Starling (142 page)

the roof of Liviana’s tomb, smiling as she remembered the outrage
she had felt at the way Falco teased her, how huffy she became when
he pretended to read from her journal. As she neared the Caravello
crypt, she was both laughing and crying. Crying for Falco’s death,
but laughing at the time they’d shared together. She’d been lucky to
know him. Would he go to heaven, even though he claimed science
as his religion? Cass wasn’t sure. Wherever he was, she hoped he was
at peace. She stood directly in front of the tomb door, one hand outstretched to touch the cold metal. Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine her mother standing before her.
“I love him, Mother, but I’m frightened,” she said. Tendrils of
hair blew forward into her face. Her skirts fluttered in the breeze.
“What if we fight? What if he grows weary of my company?” She
laughed nervously. “What if we grow to hate each other?”
For a moment, Cass thought she heard someone else laughing
with her, but when she opened her eyes, she was alone. The wind
rustled her skirts again, blowing a loose clump of ivy away from the
face of the Caravello tomb. The edge of a carving peeked out beneath
the waxy leaves.
It was a cross.
Cass had been raised to believe in God, to believe that he had his
children’s best interests at heart. That he was omnipotent and omniscient, as well as benevolent and merciful. But the things she had seen
in the past couple of months—young girls dying before they had a
chance to even live, evil thriving, justice not being served—they had
shaken her.
Her trust in the Church.
Her faith in God.
Falco would think her a fool to still embrace religion. But in the
end, good had vanquished evil. The pope himself had put a stop to
the Order of the Eternal Rose. Yes, innocent people had died beforehand, but that was at the behest of wickedness. Nowhere in the Bible
did it say that the existence of God meant there would be no agents
of evil.
Cass understood why Falco felt the way he did, that it was easier
for him to understand the death of his first love if he denied the existence of a higher power. And indeed, that was his right. It was his
right to believe solely in science. Science could answer many questions.
But science couldn’t give Cass the answers she needed. She traced
the outline of the cross with one finger. The figure had been revealed
to her for a reason.
“Faith,” she said. “You’re saying I have to believe?” In what?
Luca? Herself? The world? The ivy twisted in the breeze. Cass knew
the answer was inside of her. She did believe in those things, but
would that be enough?
It would have to be.
She headed back to the villa. Narissa was standing in the garden
with Giuseppe, making grand sweeping gestures with her arms. Cass
imagined her demanding rosebushes trimmed into the shapes of angels. Or perhaps she wanted the elderly gardener to stand on a ladder
and pour buckets of water down into a basin to mimic a waterfall for
the occasion. Doing the best to stay out of Narissa’s sight, Cass crept
around to the front of the house. The grass was a lush carpet of green
beneath her feet. Giuseppe had hired a crew of boys to cut the lawn
and trim the hedges for the party. The villa looked the best it had in