In my life, I have had to: hide from bloodthirsty raiders; pick my way through piles of pox-laden corpses just to get out of town; barely escape from a flood on a stolen horse; pull guns on men who tried to rob me during the gold rush; kill a wild boar that was charging (I had, like, a freaking spear and some rocks); talk my way out of any number of harrowing situations with any number of forged papers and identities; and come back to River’s Edge after running away and almost getting killed by Innocencio.
So why was facing Ottavio at dinner causing my stomach to knot up?
Maybe because I was so known here. After four months, these were no longer strangers and I couldn’t talk my way out of anything. You can get out your handkerchiefs if you want, but I cared about these people now. I… didn’t want them to think badly of me.
So to have Ottavio show up, all dark and stern and righteous, and immediately want to boot me out of here, this place I was finally starting to sort of settle into—it sucked.
By the time I was halfway down the stairs, I could smell Rachel’s bread and some kind of chickeny situation. We often had vegetarian meals, so the thought of actual chicken made me speed up.
I paused in the doorway, then very quietly slipped into the last free place at one end of a long bench. (Yes. We use benches here. Too quaint for words. At least words I can say here.)
“Hey, girl.” Anne’s younger sister, Amy, was next to me. Despite her crush on Reyn, I couldn’t help liking her. She seemed to have cottoned on to the fact that Reyn and I were (usually, not right this minute) making eyes at each other, and she had graciously stepped back. Which was thoughtful and mature of her. Unlike Nell, a former fan of Reyn’s and a past student at River’s Edge, who had tried to kill me. True story.
“Hi,” I said. “What did you do today?”
“Ahem.” Amy patted the loopy glob of yarn around her neck. “I’m learning how to knit. After resisting the process for two centuries, I’m giving in. This is my first effort.” She made a smug face and unwrapped the scarf to show me.
“Uh…” I said. It was a disaster—a garbled throng of yarn and knots and gaping holes and, here and there, bits of recognizable knitting. I glanced at Amy, racking my mind for something diplomatic to say, and then I saw her face, the suppressed humor, the glint in her eyes as she tried not to laugh. She knew it was awful.
“Wow!” I said with overdone enthusiasm. “Gosh, that is something, Amy! You’re a natural!”
She laughed and passed me a bowl of sliced chicken and the platter of bread. “Tell me your favorite color. I’ll make one for you.”
“Periwinkle,” I said, unconsciously tucking my current scarf a little tighter around my neck.
“You got it. Want some mustard?”
It was sandwich night here at hacienda River, and I took the mustard. So far, I was successfully ignoring Ottavio, sitting next to River on the other side of the table.
But not for long.
“Everyone?” River tapped her water glass with her knife. “Many of you know my brother Ottavio. For those who don’t, this is my brother Ottavio.”
Smiles and nods of welcome. What she didn’t say was that he was the king of their house in Genoa—one of the eight main houses of immortals, worldwide. A few houses, the one in Russia and the one on the border between Egypt and Libya, had been destroyed and had no living survivors. The others—in Australia, Brazil, Africa, Italy, and here in America (Hi, Salem, Massachusetts!)—still maintained their ancestral sources of immortal power and inheritance. Ottavio was the oldest member of the Genoa house. The last house, in Iceland, had been completely destroyed by raiders back in 1561. Not many people knew this, but that house had one survivor who recently surfaced. That would be moi.
“He’s come for a surprise visit, and I’m thrilled to see him,” River went on. A glance passed between brother and sister, but I couldn’t read it. I began to hope that maybe he’d just been cranky or jet-lagged or something and hadn’t really meant what he said before. I’m highly skilled at deceiving myself like that. How else could I have remained friends with Incy for a hundred years?
“Lovely to see you again, Ottavio,” said Anne, putting some winter lettuce on her sandwich.
I kept my eyes on my plate, working busily with the mustard and mayo.
“And you, Anne.” Ottavio’s voice was deep and grumbly, like a bear woken too soon from hibernation. He seemed so different from River, though his hair was gray, as hers was. When I’d first met River, I’d been struck by her unusual looks—the smooth, light olive skin; the wise face that still looked barely thirty; and the not-often-seen-in-immortals silver hair that came a bit past her shoulders. Obviously she was the nice one of the family.
