Page 102 of My Dark Fairy Tale

Ludo moved first, walking toward me and then beyond, straight out the door.

I knew he was going to the terrace, and his action was his response.

A smile pulled through my mouth as I looked back at the others.

“Is there a limit on wishes?” Carmine asked as he walked to the door too. “Because I can think of five or six.”

I snorted. “No, Carm, I don’t think there is a limit on wishes. It’s a galaxy, not a genie. The scale is a little different.”

Martina and Renzo followed close behind him. The latter bumped his arm gently into mine as he passed, but Martina hesitated to brush a sweet kiss along my cheek.

Which left Raffa leaning his narrow hip against his desk, arms crossed, brow raised in a facsimile of the way he’d been before I knew who he was under that cool look and expensive armor.

I tiptoed over to him in my bare feet and offered him my hand in question.

He stared at it for a moment before raising his own, gently engulfing it in his much-bigger palm. When he looked back up at me, there were lines of strain beside his eyes and a wealth of disquiet in the autumnal brown.

“I could use a wish or two,” he confessed.

I squeezed his hand in answer and led him quietly through the house out onto the big terrace off the kitchen. I had cleared some space on the corner of the deck, laying down thick blankets and a few pillows because the flagstone was not as comfortable as grass.

Ludo, Martina, and Renzo were waiting, heads tipped back to look at the milky spill of bright stars tossed on the black-velvet night sky.

“Um, we usually lie head to head,” I mentioned as I stepped on the blankets and folded to my knees, tugging Raffa down with me.

There was zero hesitation as everyone stepped forward and lay down with me. Martina on my right, Renzo beside her, and Carm beside him, and then Ludo on the other side of Raffa on my left. The moment we were all settled, I sucked in a deep breath, feeling the closed circuit of our energy wash over me.

Raffa inhaled deeply, too, as if he hadn’t had a breath of fresh air in much too long. He brought our tangled hands to his chest and pressed them over his heart.

I could feel his heart thump beneath my palm.

“Ah! Did you see that one?” Carmine exclaimed, raising his hand to point at a spot in the sky. “My first wish is about a brunette I met in Pistoia.”

“You aren’t supposed to share wishes,” Ludo muttered. “It is unlucky. They won’t come true.”

“I make my own luck.”

A touch to thecornicellocharm around my neck that I never took off. I looked down from the sky to see Raffa’s other hand reaching across to finger the pendant.

“Promise me you will wear this forever,” he said quietly but strangely intensely.

“I didn’t know you were such a superstitious Italian,” I teased, but the graveness of his expression made my smile wane. “Certo, Raffa, se desideri.”

Yes, Raffa, if you wish.

“I do.” His hand dropped away, and he propped it behind his head to stargaze once more.

“Oh, that one looked like it would crash into the Duomo,” Martina exclaimed as a large streak of white exploded across the sky.

We spent at least an hour out in the dark, counting our lucky stars, before people started to trickle off to bed. Martina stood first, pausing briefly before offering her hand to Renzo to help him up. He took it and did not let go when they walked into the house.

Carmine left next, face splitting in two around his yawn, complaining that a dalliance from earlier that night had worn him out.

When Ludo left, he did it quietly, only stopping to knock his foot against mine in good night.

He closed the balcony doors behind him.

Leaving Raffa and me under the blanket of starlight.