Blood pours from the wound and into the small jar, thick and steady, until it's nearly full.
I stare at it. Fiore's blood isn't red. It's a deep, vivid purple. It seems to move on its own, swirling like a living liquid.
I realize I'm holding my breath, hypnotized.
Mel's partner hands him a clean cloth, and Fiore takes it, pressing it over the cut before calmly wiping the knife blade clean.
Meanwhile, Mel screws the lid onto the jar with the ease of someone sealing a jar of jam. She lifts it up to the light, eyes gleaming.
"Color me very surprised, Fiorenzo. It must really be a matter of life and death."
"Yes. You're officially the only witch around who can brag about having fairy blood among her ingredients now. Happy?" he replies, flashing a cocky grin.
"Exceedingly." She says it with a satisfied smile as she tucks the jar into the fridge, right between the vegetables and an open container of yogurt.
A shiver runs up my spine.
Then she reaches into a drawer and pulls out a sealed container. She opens it, and the room instantly fills with a strong, balsamic herbal scent.
"Give me your hand; this will heal it in a heartbeat."
Fiore complies, and she spreads the green paste over the wound. The blood stops immediately, as if obeying.
Her partner hands us three tiny cups of steaming coffee, along with a little plate of butter cookies.
I dip one into my cup, but my mind is hammering away:
Why did he push it this far?
Couldn't we have talked about it first, instead of him slicing open his own hand out of nowhere? What the hell do "lighting the hearth" and "setting the intentions" even mean?
This habit of his—act first, explain later—pushes me over the edge. He hardly ever explains anything, and when he does, it's piecemeal and messy. I feel useless, trapped inside a bubble of ignorance, at the mercy of his decisions.
I sip my coffee, feeling Romina's hand brush against my leg under the table.
I glance at her. She says nothing, but her expression makes me feel a little less alone.
We're in this mess together; we might as well act like a team, for crying out loud.
"Fiore, care to explain?" Romina asks, firm. "What exactly did we come here for? Besides free food, for which we're very grateful," she adds, smiling at Mel.
"As I mentioned," Fiore begins, "Mel is my witch friend—the same one who enchanted the little pond back at my place. She can help us with our search. Her hearth… is unique. When you light it, it responds to the intentions of the person in front of it: if you have a question, a doubt, or want to understand something about your path, it shows you the answer."
"Like divination?" I ask, tilting my head.
"Not exactly. Divination asks for an answer from someone on another plane. This shows you all of space and time at once. But there's no order: the images come jumbled. You have to know how to read them."
"All of space and time at once…?" I repeat, trying to picture it.
Mel nods. "It's like the hearth opens a hole in the fabric of the world. You express your intention, and it responds; not with words, but with visions. And you need trained eyes to understand them."
Then, turning to Fiore, she adds, "That's why, if you told me what you're looking for, I could help you better."
Fiore takes her hands, serious. "Trust me, you don't want to know. It's not safe. Not for you, not for your family."
Mel opens her mouth as if to argue, but her partner cuts her off. "Don't insist, love. They know what they're doing." He kisses her forehead and, lifting the little girl into his arms, gives us a polite nod. "It was a pleasure meeting you. Until next time."
"Th-thank you! And thanks for having us!" I stammer, watching him disappear through the kitchen doorway.
"All right, follow me," Mel says with a sigh, standing up.
We follow her through an old wooden door into another room: a small sitting room with a terracotta floor and a ceiling slightly lower than the kitchen.
In the center, on a damask rug, armchairs piled with cushions surround a coffee table, atop which sit candles, incense, and a mortar and pestle.
At the far end of the room, a massive stone hearth rises, its firebox blackened, with an iron grate inside. Small copper pots and a large iron ladle hang from the grate, glinting faintly. From the center of the hood, a thick chain with a hook descends. The whole setup feels ancient, like a tradition lost to time.
