Queen of the Night (The Revanche Cycle Book 4) (17 page)

And now we’re both killers
, she thought with dark amusement.
We really were made for each other
.

“Aita has holdings across the city,” Leggieri said, “and that’s not even counting all the people working under her. Felix could be almost anywhere.”

Renata eyed the wall of weapons as an idea sparked.

“We don’t know where he’s at,” she said, “but we know where he’s going to be.”

Sykes shrugged. “Sure. Her dead daddy’s mansion, for the murder party. What about it?”

Renata turned to face him. “What if we
don’t
find him before then?”

“Are you sayin’…” An incredulous smile spread across his grizzled face. “You are. You wanna crash the party.”

Silent up until that moment, Gallo gaped at her. “You want to attack Aita in her own stronghold. On the night when every throat-cutter and villain in Mirenze will be in attendance. Plus her personal guards. Plus, if her alliance with Lodovico holds, any number of corrupt city guardsmen and mercenaries.”

“Plus the monsters,” Sofia said softly, drawing every eye in the room. “My son has recruited…I don’t know what else to call them. They’re women, but they’re not. There’s something wrong with them.
Made
wrong.”

Sykes glanced sidelong at Lydda and muttered, “Monsters. Remind me why I let you talk me into taking this job?”

“I’m not talking about kicking in the doors and taking them all head-on,” Renata said. “I’m saying we wrangle some invitations to the party and free Felix from inside before anybody notices. One good distraction, like a few of those smoke bombs I’m hearing so much about, and we run for it.”

“The bombs that
mostly
work,” Sykes said.

“And what do ya mean, wrangle an invitation?” Lydda asked. “You’re not bad, but I don’t think you can pull that off.”

Renata smiled. “I can’t, but you can, especially if you have something Aita wants. There’s still a price on my head. And you’re still bounty hunters.”

Sykes shook his head. “Never work. Even if we pulled that off, we’d never get inside with weapons for all five of us. Not the kind of steel we’d need to get out in one piece, anyway. I’m not going up against half of Mirenze with a toothpick in my boot.”

Renata’s gaze turned to Gallo and Achille, appraising them. “I have a notion for how to accomplish that, too. Signora Marchetti, you have access to your family coffers, yes?”

“Lodovico’s practically locked me out of the business.” She folded her arms. “I do have a few hidden reserves I can draw upon, though. Why, do you need money?”

“A bit, to bait a trap of our own. I won’t be the only surprise guest at this party. If this works out, there’s a role for each of us to play—and if we do it right, we all walk away safe and sound.”

“That’s one big ‘if,’” Sykes said. “And what about Aita? If we snatch Felix right out from under her nose, what’s gonna stop her from putting
all
of us on her hit list?”

Renata steeled herself. Committing to her path, and what had to be done.

“I said
we
 walk away,” she told him. “Aita doesn’t.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

The fist-sized lump of alum lay at the edge of Lodovico’s desk. Sitting in his office at the Marchetti family estate, safe behind sturdy walls and iron fences with the sun shining through the window at his back, he could almost pretend he’d gone back in time. He remembered, like it was yesterday, cradling the chalky stone as he ordered Felix Rossini’s death. It hadn’t been much of a concern at the time. Just a little bump in the road on the way to making all of his dreams—his father’s dreams—come true.

His man Simon still stood in his usual place, over by the bookshelf with an accounting ledger cradled in his arms. The sight of him, though—a ruined horror, at ease beside the faded burgundy bloodstains on his office rug—brought back reality like a slap to Lodovico’s face. Lodovico had risked it all, played out the scheme of a lifetime and gone head to head against the Murgardt Empire…and lost. Now all he had were a handful of allies, half of them mad, maybe a hundred mercenary killers, and one last-ditch chance for survival.

“Where is Weiss?” he asked, drumming his trimmed fingernails on the lump of alum.

“Organizing your militia for you.” Simon’s seared lips, what was left of them, curled in a rictus. “You were right. A few days of fearmongering and the entire city’s jumping at shadows. Half the able-bodied men in Mirenze have already joined up and sworn to wage war against the Imperial hordes. They’re spoiling for a fight.”

“Of course they are. Given a choice between being angry and being afraid, most men prefer anger. Fear is impotence in the face of a crisis. Anger is the reassuring illusion, however false, that you’re actually doing something about it.”

