—Blaise Pascal
Elsa jerked out of a deep sleep, heart hammering against her ribs, unsure what had awoken her. She fumbled for the matches on the bedside table and lit a candle, then slipped out of bed and pulled a dressing gown on over her chemise.
She paused, ears straining against the silence. The sound came again, muffled and indistinct. A person? Or some function of the house? Elsa couldn’t be sure. Fumbling in the near dark, she retrieved her revolver from the top drawer of the commode and stashed it in the pocket of the dressing gown. After the assassin in the library, she wasn’t about to get caught without a weapon. Then she lifted the candlestick and padded barefoot into the hall.
The flame guttered when she quickened her pace, and the pocket of the dressing gown, weighed down with the gun, bumped against her leg with each step. She moved down the hall, pressing her ear against each closed door and listening for the source. A minute passed with nothing save the sound of her own breathing, and Elsa was beginning to feel quite foolish. There was no danger, no need for her to be up wandering the empty halls in the dead of night.
Just as she turned to go back to her own rooms, someone screamed—a bloodcurdling wail that Elsa could only imagine must be the product of having one’s innards torn out or some equally gruesome fate. Her heart leapt into her throat, and she quickly passed the candlestick to her left hand, freeing her right one so she could reach for the gun if she needed it. The scream was fading even as she found the right room and jerked the doorknob open.
Elsa burst through the doorway to find, of all things, Leo asleep in his bed. He was thrashing in his sleep, the sheets tangled about his legs, his hair damp with sweat. The fear and vigilance drained from Elsa, leaving behind a giddy relief. She’d expected blood and death and assassins, where there were only nightmares.
Leo was shirtless, his clothing below the waist—or lack thereof?—concealed by the bedcovers. For a moment Elsa stared at the sight of his smooth, golden skin seeming to glow in the candlelight, the ridges of his muscles accentuated by the play of light and shadow. She shook her head, feeling foolish, and set the candle on the table beside the bed.
“Leo?” she said softly, and then a little bolder, “Leo!” but her voice didn’t rouse him.
“Aris…,” he moaned in his sleep. “Lemme go, we have to go back.…”
Elsa perched on the bed beside him, reached forward, hesitated, then grabbed his shoulder and shook him. “It’s only a dream, Leo. Wake up.”
He jerked at her touch, and his eyelids peeled open. “Elsa?” he said blearily, as if unsure whether he was awake or still dreaming. “What’s happened?”
“You were crying out in your sleep.”
He looked at her again, and his eyes went wide as saucers, as if the fact of her presence had finally sunk in. “What are you…” He tugged at the blankets, but it was a poor show of modesty—since Elsa was sitting on the bed, the blankets pinned beneath her, he would have had to dump her on the floor to cover himself thoroughly.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said, exasperated. “It isn’t as if I’ve never seen a boy without his shirt before.”
If she’d thought it wasn’t possible for him to look more shocked and horrified, he now proved her wrong. “It isn’t?”
“You’re as prudish as an Englishman.” She crossed her arms. “I promise not to take advantage of you in your current immodest state.”
Even by candlelight, she could see him flush. He sat up and scooted away from her, hands still knotted in the sheets. “No—I’m not—Y-you shouldn’t be here…,” he stuttered. “What would people think?”
“Let me worry about my own virtue,” she said. “Now, are you going to tell me?”
He rubbed his face with one hand, as if trying to scrub away the memory. “As you said: only a dream.”
Elsa abandoned any remaining mockery in her tone in favor of seriousness. “Do you always have nightmares that set you to screaming?”
“Not for a while now,” he answered quietly. “It’s just this business with … Never mind. It’s not important, I’m fine. Are you okay? I’m so sorry about my father and the assassin and—”
“Stop,” Elsa interrupted. “You have nothing to apologize for. You are in no way responsible for Garibaldi’s actions.”
Leo’s jaw clenched, but he said nothing.
Elsa decided to try another cautious foray into the subject of nightmares. “You said a name in your sleep. Who’s Aris?”
