Mircea flinched, expecting the worst. But nothing happened. Except that the boat came to rest in the middle of the platform, still burning, but also still intact.
Mircea felt his spine relax slightly. Maybe they would be all right. Maybe there were some sort of safety precautions he didn’t know about. Maybe—
And then the world exploded.
The powder keg on Sanuito’s boat ignited in a fireball that sent burning wood half as high as the former shells, turning night into day. The larger explosion was quickly followed by a thousand smaller ones, when every shell on the ship ignited at once. Mircea dove, desperate to get away from the surface as a thousand flaming pieces, each far larger than the deadly sparks, went flying everywhere.
Debris pattered the water over his head, including a large piece of wood that speared the waves just where he’d been swimming. Mircea outran it, flailing backward, the roar of multiple explosions echoing in his ears. It would have been faster to turn around, but he was unable to look away, staring upwards at a world burning through ripples of water.
And at the silhouette of two boats, passing just overhead. Together, the hulls formed what looked like nothing so much as the dark eyes of a carnival mask made out of flame. Staring down at him as he sank into darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“No. With Auria.”
Mircea turned, halfway up the landing. He was filthy, his hair still dripping with sooty canal water, his velvet clothes a sodden ruin. A livid burn cut across the fingers of his right hand that he couldn’t recall getting, but which must have happened in the split second before he dove, when he raised his hand to shield his face.
He was also starved, exhausted, and hurting, in more ways than one.
And yet Martina stood at the foot of the stairs, looking up at him impatiently.
“Not tonight,” he said harshly.
“Yes, tonight. What if she calls for you tomorrow?”
“And I thought you said she wasn’t interested.”
Mircea didn’t bother to keep the contempt out of his voice, and Martina flushed angrily. But Paulo stepped forward before she could respond. “Perhaps tomorrow would be better,” he murmured. “We’ve all had a shock. Sanuito—”
“Is dead,” Martina said bluntly. “Fortunately for him.”
“Fortunately . . .” Mircea stared at her.
“It was quick. If he’d survived, the Watch wouldn’t have been so kind. He caused a fortune’s worth of damage, disrupted the entire spectacle—”
“It was only a parade—”
“No, it was half a parade. The rest is probably still burning. How anyone didn’t get killed—”
“Someone did!”
“Yes, someone did. And now it’s over. As long as the Watch doesn’t find out who else was involved.”
The threat was palpable. So was Mircea’s disgust as he pushed past her, back into the hall. Only to be brought up short.
But not by Martina.
“No.” The voice was soft, and it took him a moment to realize who was speaking. The small entryway was crowded with returning revelers and servants busy helping them out of their cloaks. But everyone suddenly paused to look back—at Auria, standing alone by the front door.
Martina came slowly through the crowd. “What did you say?”
“I said it can wait.”
“It can’t—”
“And I say it will have to.” There was a tone in Auria’s voice Mircea hadn’t heard before. Instead of the usual throaty contralto, it was shrill, almost brittle, and shook slightly, like the hand still gripping the throat of her cloak.
“If this is because of some animosity between the two of you—”
“No. This is because a man died tonight!” Auria spat, and fled.
No one else moved, servants and masters alike frozen in a tableau so still it might have been a painting labelled “shock.” Except for Mircea. Who pushed past the others and followed the running girl down the hall.
He couldn’t imagine where she was going. The finest bedrooms of the house were located on the piano nobile, the floor above ground level, as was common in Venice. Upper floors had better views, and avoided the dampness and odors of street level. Marte, Martina, and Paulo all had their rooms there, along with the more elegant reception rooms and the dining hall. Danieli, Zaneta, and most of the rest of the household were housed on the floor immediately above that, in smaller, but still fine rooms, with balconies to make them feel bigger.
Mircea’s own bedroom was in the warren of small attic rooms on the top floor, used by the servants. It did not have a balcony. Or much of anything else, except a roof that sloped sharply enough to insure that he regularly hit his head when getting up in the morning.
It had never occurred to him to wonder where Auria slept. But he wouldn’t have assumed that it was on the work-like street floor. Other than for the small salon used for tradesmen, where they’d met the tailor, it mostly contained workrooms—kitchen, pantry, a study where Paulo wrestled with the accounts . . .
And, he discovered as he neared the end of the hall, a bedroom easily twice as large as Marte’s, and far more opulent.
Mircea paused for a moment in the doorway, staring at what looked less like a room and more like a treasure chest.
Frescoes of wooded glades peeked out from between tapestries of Mars and Venus. Fine cambrai cloth framed a four-poster bed with exquisite carvings. A painted and gilt casket on a table overflowed with pearls. Ivory fans and ebony combs were scattered carelessly here and there on more tables, some covered with exquisite Turkish carpets, along with belts set with gold and gemstones. And alabaster bottles filled with perfumes. And stockings and slippers of silk and velvet. And vases, and cameos, and an ostrich egg decorated all over with pictures of birds . . .
And those were just the things in view. Numerous chests, coffers, and the strongboxes the Venetians called forziere lined the walls of what Mircea assumed was once a storeroom, since some of the chests were set into purpose-built niches. And held what were presumably more gifts from grateful clients.
Not that the abundance seemed to be making its owner very happy.
Auria was sitting at a small table, putting a beautiful strand of coral beads into a box. At least, she was until it snagged on a corner, and she jerked it hard enough to break the string and send the beads flying. The coffer followed, as she swept it off the table with a cry, sending it tumbling across the tiled floor and spilling a line of glittering contents halfway across the room.
She didn’t go after them.
She sat there, her head in her hands, visibly shaking. Until Mircea took a tentative step forward. Then she looked up, the pale cheeks flushing with anger.
“I already told Martina, not tonight!”
“I’m not here for Martina,” he said, crossing the room and going to one knee in front of her. It put them on a level, allowing him to see her face through the dim moonlight filtering through a single, multipaned window. Judging by the puffy and bloodshot eyes, she had been crying silently behind the mask she’d just removed. Probably all the way back.
“Then why are you here?” she demanded shrilly.
“To see how you were.”
“Well, you’ve seen!” She got up in a sweep of skirts, only to kneel a moment later, to collect the scattered beads. But her hands were shaking and she dropped almost as many as she picked up. Considering how graceful her actions usually were, that told him more than the previous outburst about her state of mind.