It’s midmorning by the time Pietro makes it back to the Contarini palace. He ties his boat up at the dock under the pian nobile and then lies on his stomach on the fondamenta and washes his face in the canal. He can’t free himself of the feeling that he’s spattered with blood. He rubs and rubs. He splashes his hair. He even rinses his mouth with the dirty water.

He stands and rushes into a storeroom. He grabs a piece of cloth from the pile that the servants use for cleaning, wraps the liver and lungs in it, and holds the cloth package at arm’s distance. Rid himself of them—get it over with.

As he comes out of the storeroom, Signora Contarini is standing there. Her face curious, her little dog in her arms. What could he have expected? There are servants, spies.

“Come upstairs, please.”

“Please excuse me, most dignified signora. An urgent task calls me away. I’ll return quickly.”

“I don’t excuse you. Follow me.”

The signora leads Pietro up the stairs. The Contarini women are gathered at the top, eyes wide, faces eager. They all hold lapdogs. Pietro supplied them. The women jostle each other like hungry dogs themselves, vying for the first piece of flesh.

“You’ve been out all night,” says Signora Contarini.

“You know I have business elsewhere.” Pietro looks meaningfully across the dogs.

“Indeed, I do. We have always taken pride in your business endeavors. But tell me, Pietro, is it business that makes you leave in the middle of the night and return without a dog in your boat and in shabby clothes, all roughed up?” She shakes her head. “You look a fright. Speak plainly.”

Speak? This business is unspeakable.

“What’s in the package?” asks a girl. “Birba wants to know. She’s practically jumping out of my arms.”

Birba barks.

Now all the dogs bark.

An idiotic household. Pietro has never understood why the girls take delight in having trained their dogs to bark at the same time.

“I insist you open it,” says the signora.

The women seem to move toward him just the smallest bit. They have a nose for gossip, all of them. It’s as though they can smell it on him.

“It would be best to hold the dogs tightly,” says Pietro. He goes to a side table, unties the string, and unfolds the cloth. He stands aside so the women can look.

“Liver…lungs…? Have you been to the butcher’s?”

“My friend killed a boar.”

“And you must have helped him, by the looks of you.”

Pietro nods.

“Where are you taking this?”

From nowhere comes the right answer: “It’s a delicate matter.”

The signora frowns. Had they been alone, she would have pursued it. But now, it would be undignified. Respect for delicate matters is a mark of nobility.

Pietro folds up the package, bows, and leaves. He runs now, turns into another alley, runs to the end, and turns again. If the signora sent anyone to follow, Pietro has surely lost him. But if that servant should ask shopkeepers or even shoppers which way a dwarf has gone, many voices will answer. Pietro is used to eyes following him.

He gets to a campo and runs down one alley, then back to the campo and down a different alley, then back to the campo and down a third alley, and this time he keeps going. It’s the best he can do.

He runs straight to the iron gate, clanks the bell. He looks over his shoulder. No one has followed. He clanks again and again.

Antonin arrives at last.

“Please,” says Pietro through the gate. “I’ve brought something for the mistress.”

Antonin reaches through the bars.

“I need to give it to her myself,” says Pietro. “Besides, it can’t fit through the bars.”

Antonin paces. He shakes his head. “Something has happened. The physician says it’s not advisable to let her have visitors.”

“Would you just ask her? Please. If she doesn’t want to see me, I’ll leave. But I am sure that she will want to see me.”

“You don’t understand,” says Antonin. “It’s a disaster.”

“I do understand.”

Antonin looks shocked. “How could you? No one…” Then his face changes. “So…you’ve already talked with someone.”

The man thinks he’s being a model of discretion. Pietro wonders if everyone in this palace knows about him and Agnola, if everyone everywhere knows. For a second Pietro hates Venezia. He nods solemnly.

Antonin opens the gate so Pietro can enter. “Please wait here.” He goes up the stairs.

Pietro looks down at Alvise’s boots. They are scuffed and dirty. Pietro needs to clean up properly as soon as he gets home, as soon as he puts this behind him.

This disaster. The girl disappeared.

Alvise will find her, though. He’s found her already, he must have. Her cloak was lying in the brush. All he had to do was hold it to a dog’s nose and they’d track her down.

Is that true?

Well, somehow Alvise will find the girl. Or all his friends together will find her. No dwarfs who make a living off their own business can be dunces. To the contrary, they are geniuses.

They must find her and treat her well. It must not be that Pietro did a terrible thing. It absolutely must not be. In fact, he has done a good thing. He saved Bianca’s life. Anyone else probably would have just done what The Wicked One demanded.

“You may come up.”

Pietro follows Antonin up the stairs. That’s another thing he hates about Venezia, all the stairs. They’re too high going up, too low going down. Pietro’s sick of living in a world made for others.

He’s shown into the music room and told to sit. He hates to sit in those high chairs, with his legs dangling. Big people tend to smile when they see him like that, as though he’s cute, like a child. But Antonin waits, so Pietro finally takes a seat. Antonin closes the door behind him. Pietro can’t hear what’s happening outside.

