"We're going to sneak you into a party where any number of servants or guests might know me?" Cass could just imagine the scandalized looks if she, the dutiful fiancee of Luca da Peraga, showed up at a formal event with another man.

Falco took Cass's arm and steered her toward the front door of the villa. "Don't worry. It's a masquerade ball. No one will recognize you."

"I don't have a mask," Cass said, glancing around the portego as though one might magically appear.

"Leave everything to me," Falco said, flashing her a smile.

Crouched down in the courtyard of Dubois's palazzo with her face pressed against the spiny leaves of a juniper bush, Cass wondered if leaving everything to Falco had been a wise decision. They still didn't have masks, and Cass couldn't take her eyes off Feliciana as the blonde girl paraded about Signor Dubois's portego in dramatic makeup and a vibrant gold dress. She'd fashioned her hair into multiple braids and then twisted them around each other into an elaborate cone.

Cass fought the urge to run up the stairs and embrace Feliciana, to talk to her the way they used to, to inquire about all the latest gossip from the city. Even in servant's garb, Siena's older sister exuded pure glamour. She might easily have been mistaken for a guest, were it not for the silver tray of canapes balanced on one of her slender shoulders.

"There." Falco pointed at a pair of masked dancers who slipped out a set of glass doors and strolled down the staircase leading from the ballroom to the garden. He and Cass ducked back behind the bush as the pair stopped to sit on a marble bench just feet from their hiding spot. Steel cressets mounted on the outer wall of the palazzo burned brightly, bathing the courtyard in dancing light. Cass held her breath, certain she and Falco would be discovered at any moment. A trickle of sweat began to make its way down the back of her neck.

The couple removed their masks and the man bent down to kiss the young woman. Cass pushed the leaves away from her face and crept toward the bench before Falco could stop her.

The lovers were deep in embrace, their faces melding into one in the darkness. Cass felt a pang of envy. She thought of the almost-kiss beneath the Rialto Bridge, of the bright colors that bloomed inside her at Falco's touch. She should have just let go. It could have been their secret.

How many more times would she get an opportunity to have any secrets at all?

She snatched the masks from the bench and tossed the larger one in Falco's direction. Her mask was black and dark purple, adorned with feathers and tiny glittering jewels. A starling, Cass decided. It covered only the top half of her face, leaving her mouth and chin exposed. She hoped it would be sufficient to conceal her identity. She tied the leather string behind her head and positioned the beak over her nose so she could see through the eyeholes.

Falco's mask was made of beige silk and outlined in strips of orange velvet that Cass assumed were supposed to be a lion's mane. The mouth turned upward in a feline grin.

They headed up the marble staircase and into the crowded portego that had been converted into a ballroom for the evening. The room was awash in crystal and gold. A portrait of the Doge, its frame gilded and encrusted with rubies, hung on one of the shorter walls. Next to it hung a picture of Signor Dubois in an even more ornate frame. Behind a long buffet table heaping with glasses of wine and platters of meat pies, pieces of armor and crossed swords were displayed on marble pedestals. At the far side of the portego, nobles and wealthy citizens of Venice danced to a string ensemble or clustered in small groups sharing stories and gossip. The roar of conversation and the clatter of dancing footsteps layered on top of the music almost overwhelmed her.

"Where do you suppose we might find the famous Signor Dubois?" Falco asked.

Cass strained to see through the swirl of gowns and masks. An obese woman in a cream-colored dress stood just inside the doors, a circle of women crowding around her. Donna Domacetti. Cass recognized her behind her swan mask by her sheer size alone. Donna Domacetti's shrill voice cut through the rest of the noise. It sounded like she was telling a story about a tryst between a noted senator and a young courtesan that she had witnessed from her portego window. During the act, apparently the portly senator had gotten a foot tangled up in the leather curtains of the felze, ripping them down and partially exposing himself to a street full of merchants returning home after a long day at the market. Cass cringed as the woman burst into raucous laughter, her cluster of masked admirers tittering and clapping their hands.

"I don't see him yet," Cass said, scanning the throngs of guests.

"So what do we think?" Falco said, steering Cass to the edge of the room where the weapons and armor lay on velvet-covered marble pedestals. "Is he our man?"

Despite being a foreigner, Joseph Dubois had business dealings with many wealthy Venetians, including Madalena's father. "Dubois is very respected...," Cass said doubtfully. "He has friends in the Senate, perhaps even among the Council of Ten. But it is strange that two women from his employ have now gone missing."