He didn’t respond for so long she thought he was ignoring her, but eventually he arrived at some sort of decision and said, “He was my older brother. Or is? I don’t know.”
Outside, the clouds parted from the low-hung moon, and pale silvery light spilled into the room through a pair of glass doors—balcony doors, Elsa realized when she looked up. The moonlight softened the shadows of his face and turned his olive skin wan as a ghost.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she said softly.
He looked away toward the windows, avoiding her eyes. “I used to think, What’s the use? Talking never brought back the dead. But now they’re alive after all—my father and Aris and maybe even Pasca—and the man I knew as Father never really existed in the first place.” His throat worked, as if the words threatened to choke him.
How awful, Elsa realized, to be abandoned by one’s own family. They’d fled from Venezia and left him behind like an obsolete machine.
“I’m not sure this isn’t worse.” His voice fell almost to a whisper as he stared, unseeing, past her. “Before, when I thought they were dead, it wasn’t their fault they were gone. But to be discarded like this…”
He was like a fine piece of clockwork that had been carelessly dropped too many times, the delicate gears jarred apart so they spun and spun but never connected. Broken. She brushed a strand of his brass-blond hair out of his eyes. He gave a very slight twitch at the feel of her fingertips on his face, but did not pull away. Oh, how she itched to open his chest and set the gears straight again. The thought surprised her; she’d often felt the urge to fix objects, but this sudden desire to fix a person … where did it come from?
Elsa shook her head. “You mustn’t leap to conclusions with so little evidence. Perhaps they believed you had died, or hoped you’d lived but didn’t know how to find you.”
Darkly, Leo said, “They sent that assassin to kill you. They probably arranged the train hijacking, too. I’d guess they knew exactly where I was ever since Venezia.”
Elsa swallowed, her throat tight. How many people would have died if they hadn’t been able to stop the train? And the assassin was dead, not to mention Montaigne. Apparently, Garibaldi did not hesitate to gamble with the lives of his own compatriots, let alone with the lives of innocent bystanders.
No one was safe. Least of all herself and Leo. But that wasn’t what he needed to hear just now, so Elsa simply shrugged and said, “Family is complicated.”
Leo snorted, the corners of his lips curling up into an unwilling smile. “You have a way with words, signorina.”
“I know this seems like an impossible mess, but we’ll figure it out together. I promise.”
“I don’t see how. My father is the sort of man who has no qualms about abducting or killing people. I wonder if I ever knew him at all. Even his name was a lie.” Pain was etched along his brow and under his eyes.
Elsa couldn’t remember ever hating anything as much as she hated Garibaldi in that moment—not just for stealing her mother, but for how he’d hurt this beautiful, brilliant boy. Her hatred felt cold and pure as ice, but at the same time she knew Leo could never feel that clarity of hate for someone he’d once loved. She would have to carry the hatred for both of them, to hate Garibaldi on his behalf.
So she tucked the hatred away in a hidden corner of herself for safekeeping, and she gave Leo’s hand a quick, reassuring squeeze. “Try to sleep, if you can. There’s nothing to be done now. We’ll start afresh tomorrow.”
He
sighed. “You’re right, of course.”
“I should probably…,” she said, shifting her weight to stand, but his hand flashed forward and caught her by the wrist.
“Don’t go,” he whispered.
Elsa knew she should resist that magnetic pull she felt behind her sternum, but there was something strange and desperate in his expression, and she found she could not deny him. “I’m no talisman against nightmares, but I suppose I could stay if you—”
Leo suddenly leaned forward, and his lips brushed tentatively against hers, sending unexpected sparks of desire through her. She gasped, and when her lips parted he reached for her and deepened the kiss. His fingers tangled in her hair, holding her close. Her hands explored the shape of his collarbones, the arch of his neck, the rope-cord muscles up and down his back.
She had kissed a boy before—Revan, of course—in the experimental way of children playing at being adults, but never had she been kissed like this. Like a spark held to a gaslight mantle, once lit it would keep burning and burning, ever brighter.
