obscured.

  They scaled a building near the bridge and soon they were flying across the rooftops once again.

  “Where are you taking me?” Her voice pierced the silence between them.

  William stopped on one of the buildings opposite Giotto’s bell tower.

  “I want to show you my city.”

  She gazed out over Florence, at the red-tiled roofs and open spaces, at the tourists and citizens walking below.

  “Incredible,” she said breathily.

  “A better view can be had from Brunelleschi’s dome.” William gestured to the great structure that loomed above them.

  She gazed at him skeptically. “It’s holy ground.”

  His eyes met hers.

  “Holy ground bothers me the way the sun bothers me. It’s a discomfort I can manage.”

  “Relics don’t affect you.”

  “That isn’t quite true.”

  “You gave me a relic. You touched it with your hands.”

  He hesitated. “I have a few items in my collection from a single source that have no effect on me whatsoever. Other objects, including holy water, cause physical pain. But their effect on me is nothing like their effect on my brethren.”

  “Is that why you looked in distress when the hunters waved their crosses at you? Because it caused you pain?”

  “Yes.” He shifted his weight. “I didn’t realize you’d noticed that.”

  “Of course I noticed it, William.” Her tone reproved him. “You mean something to me.”

  “Do I?”

  She turned away. The tone of his voice, earnest and almost optimistic, was excruciating.

  “You’ll always mean something to me. But I asked you to share your secrets and you wouldn’t. It’s too late.”

  He touched a lock of her hair, winding its end around his finger.

  “You were right. The secrets function like a wall. They serve their purpose with everyone else, but not with you. Never with you.”

  He didn’t give her the opportunity to respond. Instead, he pulled her close and leapt with her to the ground. No sooner had they landed than he ran with her at top speed to the side of the church.

  With practiced ease, William scaled the wall with one hand, his figure a ghost in the darkness, a patch of green visible under his other arm.

  Raven closed her eyes as they climbed, unwilling to watch the safeness of the earth as it fell farther and farther away.

  Finally they stood at the top, under the shade of the gold globe and cross.

  William stood behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist for safety. She fancied she felt him nuzzle her hair with his nose.

  “It’s so beautiful,” she mused, not knowing where to look first.

  From their vantage point, she could see the stars winking above them, the antlike creatures below, and the great vista of the magical city that spread around them in all directions.

  She could look across the river to the Piazzale Michelangelo and see the lighted copy of David. Beyond that, she could see the small hill on which William’s villa was situated.

  “We’re up so high.”

  “The b
est view of the city is from here. This is where I spend every sunset. But I’ve never shared it with anyone.”

  She glanced down at the ground and quickly lifted her head, closing her eyes.

  William noticed her reaction—the speeding of her heart and quickening of her breathing, the way anxiety began to roll off her body. He drew her against him more closely, her back to his chest.

  His lips found her ear. “What’s happened? What’s wrong?”

  “My father fell from a roof.”

  William’s body tensed.

  “I’d forgotten about that. This wasn’t the best idea.” He sounded apologetic, but also disappointed.

  “Wait.” Raven wanted to take one more moment to absorb the view, knowing she would never see it again.

  William paused, his gaze alighting on Giotto’s bell tower. His grip on Raven tightened. He could sustain a great many things, but not the loss of her.

  The realization continued to haunt him.

  “We should go.”

  Raven turned her head toward him. “What happens if one of the others sees you up here?”

  He shifted his weight. “They’d realize holy ground isn’t a deterrent. The more powerful I appear to my people, the more likely they are to want to kill me.”

  “Then why risk it?”

  He was quiet for a moment, as if he were choosing his words carefully.

  “You brought beauty to my world. I wanted to do the same for you, if only for one night.”

  An anguished sound escaped Raven’s lips. Their distance from the ground was the only reason she didn’t struggle to free herself from him.

  “Don’t torture me.”

  “It’s the truth. For years, I thought my days and nights were filled with beauty. Beautiful things, a beautiful city, and beautiful women from time to time. Then you appeared and I realized I’d been deceived.”

  Raven closed her eyes. “We need to go. It’s painful for me to be here and I don’t want you to be in danger.”

  “I’m sorry for causing you pain. We’ll go at once.” His hand brushed against hers. “But don’t spare a thought for my danger. What can they do to me? I’ve already lost the only thing I value.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You.”

  She shook her head. “I gave you my heart and you handed it back to me as if it were nothing.”

  “It isn’t nothing.” He spoke in her ear. “I value it and I value you. I think you know this.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I won’t relegate myself to a life of misery, loving someone who doesn’t love me.”

  “You’re the only one I want.”

  Now Raven struggled against his arms, albeit carefully. “Take me home.”

  “Just a moment, that’s all I ask. Please.” He appeared to force a smile. “I’ve learned a verse for you. Do you know it?

  “‘Cupid being now healed of his wound and Maladie,

  not able to endure the absence of Psyches, got him

  secretly out at a window of the chamber where hee

  was enclosed, and (receiving his wings), tooke his flight.’”

  “Apuleius.”

  “Yes.”

  “You speak in riddles.”

  “Only because language fails me.”

  Are you saying you’re healed of your malady?” she asked, fearing his answer.

  “There’s no cure for vampyrism except death. But for coldheartedness, I think there is a cure.” He turned her in his arms and looked at her gravely. “The warmth of a pure heart, for example. And the stunning pain of loss.”

  He stopped, his arms wrapped around her waist.

