Show me the threat, he commanded silently. Show me the peril to my city.
He had hoped to see nothing. But the water misted and cleared immediately, and showed him, in rapid succession—a voluptuous woman with red-gold hair—
Lucrezia Brunelli—
—her brother, Ricardo—
—a sour-faced, fanatic-eyed man in a cassock with three crosses emblazoned on it—
An abbot of the Servants? But who? I don’t recognize him—
A woman in the habit of a nun of the Servants.
Whose eyes were—lifeless. Then something looked out of them.
At him. And saw him. And knew him!
And last, before he could react to that flicker of malevolent recognition, the darkened canal, with something swimming below the surface.
He bent nearer, closer to the water, trying to make out what it was.
It was coming out.
It sent one clawed hand, then another, to fasten into the stones of the canalside. Then it heaved itself up out of the water faster than a striking adder, and it turned, and it looked at him!
He screamed, and involuntarily thrashed at the water, breaking the spell. Just in time.
One moment more, and it would have been through the water-mirror, meant only for scrying, and at his throat, feeding on his life.
And his soul.
Reflexively, Luciano called up all of his defenses until he lay, panting, within a cocoon of power. Oh, anyone looking would See him now—but it didn’t matter. Not after that. They knew he was out here, and it wouldn’t take long for them to find him. How many undines would die protecting him?
For a very long time he couldn’t think, he could only sit and shiver with fear that turned his bowels to water. As the moon climbed higher in the sky, he sat, and shook, and even wept unashamedly.
Not to me! This can’t come to me! I’m too old, too tired—
But on his shoulders rested the Winged Mantle. He felt it, though it was invisible. There was no one else. Marco was untrained and unaware and could not take the Mantle in any case until Chiano was dead. The Mantle had come to him on the death of his predecessor—irony of ironies, it had been a little Hypatian priest-mage, out of a bastard branch of one of the four Old Families, and not one of the Strega.
No, Chiano was the bearer, for the good of Venice. If there had been anyone in all of Venice fit to wear it, it would have gone to him, or her, the moment his body hit the water, senseless, and he would have died. Extraordinary measures had been taken to ensure that he did not. Marco no doubt had the Mark, even then, but he hadn’t the training, had no one to train him, and in any case was too young for the weight. The weight of the Mantle, even, much less the Crown.
His denial turned to a plea. Please—not now. Please, not to me.
But the answer was still the same. There was no other.
The night had never seemed so dark. . . .
Then, the shadow of a wing brushed him, and a quiet filled him. He made his mind very still, then, and waited.
There is no other, my child, said a voice as deep as the seas, as vast as the night sky. But I will be with you. Your soul will survive.
His soul . . . not his body, perhaps, but his soul.
It was enough; enough for him to find a small scrap of courage left, to drag together the rags of his sense of self, and to find a little more courage, a little more heart. And finally, what was left of his dignity.
He dismissed his protections with a word, and walked back to what had been his home, and would not be for much longer. Sophia looked up as he rejoined her on their combined rafts. Her eyes widened a little, as if he somehow looked different, now.
Perhaps he did.
For a moment he gazed out over the water towards the city, towards his fate.
“It’s time, Sophia,” he said at last. “It’s time to go back.”