Queen of the Night (The Revanche Cycle Book 4) (38 page)

“I’ll probably break it up, sell off all of our contracts. The Banco G-R’s been sniffing at us for years. Aita Rossini never did figure out that I was working against her, back in the bad old days.”

“No family to pass it on to? I thought you had a son.”

Sofia paused on the threshold. When she looked back she suddenly seemed tired, faded, the shadow of a distant cloud in her eyes.

“No,” Sofia told her. “I never had a son.”

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

In Mirenze, the lights of the governor’s mansion burned deep into the night. The manse sat at a place of pride, overlooking a city reborn. It had taken years of toil and tears, but the jewel of the coast now shone brighter than ever before, the hub of a trading network that stretched as far as Belle Terre.

Tonight, though, Dante Uccello couldn’t find a smile to suit him as he strolled through the halls of his home. At his side, Gaspari—the commander of the city watch and a man Dante found amusingly if excessively corrupt—gave him a strange look.

“For a man on top of the world, Dante, you’ve been miserable of late.”

“I’m starting to think that’s the problem. I thought this was what I wanted: I’m the master of the city. My word is law, my authority absolute. I want for nothing—not wealth, not wine, not women.”

Gaspari grinned. “Not seeing the problem. What’s wrong with getting everything you want? That’s why I took this job.”

“See? That’s what I thought, too. Until it happened.” Dante sighed. “The fact is, Gaspari, it wasn’t the
having
that I really loved. It was the
winning
. I loved being young, and lean, and hungry. I loved the game. Then I won, and all the old players are long gone.”

They walked into Dante’s office. A small fire crackled in the hearth, staving off the chill of autumn, and the glass balcony doors looked out over the city lights below. Dante had turned one wall into an art gallery, indulging a short-lived hobby, lining it with oil paintings from far-flung corners of the Empire. Now he studied the pieces, trying to remember why he’d even bought some of them in the first place.

“So what can you do about it?” Gaspari asked.

“I’m thinking…maybe it’s time to pull up stakes. Let someone else have the job. I could travel west. Find myself a position in some distant court and become the man behind the throne again.”

“You’re joking.”

Dante shrugged. “It’s been on my mind. Been thinking about old times of late.”

“You’d be missed.”

“By you?” Dante laughed. “You’ve been plotting to murder me and weasel into my job for months now. I’m confiding in you
because
of that.”

Gaspari didn’t deny it. Instead he pointed to a cabinet set into the gallery wall, the lacquered wood protruding a few inches from the plaster.

“What’s in the box?”

“That?” Dante sighed. “An old memory.”

His fingers slid under the cabinet, tugging a catch, and the door swung open. Inside, nestled on a bed of black velvet, lay a singular piece: a mask of yellowed bone, carved to resemble a horned owl’s face.

Gaspari whistled. “Is that—”

“The mask of the Witch of Lerautia, yes. You don’t know how many times I’ve wanted to destroy the damn thing, but…too many memories attached. The worst day of my entire life is tied to this mask.”

“What happened?”

“I tried to do something noble,” Dante told him. “Something righteous. And it all went sour. The whole damned mess taught me a valuable lesson: no good deed goes unpunished.”

“You ought to get rid of that thing. The Church doesn’t like it when people have stuff like this. Anyway, it’s not yours to keep.”

“I took the witch down. I watched her burn. If it’s not my trophy, whose is it?”

An icy voice spoke the answer, sounding from the air all around them, as the fire in the hearth suddenly trembled and died.

“
Mine
.”

Gaspari clutched at his throat. His eyes bulged, face turning purple as he collapsed to the carpet, choking. Dante fell to his knees beside him, watching his stomach ripple and swell.

“Gaspari? What’s wrong? What are you—”

A flood of roaches, their shells dark and glistening, burst from Gaspari’s mouth. Dante jumped back, watching in horror as they poured out over his blood-spattered lips and skittered in all directions. Then the balcony doors blew open on a gust of frozen wind. Autumn leaves billowed across the woven rug, red and orange and dying.

The Mouse followed.

She wore a cloak of white ermine, ruffled at the shoulders, and a velvet gown the color of fresh-fallen snow. Her eyes blazed behind her mask of bone, her hands sheathed in long white gloves and each finger ending in a tiny metallic claw.

