The Descent

TWELVE

Adair stood at the foot of the bed, watching Lanore sleep—at least, it seemed as though she was sleeping—and wondering what was happening wherever she was. Was she safe? Had she found Jonathan? Perhaps she was lying in the pompous fool’s arms at that moment. He pushed the thought from his mind; no, she’d promised that she was not looking to rekindle her old romance, and for some reason (perhaps the fleet look of disquietude she gave him when she’d made the promise), he was inclined to believe her. It had been several weeks since he’d cast her into this trance and honestly, he was surprised that she hadn’t returned yet.

By this time, relations with Terry and Robin had deteriorated to the breaking point. Waiting on tenterhooks for Lanore’s return, each minute more fraught than the last, meant that he had no patience for distractions, which included the girls’ interruptions. They’d gotten the message, eventually, and now stomped sullenly about the fortress like Clydesdales, or got drunk at night and stayed up playing music, shrieking and laughing and behaving as though there were a party going on—anything to prompt a response from him, even an angry one. He refused to rise to the bait.

He blocked out as much of their noise as he could and remained with Lanore, pacing in her tiny room and watching for a sign. The only thing he wanted to do, however, was to hold her, aching for the reassurance of her physical presence, but he felt constrained from doing as he wished by the girls’ obnoxious behavior, which undoubtedly had been their intent.

It wasn’t until one night, when there had been a long silence in the dead hours, that he thought it was safe enough, and he took his chance. After bracing a chair against the door, he climbed on the bed and hugged Lanore close. He was amazed anew at how small she was, how fragile. Her toes came only to his shins. Her body was so narrow. He ran his hands over the parts of her that were exposed to him and thrilled at the rose-petal tenderness of her skin. He brought his face close to her neck, drinking in her scent, and that tiny bit of intimacy only made him want her more, made him shudder with the great physical potential inside him, like a tsunami rippling over the ocean and reaching for shore. He was seized with the desire to relieve his longing by coupling with her unconscious body. It wasn’t as though Lanore would be surprised if he told her when she awakened what he’d done, he thought. Knowing him as she did, she’d probably expect it of him. She’d excuse his base behavior and yet . . . he knew she’d be disappointed. It would be a bit of the old Adair resurfacing, the demon who frightened her so, proof that he hadn’t been exorcised completely.

He rolled away from her, closed his eyes, and reached for his member, already full and heavy with need. Pressed against her on the bed was enough of a connection for what he had to do, and he was able to bring himself to climax quickly. His relief was short-lived, however: he felt his hard-earned peace dissipate like mist, to be replaced with an aching sadness. He was, after all, still alone, and she was still lying next to him like an effigy on a tomb.

He went to the window and saw the entire island was in sleep. Even the goats were huddled together under the pine trees, their heads resting on their knees. A mist seemed to have settled over the island, covering everything in a thick white fog, as palpable as cotton batting.

Adair went downstairs, past the dining room, where he found the two women passed out at the table, a number of empty wine bottles strewn between them. He put on his greatcoat and went outdoors. It was wintertime, but aside from the biting wind whipping in from the sea, it didn’t seem like winter on the island, which was too far south in the Mediterranean for frost or snow. As Adair stood staring at the water with his hands thrust in his pockets, he thought that he would like it to look like winter. What was the coldness he felt in his heart, if not winter?

Without saying a word or even thinking about it too strenuously, he made the temperature fall. A frosty veil of white started to bloom over the black rocks. Plumes of breath rose over the sleeping goats. Where the sea met rock, a ring of ice began to form, then spread out to the sea, until the island was encircled by a huge disk of thick ice. Adair tried not to be surprised, because he knew that—in some way that wasn’t clear to him but was nonetheless undeniable—he’d willed this change to happen.

Inside the house, Adair continued his vigil. He moved a chair to the foot of the bed so that he could watch Lanore from a different angle. He brought a blanket from another room and spread it over the first one, fearing that she might feel a chill now that the air had gotten colder, though he suspected that she didn’t feel a thing. As he sat watching her, with a sigh he released the coldness in his heart, and as soon as he did, the temperature began to creep upward. The goats awoke, tossing their heads to shake off the enchantment. Before long the ice that had gripped the shore began to groan and break apart, chunks of it drifting into the sea.

Watching the ice break apart made Adair feel uneasy, however. He had begun to feel a presence gathering on the horizon. Whatever this presence was, it was malevolent. It stalked outside his field of vision, beyond his reach, like a wolf or jackal pacing and sniffing the air. It was testing the outer limits of Adair’s reach and would come in closer once it felt confident. He had no idea what the presence might be, or why he felt this strong sense of foreboding, but there it was, just as he felt there was a connection between the girls and the long-dead sister witches.

He worried that it could be the queen coming for him. There was a chance that Lanore’s entry to the underworld had gotten the queen’s attention and now she was amassing her forces, preparing to capture him and drag him to hell to face the punishment he’d eluded for so long. If it weren’t for Lanore, Adair would take measures of his own and leave the island. But as it was, Adair felt like a sitting duck, impatient with being helpless.

That night, Adair once again barricaded the door to Lanore’s room and settled in with her. He fitted himself against her on the bed, cupping his hand over the one of hers that held the vial, and then cleared his mind so that he might drift into sleep. Darkness fell on him swiftly, and as heavily as a hammer.

