Belladonna

ten

Cass spent the entire trip to the mainland thinking about the papers she had found in her parents’ tomb. What kind of elixir was the Order trying to create, and when had her parents become involved? Was that why they had never been home?

She couldn’t help but feel a wave of anger. How could her own parents have willingly associated with Joseph Dubois? How could they have felt a greater allegiance to a secret society than to their own daughter? These same thoughts tumbled relentlessly through her head as their ship approached land.

Men with carriages were waiting for the party as they docked at Mestre, the main connecting point between the Rialto and the mainland. The carriages were made of sturdy wood with big metal wheels, each pulled by a single horse.

Cass stared in fascination. The last horses she’d seen had belonged to the Doge—great glossy black things that were draped in gold and velvet and stood almost twice as tall as she did. These were shorter, with wide furry legs and bare backs. Cass approached the nearest horse, reaching out a hand toward its muzzle.

The horse raised one of its forefeet and stamped it on the ground. Cass hesitated. The driver laughed. “Go on then. He won’t bite you.”

She reached out to stroke the horse’s forehead and it nickered softly. Suddenly, she missed Slipper terribly.

“He likes you,” the driver said. “He always likes the pretty girls.”

Cass blushed. She patted the horse again. It made a chuffing sound as it studied her with its big black eyes.

The party split into two groups. The servants and the men hired to tend to the horses rode in one carriage, and Cass, Madalena, and Marco rode in another. Cass hadn’t ridden in a carriage since she was a little girl. Back then it had seemed fun, the rhythmic clip-clopping of hooves as the carriage skipped along. Now she felt like her head might bounce right off her neck. She clutched the side of the bench for support while Marco wrapped his arms around Mada to steady her. When the path flattened out, Marco and Madalena remained twined around each other, trading occasional quick kisses when they thought Cass wasn’t looking. Cass swallowed a sigh. She wished she were riding in the servants’ carriage with Feliciana and Siena. They were probably gossiping and giggling.

“Are you all right, Cass?” Marco asked. “You’ve got a funny look on your face.”

Cass blurted out the first words that came to mind. “I was just wondering how long it will take to get to Florence.” She glanced out the window. The sun had already fallen below the tree line. She couldn’t believe how many trees there were. Ribbons of pines and firs snaked out in all directions, twisted gray trunks crowned with feathery branches. The air smelled fresh, like a fire at Christmastime. Completely different from the moldy, fetid odors of Venice.

“About a week,” Marco answered.

A week! Cass tried not to imagine how sore she’d be after an entire week of being jostled around the tiny carriage compartment. And worse, she quickly did the math in her head. That would leave only two and a half weeks for her to find the Book of the Eternal Rose and return to Venice before Luca’s execution.

As she adjusted to the roiling, jerking motion, she distracted herself with the stunning and unfamiliar views that rolled past her window: more and more forests, a multitude of green patches, and far in the distance, a line of mountain peaks jutting high above the trees.

“The Apennines,” Marco said, following her gaze. “Lovely, aren’t they?”

It took three days to reach the base of the Apennines. The surface of a turquoise lake shimmered in the moonlight, and the dark shadows of the mountain peaks loomed all around them. Cass couldn’t help but think of Falco. He would love this beauty; he would know how to draw it.

One day turned into another. And then another. They traded the mountains for wild open meadows, for tall wet grass and soft dirt roads. The sun rose and set again. Twice during the journey, Cass’s carriage got stuck in the mud. The male servants and the carriage attendants had to push and pull the giant wagons to get them through the murky soft spots and back onto the path. Cass began to wonder if they would ever reach Florence.

Finally, the carriage driver announced they were nearing their destination. Cass hung her head out the window, eager for a view of the city.

But she didn’t see any buildings or people, not even way off on the horizon. All she saw were more fields, great grassy meadows that stretched out for miles, with rolling hills beyond them. She pulled her head back inside, intending to check the view from the other side of the compartment.

Suddenly, the carriage lurched violently to the left, throwing her and Madalena against the edge of the window. Cass heard the shrill whinny of the horse, followed by swearing. Metal shrieked on metal. The carriage tilted at a strange angle, leaving the window pointing toward the ground.

“Mada, are you all right?” Cass and Marco reached for Madalena simultaneously.

Madalena nodded, rubbing her side and wincing. “What happened?”

The driver’s head appeared in the window. “Is everyone all right?” he asked, red-faced. One at a time, he helped the girls crawl out through the small opening.

Cass wriggled awkwardly through the window, tugging her skirts behind her. She landed on the dusty ground, where Siena immediately helped her to her feet. One of the front wheels of the carriage had hit something—the wooden axle was broken clear through.

“What now?” Cass asked. The servants and carriage attendants were all milling around, muttering. They had broken down near a crossroads, but both streets were completely bare of traffic. Open meadows stretched around them, with tree-covered hills off in the distance.

Marco cursed. “And only an hour outside of Florence.”

The driver knelt beside the fallen axle. “We can’t move on until the damage is repaired.”

Just then, Cass heard a howl from the trees. She turned toward the noise and saw a pack of wild dogs across the field—four of them in total, slinking around the periphery of the tall grass.

“Marco,” she said, her throat tightening. “Dogs.”

Marco turned. “They won’t bother us, Signorina Cassandra,” he said. “We’re too many. Dogs are cowards.”

The largest dog lowered its haunches to the ground, and the others followed its lead. But Cass couldn’t shake the feeling that they were watching her.

Waiting.

She stared back, not wanting to appear afraid, until the rhythmic drumming of hoofbeats drew her attention. A carriage was approaching from the direction of Florence. She watched the cloud of dust draw near, realizing it wasn’t a carriage after all. It was an old wooden cart pulled by a short, squat horse. Two men in leather doublets were perched on the back of the cart, their boots dangling almost to the ground. Another man straddled the horse. When he spotted the disabled carriage, he slowed the horse to a walk and pulled up near the side of the road. Cass headed toward them to see if they could offer assistance. Too late, she realized what the cart was carrying.

Bodies.

She stopped right in the middle of the road, hugging her arms around her waist. The scene brought her back to the night she had discovered Falco’s secret. But these men weren’t robbing graves. Apparently, they were going to dig them.

The two men in leather doublets jumped off the back of the cart with their shovels and traipsed across the field. One of them pounded a wooden cross into the ground while the other began to dig. The third hovered close to the cart, glancing occasionally at the linen-wrapped bodies, as though he thought they might walk away.

Cass wondered why they would be taken so far outside of the city to be buried. Curiosity outweighed her fear, and she started across the road again. Madalena followed her.

“Be careful.” The man—the driver—positioned himself between the girls and the cart.

Cass glanced down at his hands. He wore a plain silver band around his thumb. “Are they . . . infected?” A ripple of fear moved through her. Luca’s own father had contracted the plague from one of his servants. He had died in less than a week.

“Oh, they are infected all right,” the man said. “With the Devil’s own affliction.”

Cass struggled to understand his thick Florentine accent, but she was pretty sure she had heard him right. She leaned back from the bundle. With one hand, the man delicately parted the burial shrouds around the first body’s face. The dead girl looked like her, with freckled skin and auburn hair.

And she had a brick jammed into her mouth.

“They are vampires,” he said grimly.