The Dark City (15 page)

Bianca hurried into the Piazza del Ferranti and saw Master Xavier's troupe still had their stage set up at one end, complete with the fateful tightrope strung between the roof and the tall pole. It was too early for them to be performing, but at least they hadn't moved, or left La Luminosa altogether.

She pushed through the curtain into the master blacksmith's shop. Only Olivia and another woman were there, dressed in their ordinary clothes. They were going through one of the trunks of props.

‘Um, hello,' said Bianca. ‘Is Marco here?'

‘He's out back,' said Olivia, gesturing to a doorway beyond the furnace. ‘Just through there.'

‘Thank you!' Bianca hurried through the door and found herself in a little yard outside the blacksmith's shop. Marco was taking costumes out of a big bucket, wringing them out and hanging them up on a line strung across the yard. He looked up and dropped the tights he'd been holding back into the bucket.

‘Bianca?'

Bianca grinned weakly at him. ‘Hi,' she said.

‘You came back,' said Marco. ‘Is everything all right?'

Bianca tried not to actually sink to the floor with relief and gratitude. ‘No!' she said. ‘Something's gone terribly wrong. The Baron and Filpepi have attacked my mother and thrown her into her own dungeons. She told me to fetch the medallion to help her fight them off. Now I need the map to find my way back.'

Marco instantly ran over to one of the trunks and fished out the parchment.

At the sight of her best friend dropping everything to help her, Bianca felt like weeping. ‘And I need you too; I can't do this by myself, please  … ' She gasped for breath.

Marco shrugged. ‘You and me, defeating the Baron and Filpepi – it's just what we do, isn't it? It's like a hobby. I'll be back in time for the matinee.'

Bianca couldn't help but smile.

Marco unrolled the map and took in the maze of lines. ‘We want to get back into the castle, right? I think if we run to the Chapel of Santa Pinta, that'll be quickest.'

‘Thank you,' Bianca panted.

The Chapel of Santa Pinta was deserted, though the sound of slightly out-of-tune singing echoed around the stone arches.

‘Must be having choir practice next door,' Marco whispered. ‘Quick, let's get in the passages before they finish.'

Bianca winced as the singing abruptly broke off and a woman's voice started to berate the choir for their dull vowel colours. ‘Doesn't sound like they'll be finishing any time soon!' she murmured.

The mural of Santa Pinta blessing the Duke di Angelo's horses was in the alcove right behind the altar. Bianca pulled out the paintbrush and muttered the magic words.

‘Can I see the map?' she asked Marco. Marco handed it to her, taking the key and repeating the magic words as he turned it in the lock on the stable door. It swung inwards. Bianca unrolled the map a little way so she could find the chapel and trace the line that would get her back into the castle.

‘I hope it's safe to come out in my drawing room,' she muttered. ‘There could be another way, a bit closer to the dungeon. But it'll have to do.'

She handed the map back to Marco, and he reached out to take it.

Something glimmered on the back of his hand, and Bianca frowned. ‘What's that you've got on you?'

Marco looked at his hand, and his cheeks darkened a bit. ‘Oh, um  …  dunno,' he said.

‘It's paint. And it's quite fresh.' Bianca grabbed Marco's hand and dragged her thumb over the splodge of shimmering silver paint. The edge flaked away, but the middle left a matching glow on Bianca's thumb. ‘Have you been painting? But how did you get  … ' She looked up at him. ‘Was it you? Did you help Cosimo and Lucia make the magic paint for the competition somehow?'

Marco didn't answer, just averted his gaze.

‘Oh.' Bianca took a step back. ‘You showed Cosimo and Lucia di Lombardi's notebooks? But they were in his secret workshop!'

Marco sighed. ‘I went and got them, of course,' he said flatly. ‘I was still inside the passages when I had the idea, so I went to the workshop and looked through all the books until I found the ones that had the magic recipes in.'

Bianca gaped at him. ‘You stole them!'

