by Fiona Paul
“Falco,” Cass said. “Ignore him. He’s not worth it. He only wants to upset you into doing something foolish.”
“What I want is to be immortal.” Piero winked at Cass. “Just think if your poor old aunt had consumed some elixir. She might still be alive.”
Cass ignored Piero even though she wanted to spit at him again. She wanted to shake the bars of her own cell and scream that he had no right to mention any member of her family. But she wouldn’t waste her strength. She would hold back, save everything she had. And she would escape. Belladonna would be so furious, she would probably kill Piero. Cass almost hoped that she did.
After he left, Cass turned to Falco. “We need to go over the plan,” she said.
“The plan to make him sorry he ever—”
“Stop,” she said. “Piero is not the real enemy here. Belladonna is. Dubois is. The Order is. Piero is just their insignificant little tool. Remember that.”
Falco kicked at his cell bars again, but he nodded at Cass. “You’re right,” he said. “If Bella is at a function, then after Piero leaves, it should be only us and the guard. We just need a way to get his keys.”
“I have an idea.” Cass told him about Seraphina, about pressing on the guard’s neck to render him unconscious.
“Or I could just press my fist into his skull to render him unconscious,” Falco offered.
“Be serious. You’re not strong enough to fight anyone right now,” Cass said. “And he won’t expect me to attack him.”
“How are you going to get him to come inside your cell?”
Cass leaned in even closer, until her lips whispered straight into Falco’s ear. “I thought you and I might stage a bit of a disagreement.”
~
Cass sat next to Falco in the dark, mentally preparing herself, waiting for exactly the right moment. Twice, the room brightened a bit as the guard patrolled with his lantern. He ducked his head just far enough inside the doorway to ascertain that the prisoners were still in their cells, but he did not speak. She’d heard no noises, no muted voices. She felt certain that Piero had left and the guard was the only one in the workshop.
Almost certain.
“Excuse me,” Cass called out, the third time he came by.
The guard held up his lantern. “Yes?”
“I wish to speak to Dottor Basso,” she said. “Or Belladonna. I’m not ready to die. I want to negotiate.” She said a silent prayer that she was right and neither of them was present.
Falco immediately began to play along. “Cassandra. You mustn’t. Don’t give in to them.”
“What choice do we have?” Cass said, hanging her head low. “If I give my blood willingly, at least I won’t die.”
“They’re not here,” the guard said. “I’ll inform them of your request when they return.”
“Do you know when that will be?” Cass asked.
The guard shook his head. “I do not know their schedules.”
Cass nodded, and the guard disappeared through the low doorway. She glanced over at Falco. “It seems to be just the three of us. Are you ready?”
“Ready for anything,” Falco said. He went to the side of his cell and grasped Cass’s hair through the bars. He tugged gently.
Cass let her head fall back against the bars. “A little harder,” she whispered, “so it looks like I’m actually in pain.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Given all we’ve been through, I wouldn’t worry about a bit of pulled hair,” Cass said. Falco yanked a bit harder. Cass embraced the pain and started screaming. “Let me go, you bastard!” She pretended to struggle against Falco’s hold on her. She kicked at her cell door, flailing her body and making as much racket as possible.
“This is all your fault,” Falco yelled back. “You had to get involved in matters that do not concern you. And now you think you can strike a bargain with them and leave me to die.” Falco grabbed the fabric of her soiled collar in his other hand and pulled it snug against her flesh so that it would look like he was trying to strangle her. “I’ll kill you myself before I let that happen.”
The room brightened as the guard came racing in, his lantern extended out in front of him. “You. Unhand her,” he said.
Falco pretended to pull even harder. Cass gagged as if she were being suffocated. “Please help,” she choked out. She let her body collapse backward against the bars.
The guard dropped his lantern and fumbled through his set of keys while Cass feigned struggling and Falco shouted obscenities. Finally, the guard located the key to Falco’s cell. Swinging open the door with a clatter, he grabbed Falco by both shoulders and pulled him away from Cass.
