I stumbled a bit over the words. I met Ale’s eyes accidentally, and we both looked away. I noticed our feet were touching under the table. They often were, because he had no concept of where to put his absurdly long legs, but all of a sudden, it seemed very urgent that we not.
Ale and I spent quite a lot of time listening to our families talk about our future children—how pretty they would be, how numerous they would be, and how many deceased relatives we could name them after. To everyone else, the children were the entire point of our marriage. They were the entire point of our existences. But somehow, when it was just the two of us, this crucial topic never came up.
Ale fiddled with his napkin. His knee was now jiggling and rattling the plates. All at once, I decided I was tired of this unbearable awkwardness. We were best friends. We talked about everything else, so we could talk about this, too.
I poured more sugar into my coffee and stirred. “I don’t know what you’re so worried about anyway.”
“What?” he said.
“It will be much worse for me,” I said. “I’m the one who’ll have to squeeze out your enormous babies.”
He went very still.
“I’m quite pretty down there, just by the way.” I pressed on despite my extreme discomfort. “And it’s all going to get wrecked by your—”
He set down his coffee with a loud clink. My aunts paused in their sewing.
“Don’t,” he said.
“Don’t what?” I said.
“Don’t make light of it,” he said. “You know… you know I don’t—” He cut himself off, glancing at our chaperones.
I leaned closer.
“Oh, and you think I do?” I said. “Do I sound like I’m giddy with anticipation? I’ve just decided to be mature about it. If we don’t produce heirs, they’ll nullify our marriage. Or did you forget?”
“Well…” he said.
“Well?” I said, uncomprehending.
He looked away. He was still jittery, his face pink and agitated.
“It’s just…” he said. “It’d be nice if any of it was real.”
“If any of it was real?” I said.
The words felt like broken glass in my mouth.
“Wouldn’t it?” He looked back at me. “Does that really not matter to you?”
I didn’t like the expression on his face. I didn’t like the tone of his voice. It felt presumptuous. It felt like he thought he understood how this all worked better than I did.
I jumped to my feet. I grabbed the front of his vest and dragged him out of the parlor, and as soon as we were out of my aunts’ sight, I pushed him against the wall.
“You want something real, do you?” I said.
“I was just—” he said.
“If that’s what you want,” I said, “then you can go propose to your beloved Manfredo, who doesn’t even know you exist. Let’s see how that goes for you. How do you think that will go for you?”
“I—” he said.
“If that’s what you want, then there’s nothing stopping you,” I said. “You can give up your title. You can give up your house. You can give up ever doing anything with your life, because you’re never going to do it without me.”
He stopped trying to protest. I glanced at the doorway of the parlor just in time to see a shadow shift across its threshold. That meant my aunts were pressed against the wall, eavesdropping. Ale and I never argued. This was undoubtedly the most exciting thing they’d witnessed all day.
“If that’s what you want—” I let go of him and turned away.
“Wait!” Ale said, and grabbed my wrist. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You’re right. This is… this is the way it’s supposed to be.”
“Of course it is,” I said.
“And it is real, in its own way,” he said. “I know that. You’re my best friend.”
I didn’t say another word. I just yanked free of him and marched pointedly back to the parlor. He joined me, of course, and we finished our coffee in silence, avoiding each other’s eyes.
That night, I sat in my window, staring down the street at the House of Morandi. The candle in Ale’s bedroom was still burning, a tiny pinprick of light against the blackness of the veil. After a few hours, his shadowy figure appeared at the windowsill, and he blew it out. I leaned over and blew mine out, too.
He disappeared, but I stayed there. Still watching.
I didn’t have any other friends. I had a nursemaid who knew entirely too much about me. I had followers who clustered around me at parties. I had family who passed down their legacy and pushed me to do even better. They were all important, but they weren’t friends the way Ale was. Ale didn’t spend every day with me because there was something he wanted. The only thing Ale ever wanted from me was… me.
I didn’t have any paramours. I never had. Just the other day, Chiara Bianchi and I had been alone in a garden alcove, and in the middle of sniping at each other, she’d faltered and looked at me in a strange way. And I’d felt… something. But I didn’t know what to do with it. I wasn’t prepared for it. So I turned away. I preferred to keep those feelings locked up. I could let them out in my bedroom, late at night, not around a real girl—a girl who could betray me or discover my omen or, worst of all, decide I was unremarkable and treat me just like everyone else.
I didn’t need any of that. I had Ale. Ale didn’t have any paramours. Ale didn’t have any other friends. He had no romance to offer me, but he’d also never marry somebody else, and he’d never carry on a life without me. He couldn’t.
He wouldn’t.
TEN
I DON’T KNOW WHY I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE EASY TO GET A trunk with a girl inside it down a steep, dark staircase. My first approach
