Starling (83 page)

The book! Cass’s heart quickened. So Piero was telling the truth.
It was back in Belladonna’s possession.
Piero unlocked the door to Minerva’s cage and slipped inside. He
grabbed her forcefully and yanked her from the cage. Minerva didn’t
even struggle.
Piero sat her in the chair and began to fasten the straps around her
wrists. Minerva’s eyes blinked open. She stared straight ahead at
Cass. No, through Cass. It was like her soul had abandoned her, like
she wasn’t human anymore. Like she was just a vessel filled with
blood to be harvested.
“You will hang for this,” Falco promised, his eyes hard as glass.
Piero ignored him. He turned to the small table and arranged his
supplies neatly. Strips of cloth. The porcelain bowl. The glass syringe with the silver needle. A quill, some ink, a piece of parchment.
“Minerva,” Cass shouted. She clapped her hands, but Minerva
didn’t even flinch. “Fight. Kick him. Do something.” Desperately
Cass rooted around her dark cell, her fingers prying up pieces of
broken stone and flinging them through the bars.
The small slivers of rock bounced harmlessly off Piero’s legs and
midsection.
“Signorina Cassandra,” he said. “I do appreciate your spirit.”
Piero removed an amber vial from his pocket and held it beneath
Minerva’s nose. Her head slumped as she fell into unconsciousness.
Piero curled his palm around the glass syringe and pushed Minerva’s
hair back over her shoulders.
Cass bit her lip so hard, she tasted blood. She couldn’t bear it.
Why was God allowing Minerva to suffer like this?
Falco reached through the bars and touched her arm. “Starling,
turn away,” he said. “We don’t have to watch this.”
But Cass needed to watch it. She needed to witness the true horror
of the Order of the Eternal Rose.
Slowly and methodically, Piero began to pull the blood from Minerva’s neck. The porcelain bowl became full. Cass could only stare
at it in despair as Piero left the room and returned with a silvery
chalice. He emptied the bowl into the chalice and continued to draw
blood. Cass could almost feel Minerva dying, but still, she couldn’t
bring herself to look away.
She prayed Minerva would not awaken, but she stared straight at
the girl’s closed eyes in case she did. Cass didn’t want her to die
alone.
It took less than half an hour for Piero to remove an entire chalice
of Minerva’s blood. By then, her skin had taken on a pallor, and her
body was starting to slide from the chair.
Her body.
Piero swished a small amount of blood around in the bottom of
the porcelain bowl. He dipped one finger in, held it close to the candle’s flame, and then brought his hand to his lips to taste the blood.
Dipping his quill into the pot of ink, he scribbled a few lines on the
piece of parchment.
He carried the chalice out of the room, and when he returned, it
was empty. Picking up his syringe, he turned back to Minerva’s neck.
Great choking sobs emanated from deep inside Cass. She didn’t
try to swallow them back. She didn’t care if Piero saw, if Belladonna
heard. Watching a girl die, slowly, at the hands of a madman. This
was a despair unlike any she had ever known. Tears flowed down her
cheeks as she thought of the fallen ones. Mariabella. Sophia. All the