The gate was propped open, as if a funeral party had recently brought in a body. But that was madness. No one interred bodies in the dead of night.

As Cass made her way beyond the iron fence, the temperature seemed to drop. Her skin prickled with goose bumps. She stole through the graveyard, holding her lantern close to her body for warmth. She tracked the sphere of light as it moved along the row of crypts. As she approached it, she saw a second, dimmer lantern, propped next to the first.

The pair of lights swirled and wavered in the pitch night. Cass felt herself being pulled forward, like a moth to a flame. Perhaps Falco was here, sketching, as he had been that night on San Domenico. Perhaps she had been magically drawn to him. Not magically, divinely. Perhaps God had brought the two of them together. Just because Falco didn't believe didn't mean it wasn't real.

Fate.

Cass was so certain Falco waited for her at the end of the row of crypts that she opened her mouth to call out to him.

And then a horrible scratching sound rent the air. The noise seemed to tunnel deep inside of her. The lantern slipped from her fingers and fell to the wet grass. The flame went out. Instinct gripped Cass, telling her to get as far away from the graveyard as possible. The scraping noise pierced the quiet night again. It sounded like the claws of demons forcing their way inside a crypt to feed on innocent souls.

Go back. Go back. Go back. Cass heard her own voice screaming in her head. But she couldn't move. She was terrified, transfixed.

Then she heard other voices. Whispering. Muffled cursing.

Falco's voice.

For a moment, the graveyard, the cold, the mist-all of it disappeared. Cass felt as if she were hovering outside of her body: she was walking forward, moving mechanically, without thinking. She could no longer feel anything. She didn't even know that she was breathing.

And then she saw him.

The lanterns illuminated Falco's face. His hair was hanging in his eyes, and his forehead was beaded with sweat. He was standing next to a tomb, dragging a heavy, white-wrapped shape across the ground, toward a wooden cart where Paolo and Etienne were waiting. Nicolas was watching, holding a metal hammer, muttering instructions Cass couldn't make out.

Falco stopped, straightened up, and said something indecipherable. Paolo came forward to help him. Nicolas abandoned his hammer and scooped up one of the lanterns.

Suddenly, the cart and Falco's wrapped bundle moved into the faint light.

An arm broke through a fold in the burial shrouds.

White, bloated, its fingers swollen in death. A human arm, connected to a corpse. Falco cradled the dead body against his chest as he wrestled it over to the cart.

A horrible wailing noise pierced the air.

It took Cass a minute to realize the sound was coming from her.

"Once a corpse is removed from its grave it should be dissected without delay, its various parts sliced thin for examination by the anatomist."

-THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE

twenty-three.

She clamped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late.

Falco dropped the body he was holding, whipping around to face her. His eyes went wild.

"Cass!" Her name echoed through the open space.

She reeled backward, terror drumming through her. She had fallen into hell, into a nightmare. She ran, sobbing, choking back more screams. Her foot landed in a soft patch of dirt and her ankle twisted. She stumbled but didn't fall. As she passed through the open gate, she hitched up her dress with both hands and pushed herself to run faster than she ever had before. The wet grass tugged at her ankles. Cass could sense the boys behind her; she could feel them pursuing her.

Twice she tripped and went sprawling across the campo. The cracked marble cut into her hands. She climbed to her feet without looking back, not thinking of anything but home, and light, and safety, and the heavy locks on her doors, which she would bolt now and forever against the man-the madman-she had fallen in love with.

Racing through the dark alley, Cass cursed herself for lying to the gondolier. If she had been truthful-well, more truthful-he might have agreed to ferry her back to San Domenico. Instead, Cass raced along the side of the canal until she found the same fisherman who had taken her home the night she and Falco had discovered Sophia's body in the canal.

Her footsteps had awakened the boy, and he sat up sleepily in his sandolo. A slow smile spread across his face as he recognized her.

"Go, go, go." Cass hopped into the boat, emptying her purse in the boy's direction. Silver coins spilled out onto the damp baseboards. Way too much for the fare, but Cass was not worried about the money.

