Kingdom of the Wicked

Before she arrives home, Emilia encounters Fratello Carmine, one of the most fanatically devout monks in Palermo. She overhears his “hushed conversation with another member of the brotherhood” and assumes that Carmine is an operative with Envy (315). 

At home, Envy threatens Emilia. Nonna emerges out of her sedated state and casts a cimaruta (a talisman representing the branches of a tree) spell with fennel that sends Envy temporarily back to Hell. Nonna informs Emilia that Wrath has “marked” her, enabling Emilia to summon Wrath without an object belonging to him. Nonna reveals the prophecy that foretells Emilia and Vittoria’s role in stopping the gates of Hell from breaking open: Twin witches born “on the night of a terrible storm” are destined to wear the Horn of Hades, and their birth “signal[s] the end of the devil’s curse” (320). Nonna tells Emilia to go into hiding so they can figure out how “to stop the prophecy” and prevent Pride from leaving Hell (321), but Emilia decides to act, fearing that the prophecy has already been fulfilled.

Emilia connects the fennel used in Nonna’s cimaruta spell to the pawprint symbol on the door of the abandoned “room with the fishing gear” she and Wrath explored in Chapters 31 and 32 (324).