Lover of the Light

Open Secrets

Lover of the Light

Chapter Twenty-One: Open Secrets

The room was cold.

It was the type of cold one knows will forever be. The kind that has been there for as long as it can be remembered, the type that numbs the skin and makes you immune to it. It was the sort of cold that frosted the windows, that came out of your mouth in a visible fog, the kind that built itself into blocks beside the door and the furniture; the kind that became ice picks hanging from the chandelier and the ceiling.

It was the kind of cold that is always ignored because that's how the climate's always been. It's never going to change. It's the cold that becomes accepted. The cold that's the norm.

For a moment, however...Green eyes looked up from a list containing hundreds of names to glance around the room. Almost thirty years of life, so used to ignoring those icebergs filling the open spaces of her home, and, from time to time, she would stop for a moment to notice it. Sometimes, when she gave in to the fact that they lived in an icy cave like those in Antarctica, when she noticed the blue of her numbing fingertips, the icy breath filling the atmosphere, panic would rise in her chest. She felt the coldness seep in, freezing her blood. The oxygen in her lungs was not circling, her brain cells were halting, her heart was slowing down...

"Bianca, are you done?"

With a deep gasp, the ice suffocating her, killing her, vanished. The ice went from closing in on her to rushing back to be the invisible decor of the room.

"Qual è il tuo problema, mia sorella?"

Feeling her blood run smoothly again, Bianca smiled reassuringly at Jenoah. "Sto bene," she said calmly, like she's mastered in her twenty-nine years of life. "I was just wondering why the guest list was smaller than last year's."

"The guest list might be smaller, but the budget for the benefit is larger than ever," Jenoah joked with his sibling, an underline of annoyance barely noticeable. "We always know how to outshine people, don't we?"

Bianca kept her smile on her burly brother. It was still based on phoniness, but she was somewhat amused by him. "Well, the charity ball the Fontanas hosted for the orphans last month was quite the talk. It was called the event of the year. I suppose nostro padre wants to regain his status of the illustrious host."

Jenoah snorted as he flipped through another page of the budget report he'd been given to look over. "Of course, the Fontanas being a muggle-born family has nothing to do with this giant spectacle he's making out of my hospital's annual benefit."

"Obviously not, mio fratello. Making this event exclusive to the crème de la crème of Italy is just a coincidence."

As Bianca and Jenoah's green eyes connected, smirks wanting to tug at the edges of their mouths, a throat cleared throughout the cold room.

"Sufficiente." From her chair behind an antique desk, the matriarch of the Zabini clan looked up at her youngest children from her own share of paperwork.

Twenty-nine and thirty-two year-old adults looked away from each other and back to their work at the sound of their mother's voice.

"Siamo una famiglia prestigiosa e siamo obbligati a mostrarlo," reprimanded the woman, her bright, emerald eyes narrowed and creasing her forehead. "Instead of judging your father, Jenoah, you should focus on what he does for your hospital. These events bring more than generous donations so your patients can have the best of the best. You're a skilled Healer, mio figlio, but that doesn't entirely save lives."