Leo leaned back, pulling her along until she lay over him, and she could feel his heart measuring a rapid rhythm in his chest. She swept her curtain of hair out of the way and kissed his throat beneath the line of his jaw, eliciting a soft moan. One of his hands traversed the curves of her waist and hip, down to her thigh, and then—
Leo froze. Elsa, sensing something was wrong, pulled away and propped herself up on her elbows to look at him. “What?”
He fumbled in the pocket of her dressing gown, drew out the revolver, and squinted at it in the dim light. “That is what I think it is.”
Elsa rolled off him, snatched the gun from his hand, and tucked it away again. “I heard a noise in the middle of the night,” she said. “And the house isn’t exactly the impenetrable fortress I was led to believe it would be.”
He quirked one perfect brass eyebrow at her. “Were you planning to shoot me if I grew too bold?”
Elsa snorted. “You’re the one who’s excessively concerned with our respective virtues.”
“Someone has to be,” Leo said defensively. “This isn’t proper, this isn’t how it’s done.…”
“Your idea of ‘how it’s done’ is completely absurd.” She knew Porzia saw marriage as a matter of power and position rather than love, but now Elsa began to wonder if that was truly how Porzia felt, or if she was simply bending to the rules of her society.
Leo’s hands fisted in the bedsheets. “You’re not in the wilds of Veldana anymore, we can’t just—”
“The wilds?!” Elsa snapped. “Where we Veldanese savages rut in the bushes, I suppose?”
“That’s not what I meant—”
She stood. “I am sick of your world’s rules, and doubly sick of your superior attitudes!” Face hot with humiliation, she yanked her dressing gown tighter around her and stormed out of the room.
“Elsa…,” he called. “Elsa!” But she was already slamming the door closed behind her.
Having forgotten the candlestick in Leo’s room, Elsa stumbled down the hallway blind, one hand held out to the wall to guide her. How could she have been so stupid?
It is always the woman’s fault, Jumi recited in her mind. That’s the way men are. If you wanted it, you seduced him; if you didn’t want it, you denied him.
She should have known better than to let anyone worm their way into her heart.
* * *
Leo thought about chasing after Elsa to apologize, and then he considered smothering his stupid mouth with a pillow. But instead he elected to lie awake and stare up at the ceiling for a long while after Elsa left. If only telling the truth wasn’t so exhausting, if only it hadn’t come as such a shock to find himself with Elsa on his bed in a compromising position, if only the whole encounter hadn’t felt too strange and wonderful to be true—maybe then he could have managed to go one night without destroying something precious.
“Casa,” he said into the darkness, “Elsa’s room is awfully far away for her to have heard me.”
“Signor?” said Casa innocently.
“Did you wake her up?”
Casa paused. “It is important for you children to look after one another.”
Leo scowled. “You manipulative psychopath. Now everything’s ruined.”
“One must be a human to be a psychopath,” Casa replied, sounding perfectly self-satisfied. “And I would say things are progressing quite nicely.”
“She hates me now.”
“Hmph. We’ll see. She is a magnificent specimen, is she not?”
“You’re unbelievable!” Leo tossed his hands in the air and let them fall back onto the bed. “She’s not a specimen, and I’ve had enough of your interference.”
Smugly, Casa said, “I’m not the one who kissed her.”
* * *
In the morning Elsa skipped breakfast. Between the poison and Faraz’s cure, all those chemicals had left her stomach feeling unsteady, and the last thing she wanted was to face Leo while also fighting nausea. Would things be awkward between them now? Would he avoid her, or pretend nothing had happened? Her absence left her to envision Leo performing his usual brash confidence over cappuccinos and pastries, serenely unruffled, as if nothing ever touched him. She couldn’t stand that idea, and she needed desperately to find some diversion upon which to focus her attention. She had to get out of her rooms.
The library seemed the most logical destination. But when she pushed open the door, the library was not empty—there was a figure slumped over one of the reading tables amidst chaotic piles of open books.
“Porzia…?” Elsa said, disbelieving. “Are you well?”
