Starling (68 page)

you have any idea where he kept his valuables?” She felt terrible asking. She didn’t want Feliciana putting herself at risk, but she was desperate for answers.
Feliciana sat forward in the felze, dropping her hood so that the
sea air could riffle through her short blonde hair. “He does not discuss such things with me, but I believe I heard him speak more than
once of a secret room connected to his chambers.” She paused. “You
can’t get in, though. It has a special lock that only he can open.”
Cass fidgeted with the fraying hem of her stolen cloak. “Will you
help me try?”
Feliciana snapped open the blinds for a moment, peered through
the slats, and then closed them again. “You never finished telling me
what happened to Siena,” she said suddenly. “If you want me to help
you, at least tell me how my sister died.”
Cass swallowed back her impatience. She stared out at the canal,
counting the gondolier’s rhythmic strokes in her head, watching the
dark water pass beneath the boat.
“Fine.” She continued the story where she had left off, telling Feliciana how she and Siena had sat for hours until the halls were dark
and the servants were sleeping. She told her how they had found
Luca, how Siena had pulled the deadbolt while Cass got the keys
from the guard.
“And then?” Feliciana pressed. “What next?”
“Where are we?” Cass asked. The gondolier had turned off into
a narrow canal she had never seen before.
“I told him to traverse the back waterways so we can talk privately,” Feliciana said.
“Shouldn’t we light the lantern?” Cass asked. Night had descended upon them quickly. She could barely make out Feliciana’s
form next to her in the felze.
The gondolier tried twice with his tinder, but each time the lantern bloomed to life, the wind stole away the flame. He cursed under
his breath, tried a third time, and then gave up and tossed the lantern
to the baseboards. “There aren’t many crafts traveling at this hour,”
he said, taking up his oar once again.
Reluctantly Cass finished the story of the night she broke Luca
out of prison. “Siena was with us,” she said. “And then she wasn’t. I
looked for her. She had fallen in the corridor, only I don’t think it was
an accident.”
Feliciana sucked in a sharp breath. “What do you mean?”
“I think she feigned falling so that we might get away. When the
first guard approached her, she slashed him with her dagger. I wanted
to go back, but then I—I saw the blade go straight through her,” Cass
said miserably. She turned away so that Feliciana would not see her
tears.
“So she pretended to fall in order so that you might escape. Then
she was stabbed. Then you left her?”
“You make it sound so horrible,” Cass said. “It was horrible. But
there was nothing we could do. She was mortally wounded.”
“And so how did you and Luca manage to escape?”
Cass barely heard her. She had caught a glimpse of something
heading toward them. A boat—sleek and sinuous, with no source of
light, distinguished from the rest of the dark water only by its purposeful movement. Behind her, the gondolier hollered a warning,
but the other boat stayed its course. It was heading straight for them.
They were going to hit.