"The real question," Falco said as he watched the masked dancers clapping and moving in unison along the dance floor, "is why would anyone want to harm a beautiful woman?" His eyes darkened. "I wonder if Mariabella suspected she was in danger. People are usually murdered by someone they know. Someone they trust."

Cass wondered what black memory was playing out in Falco's head, but before she could ask, the sparkle returned to his eyes and he spun her around in a circle. "Well, that's a relief," Cass said when he pulled her back close. "I should feel perfectly safe. I hardly know you at all."

"I said usually," Falco teased, glancing again at the men and women swirling across the floor of the portego. "Will you be upset if I tell you I don't know how to dance?"

Cass shook her head. "We're here on official business." Cass stared at the back of a dark-haired girl wearing turquoise and purple skirts over a ridiculously wide farthingale. The girl's train and hat were both embellished with peacock feathers. Was it...?

It was. Madalena, half hidden by a jewel-encrusted mask, stood near the buffet table sipping wine from a blown-glass goblet. Across the room, through the chaos of ornately dressed dancing bodies, laughing faces covered in masks, flickering candelabras, and overflowing glasses, her friend had never seemed so distant to Cass.

"I see a friend of mine over by the food," Cass said, turning her back quickly to Madalena. Mada wouldn't be surprised to see Cass in attendance, but she would be shocked if she realized that Cass had come to the ball with Falco.

Suddenly, Cass felt unmoored, like she was floating in a boat that had been left to drift out into the rough waves of the lagoon, oarless and alone. Everything familiar fading farther and farther away.

And then Falco's hand was on her arm. "Come on." He steered Cass toward the other end of the room. "Look. There's our illustrious host now." He pointed toward a tiered marble fountain with sculptures of golden birds perched on each level. Giant silken banners featuring the Dubois family crest-a golden griffin brandishing a flaming sword-flanked both sides of the fountain. Sure enough, a tall, dark-haired man in a warrior mask leaned against the fountain, surveying the scene with a look of approval. The whole room seemed to orbit around him. Signor Dubois. Cass would have recognized him anywhere, mask or no mask.

"I'm going to go and have a chat with him," Falco said. "I'd love to know more about his taste in the fairer sex."

"But you can't just-"

Falco melted into the crowd before she could finish her sentence. He sidled up to the man in the golden robes and warrior mask. Dubois extended his hand to Falco without hesitation. Jeweled rings glimmered on several of the Frenchman's fingers. She watched with amusement while the man's brow furrowed and relaxed as he pretended to know Falco.

Around her, throngs of masked dancers in brightly colored cloaks and dresses twirled across the checkered floor. It was hot, and the air was heavy with the smell of food, sweat, and perfume. Cass began to feel dizzy. Sweat beaded up on her forehead and trickled down toward her eyes. She lifted the feathered headpiece from her face, waving her hand below her chin to get some air moving. If she could just take her mask off for a few moments, let her face breathe.

She looked around for Feliciana and Mada, but didn't see either one of them in the swirling masses. Just as she contemplated removing her mask completely, a man in a painted tribal mask approached Dubois from behind. Cass blinked hard. She had seen the man's shock of white hair before.

It was the long-faced man from the building in Castello, the place with the organs. And bodies.

Cass froze. If she knew what he looked like, there was a good chance he could also identify her. She fumbled to retie her mask, but her shaking fingers could make only part of the knot. The man slowed to a stop a few feet from Dubois when he saw Falco. He finished his approach slowly. Falco quickly nodded and excused himself, but Cass could have sworn he and the long-faced man exchanged a glance of recognition.

Falco returned to Cass and pulled her to the corner of the room where things were a little quieter. "Seems our Signor Dubois hasn't seen Mariabella in over a week," he said in a hushed voice. "How low has a man fallen when even his hired women begin to ignore him?"

Cass only half heard what Falco was saying. "That man," she said. "Who is he?"

"What man?" Falco looked around.

Cass frowned behind her mask. "The man in the painted mask who spoke to you and Dubois. You-you know him."

Both Cass and Falco turned back to Dubois. The long-faced man rested an arm on the host's shoulder. The two seemed to be sharing a hidden joke.

"I don't know him," Falco said. "He must be a friend of Dubois."

"Well, I know him. It's the man who almost grabbed me. From the Castello district." Her voice trembled. "Dead bodies in tin basins. Does that stir your memory?"

Falco's expression was concealed beneath the lion mask, but his tone was airy. "You must be mistaken. That place was black as pitch. You couldn't have seen anyone clearly."

