A Summoning of Demons

by Cate Glass

  As the afternoon shadows lengthened, my brother and I strode across the Piazza Livello, the heart of Cantagna. Before us stood the harmonious architecture of the Palazzo Segnori, where Cantagna’s citizen-elected Sestorale met to shape the rule of law, and the High Magistrate held court to uphold it. To our right sat the imposing Gallanos Bank, the engine that had made Cantagna the wealthiest of the nine independencies of the Costa Drago. And to the left were the wide steps and twisting columns of the venerable temple of learning known as the Philosophic Academie.

  Just behind the Academie, out of sight from our position, sat the Villa Giusti, the fortified residence of the Confraternity Directorate—the three directors responsible for all Confraternity activities in Cantagna. Our destination.

  The squeeze of time had left our immediate objective clear. Stop the giuntura ceremony. Our choice of strategy was similarly limited. A subtle infiltration of the household to discover a flaw in the ironbound contract or some other malleability in the situation would take days at the least—with no promise of success. Incinerating Villa Giusti to force everyone out, as Neri preferred, was physically impossible. To thwart the implementation of the contract, we had to remove one of the principals.

  Clearly Donato was our proper target. Abducting Livia alone, or even both of them together, risked exposing our purpose as disrupting the betrothal. We could demand ransom for Donato as if we were an ordinary snatch-crew like the Skull Knights, albeit one that could successfully break into a fortified dwelling. Once we had Donato safely hidden away, we would have to persuade him to disavow the marriage contract in the face of his family’s express wishes. Threats, gentle persuasion, logic? We’d no idea what might work.

  Strategizing the snatch was simple. We must steal him from his own bed in the middle of the night. We knew too little of the young man to lure him into our clutches.

  It was the doing seemed an unscalable cliff. The Villa Giusti not only housed three important, well-guarded families, but served as the headquarters of the most dedicated and efficient military cohort in Cantagna. It also appeared very near impregnable.

  Before coming to the piazza, Neri and I had assessed the Villa Giusti’s main—and only—public gate. The massive walls were protected at four corners by stout hexagonal towers; a fifth tower topped the gate itself. A queue of delivery carts and visitors proceeded slowly through the gates. A second queue waited to pass back outward. Both ingoing and outgoing carts were searched, and all visitors presented documents on both entry and exit. The grand duc of Riccia himself could have no more secure a residence.

  The assessment was discouraging. Portraying ourselves as visitors, attaching ourselves to deliveries, or even smuggling a captive out of the compound once we got inside would be impossible. Placidio, whose talent for anticipating danger made him near invincible in a fight, could no doubt handle the six praetorians standing post outside the portcullis, but who knew how many more occupied the towers or stood at ready in the courtyard beyond. We needed stealth.

  No doubt Dumond could provide us a passage through the masonry at some other position. But a cursory scout revealed no easily accessible stretch of the wall where he could paint unobserved.

  One possible entry had presented itself during our inspection. High above the valley of stone that separated the villa’s encircling walls and the Philosophic Academie stretched a covered footbridge. The directors and Confraternity philosophists who had business at the villa or the Academie would not like negotiating the delays and confusions of common business at the main gate while moving between the two buildings. Perhaps entry from the footbridge would be less daunting.

  So here we were, scouting. While Placidio searched for a place to stash our hostage, Dumond was hiring transport to carry us there. Vashti stitched capes and hoods bearing the death’s-head emblem of the Cavalieri Teschio for the snatch, while assembling supplies needed to sustain our hostage and the Chimera long enough to convince the young man to do as we wished.

  Neri’s steps slowed. He didn’t remove his eyes from the formidable Academie entrance. “So we’re just going to march in there like we belong?”

  “We are wearing the costumes of acceptance,” I said, brushing the sleeveless gray academic gown Vashti had hastily concocted for me. Its lappets and hem were trimmed with the white border designating senior Academie students—anzioni; Neri’s was trimmed with the green of new students—allievi. “I’ll talk our way through the halls, and you observe. No one’s going to ask you to write an essay on Floriatto’s theory of drama.”

