Venom

by Fiona Paul

  Cass ignored it. “Business?” she repeated mockingly as she followed him. “What kind of business can be conducted at this hour?”

  Falco turned around and gave Cass a look that chilled her. “Don’t ask questions,” he said, “and I’ll tell you no lies.” He took his place on the gondolier’s platform without another word.

  Cass felt swallowed by the cold as Falco rowed the gondola down the Grand Canal and out into the open lagoon. Wind whipped her hair around her face, making her eyes water. Cass glanced back at him. His eyes were focused straight ahead, straight through her. Cass didn’t understand what she had done wrong. Was he angry that she hadn’t kissed him? Did he regret that he had even tried?

  Cass closed her eyes. She thought about what she would write in her journal when she got home. She wanted to write about Mariabella. And the couple in the dark room—engaging in a mix of love and savagery. And the conjurer and his tricks. Cass wanted to know how he had done them.

  And then there was Falco. Did she dare write about him? About the way she felt when she knew he was going to kiss her, like her heart had grown huge, too big for her chest, like it was seeping out between the laces of her bodice and being pulled in all different directions?

  Caspita. What had she started?

  The gondola jolted backward as Falco pulled the rope tight. Cass looked up, surprised to find herself back at the villa already. Falco hopped out of the boat and turned to her with an expectant look.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. “I thought you had someplace to be.” She couldn’t keep the hurt from leaching into her voice.

  “I’m going to walk you to your door, of course.”

  “I can walk myself, thank you.” Cass clambered over the side of the gondola, her chopines clutched in her left hand. Her cloak snagged on the boat. One of the tall wooden overshoes slipped out of her fingers and landed in the shallow water. “Mannaggia,” she muttered, reaching down to retrieve the soggy shoe. She pushed past Falco as she headed across the lawn.

  Falco caught up with her easily. “Cassandra, be reasonable. There’s a murderer running around.”

  She didn’t answer. She headed around to the back of the villa, doing her best to ignore him as he loped beside her in the manicured grass. He couldn’t just freeze her out for the whole boat ride and then pretend everything was fine. Cass tucked her hands into the pockets of her cloak. Her fingers closed around a scrap of fabric—her handkerchief. She remembered Mada’s words. If he keeps it for a little while, then he’s yours.

  Did she want Falco to like her? Cass wasn’t sure.

  “A presto,” Falco said, with a short bow. “Until very soon.”

  “All right.” Cass bit back the tears that were suddenly pushing at the back of her throat and eyes. If she turned around, even for a second, she knew that she would cry.

  But why? What had happened? She didn’t know. She let the handkerchief slip from her pocket as she pushed quickly into the house, shutting the door behind her without looking back.

  Leaning against the wall of the kitchen, Cass forced herself to breathe. A single tear worked its way down her cheek, and she brushed it roughly from her face. She turned and peered through the thick glass window. Falco was still there. He had picked up her handkerchief. It looked small in his hands. He paused for a moment, glanced in the direction of the back door, and then tucked the cloth square into his pocket. Overwhelmed by the evening’s events and her swirling emotions, Cass let her body slide slowly to the floor. This time she couldn’t stop the tears from falling.

  “Both the teardrop and the

  tempest are made of water,

  making it the most yielding and

  most destructive force on Earth.”

  —THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE

  eleven

  Liviana’s face was everywhere—in mirrors, in shadows, peering up at Cass from her half-empty dinner plate. Pale blue eyes followed Cass’s every move—sad, accusatory. Why haven’t you found me yet?

  Cass fled outside to escape a marble sculpture of her dead friend in the portego only to see her small hand reaching through the sandy soil of Agnese’s flower garden, her fingers curling like orchid petals.

  “Not real,” Cass told herself, stumbling across the front lawn until she reached the path that headed toward the shore.

  “Cassandra.” The wind off the water called to her in Livi’s singsong voice.