“Who,” Dante stammered, “who
are
you?”

“You should know me, Signore Uccello.”

She reached up and took off her mask.

“After all,” Hedy said, “you murdered my family.”

Dante’s eyes darted to the Owl’s mask, then back to her.

“You—you don’t understand. I was trying to
help
.”

Hedy strolled across the office toward the gallery wall. She plucked the Owl’s mask from its bed of velvet, traced slow fingers across its face, and slipped it under her cloak. She didn’t look at him.

“You sad, self-obsessed little man,” she said. “You murdered four people. And what have you been moaning about ever since? How it made
you
feel. Tell me, Dante. Tell me all about how that was the worst day of your life, because I’d like to compare it to
theirs
.”

He took a staggering step back as she whirled to face him, her cloak rippling behind her.

“You were only half-right,” she said. “What you said is true: no good deed goes unpunished. But you haven’t learned that lesson. Because you haven’t been punished yet.”

Dante swallowed hard, lifting his chin as his shoulders shook. “All right. I…I understand. You’re here to kill me. Do it, then. I won’t beg for my life.”

Hedy gave him a humorless grin and let out a tittering laugh.

“You really think I waited twenty years just to settle for
that
? If I thought death was good enough for you, I would have done it two days after you slaughtered my family. No. I had work to do, and you…you would keep, until the time was right. Do you remember that day on the hill? When my mother forged a deal with Pope Livia?”

He nodded, a nervous jerk of his head.

“You were told the consequences of breaking a deal with a witch,” Hedy said. “You were warned. All we wanted was a token payment and to leave in peace, so we could find a home. Well, I have a new family now. And I like
your
home.”

“The…the house? You want my house?”

Hedy flung a hand toward the balcony doors, her claw-tipped finger pointing to the night.

“Mirenze. As of now, this city is ours. Its nights are our revel-grounds, and its people are our cattle, to do with as we please. And you, in your role as the governor, will keep it all quiet and ensure nobody stands in our way.”

She produced a crumpled parchment from under her cloak and thrust it into his trembling hand.

“A list of names,” she said. “Positions of importance throughout the city government. Tomorrow you will contact each and every one of them and advise them that their services are no longer required. You’ll be told who to replace them with.”

Dante ran his finger down the list. He shook his head, incredulous.

“I can’t do that. You don’t understand, these are all appointed positions. These are some of my oldest, dearest friends.”

“Did I say you were allowed to have friends? Get rid of them. Tell them whatever lie you please, but cut them loose. And if you ever contact them again—or if you try to ask them for help, or expose us—they will be killed. Very, very slowly. And I’ll make you watch. You will receive no visitors at the manse. You will attend no functions, no parties. That part of your life is over now.”

She stepped closer, her gaze boring into him like a drill.

“From this day forward, you will sit on your little throne and do what you’re told to do, when you’re told to do it. You’re going to be a very lonely governor, Signore Uccello. No friends, no love, no joy, only your money and your empty title to keep you warm at night. And I plan to see to it that your rule lasts for a long,
long
time. Oh, and to be clear? This is only the beginning. I’ve had twenty years to think about how to make you suffer. Twenty years to think about how to turn your life into a living hell, one tiny step at a time. Contemplate that, while you’re trying to sleep tonight.”

She turned and swept from the room, leaving him to face his future alone.

*     *     *

Hedy strode out through the front doors of the governor’s manse. A tall, lanky woman fell in at her right shoulder, walking with her in perfect rhythm.

“How did he take it, Mistress?”

Hedy gave her a thin smile. “I want someone watching him around the clock. Right about now, he’s starting to wonder what else I have planned for him. By morning, the fear will set in. By the end of the week, there won’t be much left of him
but
fear. I fully expect he’ll try to commit suicide.”

“And when he does?”

“Let him
almost
succeed before you stop him. Then remind him that he hasn’t been granted permission to die.”

“I’ll see to it personally,” she said.

“Thank you, Gazelle.”

A semicircle of people, perhaps two dozen in all, waited for them on the lawn. They stood shrouded in night mist and moonlight. Most with animal masks of bone, a zoo of the dead draped in furred and feathered cloaks. A few, knights in dark leathers wearing the seals of their lieges, held a silent watch at the edge of the gathering. Hedy stood before them all and raised her open hands in greeting.