The girl lifted her head off her arm with a groan and scrubbed her hands over her face. Elsa had never seen her looking so disheveled. Porzia let down her sleep-mussed dark hair and ran her fingers through it, working out the tangles. “I must have dozed off.”
Elsa narrowed her eyes in mock scrutiny. “Aren’t you the one always cajoling us to sleep and eat and whatnot?”
She shrugged off the question. “I thought I’d go over my research again, now that we know exactly who Garibaldi is. I’ve been trying to identify places that might be significant to him.” She shuffled through a pile of hastily discarded books at the far end of the table and pulled out a large atlas. Laying it open before Elsa, she said, “Here, have a look.”
The page was a map of southern Europe, showing the Italian peninsula carved up into four independent political units. The north, including Pisa and Firenze, belonged to the Kingdom of Sardinia. A chunk in the middle around Roma was labeled The Papal States. Below that, the southern end of the peninsula was part of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, along with the island of Sicilia itself. The far northeast was labeled VENETO, including the city of Venezia, where Leo had grown up. Opposite the map was a loose sheet of paper Porzia must have tucked between the pages, cities and dates listed on it in her elegant cursive. Marsala—1860—father Giuseppe and brother Menotti killed. Venezia—1867(?)—establishes himself under assumed name. And so on.
“The atlas is in German, sorry,” said Porzia.
“That’s fine,” Elsa replied. “I read German.”
Porzia blinked in surprise. “How many languages do you know?”
“Veldanese, Dutch, French, and now Italian,” she said, ticking them off on her fingers. “I can also read English, German, and Latin, but haven’t had the chance to hear them spoken yet. Oh, and I’ve just started Greek, but I’m not very far along. That’s more your fault than mine, though, since none of you seem inclined to speak more than a word or two of Greek at a time.”
Porzia shook her head, a wry grin pulling at the corners of her mouth. “I can see why you’ve awoken in Leo such a sense of inferiority.”
Elsa felt heat rise in her cheeks. Porzia’s eyebrow twitched at her too-transparent reaction to Leo’s name, but she let it pass unremarked upon. Quickly, Elsa said, “So where did you get with the Garibaldi research?”
> “Well, as I see it, we have three problems: locating your mother, reaching her as soon as possible, and escaping with her.”
Porzia’s hand rested on the open page of the atlas, her gaze focused on her notes as if determined to rake through them for undiscovered information. Elsa felt a pang in her chest as she watched the other girl. She’d stayed up all night doing research alone so Elsa could sleep and recover; she’d agreed to conceal Leo’s parentage from the Order, whatever the consequences might be for her own family. It was past time to trust Porzia.
Elsa took a deep breath and said, “Well, I don’t know how we’re going to locate Jumi, but getting to her won’t be a problem once we have.” Before she could change her mind, she pulled out the doorbook. “We’ll use a portal.”
Porzia shook her head. “That’s not possible. A portal device by itself, without a worldbook nearby, is useless here on Earth. Without a worldbook, there’s no way to specify a destination.”
“The book assigns numerical coordinates to a particular place, and the device opens a portal to that location, right? So all you need is a book that can assign coordinates.” She held out the doorbook, offering it to Porzia. “This is how I make portals on Earth. I keep it with me, so I always have access.”
Porzia gingerly accepted the doorbook and lifted the cover to look inside. The core text was scribed in Veldanese, taking up the first dozen pages, so Elsa had to walk her through the structure and syntax. “This is the trickiest part, here: since Earth isn’t a scribed world, you can’t simply reference its worldbook. It took me quite some time to figure out the necessary parameters to link the book to Earth.”
Porzia flipped through to the most recent page—the description of Pisa, scribed in Dutch for de Vries’s benefit. She frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t know whether to call this brilliant, or heretical, or both.”
Elsa let the corner of her mouth quirk with amusement. “There’s nothing sacred about your so-called ‘real’ world.”
“It is the original world, you know. The only natural one,” Porzia argued.
Ink, Iron, and Glass Page 18