  “My human memories are indistinct for the most part. We all have the same complaint. Memories are stored in the brain. When our biology changed, our brains changed as well. It affected our ability to access those memories.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I’m trying to share a secret.”

  Raven stilled. She felt his worry, his uncertainty.

  She placed her hand over his.

  Tentatively, he laced his fingers with her own.

  “Everyone, including Aoibhe, thinks I’m English, but that isn’t true. I’m not Anglo-Saxon; I’m Norman. My name is William Malet. I was named after an ancestor of mine who was one of William the Conqueror’s companions in the Battle of Hastings. My family lived in York in the thirteenth century and that’s where I was born. My first language was Anglo-Norman French. I was the oldest son of a noble family and destined for a certain life, but I fell in love with a merchant’s daughter. Alicia.”

  He gazed out over the city, a haunted look in his eyes.

  Raven squeezed their connection, prompting him.

  He looked down at their fingers.

  “Because of the difference in our stations, and the fact that she was Anglo-Saxon, my family opposed the match. But we were young and in love. We thought the differences between us were meaningless.

  “We decided to flout my father and elope. Alicia was supposed to meet me in York one night so we could run away together. She never appeared. I went looking for her, and after searching for hours I found her, lying by the wall.” He cursed. “She was alive, but barely. A group of men had happened upon her while she was on her way to meet me. They took their pleasure and broke her body. She died in my arms.”

  “I’m so sorry.” She held his hand firmly.

  William’s expression was tortured.

  “She’d been a virgin, secretly betrothed to me. The way she suffered and died . . .” William’s voice trailed off into a curse. “I should have met her at her father’s house and not compelled her to wander the streets alone. Or I should have let her go and she could have married someone else.”

  “You loved her,” Raven said quietly. “And, from what you’ve said, she loved you, too. You couldn’t have known what would happen.”

  “She died nonetheless.” William struggled to continue. “I tried to avenge her death but couldn’t discover who had done it. In the interim, my father arranged to have me marry a girl from another Norman family. It was a political and economic alliance, as most marriages were in those days.

  “I had no wish to marry anyone, let alone a spoiled aristocrat I’d never met. Angry and in despair, I fled my father and went to Oxford. I was there only a short time when the Dominicans took me in. I began my studies at Oxford and later went to Paris.”

  “Was she beautiful?”

  William squeezed Raven’s hand. “Very. She had red-gold hair. I’ve never quite seen its likeness. And she was kind and very sweet. I fell in love with her the moment I saw her.”

  He cleared his throat. “When Alicia died, I knew my ability to love died with her. I became a novice with the Dominicans, taking a vow of chastity. My intention was to become a priest.”

  His eyes lifted to Raven’s, a strange fire in them.

  “When I saw you that night, pressed against a wall, those animals eating you, you reminded me of her—this beautiful, gentle girl. You were going to die because you’d been walking a dark street alone. I couldn’t let that happen.

  “Aoibhe and some of the others found us. Your blood smells sweet and they wanted it. By then, I knew I wasn’t going to feed from you. I told them you were mine and took you away.”

  “William,” she whispered, “thank you for having mercy on me.”

  He stiffened. “I don’t think mercy is in my vocabulary.”

  “But you acted mercifully. You honored her memory by saving my life.”

  “I may have saved your life, Cassita, but I lost you just the same.”

  The despair in his voice both wounded and irritated her.

  She disentangled her hand from his. “You only lost me because you don’t love me.”

  “You are mistaken.” He pulled her against him, his expression earnest. “This past month I’ve been waiting, thinking what I felt for you would recede. If my ability to love died with Alicia, or if it ended when I
became a vampyre, I should have been able to forget you.

  “I couldn’t. Every morning and every evening, my thoughts fixed on you—on your face, your smile, your very being. I found myself wondering what you were doing, if you were safe, if you were jumping between someone and his attacker.”

  He took her hand and kissed it, running his thumb across her life line.

  “Your name suits you, you know. Raven—the beautiful, fearless black bird. I’ve been in mourning for centuries but nothing has distressed me as much as losing you.”

  “You aren’t the only one who was hurt.” She tried to swallow back the rising emotion.

  “Forgive me.” He cupped her cheek. “I came to you tonight because I couldn’t allow the light of my life to be extinguished without seeing you one last time.”

  “Then tell me,” she whispered.

  His expression faltered. “I lack the words, in any language.”

  “Just say it.” She reached up on tiptoe and placed her hand against his face. “Say what you feel, William. Be brave.”

  His fingers closed over her wrist, holding her hand to him.

  “When I spoke to you about hope the night I took you to the Consilium, my hope was that you could see beyond the callous contract I was foolishly trying to make. That you would stay with me and be mine because you wanted me as desperately as I wanted you.”

  She gazed up at him sadly. “We’re from two different worlds.”

  “Maybe we can create a new one.”

  “Only at great risk to you and your city.”

  He inhaled deeply, his eyes fixed on hers.

  “What are a thousand cities to me if I am without you?”

  Raven searched his eyes, which were dark and desperate. She felt his fingers nervously tighten around her wrist.

  “Are you certain?” she asked, returning his stare.

  “If I lose you, I lose everything. You are the only goodness in my world.”

  “You’ve been alone a long time. You suffered a great loss. I’m sorry for that,” she said softly. “I can understand your reticence to tell secrets. But love isn’t secretive or one-sided.”

  “It isn’t,” he said fiercely.

  “Then tell me.”

  He kissed her forehead. “Je t’aim.”

  Raven savored the moment, letting the old words burn into her consciousness.