Carpathian 10 - Dark Symphony

that ran through the many levels of the Scarletti palazzo.
    Scan them? You read thoughts? I thought it was only me, that we just had some form of telepathy together. You can read everyone?
    And you do not? In the board meetings your grandfather insists on dragging you to, do you not hear what the others are thinking? Before she could answer, he patted her hand. I will return in a moment.
    Antonietta opened her mouth. Whether she was going to agree or protest, she wasn't certain, but he simply disappeared. His body had been warm and solid, and then it was gone.
    They hadn't shifted position to open the wall entrance. She put out her hands, carefully explored all four walls. He had simply vanished. Silently. Completely.
    She pressed her hand against her open mouth and leaned against her ancestor's wall of records, shocked. What are you? She ran her fingers over the wall, searching every word, every symbol, and every picture in the hopes of finding another shape her people were capable of shifting into. There was nothing to indicate any of them could simply disappear. She believed in shifting shapes, but completely disappearing was an altogether different proposition. Why did Byron's ability to vanish make her so uneasy when finding her family's history had been such a relief?
    Antonietta nearly had a heart attack when Byron's body was suddenly crowding hers in the small confines of the room. She flattened herself against the wall as his much harder frame pressed against hers, but her fingertips went to his face, reading his expression, mapping his familiar face. As often as she did it, he never flinched away, never seemed to mind. "Byron."
    She breathed his name aloud, thankful he was back, wanting to know his every secret.
    Did I startle you? He kissed the corner of her mouth, left a trail of flames down the side of her neck in apology. It is Paul.
    Antonietta went still. "Paul." She said her cousin's name aloud. "He never goes inside the
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    Dark Symphony
    Page 62 of 188
    passageway. He's never even looked at a map. He doesn't like confined spaces. His father used to lock him in a closet when he was angry with him. Which seemed to be all the time.
    Are you certain? What would make him chance coming in here?" Her fingers were already searching out the hidden mechanism to open the wall. "He's bound to get lost in here. Unless you have the map and the key to the map, you could be lost for days."
    "It might do him good," Byron said grimly. "He is up to no good."
    "You don't know that." The door slid open without a sound, telling Byron that Antonietta came to the room often enough to keep the mechanisms running smoothly. She had that faint haughty note in her voice that always made him smile. He followed her into the passage.
    "Which way did he go?"
    "To the left." He placed his lips close to her ear. "What is to the left."
    "The vaults. How would he know that? Only Nonno and I know the exact location of the vaults. He can't be going there." To her annoyance, she didn't sound certain.
    "Perhaps he had help. When you come in here to catalogue, do you have a pair of eyes? I would venture to say Justine knows exactly how to get to the vault room."
    "She wouldn't—"
    "She is in love with him." Byron paced along behind her in the narrow confines of the tunnel. His breath was on the nape of her neck. His body heat warmed her. "What would you do for the man you loved, Antonietta? Would you betray your family? Your friends? Would you do anything for him?"
    "Any man I loved would not want me to betray my family and friends." She lifted her chin as she moved confidently through the twists and turns. "If he did, he wouldn't be worth loving, now would he?"
    "How do you know where you are going?"
    "I count. I memorize everything."
    "You are amazing." There was sincere admiration in his words, in his tone.
    The genuine compliment made her insides glow. No one said things like that to her. No one else ever gave her personal compliments. Not even her grandfather. Her talent as a musician and composer was taken for granted. Don Giovanni simply shrugged and said with all the lessons she'd been given, she better be considered one of the best in the world. A Scarletti could never be second.
    Byron's band simply rested on the small of her back,