by Fiona Paul
Also by the same author:
Venom
Belladonna
Philomel Books
Published by the Penguin Group
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Paul, Fiona.
Starling / Fiona Paul. pages cm—(Secrets of the Eternal Rose ; 3)
Summary: “Cass and Luca are back in Venice, trying to find the Book of the Eternal Rose to clear Luca’s name and keep them both out of prison”—Provided by publisher.
[1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 3. Secret societies—Fiction. 4. Social classes—Fiction. 5. Love—Fiction. 6. Venice (Italy)—History—1508–1797—Fiction. 7. Italy—History—1559–1789—Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.P278345St 2014 [Fic]—dc23
2013012455
ISBN 978-0-698-14918-2
Version_1
TO YOU, THE READER.
Thanks for taking this journey with Cassandra and me.
Contents
Also by Fiona Paul
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
chapter one
chapter two
chapter three
chapter four
chapter five
chapter six
chapter seven
chapter eight
chapter nine
chapter ten
chapter eleven
chapter twelve
chapter thirteen
chapter fourteen
chapter fifteen
chapter sixteen
chapter seventeen
chapter eighteen
chapter nineteen
chapter twenty
chapter twenty-one
chapter twenty-two
chapter twenty-three
chapter twenty-four
chapter twenty-five
chapter twenty-six
chapter twenty-seven
chapter twenty-eight
chapter twenty-nine
Acknowledgments
“Infection tunnels deep within, poisoning the blood and sapping one’s strength.”
—THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE
one
When the last drop of light drained from the sky, Cass and Luca crept out of the shed where they had been hiding. Cass took a moment to stretch, her muscles grateful to be free of the cramped enclosure. After Luca had torn open his shoulder escaping from the Doge’s dungeons, the wound had festered, leaving him feverish and incapacitated for nearly a week. Cass knew each day that passed meant fewer people would be searching for them, but the waiting had been agony. She was desperate to resume her quest to destroy the Order of the Eternal Rose.
There was only one way to do that—find the Book of the Eternal Rose and pray it contained enough evidence of wrongdoing to bring the Order’s members to justice. Hatred coiled inside Cass like a tangle of serpents. She embraced it, channeled it toward the task at hand. “The shore is this way,” she said.
Luca squeezed her fingers as they turned off the path, and she relaxed slightly. The whispering tide ebbed and flowed just out of sight. The wind was warm but brisk, whipping the fabric of her dress up around her legs. Luca walked stiffly, his injured arm cradled against his torso. They traveled east along the water until Cass found what she was looking for—an old batèla tied to a wooden dock. She glanced around. A handful of cottages—all dark—stood nearby. The boat might belong to any of them.
Walking boldly out onto the dock, Cass knelt down and loosened the rope that moored the small rowboat. “Get in,” she told Luca.
He paused. “Is there no other way than to steal from peasants?”
“Our alleged crimes have gone beyond mere theft,” Cass said. She didn’t remind him that they were heading to Villa Querini so they could steal from her beloved aunt. There was no other way. Cass and Luca would need money to return to Florence and seek out the book. It was safer for Agnese if she believed they were dead. “Besides, someone will probably find the craft and return it.” Nimbly, Cass’s fingers worked through the knots while Luca watched with a mixture of surprise and admiration.
“I had no idea your talents were so . . . varied,” he said.
Cass smiled. It felt like the first smile in days. “Wait until you see me row.”
And row she did. Wood ground against metal as she pulled the oars, leaning into each stroke, her muscles burning in protest as the boat moved slowly and steadily through the lagoon. She scanned the water as she rowed, looking for other craft, for boats that held soldiers, for anything out of the ordinary. But the night was a curtain of blackness, with nothing but a hazy moon to guide her. If they suddenly came upon another boat, there very well might be a crash.
Luca took in each of her movements, the expression on his face suddenly making Cass feel shy.
“What?” she asked. She looked down at the water, her eyes tracing the path of the wooden oar as it cut through the lagoon, before letting her gaze return to her fiancé. He was still watching her. “You’re staring.”
“I was thinking that each time I feel I know you, you surprise me again.” His voice was low but full of warmth, like if he were feeling a bit stronger, he might lean over and kiss her.
Cass fumbled one of the oars at that thought. As she reached out to retrieve it, she remembered a trip in a batèla she’d made with Falco. It was the night they had found the body of Sophia, Joseph Dubois’s former servant. Cass’s cheeks grew hot as she thought of Falco tugging at fabric and undoing laces, at the two of them tangled together beneath a blanket as their mouths tasted each other. Idiota, she cursed herself. She was certainly full of surprises. Unfortunately, not all of them would make Luca look at her with such tenderness.
“You’re starting to get winded. You should let me take a turn,” he said.