“What brings you to town?” Charles asked politely, just a bit of his Irish accent detectable. Usually by the time an immortal is more than a hundred years old, they tend to lose their original accent and become more neutral, in every language they learn. Like being newscasters. For eternity.
Wait for it…. I took a bite of my sandwich.
Ol’ Ottavio didn’t pull punches. He pointed his knife at me (way to go with the symbolism) and said, “I’m here because of her. Because of the danger she represents. She shouldn’t be here; my sister shouldn’t be harboring her. And I’ve come to find out what else she knows.”
I tried to swallow quickly so I wouldn’t spew crumbs across the table. It felt like a marble going down my esophagus, slowly and painfully.
Forcing myself to look up instead of crawling under the table, which was my first instinct, I saw irritation on River’s face and saw her try to temper it. Others looked surprised, even shocked. I focused on trying to breathe normally and glanced at Reyn. His obvious anger, the tautness of his shoulders, at first cheered me up because I thought it was aimed at Ottavio for attacking me; then I had the icky thought that he might still be mad at me from this morning.
On top of that, a fast scan of the rest of the table revealed a couple of people actually nodding in agreement—Jess, Charles, and even Solis, who had taught me so much.
Blood rushed to my cheeks, and I wanted to sink through the floor.
“I was home, in Italy,” Ottavio went on. His black eyes seemed to bore through my skull as his long fingers ripped apart a piece of bread. “News came to me of big, dangerous magick—Terävä magick—being worked in America. In Boston. Because of its proximity to my sister, I tried to gather more information.”
I nodded. Yep. Big, dark magick. It sure was. Actually it had truly been so bad that I couldn’t even joke about it. Not after a month. Not after a hundred years. “I didn’t work any dark magick,” I said.
“No. But you were involved with the person who did.” Ottavio dropped the bread onto his plate, as if he hadn’t realized what he was doing.
“I’m not anymore,” I said, aware of how incredibly limp that sounded.
Ottavio made a derisive sound.
Yes, I had screwed up—not just once but over and over. That’s usually how rehab goes, people. Being involved with Incy when he’d wrought such destructive magick, when he’d killed two of our friends right in front of me—that had been a tragedy. But I hadn’t made him do it. I hadn’t had any part of his madness. It had been the last thing on a very long list of Things Beyond My Control. Like being born into my family. Like being the only survivor the night everyone—my parents, my sisters, my brothers—had been killed by northern raiders, trying to usurp our house’s magickal power.
Ottavio’s black eyes were hard. “Why are you here? What are you trying to pull my sister into? Who—if anyone—sent you here, and for what dark purpose?”
I stared at him, so appalled that he was doing this in front of everyone. I tried to think of how to explain Incy and our century-long friendship. How could I describe how lost I’d felt, how inadequate, the night I’d run away? Did he know that Incy had been working magick on me for a month, so I would crack and leave River’s Edge? I felt panicky: Everyone was watching
this. Was River going to ask me to leave? Did any progress I made no longer count? Maybe I could talk to her, alone—
Wait a second. Wait. A. Second. I wasn’t ten years old. He wasn’t my father. He wasn’t my teacher or my uncle. He wasn’t the Tähti police. What was he going to do? Ground me?
Hold on, Nastasya, my brain cautioned. Think this through, don’t do anything rash. This is River’s brot—
“Who the hell do you think you are?” I said, smacking my palm flat on the table. Ottavio’s eyes flared, and Charles actually jumped. I stood up, pushing my plate back. “I’m not answerable to you. This is River’s place. She apparently still wants me here.” I frowned. “Are you saying you don’t trust her judgment?”
River blinked at that, and Ottavio started to open his mouth.
“If River asks me to answer your buttinsky inquisition, I will. But until she does, Ott—can I call you Ott? Until then, Ott, you can bite me.” I stepped over the stupid bench and got ready to stalk out the dining room door.