  Cass put her hands over her ears. She made it to the shoreline, where the sun reflected off the sand, turning the ground beneath her feet a porcelain white. The tide was coming in, and each roll of the surf delivered a giant block of ice. Inside each block was a girl, imprisoned. Cass wanted to turn, to run, but instead she began chiseling away at the ice. The sun began to melt the ice and the cold water ran down Cass’s body in frosty rivulets, freezing her from the outside in…

  Cass sat up in bed, fully dressed. Her skin was clammy, her pillowcase damp with sweat. A copy of Dante’s La Divina Commedia lay next to her. She must have dozed off while reading. Not real. Just a dream. Cass could see from the fading light beyond her window that twilight had come and gone while she’d been napping.

  Siena leaned over Cass, her features amorphous in the dim light. “Sorry to wake you, but you have a visitor,” she said with a giggle. “Your handsome man.”

  Falco. It had to be. Cass started to correct Siena—he wasn’t hers, per se—but stopped herself. What did that really matter in the grand scheme of a murder investigation?

  The dream had clarified things for her. It had been two days since she and Falco had visited the brothel, two days of being haunted by Livi’s face—in her dreams, in the shadows that swallowed the villa at night. She needed to find Livi’s body, and protect herself from a murderer. Everything else that had crept in between her and Falco—the touching, the looks, the almost-kiss—was irrelevant. This was not a time to be distracted by feelings she didn’t understand.

  But Cass couldn’t keep her stomach from doing flip-flops at the thought of Falco dropping by to see her. Just knowing he was in the villa made the blood go hot in her veins. The past two days had been an agony of waiting and drifting, and wondering when she would see him again, and what they could do next about Mariabella and Livi. She breathed in deeply and then mentally kicked herself for being giddy. Maybe he had come just to return her handkerchief. What would Mada say about that?

  Running a hand through her wavy hair, she slid out of bed and tucked her feet into a pair of soft leather shoes. She started toward the bedroom door.

  Siena coughed into her fist, moving between Cass and the hallway.

  “What are you doing?” Cass asked, trying to slip past her lady’s maid. Now that she had decided there could be no feelings between herself and Falco, she wanted to see him immediately to solidify her resolve.

  “Why don’t you let me put up your hair?” Siena asked. “It’s always good to keep a man waiting.”

  Cass started to refuse. Then she caught a glimpse of herself in the dressing table mirror and almost shrieked. A chunk of her hair had snarled itself into a giant ratty knot and her left cheek was puffy and red from lying on it. Even if she and Falco could only be friends, it didn’t mean she should go strolling around the villa looking like some creepy dead thing that had washed up along the edge of the canals.

  “Perhaps a bit of waiting would do him good,” she said. She settled into the chair in front of her dressing table while Siena brushed the tangles from her hair and fashioned it into a braid. She coiled the braid into a small bun and pinned it up, letting a few loose tendrils hang down in front of Cass’s ears.

  Then she rubbed some smooth white cream on Cass’s reddened cheek. The cream tingled. Cass felt her skin cooling.

  “There,” Siena said. “Just give it a few moments.” Siena went to the armoire and picked out a silver bodice and matching sleeves. She removed the wrinkled blue clothing Cass had on and laced her into gleaming silver.

  Cass gl
anced in the mirror and nodded with satisfaction. Siena was a miracle worker. The maid began tidying up and Cass headed toward the staircase, expecting to find Falco in the kitchen. Instead, he was in the portego, perched on the stool in front of Agnese’s harp. Cass smothered a smile at the thought of the tongue-lashing her aunt would give him if she caught him fooling around on her most prized possession.

  He had his back to Cass, his face resting against a carved cherub as he absentmindedly plucked various strings. Cass stared, watching the movement of his neck and back and shoulders: pieces of motion that were discrete, yet interconnected. She remembered his words from the graveyard. The human form, it’s a symphony. Tiny interlocking movements that join together in song.

  “It’s about time,” he said, without turning around.

  He turned slowly, then. The blue eyes. The crooked grin. Cass started to greet him, but her voice stuck in her throat. She reached out for the curlicue bottom of the stairway banister, gripping the bronze for a second, reminding herself that there were no feelings. No. Feelings. She flicked her eyes back up at him, felt her lips forming a smile independent of any command by her brain.

