Starling

by Fiona Paul

  She examined the door again. What sort of word would someone like Dubois use? She tried science and power and immortality. The door didn’t open.

  Suddenly a voice spoke from the shadows. “Stop.”

  Cass whirled around, her candle in one hand, the other in her pocket, fingers twisting around her dagger’s hilt. Feliciana stood before her, looking radiant. Her hair had grown long enough to lie flat, and her skin glowed in the dim light. Cass’s jaw dropped slightly and she took a step back, not because of how Feliciana looked, but because of what she was holding.

  A kitchen knife, pointed at Cass’s chest.

  “So powerful is grief that it can drive a man to madness.”

  —THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE

  twenty-four

  Feliciana, it’s me.” Cass set her candle on the dressing table and reached up slowly to remove her wig.

  “I know it’s you, I dressed you for years. I’d recognize you anywhere.” Feliciana’s voice broke apart. “It’s always you, isn’t it?”

  Cass struggled to reconcile what she was seeing with any possible reality. Feliciana, threatening her with a dagger? Did that mean she was more than just a servant here? Was she working for the Order? Had she really led Cass into a trap for Piero, as Belladonna had claimed? “Are you one of them now?” Cass asked. “Did he promise you immortality?”

  Feliciana ignored the questions. “You always find a way to have exactly what you wish, regardless of the cost.” The knife trembled in her hand. “One man wasn’t enough for you? You had to sacrifice my sister so you could have two?”

  “You know that isn’t what happened.”

  “Where’s Falco? I heard about the workshop burning. Did you use him to shield yourself from the fire?” Feliciana’s voice was laced with rage.

  “What? No. I—” But the look on Cass’s face told Feliciana everything she needed to know.

  “Unbelievable. Yet another dead because he did your bidding. And now you’ve got your thugs killing more innocents just because of some bizarre obsession with a book?”

  “No one is getting killed,” Cass said, hoping it was true. She was half tempted to throw Feliciana’s words right back in her face. How dare she act so high and mighty if she had joined up with the Order of the Eternal Rose? But Cass didn’t know how long it had been since the guests fled the party. Soldiers might be arriving any minute. Time was running out. “Look, I don’t know what he promised you, but there will be no elixir. Dubois is a killer. The book proves it. Put the knife down and help me open this panel. I’ll read it to you myself.”

  Feliciana stepped sideways so that she stood between Cass and the wooden panel. She didn’t put her knife down. “I’m not working for the Order, Cass,” she huffed. “You think they’d involve a common servant in their quest for immortality?”

  “So Piero Basso just happened to find us on a deserted canal?” Cass cast a quick look back over her shoulder. Where were Rowan and his men? She didn’t want to go blade to blade with Feliciana. No matter what her former handmaid had done, Cass wasn’t willing to shed her blood. If the others came, they could subdue Feliciana without injuring her. “He took me and left you?” Cass asked.

  “I knew they were after you, so I talked loudly and made sure they knew I was going to meet you. I wanted you to suffer like I’ve been suffering, even if I had to suffer with you.” Feliciana’s voice cracked again. “I don’t know why Piero didn’t take me too. I guess I don’t have your special blood.”

  “Feliciana!” Cass’s lower lip began to tremble. “They would have killed me if I hadn’t escaped.”

  Feliciana’s eyes were wet. “You should have died with my sister.”

  “That’s not true,” a voice said from behind Cass.

  She spun around. Luca stood in the center of the room, his mask askew. He was breathing heavily, but appeared unharmed. “Dubois and his guards are locked in the butler’s office. He says he’ll die before give up the location of the book. Rowan seems eager to call his bluff.”

  “I know where it is,” Cass said. “Let him be. The Senate can deal with Dubois.”

  Feliciana had her back against the wooden panel now. She turned from Cass to Luca, her knife still extended. “I won’t let you have it. Both of you should have died with her. You don’t get to have everything you want while my sister gets nothing.”