"I am not mistaken." She pulled away from Falco. The moments just after her dress had snagged on the broken window came back to her in a series of fragmented images. Falco pulling. Looking back at the long-faced man. The white hair. The furrowed lines in his tall forehead. His arms reaching out for her, fingers just inches away from closing around her legs. Cass would never forget him. His image had been imprinted permanently on her mind.

"But you admit yourself you've been jumping at shadows," Falco pointed out, with a half smile that made Cass want to reach out and strangle him. "And even if it is the same man, it's not like he got a good look at us either. There's no way he would recognize us in our masks."

"I could have sworn you two exchanged a look," Cass persisted. She refused to allow Falco to dodge the subject. "Almost as though you had met before."

"Now I know you're seeing things that aren't there," he said, sighing. "Let me get you a drink. It'll soothe your nerves." Without waiting for a response, Falco strode off toward a circular table with a rainbow of blown-glass goblets arranged in a pyramid. He grabbed one hastily, nearly knocking over the glass next to it. Apparently Cass wasn't the only one whose nerves needed soothing.

She turned back to the man in the painted tribal mask. He looked harmless enough in the lamplight, but she knew it was the same man. And she knew, too, that Falco was lying about knowing him.

Cass had to know why.

Falco was heading back toward her with a pair of wineglasses, so Cass acted quickly. As a brunette in a sequined mask pulled Dubois away for a dance, Cass sucked in a deep breath and worked her way through the crowd until she reached the long-faced man's side.

"You look familiar," she said, struggling to keep her voice level. "Have we met before?"

"Angelo de Gradi," the man said, raising Cass's right hand to his lips. "The Dubois family physician. And you?"

Cass paused, trying to think up a plausible identity. She cursed at herself for not having planned what to say. Her cheeks reddened as she struggled to reply.

"Ah," Angelo said. "Another of Joseph's ladies. You will forgive me. I thought his tastes ran a little darker, more raven than starling." He reached out to stroke the plum feathers around her eyes, and his heavy hand loosened the half-knotted string. Cass felt the mask start to slip. She pressed her hand against her face to keep it from falling.

"I can't help but think you look familiar too, Signorina..." Angelo trailed off, waiting for Cass to offer her name. The lines in his forehead deepened. He twisted his wineglass back and forth in his thick fingers.

The room seemed to be revolving slowly around her. Every insignificant movement the man made further convinced Cass of his identity. She took a deep breath. It wasn't like Angelo was going to attack her in a room full of Venice's most influential citizens.

"Perhaps you don't have a name?" he asked, in a tone of amusement.

"I do," Cass said, in what she hoped was a flirtatious tone. "But to give it now would spoil the mystery."

Angelo seemed about to reply when a tall man in a black and brown feathered mask with gold-rimmed eyes-a falcon, maybe-shouldered between them.

"Pardon," he said, extending a hand to her. "Would the signorina care to dance?"

"Yes, thank you." Cass held the beak of her mask to her nose as she allowed herself to be pulled away from the physician. The half-dissected dog and bins full of organs flashed in front of her eyes. Cass now knew the long-faced man's identity. But what she didn't know was whether he was involved in Mariabella's murder.

"Enjoying the ball?" the falcon man asked as the two of them moved awkwardly across the tiled floor and attempted to blend in with the rest of the dancers. Cass tied her mask tightly, and felt better once she had double-knotted it at the back of her head. Unlike most of the guests, who had chosen their brightest apparel for the evening, this man wore only black. Even his hair was obscured by a black velvet hat, pulled low.

"Yes." Cass glanced back over her shoulder. Angelo was heading toward the pair of glass doors that led to the courtyard. Falco had disappeared.

"Your heart is pounding," the man commented as he linked arms with Cass and spun her around in a gentle circle. "I can feel the blood rushing beneath your skin."

"I've been doing a lot of dancing," Cass said absentmindedly. The man released her beneath a low-hanging candelabra. As Cass stepped back into the outer line of dancers, she looked up at the scarlet candles. A drip of wax fell onto the back of her hand, and she jumped. The falcon man's right hand twitched on Cass's rib cage as he went to twirl her again. A strand of her hair tangled itself around his fingers, and Cass winced.

"Sorry," he said. "I have trouble with my hand. War injury."

Cass looked up at him and tried to visualize the face behind the onyx beak. She detected a hint of a foreign accent. "You have seen war with the Turks, then? What was it like?"

"Difficult. Uncomfortable. Brutal." The man's hand continued to tremble against her side. "But there was a certain beauty to it."