VENICE, 1262

The next day, Adair could hardly wait for midnight. He’d spent the daytime hurriedly copying out as many pages as he could from the blue book, until his hand cramped and his fingers were heavily stained with ink. As much as he regretted the loss of his treasure, he hoped to get something much better in return: a mentor. Oh, of course the man he met last night might be a pretender and a charlatan, but Adair didn’t think that was the case. If he was half as learned as Adair suspected, Adair had decided to try to convince him to take him on as an apprentice. At the very least, he hoped the old man would let him peruse his books on the occult. If owning even one book of secrets had made Adair this happy, he couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have access to an entire collection. The sacrifice of the peacock book was a minor thing compared to the possibility of finding a knowledgeable mentor and gaining access to such an accumulation of occult knowledge.

By midnight, most of the doge’s staff was asleep, even the guard at the gate in the back of the courtyard, and Adair had no difficulty sneaking out of the palazzo. Energetic with anticipation, he dashed through cobblestone alleys and over bridges until he came to the Plaza Saint Vincent. The old man had not been kidding when he said Adair would be able to pick out his house without assistance: one house alone dominated the square, and it was conspicuously well lit for the hour. Two lanterns hung in front of the massive oak doors, and chinks of light coming from deep inside the house shone through all the closed shutters.

Adair was met at the door by a footman, who led him on a trek through the palazzo and all the way to a wing at the back of the house. They finally came to a large, heavy door. The servant held the door open but only nodded at Adair, indicating that he should proceed alone, the door closing at once behind him. The room might as well have been in a deep dungeon, it was so dark and cavernous, though it was lit as well as could be by two huge candelabras standing on tall pedestals. The room obviously served as a study, two of its long walls covered with book-laden shelves. Adair had never seen so many books in his life, not at the doge’s palace, nor in any of the rooms of his father’s castle. For a moment, all he could do was gawk. It was like seeing his dearest wish come true. To be able to afford so many books, he figured the old man must be rich beyond measure.

It was then that Adair noticed the old man standing behind a high lectern, reading from a large book. He was slightly more modestly dressed that evening than the first time they’d met, now wearing a tunic with a full fur collar and gold embroidery at the neck and sleeves. He was using a piece of glass to magnify the words on the page, and took his time finishing what he was doing before looking up at Adair.

“You made it, I see. And you have the book?” he asked, reaching out with one massive, leathery hand. Adair took the package from under his cloak and approached the lectern, offering it up.

The old man slipped the deerskin off, then held the book up to examine it under the light from the candelabras. He flicked through the pages, pleased. At length he said to Adair, “It’s a lovely book, wouldn’t you agree? And a very rare one. Do you know the provenance of this tome?”

Adair shook his head.

“If you did, doubtless you would’ve fought harder to keep it.” The old man gave him a cunning smile, pleased with himself. “It was reportedly made by a French monk who was a secret devotee of the occult arts during the Capetian reign, prior to the time of Eleanor of Aquitaine. The church has a very long and intimate relationship with the occult,” he said, clearly delighting in his new possession, the way a man might extoll the virtues of a superb wine or a good spouse to whoever is within earshot.

Now happy, the old man reached into his robes and held out Adair’s coin purse and proceeded to tell Adair about himself. His name was Cosimo Moretti. He was born the son of a common farmer in the principality of Naples, but over the course of many years had been able to distinguish himself as a knight in service to the prince, fighting his way out of poverty. For his entire life, however, he’d had a secret burning interest in the dark arts. For instance, on every campaign, he would seek out old crones, midwives, and herbalists, charming or paying them, whichever was necessary, to find out if there was an actual witch living in their midst. Such information was not readily shared with strangers—particularly one of the prince’s men, who more likely than not would turn the witch over to the authorities—but occasionally he struck pay dirt. In this way, albeit very slowly, he accumulated a good deal of knowledge about not only the dark arts but its renowned practitioners.

Once he became too old to fight in battle anymore, he put away his sword, sold his estate, and left Naples, trekking to Venice to study with a very powerful magician. Cosimo recalled with a chuckle that he had to camp out in the courtyard in front of the magician’s palazzo for three weeks before the man would even speak to him. “Can you imagine! I was quite aged at this point, a gray-bearded old relic prostrating myself in the man’s doorway like a beggar! Luckily, I was plenty hardened from years living on the battlefield and the inconvenience meant little to me.”

“And how long were you able to study with this mage?” Adair asked, breathless.

“A decade. He was very old by the time I met him, and it was a miracle that he lived as long as he did. As the man had no heirs, I inherited everything, including this house and the magnificent collection of books of secrets that you see here.” He gestured to the towering walls of shelves, burgeoning with books of all sizes and shapes. “I’ve added to it steadily whenever the opportunity arises, making my own contribution to his life’s work.” What remained unsaid, however, was what would happen to the collection on Cosimo’s death. Adair wondered if the old warrior had a family that stood to inherit everything.

Adair imagined that Cosimo had to know what burned in his heart, that he hoped the old man would take him under his wing, just as the mage had done with Cosimo. One thing bothered Adair, however, something he needed Cosimo to clarify.

“There is one thing I wish to know, sir, and perhaps you can explain this to me. . . . You call yourself a magician, while I study the art of alchemy, and yet here we are interested in the same book of secrets. How can that be? Do you consider yourself an alchemist, too?”

