Venom (15 page)

Siena’s flawless skin paled. “Unchaperoned? But that’s unacceptable.
If your aunt found out, she’d run me out of the villa, if she didn’t kill me first.”

So true. Cass could just hear Agnese shrieking about what Matteo would think. “She won’t find out,” Cass promised. “She’ll be gone for days. And I won’t make a very realistic prostitute with a maidservant in tow.” Cass didn’t bother to point out that of all the rules she might break that evening, departing with Falco unchaperoned was the very least of them.

Siena agreed reluctantly, but her good mood had vanished. She led Cass back to the portego, to where Falco waited. A slow smile spread over the boy’s face.

“Almost perfect,” he murmured. He bent down and gave the seam of Cass’s dress a yank. Cass yelped. The shiny fabric slit up the side so that a hint of her shapely calf peeped out. “
Now
it’s perfect.”

Cass glared at him. Siena gasped, then clapped a hand over her mouth. “Please be careful,” she begged. “Your aunt would never forgive me…”

Falco flashed his dazzling smile at the lady’s maid. “Nothing bad will happen to her. You have my word.”

Cass bent close to Siena and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Leave the door unlocked for me, will you?”

Cass and Falco descended the stairs to the entrance hall. Siena followed them, clutching a candle in her hand. Cass turned toward the large mirror that hung behind the side table. In the flickering candlelight, her reflection looked filmy and unreal. Ethereal. The skirt filled out her slim hips. The low-cut bodice combined with the extra-tight stays gave her curves she didn’t even know were possible. Soft curls of her hair dangled against her long neck, but the bulk
of it was swept out of her face by Siena’s braids. Cass lifted a hand to her face. Could her cheekbones really be that defined? And her eyes—they had never looked bigger.

A flash of ivory in the lower corner of the mirror caught her eye. Luca’s letter, still unopened. She frowned for just an instant. She’d read it tomorrow for certain. Looking up again, she smiled at Falco’s reflection.

“Ready?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

She responded with a nod. And the girl in the mirror—that beautiful, smoky apparition—nodded too. Cass had never felt more alive. Siena draped Cass’s velvet cloak around her shoulders and Falco took her arm. “Where’s your lantern?” Cass asked.

Falco stopped just inside the front door. “I’ve got eyes like a cat,” he said. “I usually go without. But you’re right. Tonight we should bring one.”

Cass thought back to the fuzzy yellow circle she’d seen moving among the gravestones. She had assumed it was Falco, and that he’d drunkenly set it aside somewhere…But apparently she’d been wrong. The light had belonged to someone else. A tremor raced through her body, causing her to shiver beneath the warm cloak. A stranger was prowling the shadows of San Domenico Island.

Was he looking for her? If so, what did he want?

And what would he do if he found her?

C
ass huddled inside the felze as Falco navigated the gondola through canals that grew narrower with each turn. By the light of her lantern, she could just barely make out the dingy buildings packed tightly together, stucco chipping off to reveal crumbling gray bricks beneath. This area was just as seedy as the block in the Castello district where they had found the workshop full of horrors. As far as Cass could tell, it was also every bit as deserted. Above her head, fraying ropes ran across the canal, hung with threadbare chemises and woolen skirts.

She kept thinking back to the light in the graveyard. It could have been anybody, she supposed, a grieving family member or even the chapel caretaker. Still, Cass couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched. The canal water bubbled and hissed in places. She flinched at every dark misshapen shadow, half convinced the murderer was going to rise up alongside the boat and reach for her. Falco steered around another sharp corner, and Cass exhaled as a row of lanterns cut through the gloom.

A boy sat near the edge of the canal, plucking out a slow,
melodious song on a mahogany lute. Beyond the boy stood a plain three-story building with two pairs of shutters opened wide to the night. Inside each window, a girl about her own age danced to the sound of the lute. They twisted their sinuous bodies, their bodices cut so low, Cass swore she could see the crest of one girl’s nipples peeking above the edge of her neckline.

Both girls had their hair fashioned into thick cones atop their heads. It was a popular style, but in the faint light the writhing silhouettes reminded Cass of satyrs. Or devils. Cass watched as a man approached one of the windows. He said something to a girl with dark hair and thick crimson lips. The girl lifted her skirt and ran her hands over her slender hips. Cass tried to look away but couldn’t. Now that her eyes had adjusted to the dim light, she could see that the girl was her age—perhaps even younger. The man ran his hand up one of the girl’s pale legs and then tossed a coin through the window. Clapping her hands together, the girl hollered something after the man as he started to walk away.

Falco rowed over to the bank of the canal, stopping just short of scraping against the stone retaining wall. He tied the boat to a wooden post and turned to give Cass his lopsided grin. “Ready?”

“Here?” Cass began to shiver, even though the night air was balmy. Securing her cloak tightly around her body, she forced herself to stop staring at the girls in the windows. Beyond the edge of the canal, the system of alleyways brimmed with activity. So many people. Cass was seized by the irrational fear that she might run into someone who knew her.

