of the food – do not reject that which is offered, will you?’
He stared at her earnestly.
‘No. I’m not yet so foolish,’ said Katina, rising to stand beside him. ‘I am even grateful.’ She took the Elder’s offered hand and kissed it. He lifted her face and touched his lips to her forehead warmly.
‘Gods be with you, my daughter.’ Without another word, he left.
The door clicked and she heard the key turn in the lock. Katina stood in the centre of the cell staring vacantly at the spot Elder Maggiore had last occupied, his words, his hopes, his fears, his information echoing in her ears. Her head was full of everything she’d been told; the answers she’d so longed for had been given. Only with them came more questions and more doubts and foreboding.
With a long sigh, she lit another candle before collapsing back onto her bed, placing her hands behind her head. She studied the ceiling, noting the way the candlelight enlarged her silhouette, causing it to fill the uneven rock face, distorting her form. It was how she felt inside – altered, transformed. She would never be the same again.
Everything Elder Maggiore told her she went over, sifting the information bit by bit, slotting pieces into the puzzle. What had once seemed so straightforward was more elaborate and challenging than she could have imagined. Nothing was black or white, but everything, like the Limen itself, was in shades of grey. Disagreement among the Elders, the Estrattore; conflict within: all of them working at cross purposes, which led to secrets, betrayal and worse. Why was she surprised? Why should the Bond Riders be any different from anyone else? Since when did large groups of people agree about anything?
It occurred to her that she hadn’t asked about Dante. Not that she needed to. The Bond they shared let her know he was doing well – better than well. It was a wrench being away from him, especially now, when she had so much to share, information she could not impart to Alessandro or Debora for what that knowledge would do to them; the danger it would place them in.
As her thoughts roamed, a great pair of eyes filled her vision, silver ones staring at her own with such love and trust that it took her breath away. In them, she knew if she looked hard enough, she would find her own face.
Only she wasn’t so sure she wanted to see it, carved as it was into an expression of suspicion, weighed by new understanding and graven dread.
‘Oh, Tallow,’ she said softly. ‘What have we done?’
TIME FLEW BY SWIFTER THAN A PETREL, and with its passing came the heavy snows and thick blue mists that wrapped the city in soft, pale blankets, obscuring everything in their wintery embrace.
I had been with the Maleovellis for over three months, and in this period I had learnt much. But it was my time with Baroque that, above all else, I enjoyed, and not only because of the conversations we shared and the emotions we plumbed. I could relax with Baroque, let my guard down. After that first lesson, when we were both awkward with each other – like dancers who didn’t know the steps but who had been flung together to perform, day by day – bit by bit, Baroque’s and my relationship shifted. Whether it was the little scraps of gossip that would trip from his tongue, information about the Doge, his family, other nobiles and the life in the palazzo that he divulged, or that he could make me laugh, I was uncertain. All I knew was that one day, I anticipated my time downstairs in a way I hadn’t before.
Jacopo may have read about Estrattore and be considered the family authority, but it was Baroque who instinctively knew how to teach me.
From him I acquired knowledge, not just about the Estrattore and potions and herbs, but also the fierce Sultans of the Ottoman Empire and their bloodthirsty legionaries, the Kings of Moroko, Aquitaine, Konstantinople and Hibernya. About the sand people of Banghazi that ruled the dry lands across the Mariniquian Seas with their dark, smooth skins like Hafeza, and the courageous warriors who dwelled in the Contested Territories of Judea. He did not tell me with words so much, but by bringing me samples of produce such as cloth from a merchant who traded across Vista Mare, or the dried seeds of fruit that had tumbled out of a barrel brought