Then the flames flickered and the reflection shifted slightly. Cass realized she was staring down at a stranger. The girl's head floated to the surface of the canal, ringlets of dark hair writhing like serpents, vacant eyes staring up at Cass almost accusingly. Cass screamed as the girl's swollen torso surfaced, her neck encircled with bruises, her chest marred by a bloody X.

"Leprosy rots the body piecemeal, beginning with the nose, ears, and lips, endowing the afflicted with the appearance of a leering skull."

-THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE

seventeen.

Falco pulled her away from the water. She turned in toward him, hiding her face in his chemise. She was heaving, gasping for breath.

"It's okay." He cradled her with one arm.

Cass felt the boat come to life and move awkwardly through the water. Falco must be rowing one-handed. She looked up. "What are you doing? Pull over. Here."

"What?" Falco released her to man the oars with both hands. The old boat creaked and groaned its way through the canal water, until the grotesque floating body disappeared in its wake.

"I need to get out." Cass felt bile rising in her throat. She needed to get off the water immediately. She wanted to hurl herself from the boat, get lost deep within the winding streets of the Rialto, run until the floating body disappeared from her mind.

Falco rowed to the edge of the canal and moored the boat. Cass clambered over the side without waiting for his help. Grabbing her lantern, she took off down the closest street with Falco right behind her. Cass had no idea where she was going. All she knew was that she had to put as much distance between herself and that floating dead girl as she could.

She turned into an alley and leaned up against a crumbling brick building, her breath catching in the back of her throat. Falco caught up to her. "Where are you going, Cass?"

She shook her head. "I don't know." In the distance, she saw the glimmer of armor. Moonlight reflecting off a breastplate. Soldiers. She grabbed Falco's hand and started pulling him toward the soldiers. "Come on. We can tell them what we found."

Falco gripped her arm. "What did I tell you about the soldiers? They're corrupt. And besides, nothing has changed since the night we found Mariabella."

"Are you crazy? Everything has changed." Cass stared into Falco's flashing eyes, almost unable to believe he was the man she'd been kissing just moments before. "There's a deranged killer running loose in Venice. Everyone might be in danger."

"Yes, and you're still out alone at night, with an artist. A peasant. What's your aunt going to think? How's that going to look, Cassandra?"

"I don't care," Cass said. Another line from Michel de Montaigne's writings echoed in her head. A person of honor chooses to lose his honor rather than his conscience. It was true. Cass would not let her crimes with Falco shame her even further. She had done wrong, but she was prepared to accept her punishment. If she got disavowed, or worse, she could handle it. But she could no longer turn her back on a pair of young girls who had been murdered.

She twisted her arm sharply to break his hold and went running off in the direction of the soldiers. She heard Falco's boots thudding behind her.

"Cass, please," he called.

Cass ignored him. Maybe he was afraid of the town guard, but she wasn't. The soldiers had turned a corner and Cass couldn't see them anymore. She thrust herself deep into the twisted alleys, listening for the sound of their rough voices, their boots tromping in matched cadence against the stone streets. She glanced back over her shoulder. The area behind her was deserted. Either she had lost Falco or he had left her. And the soldiers were nowhere in sight.

Just as she was about to give up, she heard gravelly voices coming from a narrow alleyway on her right. Cass plunged into the dark opening and skidded immediately to a stop. Two hunched-over figures were rooting through a pile of trash. Even in the dark, Cass could make out the telltale lesions on their long, spindly arms. Lepers. They weren't supposed to be out in the streets. The fingers of her left hand reached down toward her rosary, cradling the rosewood crucifix as if it would protect her.

One of the lepers looked up at her from beneath his hooded robe. Circles of flesh were missing from his left cheek and the bridge of his nose. In the faint light, his eyes looked black as coal, as if he were not just diseased but also possessed. His toothless mouth twisted into a grimace as he reached out to Cass with a hand that had only three fingers.

"Hungry," he said, his voice so low and distorted that she almost didn't understand.

Digging into her suede pouch, fighting feelings of terror and revulsion, she tossed a couple of coins at the men and watched as the one retrieved the money with his clawlike hand. The second leper didn't even look up.

Cass retreated from the alley. Back on the main street, she turned a slow circle, looking, listening for any sign of the soldiers. All she saw were heaps of trash and the shadowy outlines of buildings. A trickle of sweat made its way from her hairline to her right eye. Cass wiped at it with her sleeve. No luck. She peeked down the next alley. It was black as pitch, even with her lantern. Cass glanced down and saw that the beeswax candle had more than half melted away. Soon she would be walking the streets of Venice in complete darkness. Alone.