“Mirenze is ours,” she said, “and an old wrong done to us has been redressed. But this is not the end. This is the beginning. You know of your forebears. I taught you their stories. I taught you their names.”

“
Nessa Fieri
,” the witches whispered as one, their voices like autumn leaves rustling on the night breeze. “
Mari Renault. Despina Leventis. Vassili Leventis
.”

“I have gazed into the Shadow In-Between,” Hedy told them. “I have communed with mystery. And I tell you this: the Owl and her knight
will return to us
. But not yet. Not until we build a world they can return to.”

She lowered her arms and cast her gaze over the gathering.

“We start tonight. Mirenze is where our work begins. You all know where it ends.”

Gazelle stepped away from Hedy’s side, joining the circle.

“And so,” Gazelle said, “I ask for us all. Dire Mother! Will you lead us to Wisdom’s Grave?”

“Yes,” Hedy said. “I will.”

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

The caretaker of Diefenbach Cathedral woke before dawn, as he always did. He was a stocky man with a worn and friendly face, his black hair faded to the color of ash at the temples, his hands rough with calluses. He rolled off the scratchy straw mattress in the tiny stone cell he called home and lit the stub of a candle. Not much to the room but a basin, a bucket, and a stool where a yellow-paged book of poetry rested.

After his morning ablutions he set to work, all alone in the cavernous hall of the cathedral. He started, as he’d done every morning for over a decade, with the sweeping. His old straw broom whisked across the long slate tiles, its susurrating rhythm just shy of music. He inched backward as he worked, his eyes on the broom, making his way down the aisle between two rows of varnished redwood pews.

“You can come out,” he said, still sweeping. “I know you’re here.”

The young woman hiding behind the pews slowly stood up, dark bangs curling down toward her olive eyes like spear tips. Her brown cloak was just a bit too long for her, the hem draping over the slate behind her traveling boots.

“You must be new,” Carlo told her. “The others never come this close when they check on me.”

“You…know we’ve been watching you?”

“Mm-hm. I’ve known for years. The first time I saw a couple of Browncloaks on my trail, well, let’s just say I needed a new pair of trousers. When they didn’t kill me, I figured it out. You’re keeping tabs on the great and terrible Carlo Serafini. Making sure I’m not fomenting a rebellion, or coming for my sister’s throne. Anyway, once I realized someone came to check on me once a month, I made a game out of spotting you people. I’m getting good at it, too: eight out of the last twelve.”

“Why didn’t you say something before now?” she asked.

He shrugged, brushing the broom over a rough patch of stone. “Like I said, the others never come this close. Can’t have a conversation with someone lurking a block away. And it was a whim, I suppose. What’s your name?”

“Tasia.”

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Tasia.” He stopped sweeping and turned to look her over. “So. Here you are. Face to face with the man who used to rule the world. Am I everything you expected me to be, or nothing at all?”

“I have a question,” she said.

“All my years of living have left me with sadly few answers, but I’ll try. Ask me.”

“Her Holiness would send you money if you asked for it. You could be comfortable, even wealthy. Why live like…this? Is it penance for your crimes?”

Carlo burst out laughing. He leaned on his broom and shook his head.

“Penance? No, nothing so dramatic.” He paused, thinking of how to word it. “I spent a lifetime in the lap of luxury. One hand on a bottle and one hand on the closest woman’s thigh. It was a long, blurry haze, and though I didn’t realize it until it was over…it was all so
empty
. I don’t think I even enjoyed it all that much.”

He waved his hand, taking in the vast hall. The first light of dawn shone through towering windows of stained glass, illuminating the amber halos of the saints and martyrs.

“There’s something special about taking care of a place.
Really
taking care of it, down to the tiniest detail. In an hour, hundreds of parishioners will flood through those doors. Everything will be spotless, everything in its place, nothing left neglected. They don’t even know my name, and they wouldn’t think to thank me if they did, but
I
know I’m the reason for it. I guess…I’ve found the work that satisfies me. It’s a small happiness, but most of the best kinds of happiness, the
real
kinds, are.”