  “So you say.”

  In his seventeen years, danger had never deterred Neri. He’d grown up wild, angry, and illiterate in the squalor of a family with too many children and no use for the tainted one who could get them all murdered. Over the year since my return to the Beggars Ring, my brother had grown immensely in discipline, skills, and judgment, thanks mostly to Placidio, but he’d made very little progress in academics. More fearsome to Neri than the magic sniffers who might lurk in the marble halls were students and tutors who spoke the language of the intellect.

  The hot breeze tugged at the papers I carried—a few documents from my legal clients and a rolled map I’d stolen from the City Architect’s office for our last adventure. A flurry of pigeons swooped past as we quickened our pace, Neri one step behind me. My experience with Academie tutors told me that academic rank and protocol were of inordinate importance.

  Spirits, a little more time to plan would be useful!

  As we ascended the last few steps, one of the tall carved doors flew open. A red-gowned philosophist and a student, engaged in lively conversation, swept across the portico and past Neri and me.

  Neri darted up and caught the door before it fell shut in front of me. Nerves, I guessed, certainly not some sudden blossoming of manners.

  “Be confident,” I whispered as I passed him. “We belong here as much as they.”

  Yet my own assurance flagged once we entered the Academie rotunda. The ceiling rose at least three stories to a dome circled with a base of windows. Light poured in from above, illuminating chaos below.

  On the upper gallery that overlooked the rotunda, a tutor rang a handbell as if the universe were afire and she the fire warden. An arched doorway to our left disgorged a chattering mass of allievi in their green-trimmed gray, while other allievi and anzioni crowded past them to enter the hall they’d just abandoned. More students, with here and there a red-gowned philosophist intermingled, scurried into other halls. Pairs and trios of students and tutors ascended or descended the curved branches of a split staircase that led up to the gallery and more arched doorways. Hundreds of people on the move—and every one of them talking. Those not traveling up, down, in, or out stood in clumps of three or five or more—talking, listening, arguing. I’d assumed the Academie would be somber and strict, not a hive of bees, all of whom had something to say.

  No one stood gawking at the somber portraits of studious men and women that adorned the pale walls. No one dawdled beside the statuary scattered like game pieces on the rectangular tiles. Only Neri and I stood idle … and one other pairing.

  At the foot of the split stair, in a niche between its branches, a grizzled man in a bilious green-and-yellow tabard sat watching the comings and goings. Crouched on the floor at his side, linked to his belt by a length of chain, was a human-like figure sheathed head to toe in a skin of green silk.

  The sniffer’s head swayed slowly side to side like that of a restive hound. We needed to keep moving.

  “Come, Nico,” I said, choosing the rightmost branch of the stair. “Let’s find a study room to review our map.”

  Somewhere on that upper gallery, we should find a route to the footbridge and Villa Giusti.

  “Look interested in whatever I babble,” I said quietly as we joined the throng on the shallow steps.

  As we climbed, I rattled on about the military history of Cantagna. Neri cocked his head as if listening carefully. None but I coul
d see his eyes roaming the people on the opposite arm of the stair, those on the floor below, those behind or above us. We knew to note doorways, alcoves, artworks, lamps that might remain lit after sunset, whatever there was to be seen. Placidio had taught us to be observant.

  Neri paused when we reached the top of the stair—the center point of the U-shaped gallery. “I have a question, anziana…”

  As he posed a question about tunnels used for plague victims, we stepped out of the way of those ascending behind us. Three clusters of students and tutors passed us, dispersing when they reached the top. Neri only moved again when a lone woman who trailed behind the three groups passed us. The woman wore a red cloak trimmed in gold—a senior philosophist.

  I nodded, understanding his move. Senior philosophists were more likely than lower-ranked scholars to visit Villa Giusti.

  As we strolled along the gallery behind the woman, I spoke of a ten-year war with Tibernia, and an attack that had scorched the eastern half of the upper city and brought the plague to Cantagna a century ago.

