“I'm sure you would,” he said. “If you had the opportunity. You won't get one. You will die when we decide it's time for you to die, and that won't be until we know everything that you know.” He regarded me again, still looking at my body. “And, as I said, this will be much more pleasant for you if you tell us everything now.”
He paused and waited. I didn't trust my voice, so I was silent.
For the first time, he met my eyes. “Believe me when I tell you that you're going to tell us everything sooner or later. So why not just tell us now?”
I glared at him, forcing myself to hold his gaze. His eyes were a faded hazel-brown; harmless eyes. I couldn't believe, yet, that this man intended to hurt me.
He moved a step closer to me and took my hand, which I'd clenched into a fist. My hands were ice cold; his were very warm, and dry. He unwrapped my fist and spread my hand flat, palm up, against his. He traced the lines of my palm, almost affectionately, then each finger. “Musician's hands,” he said. “Of course; they mentioned that you were a musician. Violin, yes?” I didn't answer. “Of course. You have the calluses.” He brushed each fingertip. “You have lovely hands, my dear, perfect for playing the violin.” I started to pull my hand away. Like a snake striking, he brought his other hand down to trap mine in a grip like a vise.
“We'll break your hands, you know,” he said. “There are twenty-seven bones in each hand, and we'll break every one. First your left hand. Then your right, if it's necessary. I hope it won't be. It would be a shame to break such lovely hands.” Still gripping my hand, he twisted; pain shot through my wrist. I cried out and he stepped back with a look of slight satisfaction on his face. “I don't think it will be necessary,” he said. I shrank back without meaning to and he smiled for the first time. His teeth were yellow. I spat at him and he laughed out loud, then glanced over his shoulder. “Guard,” he called.
The guards carried in a low stool, and set the man's lantern on it. Then they shortened the tethers on my manacles, pulling my hands up over my head, then chained my feet, pinning me to the wall like a bug caught in a spider's web. Gèsu will give you the strength you need, I could hear Lucia saying. Knock, and the door will be opened. Ask, and you shall receive. But all the fear my mind had held off until now flooded me like burning poison.
“Felice,” the man in black called.
Felice appeared in the doorway. I could smell his flowery perfume as he approached me. “Just once,” the man in black said, indulgently. “And not her hands. Those are for later.” He gave Felice a short stick, and in the flickering light I could see Felice smile. I closed my eyes and braced myself.
Pain exploded, so bad that for a second I wasn't sure where he'd hit me. My shin—he'd hit my shin. I wondered if he'd broken the bone. Was I going to be able to walk normally now? It doesn't matter, I'm dead anyway. It doesn't matter if they break my legs, my hands, anything; I'm dead. The pain had started to ebb when it exploded again. This time I screamed.
When I opened my eyes, Felice was gone, and the man in black stood regarding me. “Remember,” he said. “This can go on for as long as it has to.”
He opened his toolbox and began to lay out implements on the low stool, explaining some of them to me as he went. I couldn't bear to look, but I couldn't bring myself to turn away. I was shaking so hard my wrists bruised against the manacles, and I felt like I might vomit. The lamp gave off a dull red glow; it was heating some of the implements. The man in black held one up dispassionately, examining it. It smoked slightly in the reddish light. He blew on it gently as if to cool it, then set it back into the flame.
“Rosalba,” he called.
Witchlight flickered at the doorway, and I heard a rustle of silk, caught the scent of spices over the smell of blood and fear. “Daniele,” Rosalba said.
I looked at her, blinking past the witchlight. “My name is not Daniele,” I said. “Obviously.” I jerked my chin toward my female body.
Rosalba approached, dimming the witchlight slightly so that I could see her face. “Eliana, then,” she said.
“Why are you here?” I said. I swallowed hard and turned my head to glare at her. “I suppose this is what you always wanted, isn't it? Torturing prisoners instead of recording their confessions? You said that's what you wished you were doing.”
Rosalba's face was pale and uncertain; I could see a muffled horror in her eyes. “I'm not here to torture you, Eliana. I'm here to pray for you, that you will be freed from the Maledori that possess you and see the error of your ways.”
“How did you know who I was?” I asked.