Agnola comes in. She leaves the door open. She stands by the harp, one hand on it as though for support. Her face is ghastly, ravaged by sorrow.

Pietro jumps to his feet. He longs to hug her. He sets the package on the chair and turns to her.

Agnola lifts a hand to her mouth, then chews on her knuckle. “Something awful has happened.”

Pietro doesn’t want to lie. It’s not in his nature, and he should never have to lie to the woman he loves. This is another reason to hate The Wicked One. The Wicked One has reduced him, diminished his humanity, soiled the dignity he has given up so much to attain. He stands silent and helpless in front of Agnola.

“Bianca is gone, and Dolce is nearly dead.”

Pietro jerks to attention. “Nearly dead?”

“She jumped into the water. She tried to save Bianca.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know,” says Agnola. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“They were asleep at the convent. Dolce woke. Bianca’s bed was empty. She looked everywhere for her. Then she searched outside. Bianca was standing on the fondamenta. She looked back at Dolce and jumped in.”

“Bianca jumped into the water?”

“Yes. Jumped. Dolce thinks Bianca did it on purpose. Dolce ran and jumped in after her. She knows how to swim. Bianca doesn’t. Bianca had already disappeared, though. She was wearing all her clothes, dress and cloak and everything. She sank instantly. Even Dolce would have sunk if she’d been wearing all that weight. Thank the Lord she only had her shift on.”

“How…how do you know all this? If the signora had been in the water, she couldn’t have gotten out. She…”

“She made it to a side canal and someone pulled her out. She was half frozen. They brought her home. Raving.”

“Stark raving mad.”

Agnola tilts her head and tears well in her eyes. “I should be, too. We all should be. We’ll never feel whole again. Bianca’s lost.”

“Bianca’s not lost.”

Agnola shakes her head slowly. “If she jumped, it’s suicide. Her soul is condemned to hell.”

“Bianca would never commit suicide.”

Agnola looks at him with wide eyes. “Thank you for saying that. You can’t know her very well, but what you say feels so right. Bianca never would have given up.”

If only he could hold Agnola. He’s tempted to shut the door, but she’s already distraught. “The girl did not give up.”

Agnola takes a deep breath. “I wish Dolce believed that. If she doesn’t, we won’t be able to bury the body in the family crypt. We can’t even have a funeral.”

“They found a body?”

“They’re looking. It will show up.”

“It will not show up. She’s not dead, Agnola.”

“Oh, Pietro, she has to be. If…no, there’s no ‘if’…the water is so cold, her clothes are so heavy, she can’t swim….She’s gone.” Agnola’s voice cracks. She weeps.

Pietro takes the package off the chair and sets it on the floor. He guides Agnola by the elbow to the chair. She sits, slumped, heaving. He wraps his arms around her. The damn door is still open, but he has to hold her, she’s in such pain. “Bianca is alive,” he says very quietly. “Believe me.”

“How? How can I believe that?”

“You’ll see. They won’t find a body. It will be as though she’s disappeared. But she’s alive. Don’t tell anyone. Just know it in your heart.”

Agnola nestles against his chest. “I can try.”

“I’ll help you.”

Someone clears their throat right outside the door. Pietro moves away from Agnola and picks up the package. A moment later Antonin appears in the doorway. The man is kind. Pietro feels enormous gratitude. The Wicked One is an aberration in this decent household.

“The mistress will see you now. In the library.”

The Wicked One sits in a chair with a blanket across her lap and legs. She’s wearing a black dress, with white crepe at the collar and cuffs. Her face is ravaged like Agnola’s. What a good actress.

The Wicked One holds her hands, palms up, in front of her chest. She stares at them. “Leave us, Antonin.”

“The physician said—”

“Just for a little while. You can help me back to bed soon. Go. And shut the door.”

Antonin leaves.

The Wicked One looks from her hands to Pietro. She seems bewildered. “What have you to say for yourself?”

This is not the question Pietro expected. And her manner is not at all what he expected. Pietro works to keep his face blank. He hands her the package.

“Liver and lungs?” she whispers.

He nods.

“I’ll have Lucia La Rotonda boil them with salt.”

Pietro’s nostrils flare in revulsion. She’ll eat them? He thought they were simply proof.

She hugs the package to her chest. “This will fix it all. Then life can go right.”

Pietro stares at her.

“You weren’t meant to be the fairest,” she croons to the package. “And you certainly weren’t meant to rob me of a loving mother. So now it’s fixed.” She looks up at Pietro. “Thank you.” She seems earnest. And frail.

Bianca said her mother wasn’t well; maybe she’s right. Maybe The Wicked One has lost her senses. “This is the end of my obligation,” says Pietro. “You will leave Agnola and me in peace.”

The Wicked One looks at him; then her eyes slide away.

Pietro leaves.