Cosimo smiled, although there was little comfort in his expression, as he had the cold, reptilian smile of a lizard. “I was wondering if you might ask me this. In truth, I know little about the world of alchemy. But I do know that there appear to be many similarities between the two practices. I’ve seen what great magicians are able to do by fire and cauldron, and I have been told that alchemists employ these same means. I know the ingredients witches use, and I have been told that alchemists use the same kind. And what of the ends that both magicians and alchemists seek to achieve? Some would say that the things a skilled alchemist can do are no different from witchcraft, no different at all.”

He came down from the lectern and clapped a hand to Adair’s shoulder. “So I don’t know the answer to your question, young squire. Perhaps this is what you are meant to discover on your journey.” His eyebrows shot up as he spoke, and paired with the reptilian smile, he was quite a daunting sight.

The formal invitation Adair hoped for was not to come for several more weeks, not until he’d sat by Cosimo’s cauldron on a couple occasions, watching silently as the old man measured and stirred and pointed to recipes in ancient books. And it would be another month of skipping Professore Scolari’s lectures in favor of long fireside talks in Cosimo’s palazzo before the old man would give Adair free reign among the books of secrets, allowing him to copy out whichever recipes he chose. Adair began to spend every possible minute at the palazzo, sometimes staying the entire evening and rushing through the alleys of Venice in the minutes before dawn to return to the doge’s house, so the servants wouldn’t see that he was missing from his bed.

Adair thought he had his double life under control. Granted, he barely spent any time in Professore Scolari’s lectures, but he had found a tutor whose teaching was more to his liking. If Zeno were to send a servant to Adair’s room in the middle of the night, the jig would be up, but Adair was pretty sure that the doge had ceased to concern himself with his ward’s comings and goings, if he ever had in the first place. As far as Adair was concerned, his exile to Venice was going far better than he’d ever expected.

So he was understandably surprised when he was summoned to the doge’s study one Sunday afternoon. It was one of those rare times that his host was alone: usually it was impossible to see the doge except with his horde of advisers, officials, nobles, and merchants, who were all petitioning him for some favor or consideration. This afternoon, however, Adair found Zeno by himself in his study, sitting behind a desk piled high with scrolls.

Adair bowed low before him, waiting in this excruciating position until the doge acknowledged him. Zeno wore a tight black velvet cap to warm his near-bald skull, but the cap made him look a little like an infant and spoiled his usually intimidating appearance. He looked down his large, hooked nose at his ward. “Stand up, boy, and take that chair. I need a word with you.”

Adair obeyed, his nerves dancing.

The doge fixed him with a dry stare. “How long have you been living in my household, cel Rau? Refresh my memory.”

“Nearly eight months, my liege.”

“Your father prevailed on me to take you in because, he claimed, you had a burning desire to become a physician.” Adair squirmed in his chair as Zeno rolled up the scroll he’d been looking at. “Professore Scolari tells me that you have been noticeably absent from his lectures. I wish that I could say ‘of late’ but he informs me that this has been the case for quite some time. Is this true, or is the professor mistaken?”

Adair hung his head. “No, my liege. The professor is not mistaken.”

“Well then, perhaps you can tell me what you’ve been up to, if you’re not attending your classes, so that I may answer your father’s missives and not commit the mortal sin of bearing falsehoods?” The doge studied Adair through his steepled fingers.

“I have found a tutor of my own liking. I have been attending his lectures,” Adair admitted.

Zeno raised his bushy eyebrows. “Is that so? And tell me, what is the name of this mysterious professor? Come, come, if there is a better physician to be found in the city of Venice, I should know his name. Out with it.”

Adair blushed. His only desire was to get out of the doge’s presence without giving up his secret studies. “Forgive me, your grace, for my attempt to deceive you. There is no other physician; the truth is that I find my interest in medicine has waned, to the point where I question whether I wish to pursue further study or not.”

Zeno smirked, as though he’d known he’d been right all along. “I could not care less about your interest in medicine, I only wish to know where you have been spending your time in the evenings, if not with Scolari. Out with it: Have you been out gambling away your father’s fortune, or idling your time away in a brothel somewhere?”

Adair’s throat tightened. There was no lie that the doge would not be able to verify. Zeno had spies everywhere. He was left with only one option: Rossi. “The truth, then, my grace: I have been keeping company with Bishop Rossi. He made me see that my religious education has been lacking—so heavily influenced by the Eastern Orthodox Church, as it has been.” That was his trump card; he knew the doge would consider it a personal victory if he could turn the near-heathen Hungarian nobleman into a proper Roman Catholic.

Zeno leaned forward in his chair. “So—been spending time with Rossi, have you? I find that surprising, cel Rau, given what your father told me about your attitude toward the church.”

“His church, the orthodox church.” Adair was surprised at how nimbly the lie sprang to his lips. “I knew almost nothing about the Roman church before coming here. There is a Roman Catholic priest in our court, but he is kept to the fringes, treated as a heretic by the other clerics, as you might imagine. I never spoke to him, and so I had no understanding of the Roman church at all. Whereas Bishop Rossi—”

“Rossi makes the Roman church seem fascinating, does he?” Zeno asked, his tone skeptical. He studied Adair shrewdly. “Well, well, well . . . as I have said, this is all very surprising. But if this is what you say has transpired, I must take you at your word. As for the matter of your medical studies, well, if you do not wish to pursue them, it makes no difference to me. However, young men are known to be changeable. Your fascination with Rossi’s company may fade. For the time being, I will say nothing to your father, in case you change your mind.”

Adair bowed low in acknowledgment of Zeno’s consent, anxious to retreat from the room.

