Mist, Metal, and Ash

by Gwendolyn Clare

  Movement in a nearby tree caught Porzia’s eye, and the shape clinging to a low branch resolved into Faraz’s favorite pet. Apparently even the tentacle monster knew about his morning prayers.

  Faraz followed her gaze and said, “Time to go, buddy.”

  Ignoring him, Skandar plucked a small, underripe lemon from the tree branch and made it disappear. Porzia wasn’t exactly sure what the beast had by way of a mouth and had no desire whatsoever to find out. She also didn’t know, when the beast squeezed its one enormous eye shut, whether this was an expression of pleasure or of shock at the lemon’s tartness.

  Faraz lifted his prayer rug and carried it under one arm. “Are you headed back to the ruins?” he said.

  It was an olive branch, and she took it. “Yes, let’s go.”

  Faraz fell into step beside her and whistled through his teeth at Skandar. The beast opened its membranous wings, flopped off the branch into the air, and glided down the path to latch onto Faraz’s shoulder.

  The sight of those tentacles wrapping around him—even around his neck—was so grotesque as to be downright nauseating. But in the interest of making peace, Porzia held her tongue. If her silence on the matter of tentacle monsters was the cost of repairing their friendship, she was prepared to pay it.

  They followed the path back to the ruins, and for the first time in a while, the silence between them felt light.

  14

  SHE KNOWS TOO MUCH FOR ME.

  —Charles de Brosses, regarding Maria Gaetana Agnesi

  Once again, Aris did not show up for their morning fencing practice, and Leo was left to worry over what trouble his brother might be stirring up instead.

  Leo squared up against Vincenzo and traded parries, but his heart wasn’t in it. How could he maintain a normal routine as if nothing had changed, when in fact everything had changed? Ricciotti would dig his claws into Elsa, and Leo was powerless to stop him. Vincenzo claimed to be assisting her, but he was obviously preoccupied with Aris. Even now as they dueled, Vincenzo’s eyes kept flicking toward the doorway as if he was hoping to spot Aris there.

  Leo sighed and used his opponent’s distraction to land a touch. The blunted end of the foil hit Vincenzo’s gut rather harder than Leo had intended, making his opponent grunt.

  “All right, all right. I yield,” Vincenzo said, holding up his free hand in joking submission. “You’re in a foul mood today—what’s bothering you?”

  “Nothing,” Leo said, too quickly.

  Vincenzo raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You’re scowling at me like I stole your favorite wrench.”

  Leo pressed his lips together, considering. “If you really want to know, I’ll tell you: it’s Aris that worries me. In particular, Aris and you.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” Vincenzo let his gaze drift away, avoiding eye contact.

  “I’m serious about this, deadly serious,” Leo insisted. “You’re nothing to him. He finds you an amusing diversion—that’s all. I know my brother, and he’ll play with you until you break, then throw you away without a second thought and find a new toy to entertain him.”

  Vincenzo pressed a hand to his chest mockingly. “Your concern for my welfare touches me deeply, truly it does. I never expected to find such an ardent protector among this nest of vipers.”

  Leo felt his jaw tighten. “Fine, get yourself killed. See if I care.” He spun on his heel and made for the exit.

  “No, no—wait!” Vincenzo called after him. “Aren’t you going to offer to duel with him in defense of my honor? That would surely have me swooning…”

  Leo paused in the doorway. He swished his foil through the air, frustrated, searching for the right words. No one ever listened to him, anyway. Still, he had to try. “I may not have all the worldly experience of a Carbonari agent such as yourself, but I do know this: my brother is a dangerous person to love.”

  Vincenzo swallowed hard, the jesting grin falling from his face. “I know,” he said. “I know.”

  Leo gave a nod. “That’s good.” Because if Vincenzo didn’t, he was in for an unpleasant surprise.

  And then Elsa would find herself with a shortage of allies.

  * * *

  “Where are you taking me this time?” Elsa said. “I’m not in the mood for more of your tests.”