“And if the imagined hordes truly do descend upon our city fair?”

Lodovico slouched in his chair, eyes on the chalky stone.

“Oh, they’re far from imaginary. By now, the Imperials know I’ve taken the city. That survivor we sent back guarantees it. We know my plans have been exposed, given that they tried to arrest me for treason, and the ransacking of my warehouse—the ‘proof’ that the emperor was behind the entire thing—suggests it was put to use by some other opportunist. Doesn’t matter who, the end result is the same: one way or another, the crusade is over. And all those troops, fresh back from the desert wastes, will be sent to one of two places.”

“Belle Terre,” Simon said, “or here.”

“Even if we’re granted a brief reprieve by the war in the west, eventually the Empire will turn its angry eye our way. They can’t allow Mirenze to slip its leash; our freedom is an insult to all that they stand for, and the Empire
always
meets an insult with deadly force. We need Carlo here. With the pope as our honored guest, they won’t dare attack.”

“If you’ve been implicated,” Simon mused, one lobster-red finger tracing the page of his open ledger, “isn’t there a good chance that Carlo’s involvement has been exposed as well?”

Lodovico shrugged. “So? They won’t say a word. Simon, the point and purpose of the Church is to keep the rabble under control. Do as you’re told, honor your priests and your province lord and your emperor, or suffer for eternity in the Barren Fields. You can’t get better leverage than that. So the Empire has a choice: they can siege Mirenze, putting the pope in danger, and risk the peasants rioting. They can eliminate Carlo, leading to a succession war in the Church and months if not years of chaos. Or they can come to the table and quietly negotiate terms. I think they’ll pick the third option. The one that lets them save face and wrap this whole mess up quietly and cleanly, while we stay free.”

“There’s a fourth option,” Simon said. “They could wash their hands of Carlo and embrace his sister instead.”

Lodovico’s eyes darkened for just a moment. Then he shook his head and forced a confident smile. “We’ll just have to offer better terms than she does, yes? I can’t afford to worry about that right now. Once Carlo arrives, we can form our strategy.”

A shadow hovered in the doorway, garbed in gray and a mourner’s veil. One of the Sisters of the Noose. Lodovico couldn’t tell one from another, but a handful of the creatures had made themselves at home in his family estate.

“Yet Carlo isn’t here, is he?” the sister hissed.

Lodovico pursed his lips. “An astute observation, which is why I want to speak with Weiss. His man Kappel should have already returned with Carlo in a gift-wrapped box for me.”

The sister glided across the rug, hovering near the faded bloodstains.

“It seems, between Signore Koertig here and the Dustmen, you have a talent for hiring inadequate help.”

“Spoken,” Lodovico said, “by the woman who couldn’t manage to assassinate Livia Serafini in the first place.”

“Spoken,” she replied, “by the woman who captured Felix Rossini, you mean.”

Simon’s shoulders stiffened, his skeletal face twitching. Jaw tight as he turned to stare at her. Lodovico sat up in his chair.

“Captured or killed?”

“Captured. At Aita’s request. She has him now.”

Lodovico rose slowly, his chair scraping back on the rug.

“I said I wanted him dead. He’s too dangerous to be left alive,
especially
now. I’m the one giving the orders around here. You work for
me
.”

“Do we?” The sister’s raspy chuckle set his teeth on edge. “We’ve labored and fought for you, Signore Marchetti, but you’ve given us almost nothing in return. Have you forgotten our price?”

He could never forget. The cost of the Sisterhood’s services had been a single infant child, purchased from an unscrupulous foundling house. They’d taunted him with hints of the baby’s grim fate, forcing him to decide what was more important: one innocent life, or the freedom of his city.

In the end, he’d chosen his city.

“Your second payment is long overdue,” she told him. “But Aita is a good friend to you. She paid on your behalf.”

Lodovico’s mouth went dry as tinder. “Seven more children. She gave you seven more children.”

The sister’s veil rippled on a gust of breath as she nodded.

“Aita showed us her strength, without hesitation.
She
understands the price of true power. My sisters and I have been thinking perhaps we’d be happier in
her
employ.”