“Not so fast, my boy. Not so fast.” Zeno sniffed. “Do not forget: it is your father I am beholden to, not you. You need to stop fooling around and get on with the serious business of life. You’re just about out of second chances. Your father’s patience will not last forever, you know.” He tugged at his cap, which had come askew, so that he ended up looking a bit ridiculous at the end of his reproachful speech, like an old woman getting ready for bed.

Adair further prostrated himself before the doge. “I welcome the opportunity to please your grace.”

“Please me? This has nothing to do with pleasing me, my boy. But if you truly wish to please me, you will do as your father asks. You will give up these childish distractions and apply yourself to the rank with which God has seen fit to grant you. You have been blessed with rank and title, you know. Do not make God regret he has favored you. Do not affront his beneficence.” Zeno tugged the sleeves of his robe over his knuckles for warmth, signifying that the audience was over. Adair bowed so deeply that his head almost touched the stone floor before turning and stalking out of the room.

The next evening, Adair was at Cosimo’s door. It wasn’t one of their prearranged sessions and so the mage wasn’t expecting him, but he received Adair warmly all the same.

“What is it, my boy? You seem agitated,” Cosimo said once he’d closed the doors to the study behind them.

“I’m afraid I will not be able to visit you for a while,” Adair said, and then laid out the situation for the old knight. To avoid Zeno’s wrath, Adair would need to resume his visits with Rossi, perhaps even go so far as to return to Scolari’s lecture hall again—whatever it would take to appease the doge. “The bishop is even holding a dinner in my honor in a few nights’ time. I swear this is all a grand scheme: the doge is plotting with the bishop to get me engaged to the goddaughter.”

“Is that all? So marry the girl,” Cosimo said, and laughed.

“I’m glad you can speak so lightly about my future,” Adair said glumly.

The mage clapped him on the back. “You’re far too serious for so young a man. I swear, you are like an old man stuffed into a young man’s body. Listen to someone approaching the end of his life: it would not be the worst thing in the world to take a wife. She will make your life interesting.”

Adair snorted. “You haven’t met Elena. I fear she would make my life too interesting.”

“All the better,” Cosimo responded. “Listen to an old man: life is short. There is no dishonor in enjoying it a little along the way.”

Bishop Rossi’s party turned out to be not an overly large affair, though Adair couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not. On one hand, he wasn’t being forced to repeat the same banalities over and over as he made the acquaintance of the Venetians who had come to gawk at a heathen nobleman from the wilds of Hungary. On the other, there was no getting away from Elena, whom the bishop had assigned to act as his social guide. She stood by Adair’s side almost from the moment he walked through the door. She was especially pretty that night, with pearls set like stars in her dark hair, and a long strand of them circling her slender neck. Every time he looked at her, she had a simper on her face as though she were auditioning for the role of his wife. Don’t try so hard, he wanted to tell her. Even if he were looking for a spouse, it wouldn’t be the woman she was trying to be tonight. He longed for a girl with a little grit.

It didn’t take him long to figure out that the dinner party was merely an excuse to make him spend time with Elena. The bishop and the doge clearly thought that taking on a wife was the cure for his alleged problems. Granted, Elena was lovely and the longer he sat next to her, the more he appreciated her charms, even if they were primarily of the decorative variety. His mind began to wander as the meal progressed, and by the time the roasts were served, he wondered what her body looked like unclothed. He pictured them rutting in a bedchamber somewhere upstairs, cupping his hands over her small breasts as he took her from behind, her white derriere jiggling as he drove into her—and broke such thoughts off, red-faced, before he created an obvious problem for himself.

Too late. Luckily, his clothing hid the evidence of his distress to a degree, but he was going to have to excuse himself to take care of the matter before it became unbearable. He headed for the pissing station outside the great hall and ducked behind the privacy of a screen. Once he was sure there were no servants nearby who might stumble across him, he unlimbered his member and, eyes closed, began to stroke himself. He was businesslike, his intention to get off and get back to the dinner party as quickly as possible. He had just gotten off to a promising start when he felt a small hand alight on his manhood. He opened his eyes in shock.

It was Elena. She must’ve guessed what he was up to and followed him. She had put her hand most deliberately on his cock and Adair was so surprised that speech failed him. She used that moment of weakness to kiss him. Even though it was she who threw herself against him, her mouth pressing to his, she still managed to yield softly to him. She was as tender as he imagined she would be, a hot spot of need reaching for him and melting under him simultaneously. Her hands crept to his chest, her palms pressed against the front of his tunic.

Once the kiss was over and she’d settled back to her feet, she looked into his eyes saucily. “May I help you with that, my lord?” she asked. Her hands went to work before he could even reply. Her eyes were locked on his manhood the entire time. While she obviously took pleasure from what she was doing, it was just as obvious that this was not her first time. She brought him to climax expertly, catching his seed in a handkerchief at the end. While he watched in openmouthed surprise, she tucked the handkerchief down the front of her tunic, between her breasts, and then rinsed her hands in a nearby washing bowl.

In the fog of his brain, awash with pleasure and shock, Adair suddenly understood why Elena had been sent to live away from home: the girl was an incorrigible nymphomaniac. She’d probably disgraced herself, though she was probably not so foolish as to give up her hymen to anyone, not before her wedding. She had been packed off to faraway Venice because no one would have heard of her indiscretions, and there was even a possibility that she might snare a suitable husband. Undoubtedly the bishop was trying to reform Elena while she was living under his roof, and having about as much success as the doge was having with Adair. In some respects, she was no different than he.

