“Not today, Zelda,” I added.“I’m in too good a mood for you to ruin it with your ridiculous, ominous predictions.”
She shot me a look, but I could see the smile tugging at her mouth as the cards slid against each other.For a second, the weight in my chest eased just a little.Not because things were better—but because with Zelda, I could at least pretend I wasn’t bleeding all over the place.
“Fine.No cards today.”
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.Relief settled in, but so did something else.A tight twist of nerves I couldn’t explain.
Outside, Paolo’s voice boomed across the market again.Footsteps passed the tent.Someone bargained loudly with a vendor.Life went on as if nothing was wrong.As if the world hadn’t tilted under my feet.
But the unease didn’t leave.I could still feel those eyes on me—slipping through canvas walls, cutting through voices and footfalls, following me into the tent like a shadow that hadn’t decided whether to smother me or claim me.
Cold.Staring.Sinister.A presence I couldn’t see but couldn’t outrun either.I shook my head hard, trying to force the image away, to convince myself it was leftover nerves or paranoia or the adrenaline from earlier.
Zelda watched me with that unreadable stillness, her hands hovering over her cards as though she was waiting for the moment I told her I wanted my cards read after all.
“You feel it too,” she murmured.
My breath hitched, but I said nothing.Putting it into words felt like inviting it closer.I already knew it anyway—knew it in that quiet, animal part of me that never gets it wrong.
Something in the air felt wrong.
The canvas rippled as a breeze slipped through, and a chill crawled over my skin.It wasn’t going to stay out there in the crowd.It was here, and it wasn’t going anywhere.
11
Atlas
Iwas already dressed in my head before I’d even dragged myself out of bed at eight o’clock the next morning.Morning light leaked through the glass walls, soft and gold, painting the stone floors like it was trying to warm a place that refused to be warmed.
My penthouse in Tuscany sat above the city like it had never meant to belong there—too modern, too cold, too removed from the world below.Glass, steel, stone.Clean lines and sharp edges.It contained no softness.No history and nothing to indicate that it was lived in on anything more than a temporary basis.
I stood there for a moment, breathing it in.The quiet.The stillness.I didn’t come here often enough.I always told myself I was too busy, that Genoa needed me, that responsibility came before indulgence.But maybe that wasn’t the real reason.Maybe I avoided this place because it forced me to sit with myself—and I wasn’t sure I liked my own company.
I moved through the kitchen and poured a coffee, the machine humming low in the silence.When I walked to the window, the view hit me all over again—Tuscany stretching out in shades of terracotta roofs and rolling hills, the early bustle muted by distance.
Below, the day started gently.A man unlocked his bicycle.A woman hung washing from a balcony.A baker slid open his shutters and dusted flour from his apron.
Life.It was ordinary.Simple.A different universe entirely from the one I’d been raised to rule.
Steam curled from my mug as I took a slow sip.The brew was bitter, hot, grounding.
Maybe everything that had brought me here had been an overcorrection.Maybe I’d been chasing shadows that were never threats in the first place because it was easier to battle ghosts than admit the quiet unsettled me more than any enemy ever could.
My shoulders loosened, enough to feel foolish for ever thinking this trip required more from me than observation and patience.Enough to finally admit there was no danger here.Not to the family or the throne.And definitely not to me.
I exhaled, long and steady, the decision settling into place before I’d even spoken it aloud.
I would go home tonight.
Back to Genoa and the weight of responsibility that leaned heavily on me.To the life I knew how to live.
My phone vibrated on the counter, slicing through the silence.It was Marcello.Of course.
I answered before the second ring, already annoyed at how he insisted on playing the older brother instead of the younger one he was.
“What.”
“Why the hell aren’t you answering?”he demanded.“I called twice.”