#ciro.

If anything, she'd made it extremely hard on herself at that fey party where she'd broken a rule and crossed a line she told herself that she'd never cross. Ciro was important to her, that was obvious and Marcella knew she was no good for him all those years ago when they'd been teenagers. And somehow she'd still managed to fall for him in adulthood anyways. In some ways she knew the moment that the Amaranthus fell and she picked up her phone, that it might come to this. But that'd been before her plan, the one he had thrown a wrench into.

Which was why when Marcella had gone back to the cemetery twice and Nettelia hadn't been there, she knew that had to say something before disappearing. It was bad enough she wasn't taking calls or texts from anyone who wasn't Zeke, that she was casting spells to make it really appear as if she weren't home.

She takes a day to craft herself a daylight ring, she'd spelled a few of them, but this one was special, this one would be something made for her by her. There's no real plan to it aside from the stone, she just steps into her studio and starts crafting, weaving metal and magic and when she's done she realizes it's ornate enough to be an engagement ring. And in a way, she supposes it is. What is an engagement other than a promise? This one would be to her future self.

From there, the days seem to all sort of blur together but she wakes up with intention. Magic is done in solitude, things are gathered from the Asphodel house, Eric is spoken to. They will be okay, they have a pack now, they have found somewhere where they belong and she can rest easy about that. As for the rest of the Asphodel members, she hopes they find peace in some way, the ragtag bunch of misfits who didn't seem to know any better.

Lucretia. She thinks she's already healing, she takes a day to go to Wendy's with her, pays for her burger. They talk about nothing, the state of Rome, how good bacon is. It's nice, it's normal, it's something they both deserve and Marcella believes in some form of higher power, thinks that maybe Nettelia can help the once chimera, too.

August is harder. One of the first few people she has thought has ever really understood her and the first to really cast off everyone else. Solitude and magic and what seems like madness seems to plague him and so she doesn't think she's going to get an outing with him. He's too smart for that anyways, would know what she was doing. He still might, she slips a piece of parchment paper under his door, neatly folded. Inside it, on a long chain, is a metal raven's claw she'd crafted herself along with a very simple letter. It reads 'she really was a cunt', followed by 'we're still friends', and that is that. She'd be friends with the man behind whatever madness held him, the one being choosing to be strangled by his ambition. When he returned to her, she'd be there.

Yurena she spends time with at the bookstore, casting constellations on her ceiling and trying not to cry about it because it is going to be hard not to return to her. Because what they had could be a beautiful friendship that she'd never known with another woman. The kind where they braided each other's hair and slept over at each other's houses. Maybe one day they could have that. Bastien she leaves a nice bottle of wine for, a neat pair of sunglasses and she hopes he and Levent get things figured out, get together, get out of all of this.

And then one day Marcella wakes up, spends time at her vanity and dons an outfit fit for autumn with a moleskin and she looks livelier than she had in weeks despite the sickness that plagued her, plagued the city. She goes to The Last Bean, she looks to Hazal, to the last member of the Amaranthus coven that had been in the city when everything fell.

She issues a silent apology to her in the form of a tip of a few hundred euros crammed in the jar by the register before she gets her latte. It is not nearly enough to replace what has been taken.

It's raining, it's a gentle background noise as pen hits the page as she cozies up to a spot by the window.

Ciro, There’s much I should have told you and I have chosen not to because I was afraid you might see me differently. I’ve never cared too much what people thought of me, but for some reason when you came back to Rome, I think I wanted you to like me. I wanted to prove that I had grown up and I think we both have. At some point here I think I became too big. I joined the Asphodel almost a year ago to further my necromancy and my own ambitions. I lent them my magic to cause chaos and destruction within the city. There is fair more on my hands than just dirt. It was never my intention to hurt anyone who had not first hurt me but that doesn’t make it right. I am severing my ties to the book at the cost of my magic in hopes it will never hurt anyone ever again. I am sorry for that night under all those floating lights. I am sorry I ran from you. I am sorry I am going to continue to run from you. But you are good and kind and you are not this fuck up that you think you are and there is nowhere to go from here but up for you. Help Hazal, do what I could never do and make the Amaranthus stronger than it ever was, if anyone can do it, it’s you. Tell Amico that he was right and I’m not privy to your grief or your pain, especially now that I’ve had a hand in it. I hope one day you can find it in your heart to forgive me. - Cella

There’s a few tearstains on the paper but she slides it into an envelope anyways, wishes Hazal a good rest of her day, and then she’s gone. She’s gone and with a careful invisibility spell she is leaving the letter, her book of shadows, and a key to her house on Ciro’s doorstep. It takes everything in her not to knock, but even as tears fall, she doesn’t. She turns and under the cover of her spell and the light rain that fell over Rome, she ventures back to the hotel she’d been staying at and she texts Zeke.