Cass shook her head. She’d force herself to row until her back was breaking and her hands were bleeding before she did that. Luca would reinjure his shoulder if he tried, and besides, she deserved to suffer. She had dishonored him with Falco. She had put her handmaid in harm’s way, and Siena had died. Cass didn’t know if she would ever forgive herself.
She followed the southern coastline of the Giudecca around to the east and then turned south before reaching San Giorgio Maggiore. The shore of San Domenico appeared out of the mist, its tall grass blowing back and forth as if beckoning to her. Cass navigated the boat past an open field and around to Agnese’s dock. She looped a coil of rope around one of the mooring posts. Tying what she hoped was a secure knot, Cass rose slowly to her feet in the wobbling craft.
Luca took her arm and steadied her as she alighted from the boat. She turned to give him her hand as he stepped from the batèla after her.
They stood at the edge of the dock, uncertain, a pair of silhouettes backlit by the moon. Cass couldn’t believe she was home again. It had been only a week, but the place felt alien to her. Patches of the normally neatly manicured lawn
were unkempt, the shrubbery that framed the front of the villa beginning to overtake the grass. Her knees went a bit quivery, and her heart rose into her throat. Giuseppe had never neglected his gardening duties. What did it mean?
“Cass? What is it?” Luca asked.
Rather than explain why the unruly hedges seemed a harbinger of bad tidings, Cass stepped from the dock onto the lawn. Luca was close behind her. As she neared the front door, she could see the draperies of black fabric that covered the door and all of the windows.
Draperies that meant someone was dead.
A shudder moved through Cass. She reached out for the carved molding around the door to steady herself, trying to deny to her brain what her heart was screaming. Her aunt was fine—she had to be. For all Cass knew, the swatches of fabric might be for her. Perhaps after failing to locate them, the Senate had declared Cass and Luca dead. Agnese could have hung the ceremonial draperies to honor Cass, despite having no body to bury.
Luca rested a hand on her back. His touch gave her the strength to move forward, but the front door was locked, the villa completely quiet. Cass didn’t know what she’d been expecting. It was late—of course the place would be secure. She wondered who might answer the door if she knocked. Bortolo, the butler, had been Agnese’s servant for more than twenty years, but age had taken its toll and Cass had no doubt he was dozing somewhere. Agnese’s handmaid, Narissa, might still be lurking about, mending chemises by candlelight.
But Cass couldn’t knock. Even though she thought of the servants as family, she and Luca were criminals, with large bounties on their heads. She had to assume that anyone would turn them in for a life-changing amount of gold. Men had betrayed their real families for much less.
Instead, Cass led Luca around to the back of the villa, to the garden, where she was dismayed to find that Agnese’s rosebushes looked as if they hadn’t seen water in days. The stems were gnarled and twisted, like witches’ fingers; the blooms hung low. Even the marigolds had withered, their petals littering the dirt like a field of golden teardrops.
Luckily, the servants’ door was unlocked, and Cass and Luca slipped quietly into the kitchen. And then she knew for certain. It wasn’t merely the faint smell of decay, masked by rosewater and the tinge of something medicinal. It was a feeling that overwhelmed her the instant she set foot inside the villa. A feeling of emptiness.
A feeling of death.
“Death permeates all things.”
—THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE
two
Luca stood silently beside Cass as she bolted the door. He sensed something too—she could see it in the furrow of his brow. He opened his mouth to speak, and Cass quickly pressed a finger to his lips. If it was true, Agnese would be laid out upstairs in the portego. Cass needed to go alone, but she couldn’t leave Luca standing in the kitchen where anyone might discover him.
“This way,” she mouthed. Luca could wait for her in the storage area. It was just down the corridor from where they stood and likely still unlocked since no one but she, Siena, and Feliciana had accessed it lately. Even if the unthinkable had happened, Cass reminded herself, she and Luca needed to stick to the plan. They could steal some gold from the stash Agnese kept in her armoire, sneak a couple of hours of sleep in the storage area, and be out of the villa before sunrise.
Feliciana had concealed herself in the room before going to Florence with Cass, and her makeshift pallet was still in the corner, the pillow and blanket on top of one of the crates. Cass pulled a third crate over to account for Luca’s extra height. She took both of his hands in hers and squeezed them. “Wait here for me.”
Luca lowered himself to the crates with her assistance. “Cass, your aunt. Did she—”
“I . . . I have to go see. Alone.” Cass fumbled over the words. “You understand?”
“Of course.” His hand lingered on hers. “No matter what has happened, you’ll be all right.”
“I know. Try to rest. I’ll get everything we need.”
Luca nodded. He adjusted his position slightly to take pressure off his wounded shoulder. “You’re certain you don’t want me to go with you . . .”
“I’m fine,” Cass said.