  “You don’t understand,” Cass said. Perhaps it was time to tell Feliciana the entire story. There had been enough lies and half-truths. “In dying, Siena got something she never could have had while alive. She sacrificed herself for—”

  Luca beat her to it. “Me.” He turned to Cass for verification.

  She nodded. “I didn’t realize you knew.”

  “I always sort of suspected, but she never did anything un-toward.”

  Realization began to dawn on Feliciana’s face. “You?” She arched an eyebrow at Luca. “You were the man Siena was in love with? She would never tell me his name, only that he was highly inappropriate for her. Caspita. Now I see why she became so distraught in Florence as your execution date drew near.”

  “I didn’t tell you, Feliciana, because I didn’t wish to speak ill of the dead,” Cass said. “It is like Luca told me at Palazzo Dolce. No woman can control her thoughts.”

  Feliciana’s lips tightened into a hard line. “But she can control her words. You never even apologized.”

  Was that true? Cass might not have said the words, but surely Feliciana had recognized her grief. If not, she would fix that immediately. “I’m so—”

  “No.” Luca slashed at the air with his arm. “Cass did nothing wrong. Even after Siena was mortally wounded, Cass turned to go back for her. I had to drag her from the corridor, carry her to the quay and throw her into the water.”

  Feliciana looked back and forth between Cass and Luca. The knife wavered in her hand.

  Now that was definitely true. Cass had struggled to remember exactly what had happened between the moment Siena fell to the ground and the moment she and Luca were ensconced beneath a private dock, but she would never forget the impulse to turn toward Siena as her handmaid fell. Ever.

  “She would have died with your sister,” Luca continued, “but you know that isn’t what Siena would have chosen. If we had all died, her death would have been meaningless. Your sister’s brave act would have been nullified. That’s not what you would want for her.” He leaned in. “You know I’m right. Now give me the knife.”

  Feliciana didn’t speak. Her shoulders slumped and her hand fell to her side. Luca reached out and gently removed the kitchen knife from her grasp.

  She collapsed back against the wall, her slender frame sliding down the front of the wooden panel. “You’re right,” she whispered. “Siena wouldn’t have wanted you to die. Either of you. She loved you both.” She looked up at Cass, broken, miserable. “What have I done?”

  “Feliciana,” Cass said firmly. “Listen to me. You’ve done nothing. I’m fine. Help us open this door and you’ll be free of Joseph Dubois forever.”

  “But then where will I go?” Feliciana asked. She looked so afraid, younger, almost like Siena.

  Cass heard shouts through the bedroom window. Soldiers. They were close. “You can come with us,” she said hurriedly. “If you would like.”

  Both Luca and Feliciana looked shocked. “You would do that for me, after I betrayed you?” Feliciana asked.

  “I know what it’s like to have your emotions guide you into a storm.” Cass met Luca’s gaze. “I also know what it’s like to be rescued from that storm, to be forgiven.”

  Tentatively, Feliciana took a step forward. “And you’re certain Dubois will be arrested?”

  “Yes,” Cass said. There was not a whisper of doubt in her mind. She turned back to the wooden panel, her fingers stroking each of the six petals. “Can we hack through the wood?” she
wondered aloud.

  “Let’s find out.” Luca drew his sword.

  “No.” Feliciana reached out to touch Luca’s arm. “I know Joseph. He’ll have set a trap for thieves. If you try to break in, you’ll probably get stabbed with a wooden stake or have acid sprayed in your eyes.”

  “She’s right.” Pounding her fist against the center of the door in frustration, Cass tried to imagine other words that Dubois might use.

  Feliciana studied the letters inside each petal. She bit her lip in concentration. “Have you tried the word etched into the griffin’s sword?” When Cass furrowed her brow, Feliciana continued, “The griffin on the Dubois crest?”

  “Victory,” Luca said.

  “Good idea.” Cass’s heart hammered against her rib cage. Could it be that easy? She had a good feeling. Holding her breath, she pressed the petals that corresponded to the letters in the word victory.

