Fiona Paul - Belladonna

She glanced across the vast field to where the outline of Belladonna’s villa loomed. She wasn’t going back there. Not ever. She needed to return to Florence, to Madalena and Siena. But she was at least a couple of miles from Palazzo Alioni, with no real guarantee that she’d be able to find it even if she did walk all the way to the city.

A chuffing sound made her turn her head. There were still two carriages parked on the road along the side of the church, undoubtedly belonging to the Order members who were still lingering inside. Cass crept toward them. Both drivers stood in front of the lead carriage, passing a silver flask back and forth.

She quickly circled behind the second carriage. It had a rack on top for supplies as well as a deep wooden compartment built into the back. Were the owners going into Florence? Probably, but there was no guarantee. She opened the door to the compartment and peered into the black space. It was big enough for a pair of trunks.

Or a person.

Cass glanced back toward the front of the church. The wooden door was swinging open. There was no time to think. She used her good arm to pull herself up and into the compartment, gathering her cloak around her to protect her skin from the rough wood. Folding her knees up toward her chest, she pulled the door shut from inside, tucking the hem of her cloak in the latch to prevent it from engaging and trapping her inside.

Santo cielo! What had she done? What if these people lived farther away from Florence than Belladonna? What if they decided to shuck off their cloaks and tuck them into the luggage compartment? They might think she was a robber and stab her.

But Cass couldn’t change her mind now. If she tried to slip out, she would be discovered. Besides, almost any destination would be preferable to Villa Briani. She struggled to make out the sound of approaching footsteps, but her blood was drumming in her ears and her heart was rattling beneath her breastbone, blocking all noises from the outside until the door to the riding compartment opened with a rusty groan. She held her breath.

Voices sounded. A man and a woman. Their words were muffled, but Cass didn’t think she recognized either speaker.

Seconds later, the horse whinnied and the wheels beneath Cass began to roll. It took all of her concentration to hold her body still and keep from crying out each time the carriage hit a bump or a rock. She cradled her injured arm against her chest, trying to protect it from the compartment’s hard angles.

Each time the carriage turned, Cass tried to decipher whether she was headed toward Florence, but all the bouncing around had left her hopelessly dizzy, and the darkness threatened to smother her. All she could do was hope for the best.

It seemed like an eternity before the wheels slowed beneath her and the carriage came to a stop. The door opened and Cass heard the passengers alight. She strained to hear their animated voices, wishing she could make out what they were saying. Their footsteps receded, and she was just about to open the compartment when she heard another voice. The horse chuffed and stamped its feet. The driver must be unhooking it to stable it for the evening.

Cass waited until she heard the horse plod away. Then she waited some more, just in case. Her eyes had begun to adjust to the blackness of the compartment, and she could make out the tight walls of the cramped space. Her knees were still folded up against her torso. It would feel good to stretch her legs.

She opened the compartment a crack and peeked out. More darkness, with just the faintest hint of moonlight streaming through a high window. She opened the door the rest of the way and slid her body out of the carriage. She was in the stable of a private palazzo. She crept out onto the street and was relieved to see what appeared to be Florence.

But where exactly in Florence? Cass wasn’t sure. She twisted her neck from side to side and stretched her arm over her head. She knew she should be scared, that walking the streets alone was dangerous, but she was just relieved to be away from Villa Briani.

She picked a street and continued straight along it, hoping she might hit the banks of the Arno or find something she recognized. Each time she saw the tall spike of a church steeple in the distance, she hurried forward, hopeful it would be the Campanile, and next to it the beautiful Duomo, Santa Maria del Fiore.

A scratching sound rose suddenly from the silence behind her, but when she whirled around to see who was following her, she came face-to-face with the discarded paper wrapping from someone’s buy at the market, blowing and twisting its way down the path. She shook her head. Would she ever stop jumping at shadows?

Just as despair threatened to overcome her, Cass saw something familiar: a wooden sign shaped like a wine goblet swinging back and forth in the breeze. I Setti Dolori. The taverna she had gone to with Falco.

Cass retraced that path they had taken when they left, hurrying quickly past the spot where they’d kissed. She crossed the Piazza del Mercato Vecchio, which was quiet except for a single homeless man who was fast asleep on the steps outside of the church. As she approached Palazzo Alioni from behind, Cass realized she had another problem. No one was expecting her. The servants would all be asleep and the door would be locked. She would have to sleep in the stable.

She didn’t mind. Slipping inside the darkened enclosure, Cass barely noticed the stink of manure or the roughness of the hay she lay down in. Her eyes were drawn to the gaudy pair of unicorns painted on Palazzo Alioni’s carriage. She was finally safe.

But she had failed.

The Book of the Eternal Rose was gone, and Luca’s execution was just over a week away.

Light filtering through the high stable windows woke her in the early morning. Plucking a few bits of hay from her hair, she smoothed her oversized cloak and knocked gingerly on the front door of Palazzo Alioni. The butler looked bleary-eyed as he opened the front door.

“ Bongiorno. ” Cass headed straight for the stairs before he could even reply. She felt stronger on her feet than she had in days. Just getting away from Villa Briani seemed to have improved her condition. She slipped into her little room and hurriedly closed the door behind her. Almost without thinking, she dropped the dead bolt into place. She had never been so happy to see the stark walls and dusty painting of the Virgin.

She went to her trunk and flipped open the leather top, relieved to see the bundle of parchment about the Order, along with her journal.

Cass grabbed the journal and pulled the little chair over to the washing table. Her quill was still right where she had left it almost two weeks earlier. Sadly, the ink had dried up. She flung the journal back into her trunk with a sigh. Thumbing through the papers from the tomb, Cass took note of each mention of the Book of the Eternal Rose. Cass felt certain she had discovered the book’s hiding place in the armoire with the broken lock, but who had taken it? And what would Belladonna do when she found out?

Cass understood, now, how Joseph Dubois was connected to the Order, and why Angelo de Gradi was in Florence. Dubois had financed some of the Order’s depraved research before starting his own sister chapter in Venice. De Gradi was there to make sure that the Frenchman’s generosity wasn’t forgotten, and also to glean information from Belladonna about alternative strategies for producing the fifth humor.

She sat on the side of the bed and ran a hand through her tangled hair. There had to be a way to save Luca that didn’t involve the Book of the Eternal Rose.

“Signorina Cass?” Siena called to her from the hallway. The doorknob jiggled. “Are you all right? Why is the door locked?”