“You guys have your own party?”
It was Valetti who answered. “As I mentioned, there are many celebrations that circle around Carnevale. Some of them are public and some—” another hand wave, “are quite private. I am regrettably not in a position to extend invitations on behalf of the senate, but thankfully for us all, the prelate is.”
“Which explains the suddenness and urgency of your visit.” The prelate nodded. The look he turned on Valetti was one of new appreciation. “When I heard of Signore Balestri’s death, I suspected I would be contacted, but not by you. You’ve made no secret of your disdain for his tactics.”
“Disdain is a bit harsh,” Valetti sighed. “And the man is dead, which weighs heavily on me, make no mistake. I didn’t approve of his little drug sideline, I will say that. I had no idea it would lead him to this impasse, though. It’s simply dreadful.”
“You aren’t the only one who disapproved of Balestri’s emporium,” Alfonse assured him sympathetically. “We are old families whose histories have deeply intertwined in this city. It’s reasonable to think that the new generations will maintain the decorum of the old. Reasonable, but not always possible. We can’t know what troubles haunted Signore Balestri to drive him to such an action.”
Valetti opened his mouth as if to respond, then shut it. I had the feeling he knew exactly what had driven Balestri to his actions, his impasse, and his untimely death. They’d been neighbors, and despite what anyone was admitting to, some neighbors knew a lot about each other.
Still, Valetti was also a man of decency in the end. “We will honor him tonight, if we might, Prelate Alfonse. He wanted nothing more than to advance in the eyes of his peers.”
The prelate nodded. “We will honor him tonight.”
Valetti swung his gaze to Nikki and me. “As I’m sure won’t come as a surprise to you, we are an old and storied group, steeped in our traditions. Did you bring a traditional Venetian costume with you?”
I started to respond, but Nikki beat me to it. “What we brought was meant to blend, which I can already see was the wrong idea,” she said, shaking her head with such authentic regret that I blinked at her. For one thing, we absolutely hadn’t brought costumes. For another, Nikki had never intended to blend in her life. “So what we need is a tailor of the highest caliber who is willing to work at the last minute for an unreasonable amount of money. I don’t suppose you happen to know anyone who’d fit that bill?”
The prelate, to my surprise, didn’t seem fazed. “There are two tailors in the city I recommend for exactly that.” He eyed Valetti. “Unless you have a suggestion?”
“When I’ve had a similar problem in the past, I’ve gone to Signore Gazie. He is the best in the city, simply the best. And we have an account with him. You can trust him to be discreet.”
“Completely discreet.” The prelate nodded. “There is also Signorina d’Eauchamp. She’s French, of course, but we have come to terms with that over the years. She will serve you well.”
I glanced at Valetti, and he nodded his agreement. “They’ll both know the requirements for the capes as well.”
“Requirements?” Nikki raised her brows. “A costume party with rules. I excel at these.”
“You’ll find these easy to meet,” the prelate said, flashing another of what I expected was a rare smile. Nikki had that effect on people. “The cape itself must be full body, so there is no indication of whether you are a man or a woman. Footwear, I’m afraid, must be a knee-length, flat-soled black boot.”
“A riding boot,” I interjected, truly surprised. The unisex cape made sense, but… “Are we meeting on horseback?”
“We are not, but the earliest members of our group were prepared to ride at a moment’s notice should their convocation be discovered. The style became part of the accepted attire, and is now considered an easy indicator—but not too easy. You’ll find many in the streets have black boots beneath their capes to manage the cobbled streets without resorting to athletic shoes.”
“Amateurs,” sniffed Nikki.
“But the most important element of the costume is the hat and mask. Both are required. For the hat, please select a tricorn with any ornamentation you desire, so long as it doesn’t prove a hindrance to you. Where we’ll be meeting is a building rife with old passageways that were built on a rather small scale.”
“Done,” I said. “And the mask?”
“Definitely nothing from the Commedia dell’Arte,” the prelate instructed. “Those are all half masks except for the pierrot, and not as steeped in the tradition of the earliest days of Carnevale.” Another self-deprecating grimace. “We’re fond of our traditions, as I suspect you’ve already noted.”
