A Summoning of Demons

by Cate Glass

  She had me halfway convinced. Yet the danger was so clear. “But, meanwhile, they murdered your friend Marsilia. And that Captain Legamo came a hair’s breadth from killing us all—Dono included. The Confraternity is corrupt, Livia. Marry Dono and you would be fortunate to live out the year. And that’s assuming he can get back in control of … his illness.”

  “Damizella. Now!” The hinged plate slammed shut and the cell door opened.

  “I’ll think on it.” And she was gone.

  I believed magic was a part of nature—but not in the way Livia did. Physicians were learning how our bodies worked. Astronomers could calculate the motion of the moon. But I had felt the flow of extraordinary power in myself, my brother, and my friends and used it to work impossibilities. And what Teo had done—what he was—was no such particular magic as we of the Chimera had. And certainly no lodestones or quicksilver. Though applauding Livia’s determination to seek truth, I was terribly afraid for her—and for the four of us, who had yet to face our captor. Afraid for that captor, too, who battled an enemy none of us understood.

  I pushed on the hinged metal plate that covered the little grate in the door. It was dented and ill fitting; I was not the only prisoner to want it out of the way so I could see into the corridor. I untwisted my trousers and fumbled through the slit pocket until I found the soft leather strap around my thigh. Tucked away in its sheath was my pearl-handled dagger. Careless praetorians.

  Forcing patience and concentration, I slipped the slim blade through the bars and picked at the latch, considering the possible varieties of closure it might be. Neri would have it open in three heartbeats. It took me a little longer.

  The view through the grate told me exactly nothing. Across the passage was another iron door. Its view plate hung from one hinge as mine now did.

  “Partner,” I whispered through the bars. “Sssst. Partner.”

  Silence soon returned me to the bench. I pulled the coarse blanket around my shoulders. So make a story. Make a plan. But that was difficult when I didn’t know what Dono was up to or who was in control at the moment. My head ached so dreadfully.

  The door burst open. “Up with you!”

  A praetorian stood in the open cell doorway. He was a short, sober-looking man with wide-set eyes and a cap of tightly curled, steel-gray hair. Not Captain Legamo, and not a regular praetorian. On his clean green tabard was pinned a yellow badge embroidered in black, proclaiming him a Defender of Truth—a nullifier or one who worked with them. My stomach churned.

  As soon as I was on my feet, he stepped back and opened his hand, inviting me to come out and precede him down the passage.

  Yet even after the wave of cold sweat passed, I didn’t move. “Where are my companions?”

  “Elsewhere. As healthy as when they arrived.”

  “I want to see them.”

  “Come, and all will be answered.” The hand motioned yet again. “If you please…”

  Stubbornness did not seem a productive option. So I followed him.

  The passage was shorter than I imagined. My cell was one of a block of four iron doors that took up half of the corridor’s length. As we walked toward the opposite end, we passed between two larger cells closed off with barred, not solid, doors. One was deserted. In the other, five men lay on the floor, sleeping. None of them were my partners. Others—two or three—occupied benches in the dark corners of the cell. I would swear—

  Glancing over my shoulder, I peered into the dimness. Surely the one sleeping nearest the barred door was young Nozzo, the lantérne of Captain Legamo’s cadre.

  My feet stumbled on the uneven stone floor. My escort stepped up and caught my elbow, blocking my view of the cell before I could be sure. Nothing about this place made sense.

  Around the corner and up a short, narrow flight of worn steps, and we crossed a cramped stone yard. Though the hour was something near midday, there was no sign of activity. Empty barrows, casks, baskets, and poultry crates littered the space bordered by a modest main house, sheds, and kitchen. Though a tendril of smoke rose from the main house, the kitchen-house chimney stood cold and smokeless. A hatchet rusted in a splintered chopping block. A water trough was half full of sludge after the night’s rain. Clearly this yard had seen more weather than use in recent years. As Livia had said, a country house. Seldom visited. Private.