  Falco cocked an eyebrow. “A beautiful woman who doesn’t speak. Every man’s dream.”

  “I see you’ve made yourself comfortable,” Cass shot back. “I wasn’t expecting you tonight.” Or ever.

  “I’d thought you might have learned that with me, you must expect the unexpected.” Falco got up from his seat in front of Agnese’s harp, and it was Cass’s turn to raise an eyebrow. Falco was wearing a flowing white chemise overlaid with an embroidered black and silver doublet and knee-length breeches. His hair still curled forward toward his face, but it looked sleeker than usual, as if he had attempted to tame it with some kind of paste.

  “Why are you dressed like that?” she asked. “Are you going to Mass?” Not likely since Falco professed not to even believe in God. Cass still couldn’t quite wrap her mind around some of his bizarre ideas.

  “We’re going to a party,” he said with a dazzling smile.

  “We?” Two nights ago, he had practically kicked her out of the gondola; then he had disappeared for days. Now he wanted to take her to a party. Cass wondered if Madalena found Marco as confusing. At least with Luca, what you saw was what you got. Good old reliable Luca. No secrets there. Caspita. Cass really ought to read his latest letter. Her fiancé would be expecting a response eventually.

  “Joseph Dubois is hosting a ball. I thought we might do a little snooping around.” Falco toyed with the embroidery on his silk doublet. “A Dubois affair will be so overrun with guests that as long as we look the part, no one will question our presence. I won’t rest until I know you’re safe from this chest-slashing murderer, whoever he is.”

  Falco’s concern for her welfare was flattering, and a little suspicious. Still, Cass’s heart did a little jumping dance inside her chest. They were going on another adventure. The investigation was still on. Surely they could find something at Palazzo Dubois. The master of the estate was connected to both Mariabella and the missing servant girl, Sophia.

  He was also the man Siena’s sister now worked for, one of the wealthiest, most powerful foreigners in Venice. Madalena had mentioned the ball once or twice in passing. Cass had gotten an official invitation a couple of weeks back, but Agnese had thrown it away. Ever since Cass became engaged, her aunt had deemed all social functions with men to be “frivolous.”

  “We’re going to sneak you into a party where any number of servants or guests might know me?” Cass could just imagine the scandalized looks if she, the dutiful fiancée of Luca da Peraga, showed up at a formal event with another man.

  Falco took Cass’s arm and steered her toward the front door of the villa. “Don’t worry. It’s a masquerade ball. No one will recognize you.”

  “I don’t have a mask,” Cass said, glancing around the portego as though one might magically appear.

  “Leave everything to me,” Falco said, flashing her a smile.

  Crouched down in the courtyard of Dubois’s palazzo with her face pressed against the spiny leaves of a juniper bush, Cass wondered if leaving everything to Falco had been a wise decision. They still didn’t have masks, and Cass couldn’t take her eyes off Feliciana as the blonde girl paraded about Signor Dubois’s portego in dramatic makeup and a vibrant gold dress. She’d fashioned her hair into multiple braids and then twisted them around each other into an elaborate cone.

  Cass fought the urge to run up the stairs and embrace Feliciana, to talk to her the way they used to, to inquire about all the latest gossip from the city. Even in servant’s garb, Siena’s older sister exuded pure glamour. She might easily have been mistaken for a guest, were it not for the silver tray of canapés balanced on one of her slender shoulders.

  “There.” Falco pointed at a pair of masked dancers who slipped out a set of glass doors and strolled down the staircase leading from the ballroom to the garden. He and Cass ducked back behind the bush as the pair stopped to sit on a marble bench just feet from their hiding spot. Steel cressets mounted on the outer wall of the palazzo burned brightly, bathing the courtyard in dancing light. Cass held her breath, certain she and Falco would be discovered at any moment. A trickle of sweat began to make its way down the back of her neck.

  The couple removed their masks and the man bent down to kiss the young woman. Cass pushed the leaves away from her face and crept toward the bench before Falco could stop her.

