Fiona Paul - Belladonna

Cass sat next to him, leaning her head on his shoulder. Even in fresh clothing, he smelled of sweat and canal water, but she didn’t pull away. “I’m comfortable,” she said.

Luca draped the doublet over her arms and torso anyway. “Do you think you can sleep?”

She shook her head. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to sleep again.

But she did. In the morning she woke up with her head resting on Luca’s lap, the spare doublet clutched in her arms. She sat up, blinking in the sunlight that filtered through the trees.

The events of the night flooded back. Siena, sacrificing her life so that Cass and Luca could go free. I’m sorry. Cass thought the words as hard as she could. She felt certain that Siena could hear them all the way in heaven. Surely, she had gone to heaven. No one was more pure of soul than sweet Siena had been.

Cass’s chest ached. What if Agnese thought Siena and Cass had fled San Domenico together? What if Siena’s body wasn’t returned? She would be treated as a dead criminal, dumped in a ditch like the three girls tossed into an unmarked grave outside Florence. Another innocent victim of the Order.

The Order was responsible for everything—her parents’ deaths, Luca’s imprisonment, Cass’s attack.

Siena.

Luca groaned softly. Cass looked over at him; he was still asleep. He had dirt and leaves in his hair, and his chemise had managed to lose a button in the night. Cass couldn’t help but notice that his right shoulder was bleeding through the garment. She reached out to touch the bloom of red and he flinched.

“I don’t know,” he muttered, twitching in his sleep. His shirt fell open, exposing a series of jagged red scars down the front of his chest. Cass gasped. Luca opened his eyes.

He blinked hard. “What is it?”

“You’re bleeding.”

Luca looked down at his shoulder. “It’s fine. The water carried me into a mooring post last night. I think I got caught on a nail.”

“And this?” Cass reached out one shaking finger and traced down one of the scars.

Luca stiffened. He sat up abruptly, adjusting the fabric so that he was covered. “It isn’t as bad as it looks,” he said quickly.

“What . . . what did they do to you?” Cass’s voice trembled.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” His voice softened. “What’s done is done, Cass. We need to look forward, not back.”

“The Order,” Cass said, her resolve returning.

Luca looked at his hands. “Our parents spent most of their lives trying to destroy the Order of the Eternal Rose.”

“No, Luca.” Cass’s throat was thick. “You’ve got it wrong. Our parents were members. ”

“I know,” Luca said calmly. He lifted himself to his feet and then bent down to help her from the ground. Keeping one of her hands twined in his, he started walking toward the shore. “My father told me. But the Order wasn’t always bad, Cass. It was founded almost a hundred years ago by people who believed in the advancement of science through the examination of cadavers. Those with access to the dead formed a network. They shared their research. They took the name the Order of the Eternal Rose.”

Angelo de Gradi’s words from the church in Florence echoed in Cass’s head. He’d said something about the Order almost being taken down from within. Could he have been talking about her parents and the da Peragas? Hope flickered inside of her, but only for a moment. Cass shook her head. “Even today, de Gradi is still defiling bodies in the name of science. ”

“The goals have changed. The Order has abandoned its pursuit of scientific knowledge to chase after some mythical formula.” Luca’s expression darkened as he looked out over the water. “They seek everlasting life. They want to turn man into gods.”

“The fifth humor,” Cass said slowly. “I went to Florence, Luca. They’re using blood.” Breathlessly, she relayed the story of how she’d met Piero Basso at Palazzo della Notte and then later ended up watching Hortensa Zanotta’s execution. She told Luca about the dog attack, about Piero drugging her and stealing her blood, about following him to the church and watching Belladonna’s sacrificial bath.

By the time she was finished, the bell tower of San Giorgio had come to life. Cass counted six chimes.

“We can’t risk staying here much longer, but I know a place where we can go,” Luca said. “I have a friend from school whose father lives on the Giudecca. No one will come looking for us there.”

“Can we trust him?” Cass asked.

“We might not have to,” Luca said. “We might be able to hide away in his barn for a few days without him even knowing we’re there.”

“What then?” Cass asked. “Where will we go?”

Luca touched one hand to her lower back. “Wherever we need to,” he said, “to finish what our parents started.”

Cass glanced over. The sunlight glinted off Luca’s light brown eyes. “You still want to destroy the Order?” she asked. “After everything you’ve been through?”

He plucked a rock from the sandy soil and turned it over in his hands. “Especially after everything I’ve been through.” His eyes lifted to meet hers. “Everything we’ve been through.”

Cass thought back to a younger Luca who had once given her a similar stone, its edges worn by water, shaped into a heart. She had never imagined that boy might desire anything besides a life of traditional nobility. Servants. Children. A position within the Senate. A doting wife. Perhaps she had been wrong all along.

Luca flicked his wrist and sent the stone flying out into the waves. Cass watched it bounce across the surface of the water. He turned toward her, tucking a tendril of hair back behind her left ear. “Don’t you want the same? Will you help me destroy the Order of the Eternal Rose?”

“I do.” Cass suddenly felt warm. Her heart fluttered in her chest as she looked up at him. “I will.”

Luca pulled her in close. He pressed his lips against her cheek. Cass turned her head. She reached up and stroked the back of his neck as she turned her mouth toward his. He tightened up for a second and then relaxed. His lips pressed against hers, gently at first. Then harder. Cass’s whole body trembled. She folded herself against him. Her hands found his hair, the muscles of his back. Everything was warmth. Light. New life.

New beginnings.

She wanted to kiss him until she ran out of breath, and then kiss him some more.

When they finally broke apart, Luca trailed his lips from her cheek to her jawbone to her earlobe. So softly, like rose petals being dragged across her skin. “Cass,” he whispered, “you make me want to be better.”

She buried her head beneath his chin. “You are already the best man I know.” It was true. How had she not seen it? Luca had lied to her once, but it had been to protect her. He wouldn’t lie to her again. And he wouldn’t betray her. Not like Falco had with Belladonna. Cass trusted Luca with her life. With her heart.

He squeezed her against him and lifted her up into the air, spinning her around once before setting her gently back on the sand. “With you, I feel like anything is possible,” he said. “I love you.”

Cass smiled against his chest. “I love you too,” she murmured, but the wind and the waves and the beating of his heart stole away her words.

No matter. Their time together was just beginning.

Piero turned the crank, and the metal cylinder began to whirl. Silver flashed. Glass tubes clinked together inside the mysterious apparatus. He cranked again. And again. A few more turns and the machine slowed to a stop. Piero removed a single tube. He held it up to the fire, nodding in satisfaction at the layers of fluid: a clot of darkness in the bottom, then red, then a skim of yellow, then clear on the top. All four humors, separate and pure. All four humors extracted solely from blood.