“You’re lucky the mistress wants you alive,” he said to Falco. “Or I’d break your skull this instant.”
“All of you will die,” Falco said, continuing his insane rant. “I will kill you all.” He slouched down in the corner of his cell, hissing and muttering.
Cass did her best to squeeze out a few tears, wrapping one of her hands around her neck. “I can’t breathe,” she whispered feebly.
The guard locked Falco’s cell and then found the key for Cass’s. This was it. Anticipation coursed through her veins as she pretended to be frail and breathless.
“Are you all right, Signorina?” the guard asked.
Cass leaned against the back wall of her cell. Still clutching at her throat, she made a few gagging sounds. “Please help me,” she said.
The guard bent low to examine her, one hand gently pushing her hair back over her shoulders. Cass lunged for his throat, clamping down on both sides with her palms. He tried to step back and break her hold, but Cass had laced her fingers together behind his neck, and she wasn’t going to let go. He clawed at his belt for his club. Cass pressed harder, praying Seraphina had been right.
The guard’s muscles went slack all at once. He slumped to the ground, his face pale.
Hurriedly, Cass grabbed the keys from his pocket and fled the cell. She slammed the door behind her and clicked the padlock shut. It took her four tries to find the key that fit Falco’s cell door. She glanced nervously at the guard as she unlocked Falco’s cell. He appeared to be sleeping. Cass hoped she hadn’t killed him.
“Let’s go,” Falco said.
Cass grabbed the guard’s lantern, but paused in front of the wooden table just long enough to glance at the page of notes Piero had left behind. Words like lustrous, metallic, and salty blurred before her eyes as she thought about Piero tasting Minerva’s blood. Sickened and angry, she ducked through the doorway into the next room. She realized she had been right, that they were back where she and Falco had broken in a couple of months ago—the room with the surgical instruments and the dissected dog. Thankfully, the big table was empty. No sheet. No decomposing animal corpse.
“I need a few minutes,” she said. “The Book of the Eternal Rose is here somewhere. I have to find it.”
Falco cursed under his breath. “I will not let us die because of your obsession with a book.”
“I’m not leaving without it.”
“Fine. Let’s find it.” Falco strode across the room and yanked open a tall wooden wardrobe. He started flinging the clean linens and bits of medical equipment onto the ground.
Cass stood behind him, looking for the book. It wasn’t there. She went to the next wardrobe. Mortars. Crucibles. Measuring tapes. No book. She crossed the room to the long counter.
And then, a creak of metal. A door opening. Voices. A woman and a man. Belladonna and Piero had returned!
Cass’s blood pounded in her chest and ears, her pulse almost drowning out the sound of approaching footsteps. Mannaggia! There was no time to think.
“Help me with this.” She ran to the table in the center of the room. Breathing heavily, she leaned against it and pushed. Falco joined her, grunting from the exertion. Tog
ether they forced the heavy table right up against the door. Just in time. Fists pounded from the other side.
“Cassandra. We know you’re in there.” Piero.
“You cannot escape,” Belladonna added.
Cass looked wildly around the room, feeling trapped, feeling more like a caged bird than she had ever felt in her entire life. “Tell me she’s wrong,” she said breathlessly.
“She’s wrong.” Falco headed to the nearest window. But they couldn’t go out the way they had originally broken in so many weeks ago. Now the glass was boarded over on the outside. He bent down and began pawing through the medical equipment, looking for something that might break the glass.
“What about one of these?” Cass suggested. There were several ceramic jars lined up on the counter. The first one was labeled BALSAM.
“Good idea.” Falco dumped the pine-scented liquid onto the floor, crossed the room, and slammed the container against the nearest window.
It didn’t break.
Cass emptied a larger, sturdier crock. That was when she saw it. Locked away in a cabinet, behind distorted glass—a thick leather sheaf of papers with a six-petaled flower design on the outside. “Falco,” she breathed. “I’ve found it.” But he didn’t hear her.