“Our traditions have saved our lives and made our fortunes,” Valetti said, and the prelate nodded as if it was another inalienable truth.
“Bauta is the most prevalent mask during Carnevale, but any of the fuller-face masks will suffice—the dama, jester, volto, or dottore peste. Your mouth and lower face may be exposed, if you wish, but many of these masks do a good job of effectively obscuring detail, which is the goal. Either Signore Gazie or Signorina d’Eauchamp will have these at your disposal. They always keep a certain number back for emergencies, of which there are a surprising number at Carnevale.”
“Good enough, thanks. But when we leave here today, we should exit through the public access area, if it’s all the same with you. It wouldn’t hurt for us to walk our way to the costumers’ shops.”
“They’re quite close to each other. You have a street map?”
“Always,” Nikki said, patting her bag. It was a Bottega Veneta, and she tended to pat it a lot.
“I’ll give you the street names. Otherwise, we meet tonight at nine p.m. at this address.” Valetti rattled off the digits, and Nikki obligingly spoke it into her phone, then tucked the device back in her expensive purse.
Alfonse lofted one of the recipe books, his rueful smile creasing his face. “Shall we compare the books?” he asked. “Sadly, we have enough to go around.”
I pulled mine out as well, the moment feeling almost eerie, as if both the Arcana Council and the senate of magicians were holding their breaths. “We should.”
We sat down at the table, and opened the booklets…
Which were exactly alike.
Exactly.
Alfonse sighed after reviewing several pages of two of the thirty-page booklets, then glanced at Valetti. “Once again, they are the same, Vittore. Was it not you who told me there were differences in the books?”
“I…” The count looked equally mystified, blinking several times. “I did say as much, but I have never seen two side by side. I was going only by the whispers and mutterings on the street.”
“Some could be different, some the same?” Nikki offered. She was standing away from our hunched bodies—me in the center, the two magicians on either side of me. It was getting a little claustrophobic, especially with all the Latin. And there was something about the recipes that were tugging at me, the graceful alternating lengths of calligraphied letters tickling a deeply buried synapse. “Though having five dupes does seem to argue against that.”
“Maybe.” Alfonse sat back. “There’s no denying the key ingredient, though. It appears over and over again.” He pointed to a phrase that wasn’t what I had snagged on—which had to do with a kidney—and tapped it.
I squinted down. “Tenebrus Sanguine,” I recited. “Dark blood? What’s that mean, fresh?”
“Most likely,” Valetti huffed. “Or the blood of a criminal.”
“Or the damned.” Alfonse nodded, tapping his chin. “The butcher himself would qualify with the atrocities he committed. And the requirements for each of these recipes were not so stringent that he couldn’t supply the ingredient himself.”
I didn’t even try to hide my disgust as he and Valetti fell into animated conversation over the possibility of the butcher supplying his own blood to his dastardly recipes. Magicians. Always had to take things one step further.
But there were no additional discoveries to be made from the books, at least not that uncovered the mystery my mind kept tugging at. Over the prelate’s disapproval, I kept Balestri’s copy, and a few minutes later, the four of us wound our way without further conversation back through the darkened rooms of the Casino of Spirits. I was disappointed there wasn’t even the hint of any ghostly apparitions. Then again, it was full daylight. I suspected the hauntings of Venice were far more prevalent at night.
A few minutes later, we were back in the bright daylight of the courtyard of the Casino of Spirits, but on the land side of the building. The prelate and Valetti didn’t exit with us, still arguing over how much blood a man could drain from his own body without lasting damage. I was happy to be away from them both, frankly. We had our marching orders, and we had our plans.
“So…that was weird,” Nikki muttered. “We’ve got the prelate now convinced that the butcher is a real deal and walking the streets of Venice passing out recipe books, Count Valetti basking in approval over being proven right, and an invite to what’s got to be the weirdest costume party on the planet tonight.”
“And both magicians were being super creepy about blood—and super dismissive about the title of Red King.”