Falco raised an eyebrow. “This is one of the best spots for…ladies,” he said. “Unless you have a better idea.”

Cass hesitated before stepping to the edge of the gondola, feeling that parading in front of all of those people would be impossible. “I just expected more…” She fumbled for the right word. “Discretion.”

Falco raised an eyebrow. “What’s to be discreet about?” He plucked the lantern from the gondola and let it dangle from his wrist as he held out his hands to help Cass out of the boat. “We’re looking for the same thing as everyone else, right? A little fun.”

Cass gritted her teeth, already beginning to regret her decision to come. Her ankles threatened to give out as she maneuvered her dangerously tall chopines onto solid ground. As she clung to Falco’s arm to prevent pitching right into the fetid canal water, she was acutely aware of a circle of boys staring at her. A sharp whistle sounded from somewhere back in the alley.

Falco stopped. His eyes moved over Cass’s body, lingering a little too long for her tastes.

“What?” she asked coldly.

“You should probably leave your cloak,” he said.

“Right.” Cass fumbled with the clasp of her velvet cloak. She tossed it back into the gondola and then hugged her arms around herself to hide her shaking fingers. Immediately she felt the heat of more eyes. Above the dancing girls, she saw a pair of women hanging out of a window. They wore bright chemises with plunging necklines and had their hair elaborately fashioned. They giggled and waved when they saw Cass looking at them.

Cass forced herself to uncross her arms. Like Siena said, she’d never be able to blend in if she didn’t act the part.

“
Fondamenta delle tette,
” Falco announced, with a grand flourish. “Street of tits.” The women giggled again and blew kisses in Falco’s direction.

Cass’s blood thudded in her chest and her ears. “Remind me never to come back here,” she said, trying to inject her voice with sarcasm. For a wild second she imagined she would jump back into the gondola and row herself away, all the way back to San Domenico. But instead, she turned a slow half circle at the edge of the canal, wrinkling her nose in what she hoped was disdain.

Falco just laughed and squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry. You’ll relax once we get where we’re going.”

Falco steered Cass into the dimmer of the two alleyways. A haze of perfume and tobacco smoke hung thick in the air, its overpowering sweetness nearly making her gag. Beneath it lingered other scents, even more unpleasant, of sweat and urine. Bodies moved in all directions, pressing against Cass as she and Falco headed toward the end of the alley. She fought the urge to cry out as she was jostled from side to side by men and women in various states of intoxication. If Falco let go of her hand, the wild crowd would swallow her up.

The music, the people, the bright colors, loud voices, and sharp smells—it made Cass’s head pound, and reminded her, for no reason at all, of an exotic-animal exhibit Agnese allowed Feliciana to take her and Siena to when they were twelve. The older maid had promised ferocious lions and tigers, but there had been only a single lion, and all it did was lie prone inside the wheeled cage that held it prisoner. Cass had stood there, a little afraid but mostly just sad. When Feliciana disappeared into an alley with a muscular elephant trainer, Siena had watched from a distance as Cass wriggled her fingers through the bars to pet the poor beast’s matted fur.

Something sharp slashed at Cass’s left arm and she cried out. Snapping her head around, she searched for her assailant, but the crowded alleyway blurred into a sea of arms and hands all reaching
out toward her. She gasped, beginning to panic, struggling against the current of faceless flesh.

“What? What is it?” Falco pulled her from the tangle of sweaty bodies and pressed her up against the side of a small bakery shop.

Cass looked down at the sleeve of her teal chemise. Someone or something had sliced right through the silky fabric. Falco separated the torn material to examine Cass’s skin beneath. He lifted her arm to show her the swollen pink line just below her elbow.

“Look, no blood,” he said. “You probably just got your sleeve caught on a sword hilt or belt buckle.”

Or a knife.
Cass searched the crowd again, but no one was paying her any attention. Falco’s hand felt hot on her flesh, almost burning. She pulled her arm away, turning to look back at the entrance to the alleyway. It seemed impossibly far away. Unreachable.

Falco traced his finger along one of the delicate fishbone braids that framed her face. “It was just an accident,” he said.

Cass felt the blood return to her face. She glanced down at her torn sleeve. The scratch on her arm was already starting to fade. “Sorry,” she murmured. “I’m being silly. It just scared me, that’s all.”

“It’s all right,” Falco said. His voice was surprisingly gentle. Cass had been certain he would mock her for being a child, a spoiled little aristocrat afraid of her own shadow. “We’re almost there,” he continued, pointing at a garishly painted yellow building. “It’s one of the biggest houses in the area. And the woman in charge knows everyone and anyone who comes through this way. There’s a good chance she’ll know if any…
ladies
have gone missing.” The word
ladies
was tinged with sarcasm. “Do you still want to do this?”