  Country houses were often used for private executions. Perhaps Dono had decided it was too dangerous for anyone involved in the night’s activities to live. And yet Livia was not confined.…

  Under a short roof and through an arched wood door, we entered the main house. My escort whisked me through a short hallway flanked by a flower room, a lamp room, and a dish room. We emerged into a spacious foyer flanked by salons with shuttered windows, covered furnishings, and sheeted artworks. A wide stair led from the foyer to an upper gallery. The house was modest in size compared to Villa Collina, il Padroné’s country home, but likely no easier to escape.

  At the top of the staircase, one of a pair of double doors stood open, leading into a study. Its clean plastered walls were devoid of artworks or other decoration; a brick hearth staved off the autumn chill with a snappish fire. Paned window glass shone the afternoon light on Donato di Bastianni, writing at a cherrywood desk, a most ordinary setting for a man I’d seen only in highly unusual circumstances.

  Surprisingly, we bypassed that and two shuttered rooms before my shepherd opened a door. “You’ll find refreshment and washing things inside. I’ll wait out here. Please be quick. Time is of the essence.”

  That we could agree on, though perhaps to different ends.

  He closed the door behind me.

  The chamber must once have been quite comfortable. The shuttered windows were wide and tall; the walls were covered halfway up with expensive fabric. But the fabric’s narrow stripes were sorely faded, and most of the furnishings had been removed. A washing stand held a basin, pitcher, and towel. A small, ugly table was set with a cup of wine, a carafe of water, and a plate of cheese and apples. Below a wall-mounted lamp hung a clean, well-worn linen shirt and gown.

  Wine first. Then water. I was parched. Then a wash of face and hands. Leaving the dungeons behind had done nothing for my throbbing head or unhappy stomach, so I pocketed an apple and yanked open the door. Donato had not returned to the Academie in triumph, his foes vanquished by his partisans, sorcerers captured to display and execute. I was impatient to learn what that meant—and where were my brother and my partners.

  My unnamed escort seemed unsurprised at my speed. More likely he just didn’t register expressions any more than his master did. He led me back down the gallery. When he tapped on the open door, Donato glanced up and waved me in. “One moment, if you please.”

  He folded the page, dripped wax on it, and sealed it with a signet pulled from a string around his neck. So that’s what Neri had noticed. We’d never had a chance to check.

  Donato rose and passed the sealed message to my escort. “Dispatch this immediately. When the acceptance comes, as I expect, disperse the cadre as we discussed, no matter whether I’ve returned here or not.”

  “It shall be done, Excellency.”

  “And the other errand?”

  “The situation is yet unchanged.”

  “Very well.”

  The man made a crisp bow and departed.

  Donato then shifted his attention to me, just as I was digesting disperse the cadre alongside my glimpse of the sleeping men in the dungeon cell. Did disperse mean scatter, as usual, or was it a code word for murder?

  “Sit, if you like,” he said, while rising from his stool. “Gaspar will bring the others.”

  Relief softened my knees. Only for a moment. He might mean bring the others in chains or bring the others so I can torment them to squeeze answers from you.

  “I’ll stand for now,” I said. I would not pretend to comfort when I felt so powerless.

  He acknowledged my preference with a glance and retreated to
the hearth. He had washed and changed into loose breeches, a clean shirt the color of eggplant, and a dark gray doublet, simply stitched in black, entirely appropriate to a gentleman in the country. His hair appeared damp and clean, but the three day’s growth on his face had not been barbered.

  His slender hand rested on the polished wood mantelpiece. Though he directed his attention to the fire, his eyelids closed and his breathing smoothed. Even here he enforced his personal discipline.

  “Look at me, segno,” I said. “Straight on, if you please.”

  He did so for a moment. Set deep under black brows, his eyes displayed no golden glints, no echoes of that other face. Haunts, most assuredly, but this man was not the being who had forced the Cavalieri to slaughter each other with the twitch of his finger.

  He returned his attention to the fire.

  “Why am I here, offered food and dry clothing after being bound, manhandled, and thrown into a dungeon?”

  Only as I said it did I realize how easily he could respond, to return the favor.

