Florence, two days later
Esmé turned the letter over for the third time, studying the seal again by candlelight. It had been tucked beneath her mattress since it arrived, hidden like a relic too dangerous to destroy and too precious to ignore.
The wax was now slightly cracked from her fingers pressing it, the black rose imprint still clear against the parchment. She had memorized every word. She had read it aloud once, quietly, and the air in the room had felt… thinner afterward, as if the very syllables carried weight.
If you insist on looking into shadows… they will begin to look back.
She hadn't slept well since.
And yet she'd done exactly the opposite of what the letter warned: she had gone looking deeper.
That morning, while her father made deliveries and Fiora busied herself with noble fittings, Esmé slipped into a quiet lane near the convent of Santa Verdiana—where the city's hidden records were said to be kept.
Few knew the place existed. Fewer still were permitted inside.
But Esmé, being neither noble nor a fool, had a way with locks and silence. And she was far too curious to stop now.
The archive door opened with a reluctant groan as she slipped inside. Dust floated through the air like sleeping ghosts, and the scent of dried ink and old leather settled thick in her lungs. Narrow aisles stretched between rows of shelves stacked with ledgers, scrolls, and tomes dating back two centuries or more.
She had only one name to guide her: di Rosso.
She didn't know what she expected to find. Lineage records, perhaps. Legal disputes. Or perhaps a whisper of something darker. If Luca had wanted her to be afraid, sending her this warning—he had misjudged her entirely.
She moved swiftly, scanning bindings, fingers brushing against ridges of parchment. The D section was overflowing with noble names—di Bartoli, di Castellani, di Neri… And finally, di Rosso.
The volume she pulled was bound in red calfskin and sealed with iron studs along the spine. It was heavier than expected, its pages dry and stiff with time. She laid it on a narrow table and opened it with care.
The genealogy was extensive. Dozens of names, many marked with symbols she didn't recognize: stars, daggers, and crescents inked in the margins. Some names were crossed out completely, replaced with blank spaces. But it was a side note in the lower corner that caught her eye—a scribbled phrase in Latin, half-faded:
Sanguis tenebris custodiet pactum aeternum.
Blood of shadow shall guard the eternal pact.
She didn't know enough Latin to fully grasp it. But the words blood and shadow stirred something in her. The same unease she had felt when she first read Luca's letter.
She turned the page and stopped cold.
A small, sketched portrait—crudely done in charcoal—stared back at her. A man with black hair, pale skin, and eyes too dark to be fully captured by the medium. Beneath it: Lucianus di Rosso, Anno Domini 1216.
It was him.
Exactly him.
Not an ancestor. Not a distant relative.
The same face.
Esmé felt the hairs on her arms rise. Her mouth went dry.
Two centuries ago.
She stared harder, searching for some mistake—some detail to prove otherwise. But the resemblance was perfect. Luca hadn't aged. Hadn't changed. Either the artist had conjured a vision of the future… or Luca was not entirely human.
Her pulse hammered in her throat.
She closed the book with care, even as her hands shook, and slipped out the way she had come—silent as a shadow.
————————————————————
Outside, Florence had turned cold and gray, clouds thickening above the rooftops. Thunder rolled in the distance, low and growling.
Esmé pulled her cloak tighter and headed not toward the shop, but toward the only place she knew might offer answers: the old bookbinder's shop near San Marco.
The man who owned it—Ser Anselmo—had once been a scholar at the university, before some scandal drove him into quiet exile. He knew languages, secrets, and had a fondness for people who asked the right questions.
He also owed Esmé a favor.
"You're soaked," Anselmo grumbled as she stepped inside, the bell above the door chiming softly. The shop smelled of vellum and rain.
"I need a translation," she said without greeting. "Latin."
He raised a bushy brow, then reached for his glasses. "Show me."
She scribbled the phrase from the archive on a piece of parchment and handed it to him.
He read it once, then again more slowly.
"Blood of shadow shall guard the eternal pact."
He looked up, eyes narrowing. "Where did you find this?"
"In a book."
"Which book?"
"One you'd rather not know about," she said.
Anselmo grunted. "You always bring me trouble."
"Does it mean anything to you?"
He nodded slowly. "It's the kind of phrase one might find in a binding ritual. Blood pacts—old ones. Forbidden by the Church for centuries. Some say they were used by those who walked between worlds."
"Like vampires," she said quietly.
He hesitated. "I didn't say that."
"But you believe it."
He gave her a long, unreadable look. "I believe Florence is older than its walls. And some families carry more than wealth in their blood."
She thanked him and turned to leave, but he stopped her at the door.
"Esmé," he said, voice lower, "there's something else."
She paused.
"There's a symbol—one I saw once, carved into a crypt wall beneath Santa Lucia. A rose encircling a drop of blood. Same as the seal on your parchment." He didn't ask how he knew. "They say those who bear it are sworn to silence. And vengeance."
Her breath caught.
"Be careful," he added, "which shadows you chase. Some of them have teeth."
————————————————————
That night, Esmé didn't light the forge. She didn't sketch. She didn't speak.
She sat by the window of her room, listening to the rain.
The letter sat on her desk, the seal cracked but still dark.
She no longer doubted what Luca was.
And he knew she knew.
But the question that haunted her wasn't what he was.
It was why he was watching her.
And what he might do next.