“Do you still have the revolver you were going to shoot me with?” asked the old man on the telephone.“Yes, I have it here.”“How much ammunition?”“No idea. How do I find out?”He explained. In the moonlight, she felt the bulges of the cartridges in the cylinder. “Six,” she said.“And you don’t know how to use it?”“No.”“But you are American.”“Ha-ha.”“If you do as I say, and go about it cleverly, I hope you won’t need it. Unless Cesare Carnevare crosses your path, in which case please be kind enough to shoot him.”“How about the concordat?”He laughed. “Shoot him when no one’s looking.”

“How are you?”Rosa shrugged her shoulders. “My sister turned into a giant snake last night. And your cousin Tano—”“Second cousin.”“He was there too. He was a tiger. I recognized him from his eyes. Then I fainted.” She looked at him. “How does that sound?”

“She struggled to find words, and then all the anger she had been damming up for the last few minutes broke out. It made no difference that none of what had happened was his fault. Nor did the fact that he’d saved her, or what he had sacrificed to do it. He was a Carnevare. He was one of them. And he was preventing her from going to her sister’s aid when Zoe needed her.“The girl that Cesare killed … ,” she snapped, “her name was Lilia. She … she loved my sister. Do you understand that? Zoe has just lost the person who probably meant more to her than anything else. And Lilia sacrificed herself for me. How can you think that—”“I’d have done the same thing,” he interrupted her calmly. “I’d have died for you up on that mountain.”That took her breath away. For a moment it deprived her not only of her self-control, but of the ability to utter another syllable.After endless seconds, she stammered, “That—that’s nonsense.”“It’s the truth.” He turned his head and looked at her. “I’m in love with you, Rosa.”She hesitated, fighting for composure.“Oh, hell,” she whispered.He smiled sadly.Then neither of them said anything, until finally she took his cell phone and called Zoe.”

“She sighed. “Go on, say it. I shouldn’t have come.”“You shouldn’t have come.” He looked sideways at her and gave her a fleeting grin. “But I’m glad you did.”

“It would have been only fair to tell him so. To explain, right now, that she was the bloody Titanic whose wake would carry him under, if he didn’t jump into the lifeboat and head for the open sea.Instead, he leaned over to kiss her.She waited. Hesitated. Then withdrew her head before their lips could touch. For a split second he looked offended, but then he smiled, blinked at the sun, and said, “Well, when it gets to that point, I want to be there.”“When what gets to what point?”“When you’re not looking at everyone else as if they’d just declared war on you. And when you realize”—he pointed across the ravine—“that things may look like the end of the world but the world still goes on, over there on the other side. Maybe just one really large step would cross it.”

“She sighed, annoyed at her restlessness. “So,” she said, disrupting Wolf in another backward glance.“Who would win in a fight—you or a pack of wolves?”He frowned at her, all seriousness. “Depends,” he said, slowly, like he was trying to figure out her motive for asking. “How big is the pack?”“I don’t know, what’s normal? Six?”“I could win against six,” he said. “Any more than that and it could be a close call.”Scarlet smirked. “You’re not in danger of low self-esteem, at least.”“What do you mean?”“Nothing at all.” She kicked a stone from their path. “How about you and … a lion?”“A cat? Don’t insult me.”She laughed, the sound sharp and surprising. “How about a bear?”“Why, do you see one out there?”“Not yet, but I want to be prepared in case I have to rescue you.”The smile she’d been waiting for warmed his face, a glint of white teeth flashing. “I’m not sure. I’ve never had to fight a bear before.”

“Clearly we have all the time in the world,” she said crossly. “Feel free to start way back with the dinosaurs—just as long as you get to the Carnevares and Alcantaras sometime.”