Cass emptied another ceramic jar onto the floor and slammed it against the front of the cabinet. The container cracked, but the glass held.
In the corridor, Piero or Belladonna began ramming the door with something. The table wouldn’t hold them back if they broke through the top of the door.
Cass glanced mournfully at the Book of the Eternal Rose but then turned away in search of a weapon. There would be no chance for her to get the book if Belladonna and Piero caught her. They would drain her of her blood and kill her immediately.
Frantic, she rattled each of the cabinets’ handles. Locked. Locked. Locked. Success. She yanked the last cabinet open, flipping through the instruments in search of something sharp.
Behind her, the sound of cracking glass. She turned eagerly to see. Just a couple more hits and Falco would break the window. Unfortunately, the door to the corridor was also beginning to give way. Wood splintered, and Cass could see Piero’s curtain of dark hair beyond the threshold, a heavy club clutched in his grip.
Cass picked up another of the ceramic jars. It was labeled with a chemical symbol she didn’t recognize. With a running start, she flung it toward Piero’s face. Perhaps whatever chemical it contained would burn his skin or blind him. She didn’t care, as long as it kept him away from her until Falco could break through to the outside. The jar slammed against the fractured wood, droplets of its contents flying out into the corridor, the rest making a puddle on the wooden table.
The battering of the door stopped for a moment. “Hurry,” Cass shouted at Falco.
“I’m trying.” He had shattered the glass and was up on the windowsill trying to bust through the wooden boards that were nailed over the windows. The ceramic jar lay broken below him. He was pounding wildly with both hands, using his bare fists.
A heavy fragment of wood came off the door, flying inward and nearly striking Cass in the chest. She grabbed the next ceramic jar without even looking at the label and flung it at Piero. He swore, but slammed the door again with his club. The room smelled like a mixture of soot and silver polish. Another jar. More caustic liquid flying through the air.
And then a bright orange fire sprang up on the wooden table. Cass staggered backward in shock. It must have been the mix of chemicals. She didn’t even know it was possible to make fire without tinder.
“Falco!” she screamed.
“Almost there.” His fist slammed against the wood again. He hadn’t even noticed the fire yet.
“Hurry.” Smoke twisted upward from the flames. Falco sniffed and then glanced over his shoulder. His eyes widened. He reared back and punched the board with all his strength, and it cracked slightly.
By now, flames devoured one side of the wooden table and the remainder of the door had started to smolder. Beyond the crackling fire, Cass heard angry voices in the corridor. But Piero was relentless. His club connected again with the burning door. With a vicious crack, the door split in two and Piero crawled into the room. He beat violently at the fire with his hat, but succeeded only in fanning the flames.
Cass ran to Falco’s side. The smoke was beginning to spread. Her eyes watered. The room blurred. She could barely see Falco’s hands, both covered in blood, his knuckles broken from slamming his fists into the wood.
Piero came toward them, his face blackened with soot, his eyes wild.
“Leave her,” Belladonna yelled from the hallway. “We can find another girl. Save the book.”
Piero paused but then turned away from Cass, toward the row of glass cabinets. Coughing, he fumbled in his pockets. “I don’t have the key,” he said.
Belladonna swore loudly and Cass saw her waving the smoke from her face as she struggled to climb over the flaming table. “Help me,” she shrieked at Piero.
Obediently, he edged his way around the table to give her his hand. But as she tried to lift her heavy skirts into the room, a sharp tongue of fire found the edge of the fabric and Belladonna was suddenly engulfed in flames.
She thrashed about, screeching, wailing, making sounds Cass had never heard before and hoped never to hear again. The fire spread from her skirts to her bodice to her hair. Piero struggled to escape her deadly grasp, but she was clinging to him out of fear or malice, and his doublet quickly began to burn.
And then his skin.
