All Chapters of THE REBIRTH OF ELENA : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

I wait three weeks before I do anything stupid.Three weeks of sitting through breakfasts where my father talks about "the Marchetti opportunity" like it's a business deal instead of my whole life.Three weeks of learning how to act sixteen again—how to laugh at jokes I've already heard, how to remember which fork to use at a table where forks matter more than people do.Three weeks of catching my own hands doing things a sixteen-year-old shouldn't know how to do, and slowing them down, and smiling like nothing is wrong.I haven't seen him yet. Matteo. Not this time around. I don't know if I'm ready.But I know where the ledger is. I've known since the moment I woke up in that bed with the rabbit sheets.It sits in Vittoria's study, second floor of the main house, behind a door nobody ever bothers to lock.Why would they? Nobody in that family is foolish enough to go looking.Except me. I've already been foolish enough to die once. What's one more risk.---The Marchettis throw a big

The invitation comes on cream paper, my name written out in handwriting so perfect it looks printed. Mrs. Marchetti requests your company for tea, Thursday at four.My mother nearly cries when she reads it over my shoulder."Do you understand what this means?" she says, pressing both hands to her chest like she's holding her own heart in."Vittoria Marchetti doesn't invite just anyone. She's looking at you, Elena."I understand exactly what it means. Better than my mother ever will, because I've already sat through this exact tea once before, in a life she doesn't remember either of us having lived. I know which chair Vittoria will offer me.I know the tea will be too strong, poured from a pot older than my grandmother, and that she'll watch how I take it—sugar or none, cream or none—like a woman reading tea leaves instead of drinking them.I know, too, that this isn't really about tea. This is an audition. And I'm the only person in that room who understands I've already failed it on

Two days pass before I see Isabella.Two long days.I smile when people expect me to smile. I answer questions. I sit through dinner with Vittoria at the head of the table, acting as if nothing has changed.Inside, my thoughts never stop.Every plan ends the same way.Someone gets caught.Someone dies.Sometimes it's me.Sometimes it's Matteo.Sometimes it's all of us.I don't sleep much.Every little sound outside my bedroom makes my heart jump.A knock on the door.Footsteps in the hallway.A voice outside my window.Every time, I think they've found out.Every time, I'm wrong.For now.On the second afternoon, Giulia finds me in the kitchen garden.She kneels beside a row of herbs, pretending to pull weeds.Without looking at me, she says quietly, "Your rosemary is dying."I kneel beside her."It was healthy yesterday.""It'll recover."Her hand brushes mine.Something small slips into my palm.She stands before anyone notices."Don't forget to water it.""I won't."She walks away

Morning comes gray and thin, fog still clinging low over the harbor when I finally close my eyes for an hour, and it feels like no time at all before Matteo is shaking my shoulder awake."Elena. It's time."I sit up too fast, my neck stiff from sleeping against the window frame, the ledger still clutched against my chest where I fell asleep holding it."Did you sleep at all?" I ask him."Some." He hands me a cup of something bitter and hot that passes for coffee in this part of the city. "Isabella's downstairs settling the room. We should move before the tavern fills up."Isabella meets us at the bottom of the stairs, hair pulled back tight, eyes ringed with exhaustion but sharp all the same. "I sent word to Sal an hour ago," she says. "Told him I need to see him. Alone.""Alone?" Matteo's jaw tightens. "Isabella, we don't know if he's safe.""He's my godfather, Matteo. He held me the day I was born." Her voice wavers, just slightly, but she doesn't let it break. "If I can't trust Sal

We split up outside Sal's house, one at a time, so nobody watching can tie the three of us to the same door on the same afternoon. Matteo goes first. Isabella next. I wait the longest, counting streetlamps in the fog until it feels safe enough to move.I make it three blocks before a hand closes around my arm.I spin hard, fists already coming up — and it's Matteo, stepping out of a doorway he's clearly been standing in for a while."You scared me half to death," I say, one hand pressed flat over my racing heart."Good. Means you're paying attention." He doesn't smile. "I wasn't letting you walk home alone. Not today. Not after Renzo stood on the other side of that wall.""I know he was there, Matteo. I heard him too.""You don't look as frightened as I think you should."I laugh, but it comes out wrong, closer to a sob than I mean it to. "I already died at his hands once. I'm not sure there's room left in me for a fear bigger than that."Something in his face softens, but his jaw sta