Rosalba's eyes flickered. “When I kissed you, I could tell that you lacked even the slightest trace of a beard. That made me wonder. So while you played the violin, I looked around your room. You had no razor. And I noticed—you had never truly moved in to your room. You were living out of your bags, like you thought you might leave at any time.” She lowered her eyes. “So I watched your room. You behaved as someone guilty, leaving as you did. Sending for Felice—that was just a hunch.”
I couldn't look at her face anymore, so I turned my eyes away. “You know, I know Lucia,” I said. “Your old friend from the seminary. I kissed her when I left her and I dream of her each night.” It was Mira's face that rose before my eyes as I spoke, but I couldn't speak her name, so I spoke of Lucia. “She will never renounce her faith, and neither will I.”
“The Lady waits for you with open arms,” Rosalba said.
“I am Redentore,” I said. “I believe in God, and Her Son, and Her Holy Light.” I turned back and stared into Rosalba's eyes. “You can torture me until I say that I love the Lady; you can force me to foreswear my God, Mother Rosalba. But you can't change what's in my heart.”
“If you have a prayer to say for her, say it,” the man in black said.
Rosalba fell back a step. “Sweet and gentle Lady,” she said. Her voice was shaking. “Touch Eliana, even within the darkness she is shrouded in. Let her find her way to you quickly. Bring her back to you without delay; may her pride not cause her to suffer too much, before she returns to you. So may it be.”
The man in black bowed his head for a moment, then took a long, curved blade from the lamp. It glowed as red as the sun. He looked at it for a moment, then glanced back at Rosalba. “If you don't want to see this, you should leave now,” he said.
Rosalba's eyes were still fixed on mine. “I'll stay,” she said. Her voice was shaking.
I wanted to tell her to go away, that she didn't have to prove her devotion to the Lady by watching me tortured, but the man in black was there, smiling gently into my face. “In the name of the Lady,” he said, and then I heard myself screaming, and I think Rosalba left sometime after that.
∗ ∗ ∗
We had been dancing forever, in the darkness, around the fire. And then suddenly the music stopped. “Bella,” a voice said. “Your heart is dark, Bella. You do not belong to the Lady.”
I pushed my way to the front of the crowd. Bella stood alone, in her gray conservatory robes, facing Felice and Rosalba. “You must swear your loyalty to the Lady,” Rosalba said. “The Lady loves you, Bella. She wants to forgive you.”
I could feel the rising panic in my chest. Bella would not foreswear her faith. She would be tortured; Mira and I would be revealed. We would all be executed if we didn't recant, and Mira would probably be executed anyway. We should have run when we had the chance.
And sure enough, Bella spat on linked circles that Rosalba held out. “I belong to Gèsu,” Bella said. “He will give me all the strength I need.”
But instead of chaining her, instead of dragging her away to torture her, Rosalba shoved Bella to her knees, and Felice cut her throat.
∗ ∗ ∗
Something stung my cheek, rousing me from darkness and delusions to a dim red glow, and terrible pain. I shook my head, leave me alone, and I was slapped again. “Open your eyes, Eliana.”
My eyes were crusted over and I wanted to wipe t
hem clean, but my hands wouldn't move. I managed to open one, and I saw the face of the man in black. “I thought you might like to know how long I've been down here. It's been a little under an hour. I want you to think about that, all right, Eliana? One hour.” He smiled at me. “In any case, it's time for my dinner, so you'll have some time to think about this. One hour. Pain doesn't get any easier to bear, Eliana, and it's going to get a great deal worse. If you talk now, if you repent your sins now, if you return to the Lady now, I won't hurt you further.”
I was silent.
“You were a simple musician once. You trusted the Lady, you did as you were told. There's another Eliana in there, someone who just wants to play her violin and let the world do as it will. I know there is. Eventually, she won't want to take any more pain.”
I said nothing.
“You know that you're going to talk sooner or later,” he said. “Tell us everything now, and save yourself the agony. You know it's what your mother would have wanted.”
I forced my other eye open and met his gaze. “I—” My voice came out as a hoarse squeak. My throat was too raw to speak. I closed my mouth for a moment, and thanks be to God, felt a morsel of spittle moisten my tongue. I licked my lips, and jerked my head as if to say, All I can manage is a whisper, come closer to hear. He leaned forward, and I spit in his face.