She returned to the kitchen, passing the butler’s office on the way. Loud snoring echoed from behind the wooden door. Bortolo was dozing in his office as she had expected. Cass crept her way up the servants’ stairs, pausing after each step to listen for movement. Nothing. The dining room was deserted, the high-backed chairs floating around a space where the mahogany table had stood.
Now it would be in the portego, with Agnese’s coffin laid out on top of it. Holding her breath, Cass paused at the threshold to the great room, her heart accelerating beneath her breastbone, her stomach lacing itself into knots. Finally, she thrust her body through the arched doorway.
The portego smelled of cinnamon and rosewater. Pungent. Too sweet. The kind of scent designed to disguise rather than perfume. Cass waved one hand in front of her face to disperse the smell. The furniture had all been draped in black cloth, and the room was dark except for the wavering light of four black candles, one on each corner of the dining room table.
And there was her aunt.
Dead.
Just as Cass had known, somewhere deep in her bones, as soon as she’d set foot on the property.
Agnese lay in her coffin, dressed in her favorite lavender gown. Her eyes were closed, and her wiry gray hair was pulled back from her face and tucked beneath a black veil. Cass moved to her aunt’s side and took the cold, firm hand into her own fingers. “Forgive me,” she whispered.
Glancing quickly around to make sure no one had heard her, Cass knelt beside the table and began to pray. As she recited the words of the Lord’s Prayer, she felt almost as if Agnese’s spirit hovered close by. She finished the prayer and started again, soothed by the repetition.
When she had finished praying, Cass rose to her feet. She left the portego, passing by her own bedchamber on the way to her aunt’s room at the very back of the villa. For one brief moment, she allowed herself to fantasize that when she opened the door, she would find Agnese beyond it, that her aunt would sit up in the dark and chastise Cass for wandering the house at such a late hour.
But the door opened to a room that was empty, to a bed that was expertly made. Swallowing back the heaviness in her throat, Cass quickly located Agnese’s stash of coins in her armoire and then let the wooden doors fall shut. As she turned to hurry from the room, she noticed various medicinal potions and salves scattered across the top of her aunt’s dressing table. Folding her skirt into a sack, she gathered up everything useful she could carry, including a pair of candles and a box of tinder. Maybe together, she and Luca could figure out something that would help his shoulder heal completely.
She snatched one last thing before leaving, the embroidered wool blanket that lay folded at the foot of the bed. Cass had covered her aunt with this very blanket so many times that a flash of guilt settled in her gut, but she or Luca would need it more than Agnese would tonight. She had to focus on what was important. Hiding. Healing. Taking down the Order.
Cass returned to the storage area and pulled a second set of crates over to where Luca lay. She placed the folded blanket on top of them and dumped out the items she had taken from Agnese’s room. Lighting a candle, she studied each of the salves and potions individually—looking at them, sniffing them, even going as far as to taste one of them.
Theriac. Her father had used it for all sorts of ailments. More recently, Belladonna’s evil physician, Piero, had used it on Cass’s dog bite. She flexed her arm and thought about the scars that still remained. Fortunately, she had no lingering pain or stiffness.
Shielding his eyes from the candle, Luca rolled over to face her. “Did you see your aunt?”
“I did,” Cass said. “She looks very . . . peaceful.”
Lu
ca reached out for Cass’s hand. “I am so sorry. I—”
Cass shook off his touch. She didn’t want to talk about or even think about Agnese, ghost-pale, on display for all to see, but words spilled from her lips. “It doesn’t feel real. She and Siena, they were all that I had.”
“You have me now, Cass,” Luca said. “You will always have me, if you want me.”
If only it were true. Of course she wanted Luca, but would he want her if he found out about her involvement with Falco? Probably not, and Cass wouldn’t blame him.
“You should run while you can,” she said, only half joking. “I fear I may be cursed. Everyone who has truly cared about me is dead.”
“Except for me.” Luca looked up at her, his eyes full of softness she didn’t deserve.
“Let’s try to keep you that way.” Cass forced a half smile as she showed him the theriac balm. “Move your shirt so I can see your wound. My father used to swear by this concoction.”
Luca pulled his torn shirt down over his shoulder, and Cass tried not to stare at the bands of scar tissue running down the center of his chest—macabre mementos of his time as a prisoner of the Doge, evidence of torture that he refused to speak about. She needed a clean bit of cloth to apply the salve, and the soiled, wrinkly dress she’d been living in wasn’t going to suffice. There had to be linens or napkins or even a chemise in one of these boxes she could use. Hopping up from her seat, she went to the nearest crate and tried to pry the lid off. It was stuck.
Kneeling down, she braced herself against the side of the crate for leverage. She curled her fingertips underneath the edge of the wood and pulled back with all her might. The lid came loose with a jolt, and she tumbled backward, knocking a small box from the top of a nearby stack in the process. The box’s contents poured out on the stone floor in a clatter.
“Are you all right?” Luca sat up to see what had happened.
