That was the day Ambrose taught me to dance properly, humming a waltz and beaming down into my face. I laughed with him, felt graceful and grown-up, and forgot pain.
Now I ignored the cold voices in my ear, the weight on my shoulders, and remembered dancing with my cousin.
Wherever you are in the world, Ambrose , I thought, I hope you’re getting up to wonderful mischief.
A mbrose Spellman was sitting across from Prudence Blackwood at a dainty wrought-iron table in an Italian courtyard, feeling well satisfied with life. Day was sinking deliciously down into night in Florence, the shadow of the Duomo cast across the cobblestones. Above him, Ambrose saw the marble panels of the basilica, inlaid green and the delicate blush pink of the inside of a seashell. The building was beautiful, Gothic peaks and swoops made pretty as confectionery and immortalized in stone. As if a small girl had built a castle of seashells on the shore, only to have her wish granted and her wild dream of a seashell palace come true.
When he looked at Prudence, that was even better. Her bleached hair was a white glimmer in the great dome’s shadow, capturing the eye. Once captured, you couldn’t help but appreciate the flawless lines of her face and the wicked delight of her eyes. Like seeing a pretty girl, then noticing her draw a sacrificial dagger from a thigh sheath. Great at first sight, but marvelous on the second.
Ambrose asked Prudence, his voice caressing: “What are you thinking about?”
“Bloody vengeance,” Prudence answered.
Ambrose hid a smile against the gilt rim of his coupe glass. “Sure.”
He took a sip of champagne, the taste fresh and delicate as spring flowers, filling his mouth with a promise of unfurling blossoms.
In the darkened courtyard there was a sudden rain of small spheres, all the colors of a rainbow, onto the cobblestones. Turquoise and crimson, gold and silver, the bubbles gleamed and couldn’t be burst. The mortals thought they were only plastic, a shower of radiance meant to entertain tourists. Ambrose and Prudence knew better. They were magical messages.
But not the one they were waiting for. Not yet.
Ambrose directed a fond grin at the shining spheres, thinking of someone else who was small and bright.
“What … are you … thinking about?” Prudence asked, her voice slightly rusty, as though she was unaccustomed to simple pleasantries and not sure if she was getting them right.
There hadn’t been much pleasantness for Prudence in the Church of Night under Father Blackwood. That could change now. As soon as they hunted down her father.
Ambrose was on board with the plan for bloody vengeance, but he felt there was no reason they couldn’t combine revenge and romance. It was a nice night.
“I’m thinking about my cousin,” he said honestly.
Prudence gave an irritated sigh. “What about Sabrina?”
“Nothing in particular.” Ambrose took a deep breath and committed sacrilege. “I love her, so I think about her a lot. Wondering how she is, if she’s happy, whether she’s back at mortal school or broken up about Nick. Pour one out for Nick Scratch.”
He poured Prudence a fresh glass of champagne. The golden bubbles in her glass glided upward as the faerie spheres cascaded down around them.
I love her. It wasn’t the kind of thing witches said. It felt like confessing a crime.
Luckily, Ambrose was comfortable with crime.
Prudence took a long sip of her champagne. “Are you sorry about Nick?”
“Sure. I liked Nick. What’s not to like? He was hot, he cared about Sabrina, I’m a simple man,” said Ambrose. “Seemed horrified to find himself in a love triangle, which: strongly agreed. So much fraught emotion when there’s an obvious solution. Calm down and come to an arrangement, people in love triangles!”
Prudence made a small face, like a kitten whose nose was being shoved in a dish. “Then you’re in an arrangement with Harvey .”
“Therein lies the beauty of my plan,” said Ambrose. “Suggest an arrangement to Harvey, watch him die of horror, find someone else to have an arrangement with.”
Prudence’s laugh was as lovely as the sound of bells over Florence.
Ambrose laughed with her. “Shame Nick didn’t get the chance to initiate Sabrina into a world of carnal delights, but them’s the breaks. Guess it’s Harvey after all. Brace yourself for potentially days of tender cuddling, cousin! Those will be some amateur fumblings, but Sabrina loves him. Always did. Don’t think she knows how to stop, though I expect she’s trying.”
Ambrose checked in on where Prudence was at, with this scandalous talk of love. Prudence was scowling.
“I don’t like cuddling.”
“Oh, no?” Ambrose asked.
Pity.
Prudence propped her chin onto her fist. Her voice was gloomy. “Nick Scratch tried to cuddle me once … I think. It was a horrible experience.”
Ambrose raised his eyebrows and grinned, knife sharp. “How bad could it have been?”
Prudence, lost in awful reminiscence, didn’t grin back.
“He had no idea what he was doing. It was like being attacked by an awkward coatrack. I lay still and thought of the Dark Lord. After five minutes I threatened Nick with a knife. He leaped back. My hair got caught in one of his shirt buttons. I had to cut myself free. Later I hacked off my hair and bleached it to make the memories go away.”
“Wow,” breathed Ambrose. “That’s much worse than I was expecting.”
He recalled his childhood, carriages rattling down the streets of London and lamps barely able to burn through the fog. In his nursery, there was always a fire burning in the grate. There was his auntie Hilda, holding him and cooing at him about who was the sweetest, most handsome boy in the whole world?
Then and now, that was Ambrose. But the witch orphans of the Academy hadn’t had his advantages.
“I wouldn’t give up on cuddling just yet.” Ambrose shot Prudence a provocative smile. “The best way to experience new things is trying them with someone who has experience.”
Prudence shook her head obstinately. “I don’t like it.”
“I’m a fan, personally,” Ambrose observed. “Chains and cuddling. Girls and boys. I like it all. But you know that. I always wonder why so many mortals are obsessed with monogamy when there’s beautiful variety in the world.”
He tilted his head to see the effect of this on Prudence.
“What’s monogamy?” Prudence asked lazily. “A mortal game, is it not? You get all the hotels and you win?”
Ambrose opened his mouth to correct her, then recalled the time Prudence was staying over in Sabrina’s room. He’d found her running her fingertips lightly over Auntie Hilda’s books and the stacked-up games he used to while away evenings playing with Sabrina. He knew she’d seen the Monopoly box.
Prudence was making a joke. Ambrose smiled, thrilled with her, and Prudence smiled a naughty little smile back.
“Best way to win that game is not to play,” remarked Ambrose.
“Doesn’t seem like a game I’d be interested in, no,” drawled Prudence.
So that was settled. Fantastic.
“But I’ve been thinking,” began Ambrose.
His eye was caught by the glitter of a midnight-blue orb falling from above. The bubble was almost lost against the night sky, but notably dissimilar from the globes of white and crimson, green and gold.