His expression never flicked. “Well,” he said. “I'll see you when I return from dinner.”
He took the light with him. I was too disoriented with pain to summon witchlight, and my bravado was swallowed quickly in the whirlwind of fear and pain. “B'shaem Arkah, v'Bar Shelah, v'Nihor Kadosh,” I said silently; it was too difficult to voice them aloud. I repeated the words, again and again. Save me, please. Somebody. Anybody. Even Giovanni.
I can't take what Octavio did. I can't. I knew I couldn't, and that knowledge buried me in fear. Mira had warned me that the Circle most wanted to know where to find the Lupi, right now. The evening before, I wouldn't have been able to tell them—but now I knew, and I didn't think they'd believe me if I said I didn't. And I knew plenty more they'd want to know— where Michel and Travan were going, and the likely route they'd travel to get there; that Mira was as eager to destroy the Circle as I'd been. I knew who led the Cuore reformers, although according to Mira that wasn't much of a secret anyway. I knew that Ulisse was involved in the reform movement, and that Quirino was a sympathizer. I knew too much. Far too much.
Hold out as long as you can, I thought. You bore the lash without crying out. You can die for the Lupi. No matter how long it takes. I couldn't clasp my hands, so I knotted my hands into fists and tried to pray. My mind was still whirling in fear, and I wet my lips and tried to focus. If only I had the faith that Lucia had—or Bella—or even Mira. I've never truly believed, I realized, I've always had the strength I've needed. I whispered the words—“Gèsu, give me strength, please, give me strength,” but my mind kept falling back to the same plea. Save me. Somebody save me. Anybody. Please …
Rosalba's face flashed into my mind, speaking to Octavio, silk and steel in her voice and her eyes. “Don't be a fool, Octavio. We will bring you back to the Lady's mercy sooner or later, one way or another. Fool. Do you think you can stand against us? Against the Lady? It is only out of mercy that we seek to return you to Her. It's to save your soul. You will be put to the torture. You will be put to the torture again. Is that what you want? Is that what you want?”
I shook my head, to try to chase Rosalba out of my mind, and her fiery eyes were replaced by Mira's. But it was not Mira in her Circle robes I saw, but in the drab wool robes of the conservatory, held fast by the Circle Guards as Liemo ordered them to fire on me. Mira when she told me, after Bella's execution, “I can't do this again. I won't be able to let another friend die.” The wild ecstasy on her face after her magic destroyed the crossbow bolt, and then the horror when she felt the burning need for magery close around her heart again.
Mira had sacrificed her life for me. She had sacrificed her dream of living free, on her own terms, instead of serving the cause she hated. She had given that up to spare me pain. And then to spare my life, she had shouldered the burden of my hatred. In the darkness, for the first time, I saw that clearly. I wished I could tell her, somehow, that I understood.
I thought of the night I'd spent on the riverbank beside Mira, and the night she'd cut my hair. I wished that I could retrace my steps, to take her thin, tense body into my arms and press my lips to her hair. Forgive me, I wanted to whisper. Forgive me for hating you.
I clenched my hands into fists. I couldn't speak to her, but I could die for her. And I would die for her, and for Lucia and Giovanni. I would hold out. I would not fail.
After a long time, I could see a light coming down the hallways and my mind spun with terror. “Gèsu,” I said. “For your glory. Give me strength, for your glory.”
Through the crack under the door, I saw a flash of light so bright it almost blinded me. The door swung open and I blinked, trying to see past the dark spots swimming in front of my eyes.
“Eliana,” a voice said.
It was Mira.
Mira opened the shackles on my hands and feet. I collapsed to my hands and knees, my joints stiff as a rusted latch. Mira knelt beside me. “It's all right,” she said. “I'm not going to let anything else happen to you.”
I'm dreaming, I thought, just as I dreamed I was back at the conservatory. Mira held a wineskin to my lips, but the wine burned my raw throat and I coughed. She wet a cloth and wiped my face. “I'm getting you out of here,” she said. “But we have to hurry.”