How long had the dead girl been in the water? she wondered. Was there a murderer stalking the streets nearby? Cass gave up on finding the soldiers. Someone else would likely report the body at sunrise, if not sooner. It was time for her to find her way back to the Grand Canal so she could get home.

Squinting between two ramshackle private residences, Cass saw the telltale reflection of moonlight on water. A canal, just a block away. She turned and walked parallel to the canal until it bled into a larger one. She followed the large canal and eventually came upon the Grand Canal once more. She headed back toward the boat, hoping Falco hadn't deserted her completely. Eventually she saw the blue batela, bobbing at the edge of the water. It was empty.

Cass scanned both sides of the canal looking for Falco. Tall palazzos loomed like fortresses; sculptures of angels and lions hovered protectively over their entrances. Part of her just wanted to leave him. He was used to running about in the middle of the night. He'd be able to find his way home without her. Cass wasn't even sure where he lived. She had assumed he stayed somewhere out on San Domenico, but maybe he just went there to meet his friends at Il Mar e la Spada. There were so many tavernas on the Rialto. She wondered why the group of artists preferred such an isolated little place.

In front of her, Cass thought she saw a flash of light. She headed toward it, crossing over a narrow bridge. Another flicker, almost imperceptible. It came from a partially obscured path running between two palazzos. Cass began to walk faster.

"Falco?" she called softly, her voice echoing off the stone. She'd spend a few minutes looking for him, she decided. For one, rowing the old batela by herself would be difficult. And maybe she could persuade him to tell her why he was so adamant about avoiding the town guard. Falco had seen much more of the soldiers, of Venice, than she had. Maybe he had a reasonable explanation.

The path twisted past a block of shops and storefronts and bled into a small campo. Weeds pushed their way through the cracked tiles beneath her feet. A life-sized statue lay on its side in the middle of the square. Even with one missing arm, Cass recognized San Giuda from his staff and the tongue of fire sculpted behind his head. A lantern sat next to the fallen statue. No doubt this was the flickering light Cass had seen reflecting off the palazzos.

Across the clearing, a crumbling stone chapel was nestled between a decrepit apothecary and a long brick building that looked to be a monastery. Wind or water damage had whittled the cross on the chapel's roof almost down to a T.

Cass heard voices coming from the side of the chapel. She gripped her lantern tightly again, prepared to use it as a weapon if needed. Pressing her back against the front wall of the building, Cass peeked around the side. The first thing she saw was a wrought-iron fence cordoning off what looked to be a small graveyard at the back of the church.

The second thing she saw was Falco.

The third thing she saw made her blood congeal in her veins. It was Angelo de Gradi, Dubois's doctor, the man from the workshop of horrors. He and Falco appeared to be arguing. Falco was gesturing wildly; Cass caught only snatches of their words.

"What is that place...we had a deal..." That was Falco. Cass's heart dropped. So she hadn't just imagined that Falco and Angelo knew each other.

"Go home...won't want to be here when they...tomorrow night..." The physician sounded angry.

"Fine...then I'm finished."

Falco. Finished with what?

Angelo's response was swallowed up by a gust of wind.

Footsteps thudded on stone, and Cass raced to the far side of the church. She hid her body and her lantern among the dense shrubbery growing between the chapel and adjoining monastery and watched as both Falco and Angelo disappeared into the dark passageway.

Cass tried to piece things together in her head. Angelo had told Falco not to be there when something happened. When they what? Found the body? Had Angelo killed the girl in the water? Had Falco? If so, why hadn't either of them had the good sense to hide her like they had hidden Mariabella? And what was going to happen tomorrow night? Was that when the body would be officially discovered? None of it made sense. The only thing for certain was that Cass could no longer deny Falco's connection to Angelo and his macabre collection of human remains.

The dying lantern still flickered at San Giuda's feet. Cass made her way back across the campo and down the path. She peered out from between the two palazzos. Angelo was nowhere to be seen. Falco stood by the blue batela, looking lost. Cass started back across the small bridge. Falco glanced up and saw her before she got halfway. As he approached her, she was reminded of how they had stood in the middle of the Rialto Bridge just a few days ago, and how close she had felt to him then. That was when Falco had given her the speech about letting go. A fine bit of advice that had turned out to be.

The wind whipped Falco's dark hair back from his face. His eyes were wild. "How could you just run off like that? I was frantic. I looked for you everywhere."

"Did you?" The words came out harsher than intended. "Because when I saw you, you didn't appear to be searching for me at all. You were arguing. With Angelo de Gradi."