The boy laughed, not understanding the urgency, but he freed his little fishing skiff with a sharp tug on the rope. Grabbing the oar, he turned the boat out into the center of the canal. Cass looked back as they pulled away from the bridge. Falco stood at the water's edge, watching her leave. His hair snapped and twisted in the wind; the faint moonlight distorted his features so that he looked more monstrous than human.

Or maybe he had always looked like that, and Cass had been too blind to see it.

She turned her back on him, sliding down in the boat. She wished she could die, that the bottom of the sandolo would just split open and let the frigid water of the lagoon suck her down to its muddy depths.

Cass barely registered the ride back to San Domenico. When the sandolo pulled close to Agnese's dock, Cass hurled herself over the edge, not even waiting for the boy to anchor the boat. She no longer cared about the cold or water or being caught. She just wanted to get inside and begin forgetting everything she had seen.

Shivering, she slipped through the back door and into the darkened kitchen. The house was quiet. No one else had woken.

Cass made her way upstairs to her room. She pulled her shutters closed with a bang, triple checking the latch to make sure it was secure. Then she went from candle to candle, lighting them all, as though she could burn away the horrible images in her head. She had had enough of the dark.

She writhed inside her torn and soggy dress, yanking at laces and buttons until the garment fell from her body to the floor of her bedroom. Cass stared at the shredded fabric. Destroyed. Like her life. Like everything. She sank into bed, pulling the covers up to her neck. She couldn't stop shaking. Cass fought the urge to vomit. She had fallen in love with a monster. He could have killed her.

She glanced up at the portrait of the Virgin Mary. The woman looked back from her frame without judgment, but also without answers. Tears came, hot and fast. Cass curled onto her side, pressing her chin to her knees. She began to sob. Her insides felt like they were being crushed from all directions. Bones breaking. Her heart, squeezed to dust.

"The Church decrees that bodies buried in unconsecrated ground have no hope of ascending to Heaven.

But Heaven is a myth.

Hope lies in the dead themselves.

It is through the study of their bodies that we may gain the key to immortality."

-THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE

twenty-four.

In the morning, thin beams of light filtered through cracks in the shutters. The candles had long ago burned to useless nubs.

As Cass sat up slowly, memories of the previous night assaulted her, one after the next. Horrible scratching sounds. Bodies sprawled on a cart, like disfigured lovers. Falco embracing a corpse. Had it all been a dream? It must have been.

Of course. A bad dream. A terrible, terrible nightmare.

Cass gasped as Slipper bounded up on the bed. "You scared me halfway to the grave," she told the cat. The words niggled at the edge of her consciousness. Had she heard them in her dream?

Slipper mewed softly and Cass reached out to pet his gray and white head. Her hand stung. She pulled it away from the cat. For several seconds she couldn't bring herself to look at it. She listened to her heart slam-bang in her chest. She remembered tumbling to the hard ground of the campo, falling forward onto her palms, sharp edges of stone cutting into her flesh. Please please please. Cass willed her skin to be intact. Please let it all have been a dream.

Slowly, Cass lifted her hand to her face. Her palm was marred by several long red scratches. Bile rose to the back of her throat. Blanks in her memory filled themselves in rapidly. Cass tricking Narissa. The note for Falco. The trip home with the fisherman. It was real. All of it. Falco embracing a corpse...

Cass fought back tears. Were the artists witches? Satanists? Were they involved with whatever Angelo de Gradi was doing in the old Castello building? Bodies. Body parts. Cass shuddered. Were they simply stealing the dead, or could Falco and his friends be murderers too?

She glanced around the darkened room. The shadowy outlines of her armoire and dressing table reminded her of sentries standing guard. They were solid, sturdy. The whole house was sturdy. Yesterday the villa had been her prison. Today it was her fortress. Surely, she would be safe as long as she remained hidden inside. She had asked Falco to meet her in the garden that very evening. That was one engagement she wouldn't be keeping.