Marco bristled. ‘I did not! I just borrowed them. I only wanted to help. I was going to tell you –
if
you ever came back – I just forgot  … '

But Bianca shook her head. ‘Help? How is sharing my secrets with
Lucia
helping?' A horrible thought occurred to her. ‘Marco! Did you tell her about my medallion? Did you help her steal that, too?'

‘What? How could you say that?' Marco looked horrified.

‘You didn't seem to have a problem taking other things from me!' Bianca snapped. ‘It's
my
workshop now! Master di Lombardi left
me
the paintbrush, just like the medallion and the map. He knew I had important work to do, to find my mother and save Oscurita!'

‘Yeah, but he didn't know he was going to die, did he? He thought he'd be around to teach you and Cosimo and the others all the recipes himself!'

Bianca gritted her teeth. ‘Those were my secrets! You had no right –'

‘No, Bianca, they were di Lombardi's secrets!' Marco folded his arms. ‘I didn't know if you were ever coming back, and I knew he'd want his art to carry on!' Marco shook his head sadly. ‘Part of me thinks you just liked being the only one who could do magic. But that's not fair. It's not good for anyone, not even you.'

The words stung Bianca – and they kept on stinging, like angry wasps swarming over a cup of sweet wine. ‘You don't know anything.' She took another step backward, over the stable door threshold and into the passages. ‘I don't want you with me. I don't need people I can't trust,' she said.

Marco's jaw dropped and he took a matching step back, into the chapel. ‘Fine!' he said, and thrust the map at her. ‘I was only trying to help while
Your Highness
was busy. Here, go and save your precious dark city by yourself!'

‘I will!' Bianca snatched the map from his grasp and slammed the door before she could change her mind.

She stopped on the other side, her hand on the doorknob – but then she heard footsteps. Marco was walking away.

‘
Fine
,' she hissed to herself. ‘I will do this by myself.' She clutched the medallion so hard her knuckles stood out white against her skin. She had di Lombardi's gift. She'd free Edita, her mother would know how to use the medallion to defeat the Baron, and everything would be fine.

Bianca's drawing room was empty and dark when she pushed through the black and red painted door. The blue-tinged fire hadn't been set in the huge fireplace, and the only light came from the torches in the corridor and the soft, shifting glow of the
lux aurumque
flowers outside in the garden.

Bianca crept to the door and peered out into the passage.

There weren't any guards. Footsteps came towards her, so she pulled herself behind the arch of the door and held her breath.

A woman came into the passage. From her rough, plain black dress and simple hairstyle Bianca guessed she was a maid. She was carrying a closed basket and humming a little tune. She passed Bianca's doorway and was gone.

Bianca frowned. The castle had been taken by the Baron – she'd expected a little bit more running and screaming. Some guards battling in the corridors, maybe some rooms on fire. Not maids humming little tunes and going about their day.

She felt silly as soon as she'd had the thought. When the Baron had taken over La Luminosa, he hadn't burned the palace down! He'd been subtle about it. Most of the people of La Luminosa hadn't even realised the throne was being stolen until it was all over.

I bet they've made a painted version of Mother and they're using her to keep everyone calm.

She had to get to the dungeon and find her real mother. Then they could expose whatever the Baron and Filpepi were doing.

If people were moving around the castle freely, perhaps she wouldn't even need to hide – but she would need a disguise. She ran into her bedroom and dug around in the cavernous wardrobes for the simplest clothes in Oscurita colours she could find. Pulling on a black coat over the top of her rough, paint-spattered dress, she wrapped a dark purple scarf loosely over her head and neck. She wasn't sure she'd pass for either a lady or a maid, but at least she wouldn't stand out like a dove in a rookery.

Grabbing a crystal jug of water that'd been left on the table, she emptied it into the garden, then walked out into the corridor clutching the empty jug.

Her disguise seemed to work – the few maids and courtiers she passed barely gave her a second glance. But the castle was eerily quiet. As she descended the back stairs and passed an archway that opened onto the courtyard, a clatter made her jump and pull her scarf over her face. But it was only a couple of guards moving armfuls of breastplates from the back of an armourer's cart into a pile by the barracks door.

