Page 33 of The Villa

Riffling through them, she picks out a smaller, thinner book, barely a book at all, more like a slightly thicker brochure, and hands it to me.

It’s got the Duomo di Orvieto on the front, and “Day Trips in Orvieto” written across the top. “You can have it,” she says. “I’m headed out to Florence tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” I reply, turning around to show the book to Chess, but she’s got her phone out, thumbs moving across the screen at a furious pace, and I look back at the travel guide, flipping it open to the part about the well.

Begun in 1527 and completed in 1537, Pozzo di San Patrizio is a marvel of Renaissance engineering. Double helix staircases allowed for easier access and constant traffic both down into the well and up from the well.…

My eyes skip over other details about the well’s dimensions, the sophistication of its architecture, the number of windows inside allowing in light. That’s the kind of stuff Matt would’ve been interested in, I’m sure, but he’s not here, and I am, so I’m not reading up on Renaissance building practices.

In fact, I’m thinking Chess and I can just skip this altogether when I see something a little further down the page.

The well’s name comes from the legend of St. Patrick’s Purgatory in Ireland, a cave that was so deep, it was said to reach to the underworld.

Something about that description seems familiar to me, and I wrack my brain, trying to remember where I had read it. Recently.

I fish in my bag, pulling out my copy ofLilith Rising. I don’t know why I’ve been carrying it around with me like some kind of totem, but I like having it close at hand.

Now I page through it, looking for the scene I’m thinking about.

I find it about a third of the way through the book, in Chapter Six.

“There’s a cave in Ireland that reaches down so deep, you can cross into the underworld.”

Colin murmured the words against Victoria’s throat, and she swallowed hard, reaching out to tangle her fingers with his.

“Have you seen it?” she asked. She felt like she was always asking him things, desperate for any hint of the life he’d had before he’d come to the village. She liked imagining it even though it also made something in her stomach twist. A Colin without her. The man he’d been before.

The man he might be again.

That thought terrified her even more than stories about caves and hell, and she pressed herself closer to him in the warm dark of the barn.

“No,” he replied. He had his head propped in his hand, looking down at her. Even in the dim light, his eyes were bright blue. “But I’d go there if I could. I’d take you there.”

“I’d go with you,” she told him, and she meant it more than she’d ever meant anything before.

A kiss, salty with sweat, hot with promise.

“I would,” Victoria insisted. “I’d follow you anywhere.”

“Even into hell?”

Colin was watching her carefully, like her answer really mattered to him, which was funny to Victoria, because what other answer was there?

“Yes.”

I scan the rest of the pages, but there’s nothing more about the cave, no reference to this particular well at all, and I’m more than a little disappointed. I don’t know why I’m enjoying it so much, finding these little hints inLilith Risingthat connect to Orvieto, but there’s something satisfying about it.

Something exciting.

The line has started moving, and the redheaded girl is already inside. But when I turn to Chess, I see that she’s on her phone, turned slightly away from me.

I wait until she’s done with her call, and am about to suggest we check out the well when she gives me an exaggerated frown. “So, I’m the worst, but that was Steven, and, apparently, he needs a couple of sample chapters from the new book for their foreign rights guy, and he needs them, like, ASAP. And of course, they’re only on my computer, so I need to get back to the villa and send them by this evening in New York. But you can stay!” she quickly offers. “Get your well on!”

Steven is Chess’s agent, a man I’ve only met once but who struck me as a terrifying human and probably a fantastic agent. My own agent, Rose, is a much better human, but only an okay agent, a trade-off I’ve mostly been fine with.

For a second I think about staying, and then shake my head.

Weirdly, I want to get back to the villa, too.

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