Cass was trapped in a nightmare, a horrible fiery nightmare where she could do nothing but watch as Belladonna and Piero were consumed by flames, their animal-like howling rising in pitch until Cass thought her ears would bleed.
Belladonna’s burning form was clawing at the glass cabinets, desperate to procure the Book of the Eternal Rose, even as the fire raged straight through her flesh. It’s over, Cass thought, with a sudden pang of sadness. Piero, Belladonna, and the book would all burn, and with them, the knowledge of how to make the elixir.
But that meant Joseph Dubois would go free.
Piero fell suddenly to his knees. He flailed toward the window, one burning arm reaching out for the soiled fabric of Cass’s dress, and then Cass was screaming too. “Falco!”
“One more hit, starling,” he said. Falco reared back. Bones crunched wood. The board broke clear through. He yanked at the remaining fragments and tumbled off the windowsill back onto the floor.
Cass saw the night sky looking in at her. Grazie a Dio. Behind her, poisonous fumes swirled throughout the room, and the deadly flames licked ever closer.
“Come on.” Falco was a blur in the billowing smoke. Squinting, she saw him lace his fingers together to boost her up onto the windowsill.
Cass stepped into his waiting hands and lunged for the opening. She could barely see anything. He pushed her feet through the window, and for a second her dress caught on the broken wood as it had the first time they’d escaped. Cass yanked violently. Fabric ripped. She tumbled to the ground, landing hard on her hands and knees. Breathing heavily, she struggled to a sitting position. Had Falco made it out behind her? She couldn’t tell. All she could see through the smoke were vague shadows that may or may not have been real.
“Falco?” No answer. From somewhere nearby, a church bell began to ring. Cass tried to orient herself by the sound, fumbling toward what she thought was the window, toward where Falco might need her help.
She reached out for the wall of the workshop, but her fingers closed around air. “Falco!” She flailed in the smoke again and again until finally her fingers gripped scalding stone. The heat threatened to burn the skin from her bones. But Cass refused to let go. She had found the windowsill. She had to pull herself back up onto it. She had to pull Falco from the burning building.
Flames danced and
smoke poured from the opening as Cass struggled her way back onto the window ledge. “Falco?” she croaked out, one last time.
No answer.
Her chest burned as if she had drunk a vial of acid, and her throat started to swell. She gasped for air. A great gust of heat blew outward from the window, and Cass fell back to the street. A curtain of fire poured from the building and up into the sky, its light so bright, it cut through the smoke. The air shook with the sound of thunder. No. The workshop was beginning to crumble. Chunks of stone fell to the street around her. She covered her head with her hands, her legs curling up to protect her vital organs.
Waves of searing heat engulfed her as wooden beams crashed to the street and stones continued to fall. And then Cass felt a hand on her shoulder. Her eyes burned so badly that she could barely distinguish the rough outline of a figure with blond hair. “Luca?” She sucked in a breath of scalding air and then coughed violently. Somehow, he had found her. Fate, a voice whispered. Smoke melded with floating embers, with dust from the crumbling stone. Now there were two, no, three Lucas hovering above her. He reached out to brush her hair back from her face and Cass felt her body go limp. The last thing she remembered was his brown eyes looking down at her, studying her with concern.
“Only he who is mad or disturbed would attempt to raise the dead from their graves.”
—THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE
eighteen
Cass smelled the incense and heard the sound of someone chanting before she opened her eyes. It was almost like she was in a church, but something was wrong. Beneath the sweet smoke lingered the scent of decay. The mix of odors reminded her of Villa Querini, of Agnese’s corpse splayed out on the dining room table.
Cass opened her eyes, but everything was a blur. As she blinked, the room slowly came into focus.
It took all of her will to keep from screaming.
She was back at Palazzo Viaro, in the hidden chamber with the candelabra and the shrines. And the man who was murmuring, the blond-haired, brown-eyed man who had rescued her, wasn’t Luca after all.