be an old sash, probably from a woman's yukata. It covered an old bamboo box, the top of which had been carved with running horses. Brom's old jewelry case, though he'd used it more for the miscellaneous 'treasures' they found in the city whenever they were out running amuck the way children did.
A pang twisted through his chest, but Dante ruthlessly quashed it. He flicked the catch and pushed the box open. Stared.
It was the little bag of coins he'd handed over for the horses they'd meant to use to run away. It would have been good money for Brom's family then, but to Carac it had been little different than the couple of lira he handed over for buns. Creditors had taken everything from the Nakajima. Even if he'd realized it would just be water in a leaky boat, Brom surely could have used the money once he was left alone to fend for himself and driven to whoring. Why was the money sitting here?
Dante wrapped the box back up, replaced the floorboard, and took the box with him as he left the stable. Locking the doors once more, he used a pot of paste the shop had given him and put the job posting up. One on the doors and the second on a public posting board further down the street.
When that was done, he retraced his steps and returned by boat to Isola del sangue and headed into the shopping district, a warren of shops and stalls that the unfamiliar could easily become lost in and the unwise could easily lose fortunes in.
Dante was neither, and securing suitable gifts for a betrothal ball was the work of a couple of hours. He had everything sent on to the Ishikawa residence.
What a marriage that was going to be: his web-weaving malmignatta of a sister marrying the Ishikawa drunk. Oceana herself wept at such a farce. Or maybe She was as inured to the rampant stupidity of the Verona power families as everyone else.
Next he went to a flower shop and arranged flowers for the mother of the groom, the bride-to-be, and her mother, an old-fashioned tradition, but exactly the kind of thing both mothers would preen over.
Technically, one of them was his mother, but Dante had not thought of her thus in a long time. She was Ferro-donna, Kattali-donna. On the continent she would be Lady Kattalin of the House of Ferro.
She'd been a hard, even mean mother, but once Dante had loved her anyway. When he was a foolish boy who still believed in things like love and family, loyalty and honor. Soon, soon she would pay for that slap, that hated dismissal of his every word. The way she'd let his father throw him out like garbage.
Dante breathed in, out. Vengeance was best meted out with a steady heart and a careful hand. Much of the information he required, he'd had gathered long before his arrival. On the Ferro-donni, Ishikawa-donni, as well as a giudice and a principe he'd not forgotten about. Now he was putting all the pieces in place. Like a game of go, he would surround them stone by stone and claim them all.
It was time to place the next stone.
Up a steep hill at the far end of the shopping district was a collection of high-end tea houses and other places to leisure about for the nobili and wealthier merchants.
One of these was especially popular because it was a favorite of Kumiko-donna, the highly adored daughter of Hardegin-principe, born of his estranged wife, who'd departed for places unknown. The people Dante had hired to acquire information for him had found her in a beautiful city deep in a queendom neither her husband nor father-in-law would be pleased she'd ventured to. Sadly, she was of no use to Dante.
The daughter, however, would be plenty useful.
He stepped into the teashop, palming a small bag he pulled from the purse of useful things in his sash. The hostesses called out the usual greeting, and he replied appropriately. He looked around the shop until he found his target. Turning back to the hostesses, he requested a table that would require escorting him past Kumiko's table.
"Of course, signore," the taller of the three hostesses replied, and with a smile, motioned for him to follow her. When they were right upon Kumiko's table, he tipped out the contents of the bag, holding his arm close to his side, lost in the folds of his yukata, so no one