Kingdom of the Wicked (Kingdom of the Wicked, #1)(40)

Cryptic as usual. I decided to start with the smaller details, and work my way up to the harder questions. “Is it really a key for locking the gates of Hell?”

“Yes and no. It has the ability to open and close the gates, but that’s not all it does.”

“Are they the devil’s horns?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve known the whole time?”

Nonna nodded. I stared at her, trying to process the fact that my grandmother—who’d been making us bless our charms to protect ourselves from the demon princes our entire lives—had placed such things around our necks. “La Prima cast a spell that turned them into two smaller amulets, hoping to hide them from all who’d seek them.”

“Because they belong to the devil?”

“Because if brought together, they not only have the ability to lock the gates, they can also summon him. They grant the summoner a certain bit of power over him.”

I stared at the amulet I’d worn for as long as I could remember, wondering why my sister hadn’t come to Nonna when she’d found this out. I still had so many questions about her bargain. If we had a means of controlling the devil, why didn’t she just ask me for my cornicello?

It made sense why Greed was after it; his sin was closely tied to power. But if all princes of Hell craved power why, then, didn’t Wrath try to snatch my cornicello?

Something Envy said resurfaced amidst my confusion. “What’s a shadow witch?”

Nonna made a disgusted sound. “Shadow witches are what demons call us. We are known as Stelle Streghe.”

Star witches. “We are known? Since when are we known as Star Witches?”

Nonna gave me a sardonic look. “Since the dawn of our bloodline. We hail from an ancient line of witches who had ties to the Wicked prior to the curse. We were guardians in a sense, ensuring creatures of the underworld remained there, never interfering with the human world. For a time we worked beside the Malvagi. That was before—”

Nonna’s wine glass flew across the room and shattered against the wall. Chianti dripped like blood. I screamed, but not because of the glass. A floating blade hovered against my grandmother’s throat. My ghost demon was back, and it didn’t seem like just a figment of my imagination now. It had been quiet the last few days, and I’d forgotten it. Now it was hard to ignore Wrath’s serpent dagger as it glinted in the light.

“Little tricksy witch.”

The demon’s blade pressed into Nonna’s skin. I shook my head and stepped forward. “Please. If this is about what I did to Greed, she has nothing to do with it. Leave her alone, she’s innocent.”

“Innocent?” It accentuated the “c” until it sounded like a hiss. “She is no such thing.”

Before I could dash across the room and knock Nonna away, her head jerked back and the invisible hand dragged Wrath’s blade across her throat. Blood gushed from her wound. She gurgled, the sound one of the most horrendous things I’d ever heard. The weapon clattered to the ground. I watched everything happen as if it occurred in slow increments.

A window burst open, and I imagined the invisible demon fled through it.

Then reality crashed into me and I was in motion. I was across the room a breath later.

“No!” I snatched a cloth from the counter and held it to her neck, stanching the blood. Then I screamed until my voice broke, rousing the whole house from the spelled slumber Nonna had enchanted them with. There were spells to help slow the flow of blood, but I couldn’t think of any through the panic screeching at me. It was as if my mind shut down and all I could focus on was one basic need: hold the wound.

My mother rushed into the kitchen first, her attention immediately falling on Nonna. And the growing lake of blood. Tears streamed down my face, blurring my vision.

I would not let my grandmother die. Not like this.

My father appeared a minute later, his eyes widening at the sight. “I’ll get bandages.”

I stopped paying attention to anything other than keeping the cloth pressed firmly against my grandmother’s wound. Time ticked by. Blood saturated the cotton, my mother prayed over a thick herbal paste she’d made. I held firmly. I wanted to be the kind of person who didn’t panic and could act calmly. But logic didn’t penetrate my terror. Mamma tried yanking my hands away, but I refused to budge. I had to keep applying pressure. Nonna needed me.

“It’s all right, baby. Let me get this on her. It’ll seal the wound.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. It’s all right.”

It took another bit of coaxing, but I finally relinquished my grip. Nonna slid to the ground, her breathing labored. I’d seen this in injured animals before and it wasn’t a good sign.

My mother slathered the thick paste across the injury, then wrapped one of the clean bandages around it. My father had brought them in before he went to work checking for any more intruders and securing our window. My mother finished tying it off with a prayer to the goddess of good health and well-being to heal Nonna quickly. I offered up a prayer of my own, hoping she listened to us both.

“Help me get her into bed, Emilia.”

I swiped at my tears and did as I was asked. Once we’d laid her across the mattress, my mother pulled up a chair to watch. I sat against the wall and stayed there until the sun set, turning the room bruised shades of purple and black. Nonna’s breathing finally evened out, and she fell into a deep, restorative sleep. She’d made it, no thanks to me. Praise the goddess.