Lorenz’s eyebrows arched. Ottavio went pale and stood, towering over my five-foot-three. Reyn pushed back on the bench, as if getting ready for action. River was solemn but biting her lip, and I would have sworn she was trying not to laugh. And it was right about this time that I remembered that I was still pretty fresh off my latest personal disaster, and that maybe I shouldn’t be so self-righteous. Oops. Well, too late now!
“And you guys, sitting there like bobbleheads?” I looked at Charles, Jess, and Solis. “Are you blanking on your own pasts? Do you really think you’re in a position to judge me?” Jess and Charles looked down at their plates, like they were remembering, Oh, yeah, I’m a total screwup waste myself. That slipped my mind for a sec. Solis met my gaze, looking thoughtful.
A smart person would have turned then and left the room with dignity. But we’re talking about me here, so that was out.
“Do you know who I am?” Ottavio thundered. His depthless eyes were practically aflame, and two spots of anger appeared on his aristocratic cheekbones.
Reyn stood up, maybe an inch shorter than Ottavio, but with a look of deadly calm on his face that would have stopped a lion in midleap.
“Yes,” I said to Ottavio. “You’re River’s brother.”
At the other end of the table, River gave a muffled cough behind her hand.
Ottavio stood up even straighter.
“I am Ottavio di Luchese della Sovrano,” he boomed. “King of the sixth house, Genoa!” He was tall and imposing, seeming to take up that whole end of the room with his dark suit and pristine white shirt. Extremely kinglike. The combination of thick, wavy silver hair and a relatively unlined face that put him in his early thirties did nothing to soften his imposing effect.
The hoodie I was wearing had been an innocent bystander in an unfortunate laundry incident, and my jeans were, I noticed just now, streaked with dirt and something—perhaps strawberry jam. Not so kinglike.
“That’s very special, Ott,” I said.
Everyone in the room was watching with round eyes, holding their breath: Here was more Nastasya-provided drama, for their benefit. Dinner and a show.
“Yes, it is,” he ground out. “And you’re a dangerous stray dog my sister found! A piece of Terävä flotsam!”
I can never remember the difference between flotsam and jetsam.
River reached up and tugged on his sleeve. He ignored her.
“Not exactly,” I said. Everyone here knew about my past, the unexpected legacy that I’d denied and avoided for 449 years. Apparently River hadn’t mentioned it to ol’ Ott here. He probably hadn’t let her get a word in edgewise, the windbag.
My fingers were tingling, and I felt kind of otherworldly and weird. I’d spent a long, long time not thinking about my heritage, suppressing all memories of my childhood, my parents, my siblings. I think I would have been able to truly block it completely out of my mind if it weren’t for the permanent, irrevocable reminder I carry with me always: the scar on the back of my neck. It’s round, almost two inches across, and is the exact image of one side of the amulet that my mother had worn every day. It had been burned into my skin the night my parents died. Every day for the last 449 years, I’ve worn a scarf or a high collar or both, and in all that time, only three people had ever seen it, that I know of: Incy, River, and Reyn.
The point is, I’d invested huge amounts of effort into forgetting my identity. But I was suddenly itching to drop a bomb on Ott.
“Yes, exactly!” His voice was loud in this plain room. “And whatever plan you have here, whatever goal you have in mind, you will fail. I’ll see to it.”
“Now that’s seriously bad news, Ott,” I said. “Since my only goal is to learn and become all Tähti-tastic.”
My parents had been Terävä—practicers of the “dark” kind of magick, where you take power from things around yourself, stealing their energy to increase your own power. This process tended to kill things. Tähti magick was a relatively newish form where one channeled the earth’s innate power through oneself, thus not killing anything around you. Most immortals are still Terävä—it’s much easier than being Tähti. Incy was Terävä. I was choosing not to be.
“Ottavio,” River murmured, and again her brother ignored her.
“You may have fooled my sister,” Ottavio said.
River sat up. “Hey.”
“But I see you clearly: an opportunist, here to weaken our house, to learn our secrets, to plant evil here. The events that took place in Boston—they were unforgivable.”