  The drone of lecturing spilled from one arched doorway, the back-and-forth of sharp questions and answers from another. When the woman philosophist turned into one of the archways, we continued past the opening. A glance showed a chamber filled with lamplit tables. Students sat poring over books or pages, alone or together, some writing, some whispering. A study room, not a passage to Villa Giusti. From there to the gallery’s end at the front wall of the rotunda, we saw no sign of any passage or any bridge.

  We retraced our steps.

  “Anziana! What are you doing?” The high-pitched challenge came from behind me just as we passed the head of the stair into the unexplored half of the gallery. “This allievo belongs in tutorial at this hour. As do you most likely.”

  An icy wash crossed my skin.

  With all I knew of philosophist hauteur, I pointed an autocratic finger at Neri to hold position and then pivoted slowly toward the man behind me.

  The man had a massive forehead. His tiny eyebrows looked like bits of juniper scrub embedded halfway up a cliff. The lack of gold or silver trim on his red gown named him an ordinary tutor or administrator. The lappets of his gown were sewn with pockets, bulging with an interesting variety of shapes, as if his duties included a great deal of fetching and carrying.

  “Excuse me, Master—?”

  “Tano,” he announced, as if only an idiot would not know it. “You are out of—”

  “I am Eliani di Corso, Master Tano,” I said, bowing my head smartly, “a mentor from the Invidian Academie assigned to this student. You’ve likely heard of Captain Vito di Savene, brought to Cantagna at the behest of Segnoré Rodrigo di Fermi to retrain his House cohort after some lamentable failure in the spring. Captain di Savene has brought his family here from Invidia, and this is his son, Nico.”

  Neri gave a stiff bow, as I had taught him. Passing students and tutors glanced at us in curiosity.

  I plunged ahead, not waiting for the philosophist to take control of our exchange. “The captain hopes that the famed Cantagna Academie can provide his son better prospects than—excuse my disparagement—the inadequate resources of the Invidian Academie. Director Meucci appointed me to accompany Nico and mentor him until his proficiency is up to Cantagnese standards.”

  Tano pruned his lips and wrinkled his mighty brow, clearly unsure whether to preen, reprove, or investigate. Questioning would expose his ignorance of matters regarding Fermi, a notable member of the Sestorale, and Meucci, a Confraternity director he’d never heard of. Tano didn’t look like a man who enjoyed displaying ignorance on any matter.

  “Seems a very odd situation to me,” he snapped. “The youth should have a mentor from this Academie.”

  I leaned my head toward Tano, as if sharing a confidence, and dropped my voice. “Well, of course, it is the problematic dialect, Master. Invidians are as like to be mistaken for tribesmen of Empyria as citizens of a Costa Drago independency. I myself was born in Varela and received most of my education there. But I am as new to your Academie as Nico, so perhaps you could direct me to your map library? Nico is most excellent at maps, and I was thinking that’s where we might start in smoothing out his language skills.”

  “Maps and other documents are found just there.” He pointed a well-manicured finger at a doorway arch ahead of us. “But you’ll need the documentarian, who is currently engaged downstairs, to unlock the bookpresses and chests. Students are forbidden to rummage among valuable documents as their whims take them.”

  “The Varela Academie is similarly disciplined, Master. We will examine the map I’ve brought as we await the return of the documentarian.” I tapped the scroll I’d managed not to crush in a fit of nerves. “Fortune’s benefice for the coming evening, Master Tano.”

  Without waiting for his reply, I signaled Neri to proceed down the gallery. Tano’s mouth dropped open.

  My back burned as I took up our discussion of plagues and crypts—adding a touch of Invidian inflection. It was all I could do not to look backward.

  Determined not to hurry, Neri and I strolled past an arch that opened to a lecture hall. The next one opened into a cluster of smaller chambers populated with individual students and tutors working together.

  An elaborate cornice shaped as a lion’s head marked each of the opposing corners where the gallery spanning the back wall of the rotunda joined the shorter side galleries. We were approaching the corner when two red-robed men emerged from an archway directly under the lion’s head. One of them wore a crimson toque, trimmed in gold; the spare planes of his cheek were deadly familiar.

