Martina departed in a swirl of black skirts, leaving Mircea staring at the beautiful redhead.
The latest burst of fire from below made her hair almost seem to glow. The parade sent light shadows to highlight her high cheekbones, to spangle her décolleté like jewels, and to enhance the naturally bright blue of her eyes. She would have been a lovely sight—if it hadn’t been for the cruel slash of her mouth.
“What’s the matter? Forget you’re a slave?” she asked, before turning and following her mistress.
Mircea stood in the dark, feeling the magic abruptly drain out of the night. The light from the show still painted his face as the spectacular parade continued, but he couldn’t seem to see it, except as a stream of shifting shadows. Meaningless, like everything else.
“What’s wrong?”
Mircea looked up at the sound of Bezio’s voice, to see concerned eyes looking at him out of a leering satyr’s mask. It was as odd as seeing hate he hadn’t earned on Auria’s angelic features. He supposed there was a lesson there somewhere, but he didn’t seem able to grasp it at the moment.
“Nothing.”
Bezio sighed. “Everybody’s acting strange tonight. I think Sanuito must have spent some time in battle.”
“Why battle?”
“He’s flinching at every loud noise. He might have done better to stay home.”
Mircea glanced over to where the slight figure in the larve mask was standing, near the end of the loggia. And wondered if he’d overheard. And if he’d come to the obvious conclusion that, if Mircea was sent back, it was likely to be with company.
If so, he might have a better reason for shaking than the explosions.
Mircea started toward him, when Bezio dragged him back. “Listen, I heard what Martina said—”
“I won’t let them take you back there. I’ll come up with something—”
“You may not have to.”
Mircea looked a question, and Bezio moved closer, but lowered his voice at the same time, to the point that Mircea had to strain to hear it.
“I’ve been asking around,” Bezio told him. “Seems the night convocation concludes, there’s some big party. All the glitterati will be there, so security has to be tight. In addition to the senate’s usual guard, practically the entire Watch has been pressed into service as extra help, just to make sure that one of the groups the senate has pissed off doesn’t try to take ’em all out at once.”
“And?”
“And the place for this big party of theirs just happens to be the palazzo where the consul has been staying. You know the one you were at the other day? The one all the way out on Giudecca?”
“That will leave the city virtually unguarded,” Mircea murmured.
“Except for the human authorities, if they count. But for our kind, yes. Anybody wanting to leave could just . . . walk out.”
“And go where?”
“I’ve been thinking about that, too.”
“You’ve been busy.”
Bezio chuckled. “I’m not as popular as you. I had time. But it seems to me there is one place we might go that nobody ever thinks about.”
“We?”
“Like I said, I’m not really cut out for this life. I don’t think I have a future in it.” His lips twisted sardonically. “But I’ve started to think, maybe I could have a future . . . someplace.”
Mircea raised an eyebrow.
“Someplace beautiful,” Bezio elaborated. “Enough to rival Venice. Someplace with plenty of people, even more than here. Someplace where a powerful acquaintance of yours just happens to have her main court—”
“Paris?”
“Why not?”
“Why not? The senate meets there! There are guards every five feet!”
“Which is all to the good. Look,” Bezio said, when Mircea began to protest again. “Even if she doesn’t make you an offer, she might be willing to provide a little protection. Just a word from her and the guards would lay off. And it’s not like we’re a threat to anybody . . .”
Mircea stared at him, utterly flummoxed. And, God help him, more than a little intrigued. It was insane; no one in their position went to Paris. As the permanent home of the European Senate, it was crawling with the most powerful vampires for a thousand miles and their entourages, the least member of which was certain to be far more powerful than he. He’d heard that even master-level vampires hesitated before going there, into the danger and intrigue, and the intricate dance of court etiquette where it was so easy to put a foot wrong.
And a foot was all it took.
But then, they wouldn’t be at court, would they?
He looked back out over the parade, which appeared to have reached the allegorical phase. It was hard to tell since this was Venice, where more was never enough and even solemn, church-related displays tended to become filled with sparkly things. But he thought the nearest barge might be meant as some sort of metaphor on carnival.
A luxuriously dressed, hugely fat man sat atop a wine barrel with a jousting pole tucked under one arm, dueling with a skeletal creature holding a platter of sardines. Mircea assumed the thin man was supposed to be Lent, although he appeared to have been drinking. And seemed rather jolly for someone who was supposed to be observing a period of restraint.
Below them, partygoers costumed as kings and fine ladies danced amid cripples who could barely get about on crutches and beggars on their knees, in some sort of commentary about . . . the brevity of life? Too much hubris? The love of money as the root of all evil? Mircea didn’t know. But he thought it was telling that the revelers never even seemed to notice that the poor were there.
Yes, that about summed it up, he thought fiercely. And he, for one, was tired of always being on his knees. He’d spent two years there—hell, it sometimes felt like he’d spent his whole life there. Always at someone’s beck and call, always having to worry about his duty, his family name, his position, rather than anything he actually cared about.
Or anyone.
But maybe it wasn’t too late to start over. Maybe he could make a new life in a new city. Maybe all of them could. He wondered what Jerome would do with the shops of the French capital at his fingertips.
It boggled the mind.
And sent a relieved smile breaking over Mircea’s features for the first time in a long while.
“I might be going mad,” he told Bezio, “But I think—”
“What’s he doing?” Bezio asked, cutting him off abruptly.
“What?”
“Sanuito,” he said, looking past Mircea. “Hey. Hey!”
Mircea turned in time to see the small figure in the ghost mask balanced on top of the narrow railing, clutching a column. He looked like one of the monkeys the street performers used, who regularly perched on whatever part of a building they happened to be near. With one important difference.
The monkeys didn’t fall off.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sanuito let go, Bezio swore, and Mircea dove—too late. He missed him by inches, reaching the rail in time to see him hit the concrete below. And then tear off like a madman into the crowd, where the eagle-eyed Watch was sure to see him at any moment.
And second offenders rarely survived to offend again.
Mircea vaulted over the railing, Bezio close behind him, but they were almost immediately separated by the huge, jostling crowd. As one of the best on the parade route, their vantage point had been mobbed, with people from both sides pushing in to get the best possible view as the parade’s climax neared. And it didn’t help that half of them were also wearing the damned larve masks.