She spent most of the day tucked away in the library, leaving just long enough to pick at her dinner while Agnese watched, frowning. Cass had been finishing up Dante Alghieri's La Divinia Commedia, but the scribe's loopy handwriting was giving her a headache. Some of the wealthier nobles turned their noses up at printed books, but Cass thought the invention of the printing press was nothing short of magic. She tossed the hand-copied book down and wandered over to the shelf where her aunt kept her newest printed volumes. She scanned the spines, hoping for a new collection of de Montaigne essays, but she didn't find one. Absentmindedly, she selected a book with a dyed-green leather binding. She snuggled down in the chair by the fireplace with Slipper on her lap.

The book was by a little-known English playwright named Shakespeare, and the story was about a pair of young lovers kept apart by a family feud. Cass knew love was probably the last thing she should be reading about right now, but she liked the way Shakespeare wrote, with vivid language and long flowing lines. It was more like poetry than story. Cass flipped the pages rapidly, eager to find out what happened to the star-crossed pair. But the book ended only part of the way through the story. She'd have to search the shelf and see if her aunt had purchased the next volume.

Slipper opened his eyes and yawned at Cass as she set the green book on the table next to her chair. "You'll never disappoint me, will you?" Cass murmured, nuzzling her nose against the white spot on Slipper's forehead.

The cat flexed one paw in response, his tiny needlelike claws catching in the fabric of Cass's dress. She petted him while she looked up at the library's elaborately painted ceiling. A local artist had done a mural of a traditional vision of heaven. Flocks of winged angels played in ponds and flower gardens while a bearded God looked directly down on Cass.

"Signorina Cass." Narissa poked her head into the library. "You have a gentleman caller. I told him you were reading, but he was quite adamant."

Cass's throat went dry. Falco. She shook her head. Her hands unconsciously tightened around Slipper, and the cat wriggled in her grasp. "Tell him I'm ill," she croaked out.

Narissa left the library, and a few minutes later Cass heard muffled voices coming from the front of the villa.

She couldn't make out what Narissa was saying, but she did hear that the voices were getting louder, as if Falco were arguing with her.

Cass leapt to her feet. Slipper squirmed out of her arms and landed hard on the floor. Terror and rage pulled at Cass, freezing her to her spot. She couldn't decide whether to hide away or launch herself at Falco and drag him forcefully from the villa. Clearly he was depraved, but was he violent? Were she and Narissa in danger?

Cass's anger won out, and she stalked from the library down the hallway to the portego. She couldn't believe Falco's nerve. He had no right to raise his voice to Narissa. He had no right to be there, to be anywhere, to show his face in public ever again. Not after what Cass had seen. How had he even contrived admittance to the villa? Probably he was dressed up in some stupid costume again. Cass remembered his poorly fitting aristocrat's clothing from the night of the masked ball. He had never told Cass where he got the outfit, but now she knew. The same way he got Liviana's necklace, by stripping it from a rotting corpse. Her stomach churned. Once again she saw Falco cradling that dead body against his chest.

She turned the corner, ready to yank Falco outside and tell him to leave and never come back. But when she hit the threshold to the portego, she froze. The man arguing with Narissa wasn't Falco.

"Hello, Cassandra," the man said. His brown eyes lit up and he smiled.

"Luca," Cass gasped.

"A leech left to batten too long on the flesh of a diseased person may gorge itself so fully on unwholesome blood that it bursts open, spilling poisons into the air and sickening others."

-THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE

twenty-five.

I admit I was hoping for a slightly warmer greeting," Luca said, still smiling. He held something wrapped in paper out toward her. "These are for you."

A bouquet of lilies. Cass accepted the pale pink flowers, still unable to make any words come out of her mouth. She blinked rapidly, as if her fiance were a mirage that might disappear.

It had been only three years since she had seen him, but her Luca had grown at least six inches in that time. His shoulders had broadened to the point where his ivory brocade doublet fit tightly across his chest. His legs were long and muscular beneath his trunk hose and breeches. Even his hands looked huge compared with the wiry bookish boy she remembered. Just a hint of sandy-colored hair peeked out from beneath his black velvet hat.