  At least they weren’t climbing any stairs. Still, Aris had that devious glint in his eye, the one that promised he was up to something. Or perhaps the glint was simply a permanent fixture in his expressive repertoire. Because he was always, perpetually and repeatedly, plotting something or other.

  “Oh, nothing like that,” Aris said. “I want to show you something. Consider it my apology for vexing you yesterday.”

  They stopped partway down the hall at a closed door. Aris tried the knob as if expecting it might be locked, but it was not, and he ushered Elsa inside.

  It was a parlor of sorts, or perhaps an office, with a desk and bookshelves at one end and armchairs set in front of a hearth at the other.

  “Over here,” Aris said, leading her toward the banked fireplace.

  Above the mantel hung an oil painting, a portrait depicting a figure seated on a horse. Because of the men’s clothes and the military saber belted to one hip, Elsa initially thought it was a man, but no—there was a distinctly feminine cast to the rider’s body shape beneath the bulky clothing, and her cheeks were smooth. Unsmiling, she stared out of the portrait with an expression that seemed to say she’d seen it all and was unimpressed. Elsa liked her immediately.

  “Anita Garibaldi,” Aris breathed, as if it were a prayer. “My grandmother.”

  “She looks … fierce.”

  “I never knew her—she died when Father was just two years old—but I know all the stories.” There was an unexpected reverence in his voice; it reminded Elsa that, despite all his brash confidence, Aris had been a boy once, young and impressionable. As he stared up at the painting, his eyes shone with the red glow of the embers. “Anita’s a legend in South America, and they’ll be telling tales of her for centuries to come. She was a master horsewoman, and just as skilled with a sword. No man could match her courage and fortitude.”

  Elsa said, “I think I would’ve liked to meet her.”

  His gaze shifted away from the painting and onto Elsa. “Do you know what my grandfather said when they met?”

  “What?” she said.

  Aris leaned closer, his eyes locked on hers, his voice dropping an octave. “You must be mine.”

  Elsa resisted the urge to lean away. This was it—this was her opportunity to get in closer with Aris. She’d never get near to the editbook unless he trusted her completely. And here he was at his most vulnerable, giving her the opening she needed.

  Elsa stood on her toes, erasing the distance between them, and pressed her lips to his.

  For a moment he froze in surprise, as if he hadn’t really believed she’d fall for his not-so-subtle insinuations. Then he kissed her back—he kissed her like a starved man, like he wanted to consume every bit of her in the bright white flame of his hunger. His hands found their way into her hair and held her in the kiss, as if afraid she might try to escape. Elsa hooked her fingers around his belt and pulled his body against hers, felt the heat of him even through his thick brocade waistcoat.

  He pulled away just far enough to speak. “Oh, Elsa…” He stared at her in wonderment, with those horribly familiar amber eyes. “I never thought I’d find someone who could match me, not in a thousand years.”

  “We mustn’t,” Elsa breathed, and she didn’t have to falsify the guilt in her tone.

  “Because of Leo?” Aris said. He ran his hands up and down her arms soothingly. “The heart wants what the heart wants. My brother will understand that.”

  Elsa shook her head, mute, wearing her doubt and confusion openly on her face. She wanted Aris to work for it; she needed him to believe that he had seduced her, and not the other way around.

  “You and I are the only
two polymaths in the world,” Aris said. “Don’t you see? We were made for each other.”

  “I am a polymath,” Elsa said, “so what can you offer me that I cannot already do for myself?”

  A grin pulled at the corner of his mouth. “I can promise never to be boring.”

  Elsa let herself smile at that. “I believe you.”

  Then her lips found his again, and the analytics of the situation faded into the background. There was no room for rational thought in the heat of the moment, with his hand tracing the length of her spine and his tongue searching for hers.

  The latch on the door clicked, and Elsa sprang away from Aris, startled at the sound. She turned to see who had caught them.

  Leo stood in the doorway.

  “Ah, brother,” Aris said. “We have something to tell you.”

  Contrary to Aris’s reassuring tone, it did not look at all as if Leo would understand. Rather, he looked as if Elsa had driven an invisible spear through his rib cage, and his collapsed lungs would never again draw breath.

