Just then, she noticed a change in the gray dog’s posture. It was crouched lower, as if it were getting ready to—
The dog propelled its muscular body into the air. For a second, its dark underbelly obscured the moon. Cass’s breath turned to glass. She flung her lantern at the dog. The metal bounced harmlessly off its hindquarters and the candle inside went out. But the dog, distracted by the fire, landed clumsily several feet from its target.
Cass was already running for the church doors. Damp grass tugged at her ankles. Without realizing it, she had started to scream. She heard snarling behind her. Panting. She could almost feel jagged white teeth nipping at her ankles. She launched herself at the arched wooden door, slamming into it with full force. It didn’t open.
No. Impossible. She banged violently on the door, but no one answered. The skin on her knuckles split. Where was the priest? Who had locked the door? Why couldn’t anyone hear her?
The gray dog lunged at her again. This time, all Cass could do was shield her face with her arm.
Sharp teeth gouged her flesh. She cried out in pain, balling her other hand into a fist and lashing out at the dog. Her hand connected with the side of its head and it released her with a yelp. Hot blood soaked the sleeve of her dress. Spots floated before her eyes, and then all she saw was the bristled underbelly of another dog. Jaws snapped shut around the biceps of her left arm. The first dog lunged again. Cass screamed as loudly as she could, the kind of scream that would have drawn fathers and soldiers and maybe God himself if any of them had been in attendance.
No one came.
The blood continued to darken her dress, and the summer air turned to ice.
The night went gray. Cass thought she saw Luca’s face floating above her head. His soft brown eyes considered her gently. No, it wasn’t Luca. It was Falco who looked down at her. The faces merged and mingled. Luca. Falco. Luca. Falco. And then the face became someone else’s entirely.
Someone else’s eyes. Someone else’s lips telling Cass to stay awake, stay awake, stay awake.
Cass reached toward the face, but her hand closed around air, as if it were only a mirage looking down at her. Her breath caught in her throat. The face, the night sky, and the world slowly faded into nothingness.
nineteen
“The bite of a dog has been known to cause fevers, madness, and death.”
—THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE
Reality returned in fragments. Cass’s vision was hazy. She tried to rub her eyes, but couldn’t. Both wrists were bound at her sides, and her left arm was throbbing. She thrashed, trying to free herself. White-hot pain surged through her, stealing away her breath.
She lay still, panting, trying to piece together what had happened, where she was. Memories teased at her consciousness: the dogs, their teeth sinking into her flesh, the warm blood soaking through her gown.
Bulky bandages now covered her left shoulder to her wrist. She tugged at her hands again, more gently, trying to work her right one through the circle of twisted cloth that tethered her to the bed.
“Help.” Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Help!”
A figure moved toward her, blurry in the dark. “Grazie a Dio, you’re awake,” a man said. “I feared you had lost too much blood.”
His voice sounded familiar but Cass couldn’t place it. “Why have you tied me up like an animal?” She wrestled against her bonds again. “I demand that you free me this instant.”
“Calm down, Signorina,” the man said. He bent closer, leaning into the light.
Cass’s muscles went rigid. It was the doctor she had met at Palazzo della Notte. Her eyes flicked down to his hand. His fingers were currently bare, but he had worn the ring of the Eternal Rose the night she met him, hadn’t he? Her head was full of jagged thoughts, her whole life up to that moment a shattered mirror. Suddenly, Cass didn’t feel certain of anything.
“I am Piero Basso, Belladonna’s house physician.” He nimbly undid the knots holding Cass’s wrists down at her sides. If he recognized her, he made no sign of it. “You were delirious, screaming about the Devil, clawing at your own face. That is why I bound your hands.”
He massaged each of her wrists, and her skin stung as blood surged back into them. Leaning over, he lit an additional taper, and as he did, his features came even more into focus. It had been dark at that wicked party and Cass hadn’t seen much of him, except to notice the little things—his hair, his smile, his catlike movement—that reminded her of Falco. As he hovered just above her face for a moment, she saw that his skin was even darker than Falco’s—a deep bronze color that she had seen only on people from the southernmost islands of the Venetian Republic. Perhaps he was from Crete, or one of the tiny islets in the Aegean Sea. His hair was dark, almost black. And he had eyes to match—like two pieces of shining obsidian, so dark that Cass couldn’t tell where the iris stopped and the pupil began.
She raised her head, ignoring the pain that throbbed just behind her eyes as she did. The room was small and dark. Thick curtains obscured the windows, so Cass had no idea what time it was. The bed was soft, though, and the blankets were comfortable. A velvet canopy was stretched above her, with flaps tied back on the corners that could be loosened for privacy.
Piero had crossed the room to the washing table just inside the door. He was stirring something in a metal cup. At Palazzo della Notte, he had mentioned working for a woman who demanded a physician day and night. Cass had assumed it was someone chronically ill, like her aunt. But if Signorina Briani was sick, she certainly didn’t show it. Where had Piero been when Cass had her headache in the library? Why had de Gradi been the one to tend to her?
“How are you feeling now, Signorina?” Piero asked. “Are you still having visions?”
Cass didn’t remember any visions. She just remembered retreating down the wooded path, running from the dogs. She remembered the church, the locked door, and the teeth ripping into her arm. And then the blood.
“You found me outside the church?” she asked.
Piero nodded.
“How?”
“I had come into the garden to take a break from the dancing.” Piero handed the metal cup to her. Cass looked dubiously at the cloudy gray liquid. It looked like something the servants used to clean the silver. “For pain,” he explained. Piero took her left hand in his. “I heard you screaming,” he said. “Like the Devil himself was chasing you.” He bent her arm just slightly to examine her bandage. Pain shot through her, stabbing, racing from her fingertips to her breastbone.
Cass bit her lip to keep from crying out. She downed the medicine in one gulp. “Is my arm all right?”
“I had to repair one of the vessels,” he said. “But I couldn’t close the wound entirely. It will need to stay bandaged for a while.”
“What do you mean, couldn’t close it?” she asked. She couldn’t help but imagine the mangled flesh that lay beneath the dressing. Torn skin, exposed bone.
“Wild dogs carry all kinds of sickness,” Piero said. “To sew closed your wound would mean locking that sickness deep inside your flesh. Once the sickness drains out, the wound will heal on its own.” He tossed his hair back from his face.
Caspita. He looked like Falco when he did that. Or maybe she was just delirious. Cass closed her eyes.
“It could take some time, I’m afraid,” Piero continued. “A week or more.”
Cass opened her eyes again, startled. “What?” She couldn’t lie in bed for a week. Luca was depending on her.
Piero nodded. His dark eyes cut straight through her like steel spikes. “Was it only dogs that attacked you?” he asked gently.