Venom (18 page)

Cass gasped. The bird circled around the candelabra, perching delicately between two red candles, its head just inches from the flames. “How did you do it?”

“A conjurer never reveals his secrets,” the man said, holding up his index finger. The bird circled the room once before landing on it, beating its wings softly.

The white-blonde girl with the wooden flute reappeared from behind a thick velvet curtain. “Maximus,” she said, leaning in to kiss the conjurer on the cheek. “I’m afraid I have bad news for you.”

Maximus waved a silk handkerchief over the songbird and it disappeared. “What is it?”

The girl twirled her flute between her palms. “It’s Mariabella. She’s gone.”

Cass felt her heartbeat speed up. So a girl had gone missing…

The conjurer nodded. “Last time I was in the city, she mentioned she had attracted a benefactor. I assumed it was only a matter of time…” His voice trailed off. “Does she still room with you? Just down from Santa Maria del Mar, as I recall…”

The girl laughed. “Your memory is as splendid as your magic. The doorknobs are shaped like suns. You’re welcome to go there now, but you’ll have no luck finding her. She hasn’t come home in days. Signor Dubois has been seen out in public often, but no one has seen Mariabella at his side. The man must be keeping her shackled to his bed.”

Joseph Dubois again. He must have been a patron to the girl—to Mariabella.

“Excuse me,” she said, trying to keep her voice from trembling. “What does Mariabella look like?”

The girl with the flute looked at Cass as if she were seeing her for the first time. “Who are you?” she asked, her voice edged with hostility.

Cass quickly devised a story about how she had come to the brothel to find a certain woman for her brother, who had fallen in love with her after spending the evening together. “He’s returned to his studies abroad,” Cass explained, “but I told him I would try to get a message to the beauty who captured his heart last time he was in Venice.”

The girl’s gaze lingered on Cass’s plunging neckline, as if it were
factoring in to her calculations about whether or not Cass could be trusted. Behind her, one of the men wearing medallions coughed gently.

“Excuse me,” the girl murmured, shaking her pale hair as she glided across the black and white tile floor to where the gentlemen were sitting. Moments later she led the taller of the two behind the velvet curtain, her wooden flute left behind on the divan.

“Mariabella is divine,” Maximus said, leaning in toward Cass. “Beautiful and talented. She used to assist me in my act from time to time. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was the beauty your brother fell in love with.”

“What did—does—she look like?” Cass asked.

Maximus pulled a rose out of thin air. “She has silky dark hair and the most delicious set of lips.” He reached out his index finger as though to touch Cass’s lips and then seemed to think better of it. “You resemble her, in a way. Except you don’t have her birthmark.” He traced the shape of a heart in the air.

Cass’s blood accelerated in her veins. A heart-shaped birthmark. It had to be the same girl. Mariabella. A maid missing from Joseph Dubois’s estate, and now a dead courtesan, one of his chosen companions. Could it possibly be a coincidence? Emotions churned together in her stomach—excitement and wonder and fear. And more excitement. She leaned in to give the conjurer an impulsive peck on the cheek.

The conjurer pressed the rose into her palm. “I think your master is watching us.”

Cass glanced up and saw Falco staring at her—no, at them—from the doorway of the portego. Cass hadn’t even heard the front doors open.

“I see you’ve met my beautiful signorina,” Falco said, nodding to
the conjurer as he snaked his fingers around one of Cass’s small wrists.

The conjurer winked at Cass. “Indeed. There’s something magical about her, wouldn’t you say?”

“You’ve no idea,” Falco said. He pulled her across the room, out of the conjurer’s earshot. “Is it safe to leave you alone for a few minutes while I go speak to the owner of the house?”

“No need,” Cass said. She couldn’t help but smile triumphantly. “I’ve not only learned the name of the dead girl, but I also know where she lives.”

Falco arched an eyebrow. “All that, and you still found the time to bat your eyelashes at some traveling con man? That is impressive.”

“I wasn’t batting anything,” Cass said. “I was appreciating his performance. Come on. I’ll fill you in on the way to her place.”

As the two passed the conjurer, Falco’s grip on her was so tight, she was afraid he was going to leave a bruise. “Good-bye, Maximus,” she called behind her. “Thank you for the magic.”