“Elena, we must talk—but not here,” he said, leading her by the hand out into the hall. Although there was the possibility of being overheard as servants passed by with platters and pitchers to serve the partygoers in the great hall, it was less incriminating than being caught together by the piss pots. And he needed to set her straight and let her know that he had no intention of marrying her, despite her godfather and the doge’s obvious attempt to pair them off.

She looked at him now with a mixture of suspicion and resignation. “Oh—I’ve gone and done it, haven’t I? Been too eager? It’s just that I wanted to see it. Your prick. I knew it would be lovely, and it is. You won’t tell my godfather what I’ve done, will you? He’ll be so disappointed.”

Adair put his hands on her shoulders. “Elena, that was a very generous courtesy you did for me just now, and while I appreciate your attentions, I must tell you—you’re wasting your time with me. I have no intention of marrying. Not you, not anyone.”

She drew back as though Adair had told her he had the plague. “What do you mean? Are you thinking of taking vows?”

“Becoming a priest? Oh no . . . Although, you might think my intention not so dissimilar . . .” He stood as tall as he could, trying to make himself seem older and wiser. “I’m going to become a scholar and devote myself to study of the natural world.”

She sized him up cagily. “Yes, I heard you intend to become a physician.”

“That’s part of it, but I’m interested in more than the human body. I’m interested in all of it, everything you can touch and see. And more—I’m interested in the soul, too. The spirit.”

“That seems very admirable,” she said, but sounded tentative, as though she wasn’t sure why anyone would be interested in such a strenuous undertaking. “But why does that mean you cannot wed?”

“Because I’ll be traveling. I wish to meet the greatest thinkers alive. I can’t remain here, in some palazzo in Venice, and expect all the wonders of the world to come to me,” he explained.

She seemed to consider what he said seriously, rocking a little side to side. “And you wouldn’t take your wife with you on your travels?”

He looked down on her gravely. “It wouldn’t do. Besides, a woman doesn’t want to go traveling. She needs a home where she can raise her children. That’s what makes a woman happy.” He recalled overhearing his mother saying this to his father once, when the duke had been preparing to follow the king of Hungary into battle. It promised to be a prolonged siege and he wanted her to travel with him. She’d laughed at the notion and suggested he bring one of his favorite mistresses instead. It had saddened his father, because he had truly loved her.

“I suppose that is true,” she said, giving in. “In all honesty, I cannot see myself living out of trunks. I will let my godfather know of your feelings. But you should be aware—the doge has been in on this plan from the beginning. He would like to see you wed and settled.”

“I know.”

“He’s sent some of his men to round up your friend, do you know that, too? That’s why he asked my godfather to have this dinner party for you tonight—so you would be occupied elsewhere when they went to arrest him.”

His heart seized in terror. He gripped Elena by the shoulders. “Who? Who are they going to arrest?” he asked, but in his heart he already knew. Who else could it be but Cosimo?

Her eyes went wide. “I didn’t hear the name. But he said the doge had you followed, to see where you disappeared to at night, and that’s how they found out what you were up to.”

His last visit to Cosimo—that had to be when he’d been followed, after he’d foolishly allowed himself to believe that he’d deflected the doge’s suspicions. Zeno had probably dispatched a spy to shadow him from that moment forward. With a sinking heart, Adair dashed out of the hall, bellowing for his cloak and hat. As he ran from the bishop’s palazzo and down the empty alleys, he began to realize that he was too late. It would be useless for him to go to Cosimo’s house now: no doubt they’d arrested him already. He would be on his way to the dungeon. This was terrible and it was all his fault; he’d underestimated Zeno, thinking him an impotent old fool who didn’t care what was going on right under his own roof. He’d made a ridiculous mistake, the kind of mistake made by headstrong young men, and now Cosimo would pay with his life.

Then another thought came to him, terrible in its meaning: the inquisitors would seize everything in Cosimo’s house that could be used against him as evidence for the trial. His magnificent collection of books would be destroyed, put to the torch after the trial was over. The loss staggered him. He ran even faster, not sure what he would do when he got there.

Just as he’d expected, the arrest had already taken place. Cosimo was gone, his servants huddled out on the square in their bed clothes, crying. The front doors were thrown open to the street, flanked by a few of the doge’s guards. They crossed their lances to bar Adair’s way when he ran up to them.

“You will let me pass. The doge has sent me,” he roared at the guards. He knew what he was doing was ill advised; he’d already gotten in enough trouble, and by declaring himself so boldly to the guards, the doge would certainly hear of it. But Adair could see no other way to gain entry to Cosimo’s house, and every moment was precious. “That’s right.” Adair turned and shouted at the mage’s servants, pretending to gloat. “It was all a trap set by the doge, and I was part of it. It was I who led them to your master. It is incumbent upon the doge, the leader of this city, to root out evil and eliminate it from our midst. Your master is evil—truly an evil man, a priest of Satan, and so I will testify at his trial.” He turned back to the guards and pushed the lances aside. “Now, out of my way. I tell you, I have been sent here by the doge himself and he will not tolerate your interference.”