  But he didn’t. “I will explain when your … partners … join us,” he said, without shifting his attention from the fire. “You seem to be the leader of this group. But I’ve no wish to disrupt whatever accommodation you make with each other that enables you to do such things as breach the defenses of Villa Giusti and steal its residents away. There is wine on the sideboard. Coffee if you prefer, though it has cooled since it was brought. I’ve no household staff here, only Gaspar and his brother.”

  Thus Livia’s village-girl maidservant was explained. Had Donato raced ahead of our party to make household arrangements? Or was it to set up an ambush for Captain Legamo’s cadre?

  “Will Damizella di Nardo be joining us?”

  For this he glanced up. “Later.”

  “I hope she arrived here in better state than I did. Or perhaps she was returned to her own home in the city?”

  He tilted his head, brows raised, as if to decide if I was making a jest. “Did she not tell you of her condition when she visited you an hour since?”

  I was a fuddle-head! Of course Livia had been allowed to find me.

  My fumbling response was interrupted by Placidio’s arrival. A massive bruise on his forehead and a split on his cheekbone spoke to the force needed to render him docile—and his hands were bound tightly at his back. His expression was thunderous until he saw me … and then Dumond, who hobbled in shortly after him with the aid of a walking stick. Dumond’s left arm, sprained in his ordeal at the cellar, was bound up in a sling.

  No matter what it might or might not reveal to Donato, I could not but lay a hand on each man’s shoulder as I blinked away more evidence of sentimental foolishness. When Neri arrived on their heels, clear-eyed and wearing a clean shirt, I felt as if I had the strength of ten.

  I whirled on Donato. “Now may we have your explanations as to”—my gesture encompassed the state of my companions, as well as the house in which we stood—“all this.”

  “Sit, if you wish. And if the swordsman agrees to a truce, you may remove the binding on his hands with your cleverly concealed dagger.”

  All those times we’d thought Donato oblivious, he’d been observing and listening, as well as detaching himself from dangerous emotions. I’d best remember that from now on.

  Taking Placidio’s grudging harrumph as agreement, I tossed my dagger to Neri, who cut Placidio’s hands free. I didn’t want to take my eyes from Donato’s face. None of us sat, not even Dumond.

  Donato’s gaze shifted from the fire to our feet to the empty doorway and back to the snapping flames, lingering only briefly on our faces. “You told me a few hours ago that you judged me neither monster nor lunatic, but only ignorant. Knowing what I did … what I was … I find that judgment unfathomable. But then you four are at least as much of a mystery to me as I am to you. By your own admission, you are also entangled with Dragonis—or whatever name you call the monster. You also said I should trust you, and that you would help me if I allowed it. Was that true? Is it still?”

  “I meant it when I said it,” I said. “Events since have not entirely encouraged my belief as to your state. What say you, my friends?”

  “I say that he is a hypocrite—a sorcerer who has spent his life maiming and enslaving sorcerers,” said Placidio, rubbing his rope-burned wrists. “I would hear why the Confraternity allows him to live. And why he has allowed himself to live, if he believes as he professes. He is a servant of the Enemy.”

  “I say that he is alone in fighting a battle he does not fully understand,” said Dumond. “I would hear how it began, how he has managed it, and what he thinks to do to prevent himself from committing savage murder yet again.”

  “He didn’t rat me out to the Cavalieri,” said Neri. “Had a leech in from the village to take care of my arm. And if ignorance was a crime, I’d have been dead a thousand times already. So I’ll listen—and help if I can.”

  Ah, to be so young and so able to get to the heart of things.

  My turn. “I believe he prevented Captain Legamo from killing us all, including himself. And I would like to think our actions in that dreadful hour at Perdition’s Brink have granted us a modicum of trust. Donato, have you retrieved the body of our friend?”

  “Yes. Hours ago. You heard Adjutant Gaspar report a situation unchanged, meaning that your friend is yet living, though one would think it scarce possible. Then again, my ideas of possibility have been altered of late.”

