55

This time, Jorge Ocampo wasn’t going to run. He would do nothing to call attention to himself. He’d covertly, stealthily make his way, an operative whose objective was to remain in deep cover while fulfilling his mission.

What was his mission?

He wasn’t exactly sure.

Anna hadn’t given him new instructions on the retrieval of the notebook or the surveillance of the professoressa. She hadn’t told him what to do about the unalterable facts of what had happened in Santa Maria della Scala. She’d drawn in a sharp, angry breath when he’d told her about the accident, but she didn’t yell, didn’t berate him, didn’t let loose that hot stream of vitriol she’d poured on his head on the few other occasions when he’d been unsuccessful at accomplishing a task. She really was unfair to him, Anna. He generally did quite well with the assignments she gave him, and he was—justly, he thought—proud of that. Like anyone, he had his moments of bad luck. Her impatience at those times, her lightning-fast willingness to reproach and blame him, really stung. It wasn’t reasonable, it truly wasn’t.

Although maybe she was changing. Maybe she was beginning to appreciate how hard he tried, and to understand that misfortune can happen to anyone. He’d expected a storm of anger, he’d braced for it, but instead he’d heard a silence, and then, “All right, Jorge. Are you out of sight?” When he’d assured her he’d taken cover, she asked where, and after he told her, she just said, “Stay there. I’m on my way.”

So he’d settled into his velvet seat in the musty theater, waiting for Anna to come and tell him what to do. In the dark he drifted into a reverie, feeling her satin skin and silken hair, hearing the thrilling music of her voice as she whispered to him in his native Spanish. But a horn blared outside and startled him, and the dream vanished and would not come back. As he waited he found himself growing more and more uncomfortable. Il Pasquino was his private place. He didn’t know what he should have said. “I’m not going to tell you where I am” hadn’t occurred to him, and if it had, Anna wouldn’t have put up with it. But he began to feel ill at ease about the idea of seeing Anna. Something in her voice . . . She was angry. She was hiding it, and he thought that sweet of her; clearly she knew the stress he was under and didn’t want to upset him further. But she was angry.

And, he realized, disappointed.

That caused Jorge a new kind of pain, the thought that his Anna was disappointed in him. She’d sent him out to be her knight in shining armor, and he’d let her down. He came to a decision. He wasn’t going to wait for her. Not right now. Not here, in his theater. He was going to leave Il Pasquino and steal along Vicolo del Piede, keeping to the shadows.

He had no instructions, that was true; but he was capable of formulating his own plans. He would find the professoressa. He would retrieve the notebook. He would complete his original assignment before he saw Anna again. Then his mistake in the church wouldn’t loom so large. He’d never meant to hurt the old monk. He’d only been trying to move him out of the way. How could he have known he’d lose his balance and fall? After all, Anna was the one who’d drilled into him that he must never use any of his Noantri Blessings in a way that Mortals might notice. So it shouldn’t be any surprise that he didn’t know his own strength! And people fell all the time, even hit their heads, without dying. What had happened to the monk was definitely not Jorge’s fault.

Anna had sounded worried about his safety, making sure he was out of sight, telling him to stay there. She wasn’t acting as though what had happened in Santa Maria della Scala was very important.

But even if he couldn’t be blamed for the monk’s death, he knew it mattered. And he was going to make up for it.

Jorge peeked through the grimy window, waiting for a moment when the street was clear. His mind drifted again, this time not to Anna, but to the accident. It was a strange thing, what had happened to that old monk. The man had died, and Jorge wasn’t so far from his own Change that he’d forgotten the terror of a Mortal anticipating that. But among the emotions passing across the old monk’s face, Jorge, to his astonishment, hadn’t found fear. What he’d seen—what he’d caused—was relief. Then, gratitude. Finally, to Jorge’s astonishment, joy.

To his additional astonishment, Jorge found himself feeling a tiny, transitory twinge of envy.

Back to the window. One of a revolutionary’s best weapons was an ability to focus on his mission despite distractions. Ah—now came Jorge’s chance. The street was empty. Jorge slipped from the window and sauntered along, in his sunglasses and porkpie hat. He hadn’t worn either in the church, and he’d had on a jacket he was leaving in the theater. Sauntering down the street, he blended in beautifully with all the other hipsters. His plan was to head back to the professoressa’s house. He’d watch, and surely she’d come home eventually. Then he’d get the notebook Anna wanted and everything would be as it had been before.

That was his plan. But when he hit the intersection with Via della Fonte D’Olio, an amazing thing happened.

The professoressa. She’d passed by there. He caught her scent.

She was wearing perfume, this lady, something complicated and tropical. He’d noticed it in the Library and felt a stab of longing; the girls back home wore perfume, but among the Noantri, his new Community, his home now, it was the fashion to shun such things. Anna never wore perfume, petulantly asking, when he’d wondered why, if the fragrance of her own skin was not enough for him. He hadn’t mentioned it again.

This professoressa, though: the perfume he’d first detected in the Library—maybe gardenias, could that be right?—the scent he’d followed down the winding hidden corridor, and then faintly noted in Santa Maria della Scala (though there the flowers and incense overpowered it)—he could sense it now, trailing from the direction of the piazza.

She’d passed by, and recently.

His heart started to pound. He ordered himself to stay calm. Quickly, but no faster than a Mortal in a hurry would have jogged, he rushed up Via della Fonte D’Olio into the piazza. She was nowhere in sight, but her scent laced the air. The church—she must have gone into the church! Jorge trotted up the steps, and the moment he entered Santa Maria in Trastevere he knew two things: she’d been there, and she was gone.

Something had happened here, though it was over. He could feel the disturbance in the settling air, smell the ozone scent of sudden excitement, the fading but still strongly acrid aroma a jolt of adrenaline adds to sweat. On his left as he entered a priest stood on a ladder locking a small golden door. The Catedral Metropolitana de Buenos Aires—a church he’d been in only once or twice, but oh, how beautiful it was—had a door like that. He’d wondered about it, but never asked anyone, because he liked his own answer. Symbolic sanctuary, he’d decided it meant, a reminder that the church would shelter all who came to it. He’d never seen the one back home open and regretted he hadn’t arrived at Santa Maria in Trastevere just a few moments sooner, to see what was in them.

As the priest started down the ladder Jorge ordered himself to stop daydreaming. Revolutionary focus! This Church mumbo jumbo, it was oppressive, it was the enemy. He was only thinking about the Catedral Metropolitana because he missed home. The sooner he accomplished his mission, the sooner Anna and the others could establish Noantri rule, and the sooner he and Anna could return to Argentina. Jorge himself wasn’t interested in a position of power in the new order. He didn’t need it, because he’d have everything he wanted: to be with Anna, for eternity.

With new resolve, Jorge turned and left the church. He surveyed the streets issuing from the piazza, sniffed the air, and hurried past the fountain to the other side.