Tutto sapere è niente sapere.
To know everything is to know nothing.
“Porca troia,” Dante cursed, waking with a start—the only way he woke these days.
Every time he closed his eyes, he died all over again, and every time he opened them, it felt like being born from the fire again.
Asleep, awake, it didn’t matter. There was no relief.
The never-ceasing noise plucked at his nerves. Labored breathing, soft moans, low-pitched voices. One more day on this cot, inhaling disinfectant and waking to other people’s misery, would kill him.
“Puttana la miseria,” he said through gritted teeth.
Dottoressa Agostino shot him a dark look.
“Mi scusi,” Dante said, only half sarcastically. He’d heard worse from other patients in the common tongue every damn day, but she held this against him?
He didn’t feel pain, he was pain. Every damn hair on his head hurt. But he’d put it off long enough. Choking down another groan, he sat up.
Alessa drew his gaze like a magnet. Sitting on a cot across the room, her face lit with joy when she saw him.
She jumped up, excused herself, and hurried toward him, leaving the soldier she’d been talking to gaping at her back. Dante fought a smile. She did that all the time, and she had no idea, flitting from one person or thought to another with no clue that anyone might not be able to keep up.
“How are you feeling?” She kneeled beside him and took his hand, silk gloves against bare skin.
“Take them off,” he said softly.
Her eyes, more green than brown today, went wide, long lashes fluttering with nerves. “Later. You’re still recovering, and—”
“Please,” he begged. “Take them off.”
She paled. Her hands shook as she removed her gloves and brushed the back of his hand with her fingers.
His muscles seized. He bit his lip, hard. Che palle.
Alessa leapt to her feet, blinking away tears. “It’s too soon. You need more time to heal. I’m going to find Adrick and Josef. They promised to help you up the stairs, and the doctor says you’re ready—” She hurried away mid-sentence.
Dante dropped his head back against the stone wall and stared up at the metal filigree over the courtyard.
No point denying it.
He wasn’t getting worse, but he wasn’t getting better. At least, no faster than anyone else.
A nurse strode toward him with a bowl of something steaming, a smile on her face that he couldn’t return.
They treated him like a normal person, and at first, he’d assumed they didn’t know. But they did. Hell, they fought over who got to tend to the Ghiotte Fonte. His lip curled at the phrase.
They knew exactly what he was.
Or at least, what he had been.