His theatrics worked and they let him pass. Inside, every torch and sconce in Cosimo’s palazzo was lit and burning brightly. He heard the echoes of men’s voices coming down the hall from the study, and his heart sank. The inquisitors were here. As he approached the doorway, he saw two men standing before the shelves, thumbing through books. The floor was covered with discarded tomes and scattered sheets of paper. The men were dressed in the black robes of the court. Of course. Adair realized then that soldiers had not been sent to secure the documents because soldiers wouldn’t be able to read. These were two officials and they had already made two high piles of books on the floor, ostensibly to be taken away for further review.

He looked at the books thrown to the floor, and the few still clinging to the shelves like birds too frightened to come down from the trees. It seemed an unconscionable waste for all these books to be destroyed, a calamity on par—in Adair’s mind—with the destruction of the library of ancient Alexandria. He felt that he had to do something, salvage whatever he could. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the peacock-blue spine of the book he’d surrendered to Cosimo. A wave of sorrow passed through him for having to lose it a second time. Surely there had to be a way to save it.

He pulled back into the shadows before the two officials could see him, and tiptoed to the kitchen. The kitchen fire blazed untended, no doubt deserted by the servants when the soldiers burst into the palazzo. There was a stack of firewood next to the hearth and a box of kindling. Platters of roasted meat stood on the table, left pooling in fat. The entire room seemed smoky and greasy and combustible, an accident waiting to happen.

It would be an extreme measure, to burn the house down. But when the officials ran outside to escape the flames and smoke, Adair thought he might have time to rescue a few of the volumes. Was it better to set fire to the house than to let the books fall into the church’s possession? He wasn’t sure. The church might burn them, too—but there was a chance they might be spared for further study. As long as the books were intact, there was a chance they might eventually find their way back to a practitioner, someone who would benefit from their knowledge. If they burned, they were just ash.

The thought that the church would decide the books’ fate was too much for Adair to stand. To have these precious books rounded up like children and held hostage in trunks in a moldy basement at the duomo, rotting away day by day until they were nothing but mildewed pages stuck together, illegible . . . then thrown into the fires of the auto-da-fé, fuel to burn some poor luckless devil to death. No, he wouldn’t let that happen. He took some kindling and dipped it in goose fat, then held it to the flame. The tender wood caught quickly. From there it was a simple thing to creep down the hall and hold the flame to the hem of a dusty drapery. . . .

The house filled with smoke in minutes as flames leapt from wall to wall. Cries of alarm sounded from Cosimo’s study and then the two officials ran out, calling for the guards to fetch water from the well. As he ducked into the study, Adair knew he had mere minutes to act—and what’s more, the fire had leapt to the shelves quickly, seeming to know there were thousands of dry pages to feast on. Smoke had already engulfed the room and Adair could barely see his hand in front of his face.

Which books should he save? For a moment, he was paralyzed with indecision. It wasn’t as though he had Cosimo’s encyclopedic knowledge of the collection; he’d be hard-pressed to say which was the most valuable. He wanted to save them all but knowing that he couldn’t, his hand went to the one book that his eye always sought first: the one with the peacock-blue cover. Holding his hand over his mouth against the smoke, his eyes tearing, he grabbed the books on either side, too, and tucked all of them under his arm. He kicked open the shutters on the nearest window and—since he didn’t dare use the front entrance for fear of running into the soldiers’ bucket brigade—he hurled through the open window into the alley, landing in a puddle of filth. He leapt to his feet and ran without looking back, knowing that his mentor’s priceless collection was going up in flames, and by his hand.

Adair ended up hiding two books in a nearby square: all three made for too conspicuous a bundle to carry into the doge’s palazzo. And as little as he wanted to, he realized that he had to return to Zeno’s house. He would’ve tried his luck living on the street, selling his finer pieces of clothing to raise money to live on—at least he would be free—but he couldn’t bear the thought of giving up all those recipes he’d copied out by hand and hidden in his bedchamber. He decided to take his chances weathering the doge’s wrath. If Cosimo had been arrested for being a magician, it seemed to Adair that he had no chance of escaping the same fate. If Cosimo was going to burn, Adair stood a good chance of burning, too.

With the blue book tucked securely in a panel of his cloak, Adair cautiously approached the formidable palazzo. It was uncharacteristically brightly lit for the hour, a sure sign that something was taking place inside. Once he entered, he saw that the halls were alive with chatter and he felt as though everyone stopped to stare at him as he rushed by. He’d hoped to get to his room undetected and gather his belongings, make up a packet, and be ready for escape as early as that evening. But he had gotten ten paces into the house when one of the court officials saw him and called for the nearest guard to detain him—on the doge’s orders.

He was brought to the anteroom outside the grand chamber. A flock of officials were clustered around the huge table, all in their long black robes. Old Zeno stood on the far side, his face as violent as Adair had ever seen it, frightening to behold. He could see why this man had come out on top of all the scheming and scrapping and battling among Venetian nobles and been made the doge, the ruler of the city. Bishop Rossi crouched at Zeno’s side.

Adair dropped his cloak—which he had taken off and wrapped around the book to soften its edges into anonymity—and set his package onto a chair as he approached his guardian. He could see fury building in the old man’s eyes as he directed his words at the gathered crowd. “Leave us. I wish to speak to my ward alone. No, you stay, Rossi.” Zeno placed a hand on the bishop’s arm as he moved to join the others. The clerks gave Adair baleful looks as they shuffled out, as though they knew what fate was in store for him. He threw back his shoulders and held his head high: he would show them how a Magyar met his end.

Zeno waited until the heavy door had been closed before he began thundering at him. “You! You are the very devil! Look at the mess you have brought to my doorstep!”

