Page 33 of The Dragon and the Dove

The ugly grasping ambition.

The unmistakable thirst for power.

It was so… Versini.

He buried his head in his hands.

Paola said simply, ‘So you are a saint.’

He nodded.

‘That’s great.’ He said nothing. ‘That’s… not great?’

‘I don’t know what it is.’ He looked at her through his fingers. She was smiling. Waiting. Mama used to do the same thing whenever he got into mischief. Sit still and let the silence swell, until he got so awkward he had to fill it with the details of his own wrongdoings.

Maybe it was old habits, or the pressure building inside him, but he let the truth tumble freely from his lips.

‘I felt it when Sera made me. It was like a star exploding in my chest. This strange new presence that felt both new and ancient, knitting itself into my bones, pooling in the depths of my soul. It was magic. Old and powerful and pure as sunlight. I welcomed it. I reached for it.’

He had pulled and pulled and pulled on the thread between them until the light was in everything. His lungs. His blood. His heart.

‘And then I slept. I knew when I woke I would be different. I thought I would be happy.’

‘But then I saw him.’ His glass trembled. He took a swig for courage. ‘He came to me.’

‘Who?’ she whispered.

‘Hugo Versini.’

The Founder of the Order of Daggers. The man who, along with his younger brother Armand, had discovered the true power of the boneshade plant and had used the powdered root of it – Shade – to plunge Fantome into darkness.

For years, Hugo had acted as death’s right hand, sown terror everywhere he went, killed, killed and killed until the city knelt at his feet. He’d murdered his own sister. Hanged Armand, his own brother, from the Bridge of Tears, and threatened anyone who dared even mourn him with the same fate.

Hundreds of years ago, Hugo Versini had sold his soul for dark magic.

Paola frowned. ‘But Hugo is dead.’

‘His spirit came to me. I saw him during the making. He promised me power. Greatness. He said it was owed to me because of the blood in my veins. That all I had to do was wake up and claim it.’

The colour drained from Paola’s face.

In the low lighting, she looked as pale as her hair.

‘When I woke up, I ran from the catacombs,’ said Theo. ‘Away from the bones of all the people he’d murdered. I built a door inside me and slammed it shut, shoved down the magic begging to be free. I tried to pretend it wasn’t real. That it hadn’t worked. I don’t want power. I don’t want greatness.’

He said it again and again.

‘I want to be on the right side of this war, Paola. The right side of history. Our family has done enough to harm this kingdom.’

He was ranting now, his hands trembling.

She snatched his fingers, curling them in her own. ‘It was just a dream, Theo. A nightmare.’

‘I feel it, Paola. The darkness.’ He slammed their hands against his chest, to the handprint that glowed there. Sera’s gift. Her sacrifice. And he had twisted it. ‘It’s greed. Ambition.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with ambition, Theo.’

‘Look at what it did to Hugo and Armand.’