Falco recoiled as if he'd been slapped. The blood drained from his face.

"Angelo," Cass continued. "The man you swore on several occasions that you didn't know." Her voice started to break. She was dangerously near to tears. Please let him have an excuse, she thought. Please let him make everything all right.

"I can explain," Falco said, his jaw hardening. "I'm sorry. I did lie. I do know Dottor de Gradi." Falco took a deep breath. "Angelo. In fact...I work for him."

"Doing what?" she asked, trying to keep the tremor from her voice.

"I can't tell you."

Cass felt a surge of anger. She wanted to grab Falco and shake him. She was giving him a chance to set things right. "That's your idea of an explanation?"

"I promise you, he has nothing to do with Mariabella, or with that..." His eyes flicked momentarily to the canal water.

"And I'm supposed to take your word for it?" Cass said icily. "So what was the good doctor doing at a chapel so late? Seeking counsel? A late-night confessional perhaps?"

"Apparently, he lost two patients today," Falco said. "A pair of siblings to the plague. He was tending to the family, who happen to live in this area. I imagine the poor mother needed something to help her sleep."

"How benevolent," Cass said, her voice rife with skepticism. "But it doesn't explain how you ended up arguing with him."

Falco raked a hand through his hair. "Why can't you just trust me? There's more...There are things I can't explain to you. Things that have nothing to do with either of us. Things that it might actually be dangerous for you to know. Maybe I'm trying to protect you."

Cass squeezed her hands into fists. Of course. Falco just wanted to give her a slick smile and a few soft words so that she'd nod obediently and stop questioning him. Like a pet. "Things you can't explain? Like the dead bodies popping up around Venice? And always when you're nearby?"

Falco paled again. "You know I would never hurt anyone."

"I don't know that," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "I don't know anything about you. And what I do know, who can say if it's real or a lie?" The volatile emotions, the secrets, the way he had pressed her up against the wall of Tommaso's studio. Cass was no longer sure what he was capable of.

She couldn't stand to look at him for another second. She turned away and hurried back across the little bridge, toward the mysterious stone chapel, away from the spot where their borrowed batela was moored.

"Where are you going?" Falco yelled after her.

"I can't tell you," she said, enjoying the feel of throwing his own words back at him. The truth was, she couldn't tell him because she honestly had no idea. "Don't follow me. I don't want you near me."

She ran back through the dark passageway, ducking between a small bakery and a blacksmith shop. She heard Falco calling her name. She pressed herself tight against the stone wall. She couldn't face him. He had been lying to her from the beginning. He was working for Angelo. Angelo, the man who dissected dogs for fun and collected human body parts in neatly arranged tin basins. Cass put a hand to her lips; this time when she thought of Falco's kiss, it made her sick. Had Falco also kissed Mariabella and the girl in the water?

Had he planned to kill her too?

Falco ran past the small space where she was hiding. Fortunately, he didn't see her. "Cassandra," he called. She heard him repeating her name as he moved farther down the dark passageway. As his footsteps faded, emotions flooded through Cass, almost overwhelming her. She leaned back against the rough stucco wall, letting her body slide down it until she rested on the ground. Grief and guilt and fear coursed through her, bringing with them a wave of sadness.

The smiles, the kisses, the soft words. Lies, all of it. But what about how she had felt for him-how she still felt? She had meant the things she said and did. She still meant them. Cass had never felt so lost. For the first time since she had bumped into him outside Liviana's funeral, Cass admitted to herself that she might have fallen in love with a murderer.

"The major piazzas are full of charlatans peddling rabbit piss as healing tonic. True tonic comes from recombinations of the four humors themselves, and often by adding a tincture of wild herbs."

-THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE

eighteen.

The rain came early the next morning as Cass and Siena met Madalena and Eva outside the east entrance of the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, one of the city's largest places of worship. The campo outside the Frari was teeming with nobles and high-ranking citizens dressed in their finest silks, but Mada was easy to find. Her farthingale, encased in yards of emerald silk, was so wide, it could have sheltered several children from the droplets of rain that were just beginning to fall. She was pressed up against the church's red brick exterior, trying to shelter herself from the weather under a tiny stone overhang. Eva opened a leather umbrella and held it in front of Mada.

In the absence of the sun, the church's stained-glass windows looked like three dark circles above her head. Cass leaned against the bricks for support as she exchanged a greeting with her friend. She didn't know how she'd be able to stay awake, let alone focus.