Adair opened his mouth to defend himself, and then realized Zeno wasn’t looking for an explanation.

“Your father warned me that you had an unhealthy interest in the occult. But he said those days were behind you and that you had given it all up to study medicine. If he had been up front with me about your . . . your obsession, I never would have agreed to take you in.” The Venetian almost spat the words at Adair. “You bring this occultist practically to my door. What am I to do? I am the doge, I cannot ignore your indiscretions. I cannot allow heretics to flourish inside our city walls! My enemies would jump upon such weakness and use it to topple me. Do you understand now, boy, what a foolish, dangerous thing you have done?”

“Where is Cosimo?” Adair demanded, finally finding his tongue.

Zeno looked affronted. “In the dungeon, of course, where he should be.”

“He is a knight of Naples, you know. You will risk war with Naples if you do anything to him,” Adair cautioned.

Zeno dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. “He hasn’t been a knight of Naples for a very long time. I know the prince of Naples and the prince won’t care what happens to a wizard.”

“What will you do to him?”

“He’ll be tried and burned at the stake, of course.”

Adair took a step toward the table. It was scattered with papers, and he thought he recognized a few from Cosimo’s study. “Let Cosimo go and I’ll do as you ask. I’ll go to Scolari’s lectures, I’ll be his best student.”

Zeno stepped around the table until he stood in front of Adair, fixing him with a steely stare, no longer the comical little man in his nightcap. “Oh, you will do that anyway, if you wish to live. That was the bargain you struck with your father. You had your chance. I am not the only one whose patience you have exhausted. Believe me, if I sent word back to your father that you had met with an untimely—but not unexpected—end, he would understand. And perhaps be a little relieved, too. He always knew you were headed for trouble.

“This mess you have made is salvageable, however. That lie you told my guards at the heretic’s house—they reported it back to me, of course. And that’s the story we will tell, that you agreed to be my spy and ferret out the Satanist living in our midst; that will be our explanation as to why you have been in the company of the heretic. Luckily, Moretti’s servants are already spreading that story all over the city. Venetians do love a good piece of gossip,” he said in an aside to the bishop.

“You can’t do this to me,” Adair said, in despair.

Zeno observed him coldly. “I can and I shall. It’s about time you grew up, my boy. Give up and give in. We all do. You’re not a child anymore; it’s time to put away your childish dreams. Take your place in society, as your family wishes. Or I will crush you, and end your family’s embarrassment.”

“And what can I offer you in exchange for Cosimo’s life?”

“There is nothing you can do for Cosimo. He must be sacrificed.”

The bishop leaned over the table toward Zeno, raising a finger for the doge’s attention. “Wait, your grace. There is one thing he might do. . . . I could speak to the inquisitors on Moretti’s behalf if you”—he narrowed his eyes on Adair—“agree to marry Elena.”

Adair’s heart squeezed as though a hand closed over it. “I beg you not to ask this of me. She’ll not find happiness with me. You are sentencing us both to a lifetime of misery.”

Rossi was unmoved. “You heard the doge—it’s time you grew up and took your medicine like everyone else. Do you think that every married couple lives in bliss? That only the well suited are allowed to wed? You make the best of it, that’s what you do,” Rossi said sagely as though he, an unmarried member of the clergy, had any experience in the matter.

Zeno turned away from Adair, heading back to the table. “The matter is settled. You will be engaged to the bishop’s goddaughter. You will be revealed as one of my agents and responsible for the arrest of the heretic Moretti.”

“You will spare Moretti?” Adair asked hopefully.

“I will consider it,” Zeno answered through gritted teeth.

It was the best he could hope for under the circumstances, with the arrest still fresh. Adair backed out of the room, retrieving his cloak at the door before shoving his way through the clerks waiting on the outside, to retreat to his chamber.

He hid the book and his packet of spells with the utmost care, moving them to another room that he could access easily should he need to make a quick getaway. He didn’t think any corner of his room would be safe from search now. The next few days were spent attending Scolari’s lectures, where Adair’s mind wandered incessantly. How could he pay attention as the old physician droned on when Cosimo was languishing in prison? It was Adair’s fault, and what’s more, there seemed to be nothing he could do about it. He wondered, however, why the old Neapolitan couldn’t use magic to free himself. There must’ve been something in one of those dusty old books that would be helpful in this situation. Surely the old man knew a vanishing spell, or a way to charm the guard into unlocking the manacles. Or perhaps he could telepathically influence the inquisitors to find him innocent. There was so much he didn’t understand about magic and its reach.

He had wanted to go see Cosimo right away but knew he had to bide his time or risk pushing Zeno over the edge. He also feared he might arrive too late, turning up at the dungeon one day to find that the inquisitors’ tortures had killed him. Too, Cosimo might’ve heard of the false rumor they’d spread about Adair being a spy and would want nothing to do with him. It pained Adair to think that Cosimo might die thinking Adair had betrayed him.

Within a few weeks, Adair received a letter from his father informing him that he’d agreed to the marriage arrangements. He even wrote a few words about the benefits of an alliance with Elena’s Florentine family, but Adair knew it was all for show: with any luck, he would remain in Italy after the wedding and would, for all his family cared, cease to be their worry anymore.

