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

I stumbled out of our house and into the street. Dawn painted streaks of red and gold across the sky. I stared up at it, trying to orient myself to my new reality. The world was the same as it had always been, but felt irrevocably changed. A prophecy foretelling disaster . . . I dragged in another breath. I couldn’t believe no one told us about it before. Knowing my very existence might signal the end of Earth’s days was kind of a big secret to keep, especially if there wasn’t much time left before the gates of Hell crashed open.

I also could not believe Nonna had taken on a prince of Hell, and won. And being Marked by Wrath . . . Everything was happening much too quickly. I could barely process it all. I glanced over my shoulder at my home, hearing the slight murmur of voices. My parents were fully awake. Thank the goddess. I rushed back up the stairs and halted, hand hovering above the knob. I wanted more than anything to go in and hug my parents, to tell them I loved them, but couldn’t. Tears stung my eyes as I hurried away. I didn’t want to leave them, but if what Nonna said about the prophecy was true, everyone would be safer without me.

I quickly walked through the streets, trying to figure out a plan. I wondered if my sister had found out about the prophecy. If she had, it explained why she thought accepting the devil’s bargain was necessary. Maybe she’d been trying to save me. Between the gates of Hell crumbling and the prophecy, the choices were dwindling on how to stop more chaos from arriving.

I walked past the marketplace, avoiding the stalls of vendors I knew, skirted the edge of the crowds, and ended up on a steep street that faced the sea.

I was thinking a lot about what Nonna said. About love being the most powerful magic. I wasn’t sure if that was true in the literal sense, but love for my twin had made me stronger. In the months following Vittoria’s murder, I’d left my comfort behind in favor of helping give her peace.

I’d summoned a demon and encountered four princes of Hell. I’d fought a giant snakelike demon, been chased and almost bitten by another, and had survived it all. I tricked information out of Greed, I learned cunning from Wrath. I didn’t know I was a fighter before all this. Now I knew I could and would do anything for the people I loved.

I reached for Vittoria’s amulet, wanting to feel connected to her. I wished she could have seen Nonna fighting off a demon prince. As my fingers clasped it, some tiny detail surfaced. I don’t know how the connection was made, but suddenly there it was.

Fennel. Nonna had used dried fennel on Envy. And it wasn’t the first time I saw fennel in connection with something related to fighting the Wicked. Wrath had pointed out that the image painted on the door to that old fisherman’s storage building had a paw holding a stalk of fennel, not wheat like I’d originally thought.

Which meant . . . My pulse raced. I thought about more stories from our childhood. I knew that symbol—it wasn’t in Vittoria’s diary and it didn’t belong to any demon prince, either. Quite the opposite. I hadn’t thought about the legends since the night in the monastery when Antonio mentioned them, but it symbolized an ancient order of shape-shifters who were said to battle evil.

Almost everyone in the Kingdom of Italy had heard stories of the mighty shape-shifters growing up. Talk eventually turned them into myths, but that didn’t mean they weren’t real and still around. The villagers Antonio had spoken to seemed to think they were very much alive and well and gathering again. Excitement thrummed through me. If an ancient sect of warriors was living in Palermo, maybe it was time to see if they’d like to help rid the city of the demons invading it.

Regardless of anything, I’d felt something supernatural in that room with the fishing gear. And now I was going to find out exactly what I’d sensed.

Inside the abandoned building with the painted shape-shifter symbol, all was eerily still and quiet; like the room itself was waiting, breath held, for its secrets to be discovered. There was something in here I needed to find. I knew it. I felt it.

Now I scanned the miscellaneous items carefully, dragging my attention over each floorboard, each corner, and every last item I could see. Fishing nets and tackle still lay in the same heaps. This time, however, I decided to see if my luccicare would locate the magical object the way my sister was able to hear them quietly whispering to her.

I held on to Vittoria’s cornicello and concentrated hard on my talent, trying to force the lavender aura to manifest. That didn’t happen, but something strange did. The more I tried to focus on the luccicare, the more attuned I became to sounds. I closed my eyes, listening to a slight humming that called to me. There was something familiar about it I couldn’t quite place.

I let go of rational thinking, and gave myself over to my senses completely.

I stepped to my right and the sound faded. I inhaled deeply, recentered my focus, and moved left. The humming came back. I inched toward it, pausing and refocusing each time it started to fade. The closer I got, the louder and steadier it became.

I took a final step forward, then stopped.

I opened my eyes. I’d been guided to the far wall where the fishing hooks were hung up in neat rows. I recalled scanning it the day Wrath and I had ventured inside. I’d been drawn to it then, but hadn’t trusted my instincts. I ran my fingers over the hooks. Some were shiny, others dulled by use and rust. I came to the end of the wall and paused. One very ordinary-looking hook seemed to hum the closer I drew to it. I backed up and the sound disappeared.

I focused again and it returned. I blew out a breath, and let go of the questions I had no answers to. I wasn’t sure what to do, but reached over to remove the old hook from the wall. As I tugged on it, a secret door behind it clicked open. Holy goddess above. I hadn’t expected that.

I glanced sharply over my shoulder, worried there was an invisible spy lurking behind me, waiting to report back to whomever it worked for. I scanned the room slowly, but unless there were multiple Umbra demons in the city, the one hired by Envy was gone.

I shook the chills away and turned back to the secret door. I swore I heard the distant whispers of many voices coming from inside the hidden passage. I thought about Vittoria’s diary, about the lines she’d tried to decipher that had been jumbled like Claudia’s scrying session.

I followed the hum of voices into a cave, high above the sea . . .

 . . . I found it there, buried deep within the earth. I managed to understand one line before it descended into chaos.

I thought about the “it” she mentioned. If we’d each been wearing part of the Horn of Hades our whole lives, then that couldn’t be the mysterious “it” she’d been referring to. So what, then, had she heard whispering to her high above the sea? What had Vittoria dug up and decided to hide again, somewhere far from the Malvagi?

I peered at the secret door, wondering if I’d be brave enough to see where it led. Whispers called to me, a little louder, a little more insistent. My palms dampened.

Maybe wearing Vittoria’s cornicello gave me access to her magic. Which meant, whatever had drawn my sister to that cave above the sea, was now calling to me.

If I truly wanted to find out what happened to Vittoria, I needed to see what was behind that door. With a quick prayer to the goddess, I held her cornicello tightly, and stepped into the secret passage.