  His eyes held her gaze for a long moment. His face went blank, as if the life were draining out of him. Then, without uttering a word, he turned and left.

  Elsa moved as if to follow, but Aris caught her arm and held her back. “Let him go. It’s better if you let him go, when he’s in a mood. He’ll come around.”

  She shook off his hand, annoyed with him and disgusted with herself. “How easily you dismiss his feelings. Has it never once in your life occurred to you to think of Leo’s happiness before your own?”

  Aris laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous, of course he’s happy now. He’s home with his family.” Then, as the question sank in, he frowned and looked away. “He will be, at least. He only needs time to adjust.”

  Aris hunched his shoulders, angry and wounded at the thought of his brother’s dissatisfaction. In that moment he seemed so raw and young, and Elsa realized that Aris did not understand people—did not understand them at all. He could be brilliant with machines, with chemicals, with words, but the complexities of human psychology were beyond his ken.

  He knew his own blindness, and he hated it.

  Elsa felt an unexpected swell of genuine sympathy, and she went up on her toes to peck his cheek. “It’s fine. I’ll fix it, it’ll be fine.”

  * * *

  Elsa checked the ballroom and the dining room and searched the sleeping quarters on the floor above, but nowhere did she find Leo. The laboratory doors on the main floor were locked. Where else might he be?

  She decided to take the servants’ stairs down. Leo was Italian, and the Italians were excessively preoccupied with food, so maybe he’d sought comfort in the kitchen.

  It was a long shot, so Elsa wasn’t terribly surprised to find an absence of Garibaldi boys on the servants’ floor. But she did find Colette, kneading dough on the scarred wood of the old table in the center of the kitchen. Flour powdered her arms and apron, and as she worked the dough, fine particles rose in the air, floating like dust. She glanced up with a questioning look at the sound of Elsa’s entrance.

  “Excuse the disturbance,” Elsa said, in a somewhat stilted version of the language she’d overheard Colette speaking with the cook.

  Colette’s eyes lit up and she paused in her work. “You speak Provençal?”

  “Oh, only a little. I spent some time in France,” Elsa said, which was not exactly untrue. “Where’s the cook?” she asked in a tone of mild curiosity. She wanted to know if anyone was in the pantry or the root cellar—anywhere out of sight but close enough to overhear.

  Colette brushed a sweaty strand of hair from her face with the back of one hand. “She went to her room for a bit of rest. Her feet bother her sometimes,” she said, then added as an afterthought, “Best not to tell anyone.”

  “Of course,” said Elsa. From the girl’s tone, she guessed such an infirmity, if revealed, might be grounds for dismissal.

  Colette wiped her hands on her apron and stepped around the table. “Did you need her for something?”

  “The cook? No, sorry—I was looking for Leo. Searching the whole house, actually. I don’t suppose he’s been down here?”

  Colette gave Elsa a look that seemed to question her mental soundness. “The young masters don’t grace us with their presence in the kitchen. It wouldn’t be at all proper.”

  “Right. Of course. Very improper.” Elsa wondered if she would ever understand these status-obsessed Europeans.

  “Have you tried the solarium?” Colette leaned in and lowered her voice confidentially. “It’s abandoned, but lately I’ve seen him sneaking up there for some privacy.”

  Elsa blinked. “No, I didn’t even know there was a solarium.”

  “Southeast corner of the house, all the way at the top.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Anytime. Elsa.” On Colette’s lips, the name still sounded like a shared conspiracy, and her smile managed to be at once tentative and sly.

  As Elsa climbed the stairs again, the thought of Leo needing a hiding place gave her an odd, queasy feeling. She’d been too angry to wonder how he was, how his choices had affected him. She’d assumed this was a homecoming, but perhaps Leo saw it more as a self-imposed exile.

  She followed Colette’s directions and found Leo in the solarium. The sky outside was overcast, bathing the whole room in bleak, pale light. He sat facing away from the door, tension written in the angle of his shoulders.

  At the sound of her entrance, Leo shifted on the stone bench, but he did not turn. Elsa hesitated in the open doorway, reluctant to intrude upon his solitude. Softly she said, “Hello, Leo.”

