Starling (103 page)

had dried and become hard and abrasive. She wished desperately
that she could be rid of it.
“Is it
your
blood?”
Cass shook her head. “He hurt me.” She tried to explain, but
where could she start? Her eyes flicked quickly to the priest’s hands.
No rings. But did that mean she could trust him? Who knew how
many of Venice’s seemingly innocent citizens were secretly members
of the Order of the Eternal Rose.
“Should I call the Guard?” the priest asked gently. Undoubtedly
he thought a man had forced himself on her.
Cass shook her head again. She was weak and exhausted, hungry
and cold. She didn’t want the rettori. She just wanted to remember
what it was like to feel safe, to feel loved.
“Follow me,” the priest said tenderly, as if he had read her mind.
“You can rest here as long as you need. The Lord provides for his
children.”

The Virgin Mary gazed down at Cass with mild eyes from one of the
side walls of the tiny room, in the dim light of dawn. Panic stirred
inside of her until she remembered where she was. San Zaccaria. She
sat up slowly.

“Ah, so you’re awake.” A nun entered the room dressed in the
traditional black-and-white habit, a silver crucifix hanging around
her neck. “You gave Father Pola and me quite a scare. We almost sent
for a physician. You’ve been asleep for the better part of two days.”

Two days! How could she have slept for two days? That was even
longer than she had slept in Florence when Piero had been stealing
her blood.

“I was running from someone,” Cass said, realizing it wasn’t much
of an explanation.
The nun nodded. “Do you have someplace safe to go, child?”
“I do,” Cass said, hoping it was true.
“I’ve got a novice habit that might fit you, if you’d prefer not to
wear your dress.”
Cass followed her gaze to where the bronze-colored gown sat
neatly folded on the washing table, its bodice still spattered with
Cristian’s blood. “I’d prefer never to wear that dress again,” she said.
“Please burn it.”

Standing before the smoking remains, Cass couldn’t believe she had
willingly returned to Angelo de Gradi’s workshop, but she had to
know for certain if anyone had survived. As the rising sun backlit the
charred skeleton of stone and heaps of rubble, her heart told her the
answer was no. But she had survived, so that meant . . .

It meant nothing, really. She had survived because Falco had
saved her, and then because Cristian, of all people, had taken her far
enough away from the smoke and flames that she’d had a chance to
recover.

She walked the perimeter of the ruins, kicking at piles of ash and
broken stone, bending down occasionally to examine a bit of color in
the black-and-gray aftermath of the fire. A tiny unburned piece of
cloth. A fragment of porcelain. The fire had taken everything that
was anything. Cass turned the corner, unwilling to abandon hope,
uncertain of what she thought she might find. She coughed. The air
was still rank with smoke and the scent of chemicals. Lifting her hand
to her face, she breathed through the sleeve of her borrowed habit.