Bianca abandoned her crystal jug before she started down the dimmer, twistier stairs that led to the dungeons.

She passed the alcove where she'd stolen the little bracelet, and reached into her pocket. The bracelet was still there. She ran her fingers over its smooth, cool surface.
I'm coming, Mother,
she thought.
I'm nearly there  … 

More alcoves lined the stairs, each deep enough for a pedestal, a statue carved from black marble or a suit of gleaming silver armour. There were paintings on the walls too – stern portraits of people in suits of armour and dim craggy landscapes designed to inspire feelings of awe and despair at the same time.

She wondered if any of them had been painted by Master di Lombardi.

She almost walked right into the dungeons. The stairs rounded a corner and stopped, spitting distance from a guard sitting at a table, reading a book by the flickering light of a candle.

Bianca pulled back quickly and ducked into an alcove, slipping around the arm of a suit of armour and pressing herself into the darkness behind it, trying to catch her breath silently. She waited there, counting the seconds on her fingers until a full minute had passed, but there was no sound of a chair scraping back or footsteps approaching the stairs – the guard must not have seen her.

She edged out of the alcove enough to peer around the corner again. Her heart sank. She could see that beyond the guard there was another corridor, full of cells with iron bars for walls. Once she was in that corridor, she'd be out of sight of the guard and she could find her mother's cell – but there was no way to get there except to walk in front of the guard. However good his book was, she thought he'd probably notice a girl sneaking past him.

The candle-lit room where he sat, between the stairs and the cells, was barely two metres wide. She just needed to distract him for a moment and she could make it in a few steps.

But how could she draw him out without tipping him off to her hiding place?

Her hand slipped into her pocket again, looking for the soothing edge of the tiny bracelet. But her fingers found something else – something silky and fleshy.

She carefully drew out the slightly squished
lux aurumque
flower, shielding its light behind her coat. One of the petals had been crushed and the thick golden oil flowed out when she squeezed it. Her fingers tingled oddly under the power of the raw magic.

Her eyes fell on the painting that hung at the corner of the stairs, just opposite the turning. It was one of the portraits of people in armour – this one a pale woman, tall and strong-looking with short dirty-blonde hair and a seriously unimpressed expression. Bianca guessed she was a famous general, or maybe a wartime duchess. Her armour was slightly dented and the red and yellow banner that hung over her shoulder was bright but tattered.

The plan that started to form in Bianca's mind was horribly flawed. She had nothing to make paint with, only the raw, golden oil. And, she realised with a nasty jolt, she didn't even have a brush. Marco had pocketed di Lombardi's paintbrush key, and she'd driven him away  …  She wouldn't be able to open the doors to the secret passages again. Bianca dearly wished Marco was here now, even if he had given away her secrets.

Very, very carefully, without making a sound, Bianca edged back out of her hiding place. She kept herself out of the guard's line of sight as she crossed the stairs and sidled up to the painting. Then she picked the crushed petal from the
lux aurumque
flower and began to paint onto the canvas, using its petals like a paintbrush.

‘Lux aurumque, lux diffensis
,' she whispered, dabbing pools of oil onto the shiny places on the woman's armour. She reached out, her chest tightening as she reached over to sweep the magic substance onto the tattered tails of the banner. ‘
Animare volare
,' she breathed, sketching out a rough cycle of movement that she hoped would look at least a bit like the banner was flowing in the wind. Then she quickly took a step back towards her alcove.

As she watched, the banner began to flutter and the woman's armour gleamed as if the setting sun of La Luminosa was shining on her.

In fact, with the magic of the pure oil, the light grew brighter and brighter, and a slightly shimmering beam crept out from the painting, across the floor towards the weak, flickering light of the guard's room.

Bianca ducked back into the alcove and bit her lip.

Sure enough, there was a pause, an intake of breath, and then footsteps. Bianca edged forward, just a tiny bit, so she could see the guard as he approached the painting to stare at it, blinking in shock. He reached up with one hand to touch the fluttering banner, then hesitated, as if he thought it might bite him.