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“I guess?” It came out as a question, but this didn’t seem to bother Duca de’ Medici at all. In fact, he was glowing.

“You should get ready. I’ll have Signora Carbone wash your pink dress. Lucia knows what to get for accessories.”

Without another word, he walked off toward his own room, leaving me to do as I had been told.

Chapter 19: Lascia la spina

By the time Lucia finished my makeup, the dress had already been washed, dried, and ironed. It was a floral baby-doll dress with puffed sleeves, tailored to fit me. Despite my never having worn the dress before, Duca de’ Medici’s assumption that Lucia would know how to accessorize with it was correct. She had chosen a sun hat with a creamy, white ribbon that matched uncannily well with the heels. Around my neck was a gold necklace with several diamonds I hoped were fake, a matching gold bracelet, and several rings. I twisted in the mirror, searching for exactly where the flaw was that made me feel so much like someone in a costume, but could pin nothing down.

Duca de’ Medici’s words echoed in my mind.I’ll be fine. I’ll look foolish, certainly, but I’ll be fine.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so concerned about how I looked at the moment. Perhaps the more pressing concern would be comforting my counterpart.

The moment I saw Duca de’ Medici, I understood what he meant. His garb was, in a word, bizarre.

Rather than his usual dress clothes, he was wearing a thick, full-length jacket with a hood over his head, which wouldn’t have been too abnormal—a bit out of season, granted—if not for what was underneath the hood: a combination of a balaclava and sunglasses that entirely obscured Duca de’ Medici’s face. He had also covered the rest of his body. His hands were covered by leather gloves, his pants were tucked into comically large boots, and not even a single strand of hair or an inch of skin was visible.

I found myself unable to say a word.

Duca de’ Medici said nothing, either, but carried himself with a nonchalant air, movements loose as usual. “Are you ready?” he asked in a muffled voice.

I nodded wordlessly and followed him outside. It was difficult not to reach out to the man and grab him by the wrist and try to pull him back inside. But of course, I knew the clothing he wore provided ample protection against the sun, far more than the high-quality sunscreen and sunglasses most vampires got by with.

He opened the back door of a fancy black sedan awaiting us. I ducked inside and slid across the leather seats to the far side for him to follow suit. Duca de’ Medici took his spot beside me and stretched out.

“Good afternoon, Signora Rafia,” he said to the driver, a middle-aged woman with short brown hair I had never seen before. She wore a uniform much like the other drivers I had seen. Noor had a driver, the butlers and maids had a driver, and evidently, so did Duca de’ Medici. But how often, I wondered, did she actually drive him anywhere? I’d thought my job was easy, but this salaried woman who I’d now seen for the first time after months of living at the abbey clearly had me beat.

She turned around to look at him, clearly unfazed by his outfit. “Good afternoon, Duca de’ Medici and—”

“—Signorina Bowling,” he finished her sentence.

“Cora is fine,” I replied with a forced smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

As we rolled off, I stared out the window out of habit, but it was so darkly tinted it felt as though it were night. I focused instead on the barely audible smooth jazz and the rhythmic bouncing of the car.

“The ride shouldn’t be long,” Duca de’ Medici said. “Fifteen minutes at most.”

With a strange nostalgia, I remembered the winding road I had taken to the abbey for my interview so many months ago, and though we must have been going the same route, it felt entirely different. In fact, despite the perfection of Signora Rafia’s driving, my body reacted as though our ambling descent was a roller-coaster ride: heart palpitations, a bit of sweating. But so far, nothing akin to a full-blown panic attack.

“Could we grab some water?” I asked, mouth feeling dry.

“There’s some in the cooler,” Duca de’ Medici answered. “It’s built into the wall of the trunk. We can pull over and I’ll show you.”

Oh, my bad,I thought with a sneer.I shouldn’t have forgotten to check if this car has a refrigerator.

“No, it’s fine.” I finished the rest in my head:The sooner we get cellular connection and the sooner I can see my messages, the better.

I closed my eyes and focused on my breath. My heart rate evened out by the time the car slowed to a final halt. When I opened my eyes, sunshine and cool air alike poured into the car. Outside and holding the door open, Signora Rafia stared down at me expectantly.

Next to me, Duca de’ Medici shook his head at her, and the door shut again.

“Are you ready?” Duca de’ Medici’s tone was far too soft and attentive to be anything but an acknowledgment of my anxiety. “We can wait here for a bit.”

I wished desperately that I could make eye contact with my ally through his sunglasses to truly and properly thank him, but I gave him a smile.

“Yes,” I replied, realizing my phone hadn’t buzzed. “I’m ready.”

We stepped out into the unknown, and I was surprised to find that the bricks were almost identical to those surrounding the abbey. Disparate, weed-filled furrows in the ground were visible evidence of the earthquake from decades ago. In contrast, the bustling market square nearby was young and quaint, surrounded by hand-built booths and small traditional buildings, none of which had any sort of professional signage. Clearly, this was an area for mostly locals. Laughter and conversation sounded from all sides, a mixture of joking, hard bargaining, and day-to-day rural gossip.