Chapter 100

• Alessia
• The ceiling of Dante’s safe house is cracked in one corner, the plaster peeling like scorched skin. I stared at it until my eyes blurred, until it became something else entirely, my father’s face, the last moment I saw him before he vanished. The ache in my shoulder was dull but constant, pulsing like a second heartbeat.
• I didn’t flinch when Elena entered the room. She didn’t ask if I was okay. She didn’t bring up the fire. She just pulled a chair beside the cot and set down the sterile kit. The smell of alcohol and burnt cotton clung to her sleeves. Her hands were already gloved.