  He took a deep breath and let it out. Silence stretched between them. Then he said, “When we were little, Aris would catch swallowtail butterflies in the courtyard and set their wings afire. He liked to watch them flutter through the air, smoking and dying. I think Mother told him to stop, but he never listened.”

  Elsa stepped tentatively into the room, moving slow and quiet like she would if she were trying not to spook a wild animal. “You’ve never said anything about your mother before.”

  Leo shrugged. “There’s not much to say. I don’t remember her well—she died a year or so after Pasca was born. She was … very tired. I have this one strong memory of her damp palm pressing against my cheek, and I can recall her face quite clearly. Dark circles under her eyes like bruises.” He sucked in a ragged breath. “Though now I know even that was a deception. My real mother died when I was born, or sometime thereafter, just as Pasca’s mother did, and Aris’s mother before them. Garibaldi’s experiments killed them all.”

  Elsa felt the horror of it deep in her chest, like a vacuum sucking out all the air. She managed a single syllable. “Why?”

  “He cared only about producing polymaths. The host need only survive long enough to carry the infant to term. After that, their welfare became irrelevant to him.” Leo fell silent for a moment, then let out a harsh laugh. “Joke’s on him. All that effort, just to have Pasca die and me turn out a simple mechanist.”

  Elsa stepped closer, reached out to put a comforting hand on his shoulder but hesitated, her hand hovering uncertainly in the air before she pulled it back. “I’m so sorry, Leo.”

  He finally looked at her then, and his gaze hit her like a throwing knife. “I don’t tell you this to garner your pity. I’m trying to warn you about my family. I’d have thought it would be enough that they abducted your mother and ransomed her for the editbook, but apparently not.”

  “You know why I came,” she said. In the safety of her mind, she begged him to understand the words she could not risk saying aloud. Even here in the derelict solarium, they might be under surveillance.

  “Do I?” said Leo doubtfully. “Tell me, Elsa: Are you manipulating Aris, or is he manipulating you?”

  She pressed her lips together, unsure how to answer. “Does it have to be one or the other?”

  “Yes. Always.”

  “I understand why yo
u’re angry…”

  “Angry?” He let out another bark of harsh laughter. “You’ll do whatever you like, and there’s nothing I can do to stop you. I have learned that lesson well.”

  She could think of no reply, and so kept silent.

  “Tell me you have no feelings for him.” He looked away, as if he could not bear to see her face when she answered.

  Elsa swallowed, her throat gone dry. Even if she’d felt nothing when Aris had kissed her, she could not say so now—she could not admit her deception. The ruse must be maintained.

  When her silence stretched too long, Leo heaved a resigned sigh. “For the record, this isn’t anger. It’s despair.”

  * * *

  Leo stayed in the solarium long enough that he had no choice but to admit to himself the truth: he was sulking, and this self-indulgence was not very mature of him. He suspected Porzia would have given him a brisk, stern talking-to. If she were here, which she was not. God, he hadn’t known it was possible to feel so alone.

  How had everything gone so wrong? He’d started with the best of intentions; all he’d wanted to do was protect Elsa and her mother.

  Elsa had never lost anyone, not permanently. Death barely touched her young world. She’d understood the danger to Jumi only in a distant, theoretical sense—she had not truly internalized the reality that Jumi would have died if the situation had been mishandled. Elsa was brave and clever and mature in many ways, but she still retained a child’s faith in the immortality of her loved ones. Losing Jumi would have crushed her, the way Leo had been crushed when he believed his own family dead.

  Elsa just didn’t understand. She couldn’t. Now here she was again, this time underestimating the danger to herself. And Leo was powerless to protect her.

  Enough. No more wallowing in self-pity; Ricciotti was never going to give Leo his agency or his independence. He must reclaim it for himself. It was up to Leo to undo the disastrous choice that had led Elsa here, into the clutches of the Garibaldi family. He knew Elsa would not leave without the editbook, so the solution was obvious: Leo would have to find it and steal it back.