Or a jar, she thought. When she closed her eyes to squeeze filthy water from them, she saw those men cutting their palms, and when she opened them again the water around her legs looked red.
“Nico!” she screamed. “Nico!” But there was no answer. If he had gone back down, there was nothing she could do for him now. He’ll be dead already, she thought, and that unfamiliar blankness she felt from him—no sensation, no images—suddenly felt darker and more ominous than ever.
Then she turned and left the chamber, scooping up one last handful of books on the way. And started to cry for everything she knew was lost, and everything that might yet be.
They were gathered in the main library, carefully depositing all that they had rescued on one of the long tables there. The few readers were standing back in surprise, and the librarian was helping, laying each book and manuscript flat. An air of panic hung over the scene, and when they noticed Geena approaching she saw their eyes flit past her at the shadows. She turned, but there was no one behind her.
“Has anyone seen him?” she asked. Heads shook.
“I’ve called the police,” Ramus said. “Told them what’s happening. They’ll bring the engineers.”
“Divers,” Domenic said, and the room fell silent. They all knew what divers would mean. Air pocket, Geena thought. If he’s anywhere down there, he might have found somewhere to breathe. But it was a foolish thought. Nico had hardly seemed to know where he was the last time she had gotten a good look at him.
“Dr. Hodge,” Finch said, his voice fraught with concern, “I was close to the staircase, and I’m fairly sure I saw …” He trailed off when he saw how everyone else looked at him.
“If he made it out of there, he’d be here with us,” she said, and felt the shakes closing in. “He must have banged his head, something like that.” But even as she spoke she was reliving those few strange moments before the wall had started to give way, and wasn’t sure. The look in his eyes … he hadn’t been himself.
“Did you see anything?” she asked the room, and was met with confused, uncertain frowns.
“After he dropped that jar, he fell,” Ramus said. “Then you hit your head and said something.”
“What?”
“I couldn’t hear. Then the water.”
Faintness washed over her and she closed her eyes, leaning on the table. Her hand touched the rough edge of an old manuscript and she looked down at its yellowed blank cover, wondering what incredible stories it might contain.
“He’s not dead,” she said, but no one answered. And in her voice was desperation rather than certainty. “He could be disoriented, right? Could have … gone home or something? I need to get home. He might go there.”
“I’ll go with you,” Domenic volunteered. “And we should hurry. If we’re still here when the police arrive, they might hold us up.”
He held her arm and guided her from the library. Geena looked back at the others. They were all watching her leave. She hated the pity and hopelessness she saw in their eyes. Even Finch.
“Get this to the university,” she said, waving vaguely at the little they had managed to save. But right then the tragedy of what they had lost could not touch her.
The sunlight hit them when they exited the library, as did the whipping of pigeons flapping overhead and the bustle of tourists going about their business, oblivious to what had been happening below their feet. Geena and Domenic approached the canal silently, attracting a few curious glances and wrinkled noses. She expected to see a stretch of canal boiling with bubbles from the tumult below, but there was no sign of any upset, only the gentle waves that lapped constantly over the pavement. She’d often wondered where these waves came from when there was no boat traffic, since they were far from the open sea, but Nico had told her it was Venice’s heartbeat. She was glad that the waves were still there.
“Are we going to his apartment, or …?” Domenic asked.
“Mine,” she said. “It’s closer.” And I think he’s happy there, she thought. Domenic smiled at her as they jumped down into the water taxi. None of her students or fellow lecturers had ever openly mentioned her relationship with Nico, though she’d known for a while that it was common knowledge. Secrecy seemed foolish now.
The journey took longer than it should have. They caught a water taxi south across the Grand Canal. Her gaze focused as it always did upon the white façade of San Giorgio Maggiore to the east, but then, as the water taxi approached the dock at Fondamenta de la Crosa, she spotted a gondola motionless across the waterway. A man argued with the gondolier, who was talking in a never-ending stream of fast Italian, waving his arms and looking at the heavy old buildings surrounding them, while a fat woman knelt and looked down into the water. She had one sleeve rolled up and was saying, “But, my phone, my phone. It has my pictures, all my pictures. My phone!”
Their driver honked his horn and gesticulated, and the gondolier redirected his stream of invective. Domenic shouted something to their driver and pointed toward the side of the canal. Their motor roared, and the taxi drifted in that direction.
“Shortcut,” Domenic said. “I know a way.”
Geena could see no way to exit the boat into the building, but she knew better than to question Domenic. As the boat stilled again he stepped into the water. Geena looked over the side and saw the small wooden dock just below the canal surface.
“Is it safe?” she asked, but Domenic grabbed her hand and urged her over the side without answering. He paid their driver then reached up to a pair of heavy wooden shutters, fiddling with the catch and sighing audibly when they fell open.
“I once loved someone here,” he said, explaining before Geena asked. They ducked into the building, climbed some stairs, passed through two empty rooms whose uses were lost to history, then descended to exit onto a narrow alley between buildings.
Did Nico really come this way? Geena wondered. Ever since leaving the library she’d felt that she had also left Nico behind. She tried to shrug this idea away because it spoke of terrible things, but the air around her was empty of him, the sun beating down on streets no longer touched by his shadow. She sobbed once, and a fat man glanced at her with a look of disgust.
“What?” she snapped, and Domenic steered her away.
There was not enough room to run, yet they moved quickly. Perhaps it was their expressions that prompted people to step aside and let them pass, or maybe it was simply the stink rising from their clothes. As they reached the end of a narrow alley and emerged into a small square filled with trees, Geena felt some outside influence blossoming deep in her mind.
She paused and grinned, and thought, Nico! She caught a shimmer of other streets—how he saw them, not how she saw them. Venice was his home; he’d been born here, and everything was familiar.
But beneath that sensation was one of fear and pursuit, and she felt Nico’s hairs prickling on the back of her neck.
“What is it?” Domenic asked. Geena could not answer. She waved him away, trying to make sense of what she sensed and felt, and trying to discern whether it was her pursuit of Nico that troubled him so. But already the contact was gone, leaving a dark void within her, and a terrible sense of doom.