Outside the house, Falco kept his hand wrapped around Cass as they headed down the marble staircase. The tall boy in the vest was gone.

“So who’s Paolo?” she asked, pausing at the bottom of the steps to catch her breath. The night had definitely taken a turn for the better.

“My roommate,” Falco answered shortly.

“Friendly,” Cass said, remembering how the boy had looked straight through her.

“Seems to me you have no shortage of admirers,” Falco said. And then, abruptly: “You know conjurers are nothing but common criminals, right? I’d check your pockets—I wouldn’t be surprised if several coins are missing.”

Cass’s eyes widened. “I believe I’ve heard the same about artists. And it almost sounds like…But surely it’s not in the nature of a patron of a common prostitute to be jealous.” One of her ankles wobbled, and Cass had to grab on to Falco’s waist to keep from falling over.

Falco pushed her away playfully and then pulled her tightly to his chest. “Funny,” he whispered in her ear. “But I doubt there’s anything common about you.” He shook his dark hair back from his face. “Ready to get serious now?”

“What do you mean,
Master
?” she asked, half reeling from the heat of Falco’s breath on her jawbone. A rush of warmth surged through her body.

“You’re the one who figured out where our murdered prostitute lived,” Falco said. “Lead the way, Signorina
Avogadore
.” Falco linked his arm through hers.

“Murdered courtesan,” Cass corrected. “It’s just as you thought.” Cass recounted the conversation with Maximus and the blonde girl. Falco whistled and Cass swelled with pride.

“So,” Falco said. “To Santa Maria del Mar we go…”

There were only two streets branching away from the little campo that housed the church of Santa Maria del Mar, and Falco and Cass found Mariabella’s house—and the signature sun-shaped doorknobs—on the first street they selected. She lived in a small pink building clustered with several others around a tiny courtyard overgrown with weeds. All the houses here looked abandoned to Cass.

She and Falco made their way to the door, carefully avoiding a network of deep cracks in the crumbling stone walkway. The shutters hung askew, revealing dirt-encrusted glass beneath. Cass put her face to the glass but saw only a distorted reflection of herself. Falco
knocked on the warped wooden door. No answer. He pulled something small and silver out of his pocket and jiggled it in the lock.

“What’s that?” Cass whispered.

“Scalpel.”

Cass watched as Falco twisted the flexible blade. The razor-sharp knife reflected the light from the lantern Falco carried. Cass couldn’t stop staring at it, not even when she heard a click and the door swung open with a groan. She couldn’t help but think of the X carved in Mariabella’s chest. “Why do you carry that?” she asked. “Where did you get it?”

“I use it for detail work when I’m painting.” Falco wrapped the blade carefully in a bit of fabric and pocketed it.

A musty smell wafted from the open door, almost overpowering Cass. The place was decent-sized, but dingy, with a square living area leading into a single back room with tiny beds and plain wooden wardrobes pushed against two of the walls.

The bed nearest to them was neatly made. Cass ran a hand over the burgundy coverlet and her fingers came back faintly dusty. Clearly, no one had slept here for days. Cass peered inside the wardrobe. A wooden sitar missing several strings stood in one corner. A rainbow of brightly colored dresses lay folded on warped shelves, most of the garments fraying at the wrists and hems.

“I thought courtesans were wealthy,” Cass said. The room had a lonely, desolate feel; she could practically smell it.

“It depends on their patrons. Perhaps she had only just tried to find work outside of the house.” Falco knelt down and peered under the dusty bed. He pulled out a royal blue silk bag with a yellow braided drawstring. As he turned the bag inside out, strands of pearls and jeweled hairpieces clattered out onto the floor. “Or maybe she
was overly fond of trinkets.” Falco wrapped a strand of pearls around his hand and held it up in the faint light. Tossing the bag back under the bed, he slipped the pearls into his pocket.

“Falco!” Cass said sharply.

“What? It’s not like she’s going to miss it.”

“It’s—it’s disrespectful,” Cass said. She felt a rush of pity for this dead girl, the girl who’d lived such a small, narrow life and then been cut down so young. Cass thought about how many times she had complained to Mada about her aunt’s musty old villa. How the whole place often felt just one good storm short of crumbling to dust. Compared with this room, Agnese’s home was like the Palazzo Ducale.

