just fall | ✓

27.

Gia said nothing when she shook me awake the following morning, and none of my relatives mentioned that my eyes were swollen and red-rimmed. Salvatore held me in a hug so tight I felt my bones creak in protest, but I hugged him just as tightly. I half-hoped that if he hugged me hard enough, he could force back together the broken pieces of me. When I pulled away, I was just as empty as I had been when he'd pulled me in.

I can't say that any of the Illéan royal family came to send us off because that would be a lie. The Russians and the Germans had already said their goodbyes, and we met them all at the airport with the Italians, who, for once, were in somber spirits. The Germans, on the other hand, were in unusually high spirits.

"What's wrong with them?" I asked Liev as we hugged goodbye. "Why are they like that?"

"Princess Clara had no choice but to accept their engagement offer," he explained quietly. "They think that she chose him over me, but I rescinded my offer of engagement."

This startled me, and I pulled back to look at him. Clara had always seemed fond enough of Liev that she would choose him, and I didn't understand why he would've rescinded. "Why would you do that?" I asked. "I could've sworn she was going to pick you."

His eyes darkened, and I had never thought that I would see sweet, kind, wonderful Liev look so angry. "Salvatore had informed me of what transpired, and when I spoke with her, she defended her actions. I disagreed with how she handled it, and we argued. I thought it best if I not support that sort of mentality." He didn't elaborate, and I didn't ask him to. There were some gaping pieces missing from his story, but I could tell it was something that he didn't want to relive, so I let it be.

Katinka was the hardest to say goodbye to, but she was insistent that I learn enough Russian to have a short conversation with her by the next time we were to meet, and I promised her that I would ask them to include it in my lessons. Satisfied with this, she then asked if I would do them all a favor and marry Liev, to which I told her I would consider it (in reality, I wasn't going to consider Liev an option at all, but this answer seemed to satisfy her and really, I didn't have the heart to tell her no). 

We boarded our separate planes, and I was relieved that none of the Illéans had shown up. Salvatore took a seat beside me, and for the entire twelve hour or so flight, he patiently taught me more Italian. He even had books to help me learn to read and a spare notebook that I could write in, and by the end of the flight, I could carry on a very short conversation and my pronunciation was decent.

It was midnight when we landed in Rome. The king and queen shuffled the other bleary-eyed children off of the flight, but Salvatore and I were wide awake. He shot me a grin. "Want to sightsee a little?"

☼

He'd ditched his jacket and tie in his suitcase, and we left them with his parents. He had ordered the people at the desk in the airport for something in rapid Italian, and ten minutes later, they were telling him that whatever-it-was was ready and waiting for us.

His family piled into two cars, and his father embraced us both and told us to be careful, his expression only mildly disapproving. Salvatore just grinned and then grabbed my hand and tugged me away.

"What are we doing?" I asked. 

He was tugging me towards a small blue scooter with two helmets sitting on top of it; he passed the helmets to a man standing on the sidewalk, thanked him in Italian, and then returned his attention to me. A smile lit up his face. "The best cure for a broken heart is to travel Rome at night," he told me. "Come. It'll be fun."

I stumbled a little and stopped on the sidewalk, watching as he climbed onto the scooter. "Can you even drive that thing?"

He laughed. "I've been driving these for ages, cugina. Don't you trust me?"