  But nothing happened. And then she remembered the word on the crest was French, like Dubois. Of course! She pressed the petals again. V-I-C-T-O-I-R-E.

  The door still didn’t budge. Cass fought the urge to kick something. It had felt right. So right. Her eyes searched the room desperately, looking at the bed, the armoire, the painted murals, anything that might hold a clue.

  Wait. The murals: Dionysus, Athena, and Nike.

  Nike, the Greek goddess of victory.

  Cass turned back to the wooden panel and pressed the petals that corresponded with N-I-K-E.

  With a soft rumble, the panel slid back to reveal an opening in the wall.

  Finally. Cass prayed the secret enclosure held the Book of the Eternal Rose. It had to. She stepped inside and swallowed back a gasp. The chamber was about the same size as a tomb and laid out similarly, with shelves on either side of a narrow center passage. Only instead of coffins, the little room was full of treasure. Weapons and paintings, strands of precious rubies and emeralds, vases and ceramic plates that looked as if they had come from far-off lands. Feliciana lifted a jeweled crown from a velvet-lined shelf, her fingers gently tracing a network of glittering diamonds.

  Stepping forward, Cass found what she was looking for. Beneath a shelf covered with jeweled swords and daggers forged from obsidian was a box of black stone. Painted on the cover was a six-petaled flower inscribed in a circle.

  “Is it the book?” Feliciana knelt down next to Cass.

  Cass removed the lid from the box. A stack of parchment lay nestled inside. A hundred pages or more, handwritten. She scanned the top pages quickly. Lists of names. Equations. Research notes. “This is it,” she said. She almost couldn’t believe it. Finally, there would be proof. Proof of her parents’ innocence. Proof of Dubois’s guilt. Proof of the Order’s depraved activities.

  The ink blurred in front of her eyes and the parchment felt brittle beneath her fingertips as she imagined the future. A future without the Order of the Eternal Rose.

  Rowan hollered from the doorway. Cass saw the men assembled in the corridor.

  Luca touched her shoulder. “Cass. We need to go.”

  She nodded. She replaced the lid on the box and turned to leave.

  Feliciana was staring at a velvet purse filled with gold ducats. She traced the outline of a coin with one finger, almost as if she couldn’t believe the money was real. “Perhaps I should run away,” she said. “Leave Venice. Now that you have what you came for, do you still wish for me to come with you?”

  Cass paused. Feliciana had betrayed her, but she had also helped her open the secret room. And although what she had done was wrong, she had done it out of grief and anger. It might take time to rebuild the trust, but Cass was willing to try. Siena had died to save Luca. Cass would honor Siena’s memory by giving her sister another chance.

  “Take the coins if you like. I’m certain Dubois owes you,” Cass said. “And yes, the invitation to leave with us still stands.”

  Feliciana tossed the pouch of coins to the floor. “I don’t need his money,” she said. “I don’t need anything from him at all.” She exchanged a tentative smile with Cass.

  Cradling the stone box against her chest, Cass left the secret room without bothering to try to close the panel. Dubois would know they had been here, but by the time he came after them, it would be too late.

  “This book has the means to elevate or destroy the Order. It must never fall into the wrong hands.”

  —THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE

  twenty-five

  Feliciana sat crossed-legged on Cass’s bed at the brothel. The early morning sun shined through the open window, but the entire house was quiet.

  After they had fled Palazzo Dubois, everyone had returned to Palazzo Dolce, where Rowan and his men had rotated standing watch all night. Luca had insisted on taking a turn, and Cass assumed he was still sleeping. Thankfully, everyone had made it back to Palazzo Dolce without major injury, though apparently Flavia had to be carried out forcefully by Seraphina and Arabella because she didn’t want to leave Cass behind.

  “I still can’t believe you brought me here,” Feliciana said. “How can you be so kind, Signorina Cass? I lied to you and betrayed you.”