  The lovers were deep in embrace, their faces melding into one in the darkness. Cass felt a pang of envy. She thought of the almost-kiss beneath the Rialto Bridge, of the bright colors that bloomed inside her at Falco’s touch. She should have just let go. It could have been their secret.

  How many more times would she get an opportunity to have any secrets at all?

  She snatched the masks from the bench and tossed the larger one in Falco’s direction. Her mask was black and dark purple, adorned with feathers and tiny glittering jewels. A starling, Cass decided. It covered only the top half of her face, leaving her mouth and chin exposed. She hoped it would be sufficient to conceal her identity. She tied the leather string behind her head and positioned the beak over her nose so she could see through the eyeholes.

  Falco’s mask was made of beige silk and outlined in strips of orange velvet that Cass assumed were supposed to be a lion’s mane. The mouth turned upward in a feline grin.

  They headed up the marble staircase and into the crowded portego that had been converted into a ballroom for the evening. The room was awash in crystal and gold. A portrait of the Doge, its frame gilded and encrusted with rubies, hung on one of the shorter walls. Next to it hung a picture of Signor Dubois in an even more ornate frame. Behind a long buffet table heaping with glasses of wine and platters of meat pies, pieces of armor and crossed swords were displayed on marble pedestals. At the far side of the portego, nobles and wealthy citizens of Venice danced to a string ensemble or clustered in small groups sharing stories and gossip. The roar of conversation and the clatter of dancing footsteps layered on top of the music almost overwhelmed her.

  “Where do you suppose we might find the famous Signor Dubois?” Falco asked.

  Cass strained to see through the swirl of gowns and masks. An obese woman in a cream-colored dress stood just inside the doors, a circle of women crowding around her. Donna Domacetti. Cass recognized her behind her swan mask by her sheer size alone. Donna Domacetti’s shrill voice cut through the rest of the noise. It sounded like she was telling a story about a tryst between a noted senator and a young courtesan that she had witnessed from her portego window. During the act, apparently the portly senator had gotten a foot tangled up in the leather curtains of the felze, ripping them down and partially exposing himself to a street full of merchants returning home after a long day at the market. Cass cringed as the woman burst into raucous laughter, her cluster of masked admirers tittering and clapping their hands.

  “I don’t see him ye
t,” Cass said, scanning the throngs of guests.

  “So what do we think?” Falco said, steering Cass to the edge of the room where the weapons and armor lay on velvet-covered marble pedestals. “Is he our man?”

  Despite being a foreigner, Joseph Dubois had business dealings with many wealthy Venetians, including Madalena’s father. “Dubois is very respected…,” Cass said doubtfully. “He has friends in the Senate, perhaps even among the Council of Ten. But it is strange that two women from his employ have now gone missing.”

  “The real question,” Falco said as he watched the masked dancers clapping and moving in unison along the dance floor, “is why would anyone want to harm a beautiful woman?” His eyes darkened. “I wonder if Mariabella suspected she was in danger. People are usually murdered by someone they know. Someone they trust.”

  Cass wondered what black memory was playing out in Falco’s head, but before she could ask, the sparkle returned to his eyes and he spun her around in a circle. “Well, that’s a relief,” Cass said when he pulled her back close. “I should feel perfectly safe. I hardly know you at all.”

  “I said usually,” Falco teased, glancing again at the men and women swirling across the floor of the portego. “Will you be upset if I tell you I don’t know how to dance?”

  Cass shook her head. “We’re here on official business.” Cass stared at the back of a dark-haired girl wearing turquoise and purple skirts over a ridiculously wide farthingale. The girl’s train and hat were both embellished with peacock feathers. Was it…?

  It was. Madalena, half hidden by a jewel-encrusted mask, stood near the buffet table sipping wine from a blown-glass goblet. Across the room, through the chaos of ornately dressed dancing bodies, laughing faces covered in masks, flickering candelabras, and overflowing glasses, her friend had never seemed so distant to Cass.

  “I see a friend of mine over by the food,” Cass said, turning her back quickly to Madalena. Mada wouldn’t be surprised to see Cass in attendance, but she would be shocked if she realized that Cass had come to the ball with Falco.