Cass shivered. "How can war be beautiful?"

The man didn't answer. He stopped dancing. "Who is it that you're hiding from, Cassandra?"

Cass felt, suddenly, as though she'd been encased in ice. "How-how do you know my name?"

The man leaned in so close that the black and brown feathers of his mask brushed against her skin. "I know many things," he said. He drew her to the periphery of the room. There was something theatrical about the way he moved. Cass tried to disentangle her arm from his, but he gripped her more tightly.

Could it be Maximus the Miraculous hiding behind the falcon mask? Had Cass told him her name? She wasn't certain. The build was about right, and the black hat looked familiar. Cass tried to remember the cadence and timbre of the conjurer's voice, but she couldn't. She faltered in her dancing, nearly colliding with the woman in front of her.

"Faites attention," the falcon man said.

Faites attention? Cass had studied enough French to know the words meant "be careful." But who was this man and why was he speaking French to her? The only person Cass knew in France was Luca, her fiance. "I need to get back to my friend now," Cass said, attempting to sound unconcerned, in control, although her heart was thudding in her ears.

"Your friend," the man said, in a tone of amusement. "I wonder how your fiance would feel about him."

Before Cass could respond, the man brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it once; then he melted seamlessly back into the crowd of dancers. He went spinning to the other side of the circle in the arms of a tall blonde woman wearing a low-cut gray dress and black feline mask. Cass watched him for a second, feeling as though her heart might explode out of her chest. She didn't understand how the falcon man could possibly know about her engagement.

Then it came to her: Donna Domacetti. Of course.

One thing was clear: she had been recognized. She needed to go, now.

Cass searched the crowd for Falco. She spotted him, standing just beyond the drink table, balancing two glasses of champagne in one hand while chatting with Dubois. As Cass made her way over, Dubois threw his head back and slapped Falco on the back as if the two of them were the oldest of friends. Cass wondered what lies Falco had told to the man.

If Falco was such a skilled manipulator, could Cass trust anything he said?

She slid up behind Falco, careful to stay concealed from Dubois's view, and rested one hand on his waist. "We need to go," she said quietly.

"One moment," he said. "There's a small salon across the hall. Why don't I meet you there?"

Cass didn't want to stay in the ballroom for another second. "Fine," she said, pulling away from Falco and heading toward the front of Dubois's palazzo. As soon as she was away from the heat and crush of the crowd, she felt better. Here, it was empty and quiet, and much, much cooler. Her heartbeat began to return to normal.

She wandered through the salon, which resembled a museum more than a living area. Cass stopped in front of a row of Greek sculptures displayed in front of a gorgeous mural of the Acropolis. The Parthenon sat at the crest of the hill, with the lesser temples scattered below. Cass knelt down to read the embossed plaque in front of the sculpture she liked best, a headless female body with a pair of brilliant white wings. Nike of Samothrace.

As Cass reached out to touch one of the intricately carved wings, a shadow darkened part of the goddess's marble form. The air grew thick. Cass felt another presence in the room with her. She turned, slowly, purposefully, scanning the room, but the salon was empty. Just sculptures, and a balcony above her that served to display Dubois's collection of Grecian paintings.

"Jumping at shadows again," Cass murmured to herself.

"There you are, my starling." Falco sauntered into the salon. "Talking to yourself?" he asked.

Cass smiled tightly, but didn't answer. She glanced around the room again as she took Falco's arm. She still had the uncomfortable feeling that she was being watched. For a second, her eyes were drawn toward one of the wall-mounted torches, where a yellow ball of fire split momentarily into two flames, and then came back together.

When she looked away from the torch, she saw spots floating across her vision. But one of the spots wasn't floating. It was falling. Cass watched as the spot passed through the balustrade of the balcony and fluttered toward the ground. She held out her hand to catch it.

A single black and brown feather lay on her palm.

"Delirium can arise from various causes: imbalance of the humors, ingestion of poison, hectic fever, and of course madness."

-THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE

twelve.

A jagged bolt of lightning slashed across the sky.

"We'd better hurry," Falco said. He dropped his lion mask onto the dock in front of Dubois's palazzo.

He and Cass followed the street that ran alongside the Grand Canal. A handful of other masked revelers were out in the night, stumbling along the water's edge in various states of intoxication. Lightning struck again, this time followed by a blast of thunder. Cass looked up. Massive clouds twisted and swirled above their heads.

"Angelo de Gradi," Cass blurted out. "Are you sure the name means nothing to you?"