  A gesture acknowledged Neri and Dumond. He’d witnessed their magic.

  His brow creased and clouded. “Before we move forward, I’ll offer … I had naught to do with the bookbinder’s murder. Nor do I have any knowledge that my father or any other Confraternity Director was involved in it. Nor do I have any knowledge that my marriage contract might have been falsified. However, grievous as it is to confess, neither of these things would astonish me.”

  He paused, and glanced from one of us to the other, assessing our reactions. The effort his speaking entailed was visible. Though his voice was steady and clear, I had the sense that every word was shaped as a child draws her first letters with pen and ink.

  Seemingly assured we weren’t about to slice his throat or pounce on him all at once, he closed his eyes long enough to take a few calming breaths. Then he began again, perfectly composed. “Your recent conversation with Damizella di Nardo clarified a few matters. This marriage—” He shook his head. “I have never desired to bring any person into any sort of relationship with me, and certainly not a woman I believe to be sorely misguided and a danger to this world. I, obviously, am a much greater danger. More even than I knew.”

  He required another few moments to still the tremors in his hands. We waited for more.

  “To hear that I can refuse the contract was a revelation, though the reasons to see it through are compelling. But I have a proposition for you four—which I will extend to the lady if you agree to your part.”

  I was fascinated. Such brutal honesty … and a proposition?

  “Go on,” said Placidio.

  “I offer you a pledge that when Damizella di Nardo and I are returned to Villa Giusti, I will join her in a challenge and refusal of the marriage contract if she so desires, pending an agreement between the two of us to keep up certain formalities—courtesies between our families that I deem necessary for her safety and my own.”

  “And in return?” I said.

  “I have spent my life trying to make amends for the abomination that I am. It seemed enough that, unlike what I was taught about sorcerers, I never felt any desire or urge to unlock the monster’s dungeon and set it free. Personal discipline has enabled me to continue in my duties and suppress the monster’s allurements. Even as I’ve come to understand the corruption and hypocrisy that permeate the service the Confraternity renders to protect the world, I’ve seen no alternatives. But every time I perform what I have believed to be my duty, the grasp of the monster grows stronger. After what happened
last night … I realize that there is no prison cell to be unlocked. No desire involved. The way Dragonis walks free is through me. Help me stop that from happening.”

  “Why not run?” I said. “Hide for a while … become someone new. We know people learned in these matters. Build trust and they can help.”

  “Were I to run and somehow stay free of the monster and of praetorians hunting me, my father would find someone else to take on my duties. Someone without the understanding I’ve gained. Someone not so experienced at personal discipline, who could fall victim to the monster’s wiles. You cannot fully understand without seeing what my duties entail. This situation is my responsibility to repair, but I cannot—I am clearly not able to change the course of events on my own.”

  Donato moved away from the fire, sat on the edge of his writing desk, opened a plain wood box that lay there, and pulled out a dagger. Simple. Unadorned. He turned it so the lamplight caught its blade and then scraped the cutting edge slowly across his palm.

  I stiffened, glancing at Placidio, who stood at my shoulder, to see if he sensed any extraordinary danger. He shook his head.

  “You wanted to know why I’ve not ended my perverse life with a dagger.” Dono met Placidio’s hard gaze and raised the weapon in his hand. “I’ve tried with this one. Fifty times I’ve tried. A hundred. Slitting my wrists, my neck, the great vein in my thigh. I tried poison as well, and smothering. Drowning oneself is difficult at any time, but impossible when one has watchers every waking hour. And I’m not sure even that would succeed.”

  His trembling grew fierce until he put the knife back in the box and slammed the lid.

  “The monster will not allow it,” he said. “The moment I feel the blessed night descend, the whispers begin. Then come the visions. I fight them, I deny them, yet I wake up healed. Her words slip into my mind until I can hear nothing but that I am her instrument. His voice plucks at my basest desires, saying I’ll be his lover … his consort … stars, what does that even mean? Sometimes it comes as a woman … sometimes a man … sometimes as a winged monster of fire, but…”