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“You don’t get to dictate what someone does with your advice. I’ll work on other kinds of boldness later. For now, I’m ogling. Unless you’re shy.”

“Shy?” He ran his tongue over his teeth, not entirely hiding his smile. “Hardly.” Palms out, he spun in a slow circle. “There. Seen enough?”

A dangerous question. “I suppose I’ll let you put your clothes on now.”

He snorted. “Like you could stop me.”

“I could kill you with my pinky.”

“I’m shaking.”

She threw a pillow and he caught it, tucking it beneath hisarm as he headed for a stack of clean clothing on the couch. “Keep throwing these at me and you’ll have none left.”

A smile playing on her lips, she sank into a pile of pillows. At least one person treated her like a regular person. It was more than she’d dared to hope for in a very long time.

Twenty-Five

Le bestemmie sono come la processione: escono dal portone e ritornano dallo stesso.

Curses are like parades: They return from whence they came.

DAYS BEFORE DIVORANDO: 19

She was dying. Shehad tobe. Her skull seemed determined to split down the middle, and she was fairly certain heads weren’t meant to do that. She swayed, grasping for something to hold herself up, but finding only air.

Dante caught her elbow. “Steady.”

“How many times—” She tugged but couldn’t get away and gave up as the movement sent the world swooping.

“Relax. I’m wearing gloves, and you have long sleevesandgloves.”

“Nothing in the history of the world has ever been less effective than telling a person torelax.” She yanked her arm free. “My head hurts.”

“Should’ve had more water.”

She found the wall and pressed her forehead against the stone. “I’m dying.”

“You aren’t dying. You’re hungover.”

“Why aren’tyouhungover?”

“Do youwantme to be?”

“Yes. I do. Very much so.”

“And here I thought we were such good friends.”

Were they? She hadn’t had a friend since she was thirteen, but maybe a night of drunken idiocy was how it worked for adults. She couldn’t think over the loud throbbing in her head—because throbbing had a sound all of a sudden—so she set her mind to walking instead. Duty waited, whether she was up for it or not.

“Sometimes the best cure is a bit more poison. There might be a little left in the bottle.”

She gagged. “Sounds like advice invented by a greedy pub owner.”

“Come on, you need to eat something.”

Alessa’s stomach performed acrobatics as she took her seat. Sweat beaded her forehead, hot and clammy at the same time. Checking to be sure no one was looking, she pressed a water glass against her cheek, sighing at the cool.

Dante deposited a plain roll on her plate, glared at her to eat, and returned to his post by the door.