Starling (75 page)

table, the room she and Falco had broken into a couple of months
earlier.
“Don’t take me in there,” Minerva whispered. “Please, just do it
here.” Apparently, Minerva was so terrified, she preferred to have
someone else nearby, even if that someone else was imprisoned and
couldn’t help her.
“You’ll never get away with this. Someone will find us,” Cass said.
“Several people are looking for me.”
“Really?” Piero arched an eyebrow. “Last I heard, the entire Republic had given you up for dead.” He disappeared through the
doorway and returned with a large glass syringe, a small porcelain
bowl, and a pile of cloth strips. He set his candle down next to the
equipment. The flickering flame reflected off a long silver needle.
Cass’s eyes followed the dancing fire. The needle was similar to
the one that he had used to draw her blood in Florence. It would
make a decent weapon, if she could get her hands on it . . .
Piero unlocked Minerva’s cage and she went to him like a lamb
cowed by its mother. “Please don’t kill me,” she said.
Nausea welled up in Cass. How could Minerva be such a willing
accomplice to her own demise? How could she be so . . . broken?
“I’ll do my best.” Piero tucked the keys into the pocket of his
tunic. Dragging Minerva roughly by the arm, he sat her down in the
wooden chair and fastened the straps across her forearms. “Don’t get
too excited,” he said to Cass. “We’re saving
you.
This one’s humors
aren’t pure enough, but Bella likes the feel of her blood on her skin.”
He smirked and then lifted the glass syringe with the great steel needle from the table. “I’d sedate her,” he said, “but she really is too
weak.”
“You bastard,” Cass said. “Let her go. Take me instead.”
“Weren’t you listening? I said we’re
saving
you. We cannot make
elixir without spider venom, and sadly my spiders escaped from their
cage on the voyage from Florence. But more are on the way, and then
you and I will be spending plenty of time together.”
Cass shuddered inwardly at the thought of Piero’s spiders, but
struggled to keep her face steady. She would not let him see her
afraid. She would figure out a way to escape before the new spiders
arrived, or she would die trying. If death was what God had planned
for her, she preferred it to be on her own terms.
With one finger, Piero felt beneath Minerva’s jaw, his lips curling
into a smile as he located the pulsing vessel in her neck. Minerva
whimpered. Cass shuddered as Piero slid the needle into Minerva’s
neck. One wrong move with it and he might slit her throat.
Dark fluid filled the glass syringe. When the syringe was full, he
carefully detached it from the needle, leaving the silver tip buried in
Minerva’s skin. He emptied the blood into the ceramic bowl and reattached the syringe. Blood flowed again. Minerva’s tiny frame
started to slump forward in the chair.
“Stop it,” Cass said. “I beg of you. You’re going to kill her.” The
candle flame bobbed violently and began to smoke, as if Piero had
conjured a demon to watch him work.
He finished filling another syringe and emptied it into the bowl.
Minerva’s head slumped awkwardly to the right. A tiny rivulet of
blood trickled from the insertion site down over her collarbone.
Piero withdrew three more syringes. Cass could see the ceramic bowl
getting full. “Not enough for Bella to bathe in, but it will have to do
for now.”