Mel closes the door behind us and moves to the coffee table to light the candles and incense. Then she turns toward the hearth, back to us.
"Fiore," I call quietly. Romina steps closer too.
"So, how do we ask the hearth for the… you-know-what without actually asking for the you-know-what? This seems tricky."
"We need to set an ambiguous, yet related intention. I can't risk Mel sensing it; it would put her in danger," he replies, tense.
"Like, 'take me to the anguane who talked to the crazy man from Granzette'?" Romina suggests.
"Even if we can't be sure he actually had what we're looking for?" I murmur, uncertain.
"It's worth trying anyway. We don't have other leads, as you said," he murmurs back, looking at me intently with those sharp eyes of his.
"You ready?" Mel's voice reaches us from the hearth. One of the copper pots sways from the chain above the crackling fire.
"Set your intention in your mind," she continues. "As soon as I add the mortar's contents into the pegnatino*, come close and place your face near the hearth's mouth."
Romina, Fiore, and I exchange knowing glances and move closer to the hearth. The heat from the flames wraps around us like an invisible, oppressive wall, yet we huddle together anyway. Now we're so close that our arms touch.
"Hold hands. Then one of you speaks the intention while the others stay focused. Even the slightest stray thought could throw off your response," Mel instructs, picking up the mortar from the table.
Fiore interlaces his fingers with mine. My chest tightens, a rush of warmth climbing from my stomach, and my thoughts drift unbidden to the last time we held hands. That night.
My pulse spikes, and my eyes find him… but he's not looking at my face. His gaze lingers on the curve of my neck, soft and unreadable, lips parted just slightly.
A subtle heat coils between us, quiet but insistent.
But the spell lasts only a fraction of a second, because Romina reaches for my other hand, and the tension evaporates.
I smack myself mentally. Focus, Milo, damn it. Is this really the time?
"I've got this, guys, okay?" Romina says, eyes fixed on the pegnatino. Fiore and I nod.
Mel pours the crushed herbs into the boiling liquid in the copper pot and stirs a couple of times with the long iron spoon. A thick, dark-brown steam rises around us. The smell is acrid, so pungent it makes my eyes water; then I hear Romina's clear voice: "Take us to the anguane who spoke with the man from Granzette."
The steam thickens. Then a strong tug hits me, as if someone grabbed me by the collar and pulled me toward the fire. Completely engulfed in the current of vapor, I find myself in a whirlwind of lights and colors.
Images hit me in flashes, disjointed, out of focus: a man dressed in black, strange female figures with palm-marked hands but beautiful faces. Then I see Fiore approaching them. My heart leaps. Why is he there? No, I need to focus: Mel said even the slightest stray thought can derail the response.
But there he is, talking to the figures with palm-marked hands… and I can't stop focusing on him. Other rapid fragments explode before my eyes: Fiore walking alone in the forest at night. Fiore trembling with terror. Fiore screaming. Fiore falling off a cliff.
Then my head bursts with pain, my chest tightens unbearably, the world spins around me, the steam smell is growing ever more acrid, nauseating.
Instinctively, I pull my hands away from Romina and Fiore and bring them to my mouth. I double over and fall to the ground, but I don't feel the terracotta floor under my knees, only something soft and damp.
I open my eyes and vomit onto what seems like a floor of dead leaves, twigs, and moss.
Farewell, delicious lunch.
"Milo? Are you okay?" Fiore is next to me, handing me a handkerchief. He's as shaken as I am, but at least he's not vomiting. I take the handkerchief and wipe my mouth.
We look around and realize we're no longer in Mel's little parlor. The hearth's steam is gone; around us stretches a silent forest, tall trees, thick undergrowth. The sense of vertigo lingers stubbornly.
Where the hell have we ended up?
And, most importantly, where the hell is Romina?!
*Pegnatino: In Venetian dialect, a small pot or saucepan, usually made of copper or iron. It's said that every witch works with pegnatini! :)