“You can’t do that,” Lodovico said. “You’re my eyes and ears. You can respond to threats faster than anyone, even the Dustmen. If the Imperials are making a move, I need advance warning or we could lose everything.”

“True, true.” The sister posed in mock contemplation. “The Dustmen are your offense, but we are your defense. Why, even now, Imperial assassins could be infiltrating the city. Here to end your rebellion with one swift slice of a knife. And we might be so distracted, helping our new friend Aita, that we’d just…forget to notice.”

“Name your price,” Lodovico said.

“
No
.” The sister snapped up her gloved hand, pointing an inhumanly long finger at him. “You tell us what you are willing to pay. You fancied yourself great, Lodovico Marchetti. A man of power. An empire breaker. Look at you now. You act as though you can still find victory in the ruins, but can you really? How far will you go to achieve your dream?”

“I have traveled far—”

“Then travel farther still! To the end of empire and the end of all mercy, or give up and die now. Prove your strength to me. Prove it to
yourself
. What will you offer me and my sisters to stand with you as you wage war against the entire world?”

Lodovico’s gaze fell to his desk. To the chunk of alum. A bitter wish nestled in his heart, a wish that he could turn back time. To go back before he’d hired the Dustmen, before he’d corrupted Carlo, before the staged massacre in the desert and the caravan of spears—go back to when he was just a banker, a banker’s son, and the future had seemed so simple. So easy.

But he couldn’t go back. Only forward, into the fire.

This is for the greater good
, he told himself.
Centuries from now, the histories will say that when Luigi Marchetti called for revolution against the Empire, he was RIGHT. And they will tell how his son made his dream of freedom a reality.

They’ll call us heroes.

He bit his bottom lip until hot blood dripped onto his tongue. When he swallowed, it tasted like bile in the back of his throat. He looked to the sister.

“There is a foundling house,” he said. “The place where I bought your first offering from a most unscrupulous house mother. You may have it.”

“Have it?”

“The orphanage,” Lodovico said, “and every child in it. Do as you will. So long as you serve me.”

A sound like a rustling, contented sigh rasped from under the sister’s veil.

“These are the words of a man of power. We accept. Take me there now, and show me your tiny offerings.”

Lodovico nodded tightly, still biting his lip. He glanced to Simon, who stared at the sister in angry disbelief, frozen since the mention of Felix’s name. The prey he’d obsessed over since the voyage to Winter’s Reach, stolen right out from under him. Simon’s lips twitched, echoing Felix’s name in silence.

“Simon,” Lodovico said.

He didn’t answer.

Lodovico snapped his fingers, finally catching Simon’s attention. “Simon? Are you with me?”

“I’m with you,” he replied, but his gaze swung right back to the sister. His face contorted as if he wanted to strangle her with his thoughts alone.

“I want a fail-safe,” Lodovico said. “In case things don’t go according to plan.”

“A fail-safe?”

“That bomb you used to destroy the Ducal Arch…” The tip of Lodovico’s finger trailed along the edge of his desk, as if trying to tug him away from the words he was about to speak. “Can you get more of them?”

Simon tilted his head, thinking. A single wisp of pale hair, like white smoke, clung to his blackened and scab-ridden scalp. “I suspect the creator may be reluctant to repeat his masterpiece. Artists are temperamental that way.”

“Can you persuade him otherwise?”

“For the Duke of Mirenze,” Simon said with a smile, “I think I can command an encore performance.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Down in his workroom, by the pale light of a flickering candle, Leggieri huddled over his workbench and pressed his eye to a magnifying glass. The tiny guts of a dream turned to metal lay before him, a waking fancy he’d first scribbled on foolscap, then made real with an assembly of minuscule springs and gears. Tried to, anyway: his dreams rarely obeyed the laws of the natural world, and it was becoming more and more apparent that this new invention would be one more failure pillaged for parts to build the next one. That was all right, he reasoned. There was no progress without failure, and every mistake was a new chance to learn.

He hoped it was his only mistake that day. He’d thrown himself into his work to try to push away his fears, but they kept clawing at the edges of his thoughts, demanding his full attention. He’d armed Renata and her followers, equipped them for their reckless mission, and forced himself to smile as he sent them off to die. The odds against them were terrifying to consider—the odds that one might get taken alive, or that Felix himself might be tortured into a confession, even more so.