Narissa stepped between Cass and Luca. "Like I told you, Signore, Signorina Cassandra isn't feeling well and really shouldn't be disturbed."

Luca didn't respond immediately. He just kept looking at Cass. She felt herself blushing and had no idea why. So he had outgrown his awkward stage. He was still the same old Luca. Wasn't he?

"It's all right, Narissa." Cass placed a hand on Narissa's shoulder. "This is Signor da Peraga, my fiance." She managed to say the word without grimacing.

"Your-" Narissa backed away immediately. She dipped into a shallow curtsy. "Oh! I beg your pardon, Signore. I didn't recognize-" She grabbed the cloak out of Luca's outstretched hands.

"It's fine, Narissa," Cass said. "Signor da Peraga will watch over me for a bit if you'd like to take a break. If my aunt is awake, I'm sure she would like to be informed of his arrival." She touched the older woman's shoulder as Narissa turned to leave. "Would you mind putting these in some water?"

"I'll take care of them, Signorina." Narissa disappeared with Luca's cloak and the lilies. Cass led him back to the library. Slipper was stretched out across the chair by the fire.

"Thank you for the flowers." Cass picked up the cat and reclaimed her spot. There was no way she was going to sit with Luca at her study table. She imagined their legs bumping beneath the carved tabletop, their hands just inches apart.

Luca raised an eyebrow at Slipper. "You're welcome." He stood awkwardly beside Cass for a moment before pulling one of the chairs over next to her. He removed his hat and ran a hand through his dark blond hair. "The maid said you were ill. You do look a bit feverish." He pressed one of his hands against her cheek. His skin smelled faintly of pine and citrus. "Perhaps we should call a physician."

Cass fought the urge to shy away from his touch. It was surprisingly gentle. His hair looked so thick and soft. It had always been uncontrollably curly when he was younger, but now he wore it short and straight. She fiddled with one of Slipper's velvety ears. "Really, I'm fine," she said. "I just haven't been sleeping so well."

"I should think not, with your friend's death and now a murderer on the loose. I'm sorry for your loss." Luca rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Thank you," Cass said. Luca had known Liviana only in passing. One of his friends in Venice must have mentioned the contessa's death. "Why didn't you say that you were coming?" She was trying not to stare at him, but she couldn't help it. The angle of his cheekbones reminded her of one of the Greek statues from Dubois's salon. His skin was sculpture-worthy as well, creamy and alabaster pale, just the hint of a blond beard showing on his cheeks and chin. Almost nothing about him reminded her of the petulant boy who had demanded a kiss from her three years ago.

Luca gave Cass a funny look. He plucked a series of invisible cat hairs from his black velvet breeches. "I'm sure I mentioned it in at least two letters. Did you not receive them?"

Cass reddened again. Her tongue felt knotted in her mouth. "I must have lost track of time." Santo cielo. He was going to think she'd become a babbling idiot.

Luca's smile wavered for a moment. He stretched out his long legs and crossed them at the ankles. "No matter. I'm here now. Just in time to protect you."

Cass gestured toward Slipper, who had gone back to sleep on her lap. "Well, as you can see, I'm in grave danger of being mauled, right here in my aunt's library." She regretted the wry tone immediately. It was the kind of thing she would have said to Falco. Luca would probably take offense at her joke.

But he laughed. "He does look rather fierce," he said. Luca picked up the leather-bound volume Cass had been reading. "Shakespeare," he said, twirling the book in his hand. "Quite a tale. Pity how they both die at the end."

"Luca!" Cass gasped. Slipper jumped down from her lap and padded over to the fireplace. "I had only just completed the first quarto. I was looking for the second volume when you arrived."

Luca looked apologetic. "I'm sorry. A classmate was talking about it at university. You can still read it, Cassandra. It's a fine story, if you like that sort of thing. As I recall, you used to be more into swordfights and sorcerers."