Mira had brought clothing with her—trousers, a simple tunic, boots. I pulled the clothing on as fast as I could, choking back a cry as the rough fabric rubbed over the burns on my body. When I was dressed, she wrapped a cloak around my shoulders and pulled up the hood. “Can you walk?” she asked.
I nodded. I can do whatever it takes to get out of here.
I followed her without question through a maze of corridors. No one stopped us; I wasn't sure whether this meant Mira had incinerated everyone in her path on her way in, or if she just knew the right path to take. I didn't really care. It took all my effort just to keep putting one foot in front of the other. My wounds burned with a dizzying pain, the bruises on my shins made each step hurt, and I still wasn't entirely sure I believed this was happening.
Finally, we emerged into the night. “It's almost dawn,” Mira said.
“Dawn?” I said. “I thought it was dinnertime.”
“They always leave prisoners alone for a while—it's to let you get scared, nothing to do with meals. You were arrested shortly after midnight; now it's dawn.”
Mira led me out of the enclave through the mage's gate. In the streets of Cuore, there were a few last remnants of Mascherata—an old woman still beating a drum, and a lot of drunk people slumped over in doorways. Mira led me to an inn with a light still burning in the window—not the one we'd met at before, but an even smaller and seedier place, and one much closer to the edge of the city. She slipped in the door, latching it behind us, and led me through the inn and out back to a stable, where a horse stood saddled and ready. Mira began to check the straps and buckles on the horse's gear.
“The songs say you can ride, but I never asked you if that was true,” Mira said.
“I can ride.”
“That's good, because it won't take them long to realize that you're gone,” she said. “I wish I could give you time to rest, but you need to set out right away. Everything you should need is packed on the horse.” She finished tightening the straps and stood for a moment, looking away.
“Mira,” I whispered. “Come with me.”
“I can't.” She turned back to face me, her eyes hard with resolve. “Eliana, the Circle sent me to free you. They deeply distrust the Fedeli's ability to drag information from you by torture, and they really only want to know one thing: the winter hideout of the Lupi. They're going to follow you. They're hoping
you'll lead them there. If you don't, they think they can recapture you—or simply kill you.”
“They won't take me alive,” I said, and my voice shook. I couldn't go to Montefalco, then—or to Doratura, where many of the refugees from the camps still lived.
“Eliana,” Mira said, and took my hand. “I didn't want to tell you this unless I was sure. And I'm not sure; I don't think I ever will be. But I think there's a way to turn back magefire.”
I caught my breath. “How?”
“The songs. The Old Way songs. I don't know—” She bit her lip and looked away. “That's what I was trying to learn, at the conservatory, when I sent you to convince some of your friends to play the music with me. I thought there was a way, but I wasn't sure, and I'm still not sure. But I think Bella knew. I think that's why they killed her.” She shook her head. “You need to go. The Circle wants you free—for now—but the Fedeli do not. And you're running out of time.”
“I still think you should come with me.”
“If I do, the Circle will know I betrayed them. They'll know you won't lead them to the Lupi; they'll ride us down and kill us both. Alone, you might escape.”
I turned to mount the horse, and Mira caught my arm. “I think your magic is stronger than ours,” she said. “Yours is stronger.” She clasped my face and gave me a long, gentle kiss. Then she pushed me away. “Go.”
I mounted the horse; Mira threw open the stable door, and I rode into the night. Not until hours later did I realize that I'd forgotten to tell her that I had forgiven her. I hoped she knew.
∗ ∗ ∗
Your magic is stronger than ours. Yours is stronger. Bella knew. Mira's words rang in my ears as I rode through the night. I didn't know yet where I was going— south, of course, but whether to Montefalco or the wasteland, I wasn't sure. At dawn, I was tempted to take a short rest, but I was afraid that if I got off the horse I wouldn't be able to get back on. I slowed to a walk and dug through the most accessible saddlebag, finding cheese and water. I drank the water—I realized suddenly that I was terribly thirsty—and ate some of the cheese. There was a knife in the saddlebag as well; I slipped it into my boot, where I could get to it easily. The Circle was behind me, tracking me like a wolf tracks a rabbit; the Fedeli undoubtedly were looking for me, too. They won't take me alive, I thought. I'd cut my own throat, if it came to that.
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