Suddenly, she couldn’t wait to leave. The room seemed to be getting smaller by the minute, the walls subtly closing in on her. Living here would be like living inside her armoire. Cass knelt down on the cold stone floor, intending to reorder the jewelry Falco had scattered, and then something caught her eye.

“Hey, look at this,” she said. A square bundle only slightly larger than her journal lay half unwrapped, concealed beneath the bed. Cass lifted the bundle and gently folded back the layers of muslin to expose a small portrait. Mariabella must have received the painting not long before she died, or else surely she would have hung it on the wall.

Falco righted the portrait. Cass squinted, but she couldn’t make out the figure on the canvas. She brought over the lantern and held it next to the painting.

It was her. Mariabella: the dead girl from Liviana’s crypt. Only here she looked happy, her thick hair hanging over bare shoulders, her red lips forming a playful pout. She had one of her arms extended, as if she were reaching out toward the artist. The painting
was done in unusual choppy brushstrokes, giving the picture a blurred effect.

Cass thought of the discolored corpse, the ring of bruises around the neck, purple splotches where blood had pooled. She touched a finger to the canvas, almost expecting her hand to pass straight through it into some other land where things were normal and right and Mariabella was still alive.

“A gift from a patron?” Cass asked.

Falco whistled long and slow. “Or a murderer, perhaps. Or both.” He pored over the painting, looking for other clues. He pointed to a thin gray squiggle of paint in the lower left corner of the canvas. “Not much of a signature.”

Cass bent close to the canvas. “It looks like a
C,
or maybe an
L.
”

“That doesn’t really narrow things down,” Falco said, bounding back to his feet. “There are probably five thousand registered artists in Venice, and who knows how many amateurs.”

Cass deflated almost instantly. He was right. Even figuring out Mariabella’s identity didn’t help them much. And it was absolutely no use in determining what had happened to Liviana’s body.

Falco reached out a hand and pulled Cass off the ground. “But as you said,” he relented, “at least it’s a start.” Cass could tell he was trying to make her feel better.

Cass brushed her hands over her skirts to rid them of as much dust as possible. The room was still suffocating her. “I think we’ve done enough for one night,” she said. “Will you take me home?”

“Of course.” Falco’s voice was surprisingly gentle. He slipped an arm around her shoulders as they turned back toward the door. “Let’s get out of here.”

They headed back over the arched bridge to Fondamenta delle
Tette, where their gondola was moored. Cass was relieved to see the boat exactly where they had left it. Falco took his place on the gondolier’s platform and Cass settled into the felze, slipping off her chopines and wiggling her toes. The night air had developed a sharp edge, and she wrapped her cloak tightly around her. She turned backward in her seat and peered around the edge of the felze to watch Falco steer the gondola back toward the Grand Canal. She could almost envision the structures beneath the skin of his arms and chest and back moving in tandem. She wondered what it would be like to put her hands on him, to feel the rippling of his muscles beneath her fingertips. If only there was someplace else they could go, together. She wondered if Falco lived in a sad little room like Mariabella. She tried to imagine what sort of place he would call home, but all she could see was a dark room, with flickering candles and a mattress on the floor.

“The women in the houses,” Cass blurted out, surprised at her brazenness. “Do they do different things?”

Falco stopped rowing long enough to shrug. “Courtesans do many things—sing, play instruments, write poetry. The women in the houses are mostly lovers for hire, though some also work as dance partners or models.”

Models. Of course.
That’s
why Falco was so well known.

Cass felt her voice get even tighter. “And as lovers for hire, do they do different things?”

Falco laughed. He took his hands off the oar and let the boat coast through the water. “You ask me these questions as if I have a lot of experience with lovers for hire. I have to save for weeks just to pay the modeling fees.”

Cass couldn’t bring herself to ask what she really wanted to know,
whether what she had seen in that room was normal or some aberration. The slick skin, the noises, the wildness of it all. Was that how couples behaved? Would Luca expect that from
her
someday? She turned away from Falco as they approached the Rialto Bridge. Burning steel cressets illuminated both ends of the structure, its middle glistening faintly under the night sky.