“Yeah, I noticed that,” Nikki agreed. “Something bad went down in the Middle Ages around that name, that much is clear, but what?”
“The library!” I stopped short on the cobblestoned street, causing her to lurch to a halt beside me.
“The what?”
“Contact Mrs. French, and have her look in the library for…uh…” I frowned, trying to remember the line of arcane books I’d seen while recovering from my gunshot wound. “Hell, I don’t know where they were. But have her look up any dark practitioner cases from the sixteenth century, and see if she can get any hits on the Red King.”
“Hits?” Nikki asked, though her eyes lit with understanding. “You know she doesn’t have those books digitized.”
“She’s got to have some sort of filing system—ask her,” I insisted. “There’s got to be some mention of it if the mere title upset Alfonse that much.”
“Totally with you there.” Nikki obligingly pulled out her phone, keying in the text. “I’ll have her send me any intel via phone.”
“Excellent.” I watched her type for a few seconds. “You figure out where Alfonse and Valetti wanted to send us?”
She nodded. “I did, but I’m pretty sure Simon can do us one better with an Arcana Council-approved costumer. That prelate gave me the willies.”
“He did? I thought you were charmed by him.”
“How could I possibly be charmed by anyone who thinks I should be wearing riding boots?” Nikki retorted. “I have never in the history of my life had to rock riding boots. They have no heel whatsoever! I might as well be wearing flip-flops.”
She continued to grumble as she typed furiously on her phone, then scrolled over to another screen. A moment later, she stopped. “Oh! Well, that’ll work nicely.”
“What?”
Her phone dinged, and she grinned, waving the device at me. “Platform riding boots. But hold please, more important matters. We’ve got our Arcana Council-approved costumer.” She scrolled down her return text from, I assumed, Simon and chortled. “He even gave me the names of the woman’s grandchildren. God love that boy. If he wasn’t so damned young, I’d kiss him the next time I saw him.”
I slanted her a look. “He’s older than you are. A lot older.”
“Not in any of the ways that count.” She strode ahead as we reached the main canal and ordered us an honest-to-God gondola.
Though only a few people on the banks of the canal were dressed in capes or obvious costumes, half the crowd we passed was wearing masks, but the opening ceremonies for the carnival were still several hours away. Still, it was a little unnerving to see so many blank faces intermingling in the crowd. I began to imagine what it must have been like for the nobility and lower classes alike to be able to don inexpensive masks and go out among each other as equals. I suspected there was a lot of partying going on whenever the masks came out.
Nikki and I kept our conversation light and undirected while we floated down the Grand Canal. It was clearly a popular pastime, but I didn’t see any familiar faces. Or, perhaps more importantly, I didn’t see any faces more than once. I saw a lot of absolutely identical masks, but their surrounds always varied slightly—from feathers to velvets, to hats to hoods.
We disembarked from the gondola stand a few minutes later and wound our way into the alleys of Venice, taking what I hoped was a deliberately circuitous route.
“You do know where we’re going, right?” I asked after I saw the same shop sign three times.
“I do,” Nikki said. “This was part of Simon’s message. It wasn’t so much that we see the shop we’re heading into, it’s that they see us. It’s that kind of shop.”
“Oh,” I said, peering down the long street. There wasn’t a huge number of tourists here, what I assumed were tourists, but they were lingering in front of the storefronts, each more elaborate than the last, filled with colorful costumes and masks of every description. Mostly for show, as the shops appeared to be closed up, but like the two names that the prelate had given us, it seemed there was always an exception that could be made.
“Another thing, dollface, this place we’re going to tonight? I checked the addy. Totally on point for the Creepio Brothers back there. Ca Daria. Turn here.”
I turned. “I’m not familiar with the place. Should I be?”
“Only if you have a death wish. Gotta be one of the most haunted places in Venice. These guys really have a thing for Ripley’s Believe it or Not.” She held up a hand, forestalling my response. “Here we are.”
I looked up and saw one of the tiny doors had opened, three down from us, the minutest crack. “Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack, but I’ll go first.” Nikki strode forward and pushed the door open. It gave way, and a rush of cool air tumbled out of the air-conditioned interior, redolent with spices and perfumes.