After she had run from Falco and lost herself in the twisted streets, it had taken almost an hour until she had found a sleeping fisherman along the Grand Canal whom she could bribe to take her back to San Domenico. By the time she had sneaked back into her room, it was only a couple of hours until sunrise and Cass hadn't been able to sleep. She had pulled out her journal, intending to list all the evidence she could think of that Falco wasn't involved in the killings, but her pages had remained blank.

Today her lush church gown weighed her down, and she felt as if she could barely stay on her feet. Her feet, her knees, all of her joints pulsed with pain. Was this what her aunt went through every day? Later she would ask Cook if he could fix her a tonic, something to soothe her.

A bell rang twice and the wooden doors of the Frari swung open.

"Come on." Madalena removed the hood of her cloak and adjusted her green veil so that it covered all of her hair. She folded herself into the line of people heading toward the yawning black hole that led into the church. Like a mouth, Cass thought, swallowing the people whole.

"I'm so glad your aunt let you attend Mass with me today," Mada whispered. She wrapped her gloved hand around Cass's arm and pulled her along. Madalena led her to a pew several rows from the back. They settled in behind a pair of noblewomen whose elaborate coiffed hairdos were fashioned so high off their heads that Cass could see only part of the altar. Behind them, the lady's maids found a spot with the rest of the servants.

"You know why she did," Cass said bitterly. "She wanted me to be seen after her big announcement that Luca and I would be married soon. Three different people congratulated me on the short walk here."

"Who?"

Cass shrugged. "No idea."

A pair of choirboys in white robes with golden sashes made their way down the center aisle. They closed the wooden doors. The bell tolled again and the crowd grew quiet. Everyone stood as the priest appeared and took his place on the raised pedestal just to the right of the wooden altar. A golden crucifix dangled around his neck, and his black robes were trimmed with thick swatches of maroon velvet. Behind him, gray daylight filtered through a wall of arched windows above a giant painting by Titian: Assumption and Consecration of the Virgin. Cass had always liked the painting, which showed Mary being raised to heaven by God.

"You know Titian is buried here?" Mada whispered. She relayed this fact every single time Cass attended church with her.

Cass played along. "Really?" She couldn't help but think of Falco. She touched the amethyst necklace that he had given her, which she was wearing beneath her bodice. She had grabbed the loop of purple stones at the last minute, slipping it around her neck but tucking it out of sight. She'd told herself she only wore it because she meant to return it to Falco the next time their paths crossed.

But now her certainty from last night that Falco was a murderer began to dissipate. He couldn't be a murderer. He couldn't. Maybe he was painting something for the creepy physician. A special canvas that his master was insisting he keep a secret. She had to find him again and force him to be honest with her. She was sure he had an explanation for what she had seen and heard.

"Signore, pieta." Madalena recited the words along with the rest of the congregation. Cass sighed. Everyone else was apologizing to God for their sins, and here she was dreaming up some new ones.

Cass took a seat on the cushioned bench and tried to focus as the priest began the first reading. It was something about honesty. Fitting.

Madalena leaned in close. She was never one to pay attention during the readings, which Cass agreed often droned on far too long. "Did you see the handbills?" she whispered.

Cass shook her head. The official Venetian notices distributed around the city tended not to make it all the way out to San Domenico Island.

"A girl's body was found in the Grand Canal this morning. A maid, I think. Sliced to ribbons." Mada made a slashing motion against her chest for emphasis. "There's a reward offered to anyone who knows anything."

Cass felt as though her blood had suddenly frozen in her veins. She thought of the bloated torso rising from the waters of the canal, the savage circle of bruises around the girl's throat, the bloody X carved into her chest. A maid, Mada had said. Cass was willing to bet anything it was the missing servant, Sophia, who had disappeared from Joseph Dubois's estate. "How horrible," she managed to choke out. "Do they know the girl's identity?"

Madalena frowned. "I don't know. My wedding is just a few days away and all anyone can talk about is some servant's mutilated corpse. It's a bad omen, don't you think?"

Cass didn't even wonder at Mada's self-absorption today. She herself was too distracted. Bodies, threatening notes, masked strangers, frightening visions-her life had become a series of ominous portents. Cass wished Falco hadn't burned the anonymous note she had received on the canals. Time after time, Cass felt drawn back to that slip of parchment, as if it contained crucial information.

The priest was preparing to read from the Gospel of Matthew. Men and women all around them were making the shape of the cross on their lips and foreheads. Mada glanced over as Cass crossed herself. The older girl's eyes narrowed to slits, her fingertips coming to rest on the strand of purple stones that was barely visible on one side of Cass's neck. She pulled the entire necklace free so that it hung over Cass's dress.

"Where did you get this?" Mada hissed.