  Cass shook her head. “I forgive you. Now you need to forgive yourself. Guilt can make you crazy if you let it.”

  Someone knocked gently on the door, and Cass rose from her spot on the bed to open it. Flavia stood in the corridor, a worn copy of Sophocles’s Antigone tucked under her arm. Cass smiled down at her. “I thought you liked happy stories. That’s a tragedy, you know.”

  Flavia’s brow furrowed. “Octavia told me it was a tale of one girl’s undying loyalty to her brother.” She looked past Cass to where Feliciana sat. “Perhaps your friend could read with us.”

  “I cannot read,” Feliciana said. “But thank you for the invitation.” She bowed her head slightly. Ever since Cass had taken her hand as they fled the palazzo together, Feliciana had been a ghost of her former self. Cass knew this feeling, what it was like to be tormented by guilt.

  “Cass can teach you,” Flavia said brightly. At Feliciana’s look, she leaned back from the open door. “If you wish it, that is.”

  “Another time,” Cass said gently. She reached out to touch Flavia’s shoulder. “We’ll see you at dinner.”

  Flavia disappeared with her book and Cass turned back to Feliciana. “She means well,” she explained. “Just a little enthusiastic about certain things.”

  “She’s beautiful,” Feliciana said. “All of these women are.” She turned to study her own reflection in the mirror, running a hand through her fine golden hair. “It seems like forever before I will be beautiful again.”

  Cass almost laughed aloud. Was it possible that stunningly gorgeous Feliciana really thought the loss of her long hair had made her ugly? “You are as lovely as any of the women here,” she said.

  “You really think so?” Feliciana looked toward the window. “You really think men would want to spend time with a girl who looks like a boy?”

  This time Cass did laugh. “I assure you, you do not look like a boy,” she said drily. “I’m sure there are plenty of men who would prefer your current . . . unusual look.”

  Feliciana brightened. “If you were my sister, I might think you were just saying that to be kind. I miss her so much . . .”

  “I miss her too,” Cass said, taking Feliciana’s hand.

  ~

  The men from Il Sangue de Mezzanotte agreed to protect Palazzo Dolce for the next few days in case Dubois’s men came calling. Cass felt safe knowing that Rowan and the others were standing guard around the house.

  When Luca awoke, he and Cass read the Book of the Eternal Rose together. Cass skimmed past pages of chemical notations and equations and long lists of measurements and research data until she came across several journal entries by an unnamed source. The first one talked about how the Florentine chapter of the Order had p
rocured blood. Initially their members had given it willingly, but eventually they had started seeking blood elsewhere—purchasing it or stealing it.

  The next two pages detailed the discovery of the fifth humor, how the Order had experimented with differing ratios and heating temperatures to recombine the four humors extracted from the blood. Then Cass flipped to a page that mentioned a pair of Venetian prisoners. Her heart went still for a moment. Her hands trembled as she read the rest of the passage. No names were ever mentioned, but the prisoners were described as a married couple, former Order members. It was her parents. It had to be. They had been exposed as traitors when someone turned them in for stealing pages of the Book of the Eternal Rose. They had been lured back to Florence and held prisoner. Belladonna’s father had discovered that the blood of the woman produced a pure sample of the fifth humor. There was no mention of whether any elixir had been made.

  “Cass.” Luca was still reading over her shoulder.

  The page fell from Cass’s fingertips.

  “You don’t need to see all this,” he said softly. “I assure you, our parents were not evil.”

  But Cass continued to read. She read about Belladonna taking the helm from her father, about Piero joining the team and his new strategy to gather more blood with parties at Palazzo della Notte. She read about how Belladonna came up with the idea to disguise the needle marks as vampire bites and dispose of the girls once their blood was deemed inferior. She read about how Joseph Dubois had financed the bloodletting parties and also provided equipment for creating the sample elixirs. How he expected to be repaid with immortality, and how both the Venetian and Florentine members of the Order of the Eternal Rose would elevate themselves above God.