“I totally agree with you,” I said seriously, and I meant it. “But I didn’t set those events in motion.”
“You deny that you took part in that desecration?”
“I deny that I caused it or helped it,” I said, losing whatever passed for patience in my life. “I mean, please. I can barely match my socks in the morning, much less cook up some big plot. Long-term siege? I can’t commit to a cell-phone plan. I need to be here—I need to become better. But I have no need to weaken your house. I have no need for anyone’s power but my own.” I stood there and crossed my arms over my chest, trying to look serious and determined. Eleven sets of eyeballs followed us left to right, like a Ping-Pong game.
When I had acknowledged myself as my mother’s daughter, my father’s heir, I’d chosen to claim my ancestral power and my position as the sole heir of the House of Úlfur. It was like an effete hamster choosing to become Mr. Universe. I had a long way to go, to use understatement of galactic proportions. But that didn’t mean I was going to take this crap from Ott lying down.
Ottavio gave a derisive laugh. “Your power is laughable. Of course you would want ours.”
“Not that laughable,” I said. I was getting more and more wound up, more anxious to have this be over.
“Ottavio,” River said firmly.
But he was on a tear now and drew himself up, ready to launch into me again.
“My name is Lilja af Úlfur,” I said quickly, almost quaking with nerves. Across the table, Reyn’s eyes were riveted on me. “Daughter of Úlfur the Wolf, king of the Iceland house.”
River sat back, giving a slight nod, and seemed proud of me. The knot in my stomach relaxed.
The best part was Ott’s face—the slack jaw, the pop-eyed stare, the draining of blood. “That’s impossible.” He glared at me coldly. “That house was destroyed in 1559. The family was killed; the tarak-sin was lost. How dare you try to usurp a noble lineage!”
“Oh, Ottavio,” River murmured, dropping her head into her hands. Asher reached out and patted her arm.
“It was 1561,” I said quietly. “And not everyone died. Not me.”
Ottavio said, “I don’t believe it!”
I started to think that River should have killed all her brothers after all. Or at least this one. Long story. But here was a man more than thirteen hundred years old who was, like, still bullheaded. Still full of himself. Running on ego. I mean, you’d think that he’d have had
enough life experience to have that beaten out of him.
“It’s true,” River said in the silence.
Ottavio gaped openly at his sister. She gave him a rueful smile. “I tried to tell you,” she said.
“Yes!” said Brynne, smiling. “Fiver on being the Iceland heir.” She held up her hand, and her silly, friendly gesture made me smile. I leaned over and smacked a high five.
The whole room was silent as Ottavio processed this unappetizing information. My fellow students, reminded of my past, were clearly trying to mush together what they knew about me: Immature Embarrassing Failure + Tragic Family History + Potentially Big Power = Nastasya. Well, I do like to keep people on their toes.
A lot of Ott’s bluster was gone. He sat down somewhat heavily, his eyes never leaving me, and said, “Heir to the Iceland house. Úlfur’s daughter.”
“Yep,” I said, suddenly feeling both more cheerful and starving. I sat down, too, and picked up my sandwich. My father’s name, Úlfur, meant “wolf.” So I had basically called him “Wolf the Wolf.” But it had sounded awesome.
“Well,” said Lorenz, placing both his hands on the table. Lorenz was Italian, and only about 120 years old. He was one of the most perfectly handsome men I’d ever seen, with crisp, straight black hair and bright blue eyes, yet he’d always left my heartbeat completely unaffected. “I will go ahead and say it, since no one else appears brave enough to.”
I looked up, taken aback.
“We know that you are the heir to an ancient throne,” he said, enunciating carefully. “The daughter of a king.”
“Looks that way,” I said cautiously, chewing.
“I will say it.” He gave me a serious, accusing look. “Your fashion sense is all the more incomprehensible.”
Several people gave muffled snorts, then quickly focused on their food.
I smiled, then started chuckling and couldn’t stop, feeling curiously lighthearted. As others started laughing, too, I felt a delicious sense of relief, of—I daresay—belonging.
Take that, Ott.