  “… an uproar. Honestly, Rinaldo, it’s short notice for such a celebration.” Engrossed in conversation, the two deigned us only a glance.

  “Indeed. But the world is ripe for certainty,” said the man in the toque. Rinaldo di Bastianni, Director of the Philosophic Academie. Father of the man we planned to abduct. Friend of il Padroné, thus a man who could recognize il Padroné’s whore.

  “In here, Nico.” Heart thumping, I shoved Neri through the doorway Tano had indicated and near stepped on his heels as I followed. “Sit. You must attend your lessons else appear eternally ignorant!”

  Orderly arrangements of book presses and scroll cases surrounded four long tables. The chamber was dim, only a lamp set in a bracket by the doorway was lit. No one occupied the neatly ordered stools. I spread the map on the table in front of Neri and kept my back to the doorway, babbling of Cantagna’s history.

  A shadow blocked the light from the gallery. Bastianni. “Who are you? What are you doing here unsupervised?”

  Head bowed, I gave him the same story I’d told earlier, adding, “Master Tano ordered us to wait here for the documentarian.”

  “Hmph.” It seemed an eternal pause until he moved on.

  I sagged to the stool beside Neri.

  The sniffer at the bottom of the stair and Master Tano at the top had unsettled me more than they should. Then to encounter Bastianni himself …

  “You don’t need me to—to let you out, do you?” said Neri, staring at my face. “You look mostly like yourself, but you sound just like one of these pinchy folk.”

  I smothered a laugh. “I’m myself. Just need to take a breath.”

  Neri knew very well that I wasn’t planning on using my impersonation magic on this occasion, not in the very heart of the Confraternity, but he was understandably nervous about any sudden change in that plan. My very useful talent was still hampered by its most inconvenient flaw. I was unable to shake off the magic and become Romy again on my own—a terrifying result, as I had learned through hard experience. To trigger this relinquishing, someone had to touch my skin and speak my name aloud. Only our friend Teo had managed it elsewise, a direct manifestation of the connection—the thread—that bound us together.

  “Good,” Neri said. He positioned himself behind a cupboard where he could see into the gallery. “There’s no sign of action behind us.”

  �
��The one in the toque was Director Bastianni.”

  “Bastianni. The same—?” He swallowed hard and took another quick glance through the doorway.

  “That’s right. The groom’s father.”

  “Makes sense. Since we came up the stair, there’s been a regular processional through that door under the lion’s head, where he came out. Mostly folk in red, not gray. I’ll lay you a silver solet that’s our bridge. Let’s go see.”

  Neri had recovered from the shock faster than I. And he was right. We needed more than a likely location for the bridge entry. “Let’s take a quick stroll and see what we’re facing,” I said. “Then we’ll beat an orderly retreat.”

  “We need to get a look inside the villa walls, too. The place could have a thousand rooms for all we know. Just give me a distraction. You know the kind of thing will work. You draw them out, and I’ll get through whatever opens onto that bridge.”

  I, too, hated the thought of us going in blind. The high walls had prevented even a glimpse of the house, and none of us had ever been inside Villa Giusti. If we had a hint of where Donato was housed, our night’s gambit would go much faster. But using magic to get past a guarded doorway merely for a scouting expedition was a terrible risk with sniffers about, especially when Placidio and Dumond weren’t with us.

  “We cannot put them on alert,” I whispered. “And you’ve nothing to aim for, so your magic wouldn’t work to get you in anyway, and we’re so far from home … could you even get out?”

  “There’s a cutler out on the piazza who’s displaying some fine daggers on his cart. He’s got one I’d give a month’s eating to have. I could walk to it from most anywhere.”

  To trigger his magic, Neri needed a destination he could visualize and an object he desired. As long as the destination object was reasonably close, his magic could get him through walls even so thick as Villa Giusti’s. He claimed the real spark was the wanting—sometimes for the object, sometimes for what he could do with it.

  “What if he’s sold the dagger?”