“I don’t even care what’s in there, I’m going,” Nikki breathed. “It smells better than this entire city.”
“I’m right behind you.”
No one came out to greet us or shoo us away, so we stepped into the gloom. The moment we cleared the door, it moved, and out of a long habit of self-preservation, I jerked out a hand to stop it. A rod cracked sharply over my fingers with such force, I jumped away, blue fire instantly erupting to encircle my palms. The door slammed shut behind me, and my ball of spectral fire illuminated three wide-eyed children and a woman who looked to be about a thousand years old. She was wielding a measuring stick like she was going to hit a home run with my head.
“No magic!” she hissed with a thick Italian accent, flicking out her unencumbered stick. To my shock, the blue light in my palms vanished.
“Signora Visione?” Nikki asked, her voice overloud in the fraught silence.
“Of course! And look at you, you’re built like Venus.” She still sounded enraged, but she circled Nikki with a string of compliments she made sound like curses. “Never have I seen such power, such strength, such joy of femininity in a woman! You will be a triumph. We will dress you in red and gold, a dama mask, the most beautiful we have, Beggio!”
One of the boys leapt to attention, and she ordered him to go find something called “La Princessa.” He scampered off. She muttered in disgust. “He is the best grandson an old lady could have. My heart, my true, deep heart. Boots!” She glanced at Nikki’s feet, then cut around to a second child, a girl who barely came up to my waist, and sent her off at a run too. Then she shooed Nikki over to the bench. With the vantage of a few minutes in the gloom, I found I could see again even without my glowing fireballs. The room was lit, after a fashion, with a thousand fairy lights far above, holes that I suspected had been cut into the ceiling to create a false night.
The old woman caught me looking. “The beauty and the mystery,” she said in an angry snarl. “It sweeps around you, creating a cape of stars. You are those stars.”
“I’m fine with simple—”
“You’re fine with simple. Fine with simple, she says, Mangiana, have you ever heard a sillier thing?”
The little girl who remained eyed me with enormous soulful eyes and shook her head. “Sei fatto di stelle,” she whispered. “You’re made of stars.”
“And stars we shall wrap around you, Sara Pelter Wilde, hunter of the arcane, Mistress of the House of Swords, Justice of the Arcana Council, Su—”
“Nonna!” Mangiana’s dismayed interruption seemed to recall the old woman to herself. I glanced from her to Nikki.
Su—? I mouthed to Nikki as the old woman started to mutter and hiss at how beautiful and petite my feet were with the same dismayed voice she’d accorded to Nikki’s size thirteens. Nikki looked back, equally wide-eyed, and shrugged.
“We will clothe you with the boots of the Valkyries,” the old woman said. “The wings of the raven, the stars of the night sky, and a mask…a mask…”
“Um,” I offered, almost afraid to interrupt her. “I don’t think we’re supposed to let on that we’re female, necessarily.”
“I have no problem breaking that little rule,” Nikki chimed in.
“And you…you. You could, we could, we should, hmm…” The woman pursed her lips and frowned at my face. I got that a lot, but it was still unnerving. “A volto, I think. Or maybe…psht. Men and their rules.” This time, her disdain sounded legitimate, and I was forced to rethink everything she’d said about me. “Yes!” she growled, then looked around quickly for a child. They were all gone.
“My hearts!” she snapped, and dashed off into the shadows.
“Supe, maybe?” I said out loud, still wondering at the last title Signora Visione had attempted to assign me. “What could that mean?”
“Supergirl? Super sassy?”
“Supreme Court Justice?” I grinned. “That’d be a twist.”
“You’d never get approved.” Nikki shook her head. “Supernatural? Superfriend?”
Our suggestions were cut short as the old woman and her charges burst back through the door. With a crack of the old woman’s command, the lights came up in full, blinding us momentarily. Then we were assaulted with a flurry of whirling figures, and any other hope of conversation was done.
We were in the capable hands of Signora Visione.