with a shaken, horrified look on his face.
Orso reached out to touch him. The man was absolutely covered in blood, from head to toe. “Gregor? Are you…are you all righ—”
“I…I remember,” whispered Gregor. Tears ran down his face, mingling with the blood on his cheeks. “I remember. I remember…” Then his face went slack, and he stopped speaking.
Then the hallway filled with light. They both turned and saw soldiers pouring around the corner, scrived lights held high and espringals pointed. One of them bellowed, “Lay down arms, lay down arms!”
Orso reached forward, pulled the rapier out of Gregor’s bloody hand, and tossed it into the water. Then he held his hands up as they advanced.
* * *
—
Gregor Dandolo saw sand, and beaches, and the moon at sea.
He saw caves, and tunnels, and torchlight on stone walls.
He saw moths dancing around him, a storm of bright, fragile, white wings.
His older brother, Domenico, whimpering in the darkness.
And then he saw nothing—just darkness, cold and silent and dreadful.
His mother’s voice floated through the darkness to him: Oh, Gregor. Wake up, my love. Please, wake up…
He heard something flutter in the darkness. He felt his heart twitch, then pump—once, twice—and his lungs suddenly burned for air.
He took in a breath, and as he did his vision returned to him, and he saw a stone ceiling above him—perhaps a cave, flickering with torchlight.
Then his mother was there, kneeling above him. She was younger than he remembered—her hair was longer, and her face was clear of familiar creases and wrinkles. Five years younger? Ten? He wasn’t sure. She was weeping, her hands running over his chest where he lay on the stone floor, saying—What did they do to you? What did they do?
Gregor looked down and saw he was clad in a dreadfully familiar rig: a lorica, with one arm set in a huge, retractable pole arm, and the other in a bolt caster. The cuirass of his lorica was torn in many places, however, and he could see his own flesh below, with huge gaping wounds in his chest and abdomen…
Please, said his mother. Please, please, no…
And then his body shivered, and blurred…and to his shock, the wounds vanished. Or at least the most lethal of them vanished: he still had puncture wounds in his shoulder, but his stomach was now smooth and whole again, the horrid gash there completely gone.
It’s working, his mother whispered. She sighed with relief. It’s working. But you’ve done so well, Gregor. You did exactly as we needed.
Gregor tried to look around. He was in some kind of cave that was littered with bodies: soldiers, guards, slaves, all of them hacked to pieces. Everything was wet and slick with gore.
Ofelia Dandolo stood and walked away, stepping over the bodies, ignorant of the hem of her dress soaking in blood. She approached the cave wall—it appeared to be some kind of ancient doorway, caved in and crumbling, its stone entryway marked by curious symbols.
We’re getting closer, Ofelia whispered. You’ve done so, so, so well, Gregor.
A soothing, powerful joy filled his mind—it was so good to have done well, to do what was expected of him.
It was such a grand thing, to make war.
I would die for this, he thought. He looked up into his mother’s beaming face. I have died for this. And I will gladly die again.
Then the memory left him, and he knew no more.
17
“This thing is amazing,” said Berenice, studying the golden definition as they ran on through the halls of the Mountain. “I mean—it’s amazing.”
“It’d goddamn better be,” said Sancia. Her boots slapped wetly on the ground as they ran up and up through the dark stairways of the Mountain, back to the secret exit on the fourth floor. She’d wiped off much of the muck, but she knew she was going to reek for days.
“No, I mean…” Berenice held it up to her eye. “To access a hierophantic command, you have to first violate