Finally, after a month had passed since the arrest and Adair could stand it no longer, he went down to the dungeons very late one night. He brought coin to bribe the guard into letting him see Cosimo. By then, the old man had been let out of his manacles and put in a cell, although it was so small that he couldn’t stand fully upright in it. The floor was covered with filthy straw that had probably never been changed, and the walls were damp, as though the lagoon were trying to reclaim the doge’s palazzo by stealth.

Adair lifted the lantern to see the old man’s face turned up to him expectantly. Cosimo was in a terrible state. His royal robes were crusted with his own blood and gore and torn to give the torturers access to his vulnerable spots. All the parts of him Adair could see—his wrists, his bare feet, his throat—were raw with evidence of torture.

Adair handed him a package of food, enough to last several days if the rats didn’t get to it, and a bottle each of wine and water. Cosimo looked suspiciously at the package even as he accepted it. “Why did you bring this? To assuage your guilt for being the one responsible for my arrest—”

“I hope you know me well enough not to listen to that. It was a story I made up the night you were arrested to get entry to your house. I was trying to save the books . . .”

Cosimo’s eyes glittered with life for the briefest instant. “And did you?”

He shook his head. “I could carry only a few. I hid some in a square not far from your house but I fear they’ve since been discovered. There is a massive witch hunt going on.” He hung his head. “In the end, I was able to save only one, the blue book.”

Cosimo nodded. “Of all the books in my library, that was a good one to save. Take care of it. Don’t let the inquisitors get their hands on it. Save it for the ones who come after us.”

“Don’t give up, Cosimo,” Adair said, trying to comfort him. “I’ve asked the doge to release you. I’ve even agreed to marry Bishop Rossi’s goddaughter in exchange for his support in the matter. Now it’s up to Zeno.”

Cosimo shook his head. “My boy, there is no way for Zeno to pardon me. He’s made too much of a spectacle over my arrest. And now this witch hunt . . . The townspeople will see a Satanist behind every bush. It would be impossible for it to end any other way than with my death.” He said all this with an air of detachment, as though he were talking about someone else.

Adair was shocked. “How can you say that? You mustn’t give up hope.”

“It is impossible.”

“Then . . .” Adair thought again about using magic to help Cosimo escape. If anyone would know how it could be done, he should. “Tell me how to use the spells to get you out of here. There must be a way for magic to help you escape.”

The old man seemed resigned to his fate. “I don’t have the strength or the necessary equipment to do anything from inside the dungeon.”

“Then tell me what to do, which spell to use . . .”

“No. I will not have you put yourself at risk any further by trying to help me escape. I am very old and, given that I made my living for many years as a knight, should have been dead a long time ago. I’ve already had more years on this earth than I deserve. I’m ready to die.”

“It’s my decision—”

“No.” He squeezed Adair’s hand one last time. “It’s my decision. I want you to bide your time and then make your escape. I know you to be a headstrong boy, but this one time, young squire, listen to me.”

Adair left the dungeon with his heart aching. He had to find a way to save Cosimo, even if the arsenal of recipes he had to choose from was much reduced. He stayed up as late as he could that night, poring over his loose pages and the blue book, trying to find a spell that could help Cosimo. But when Adair went downstairs in the morning, he was told that the old knight had taken his life last night in his cell. He’d broken one of the bottles Adair had brought and used the glass to slice his wrists and his throat.

PRESENT DAY

The light in the room in which Adair lay with Lanore had grown dim. Outside the window, a storm tossed violently, the kind that swept up on the island without warning and battered the rock mercilessly. Adair huddled closer to Lanny for warmth, fingering a lock of her hair absentmindedly while he listened to the wind rattle the glass panes.

He was covered in sticky sweat from his recollections of Venice. He could remember those days in Zeno’s palazzo with precision: the damp of the streets, the moldering smell of his bedchamber, the bottle-green silk lining of his cloak, and the long pheasant feathers fixed to his cap.

And yet he had other memories of Cosimo, impossible ones from another time, an earlier time. Of Cosimo not in Italy but in the Ceahlău Massif mountains where Adair had grown up, the stretch of land that had been traded over the years, back and forth, between Hungary and Romania. In these memories, Cosimo was dressed in a rough peasant’s shift and coarse woolen leggings, and was not the regal figure he’d known in Venice. Adair, a boy of seven or eight, stood in a mud cottage with a thatched roof, a primitive place with pigs running in and out of the house as though it were a barn. Adair was being restrained by his father as Cosimo was dragged out of the cottage by two of his father’s men. They were forcing Cosimo to kneel in the mud before the stump he used for splitting firewood, and next to the stump stood an executioner in his black leather hood, a massive broadsword in his hands.

Adair shook his head to clear it but the image lingered. How could he have two memories of the exact same incident? He couldn’t have known two Cosimos; it was impossible. Just as his mind told him he was a boy in the wild, craggy mountains of Romania in the 1000s and a man of fifteen in Venice in 1262. It was impossible—and yet both memories were seared into his mind, unforgettable.

There was one other thing that confused him about Cosimo. The memories of those nights at the old knight’s palazzo, sitting by the fireplace as Cosimo mixed potions in the cauldron, taking a handful of this and a pinch of that from his many jars and bottles to fling into the pot . . . and of copying out recipes on scraps of paper and rolling them up to hide in his sleeve so he could bring them into the doge’s house undetected. . . . Did those stories not remind him of something else? Of the stories he told of the peasant boy whose body he’d stolen? The peasant boy who had sat at his hearth and watched him prepare potion after potion? Who had stolen his recipes and tried to escape, earning a horrific beating?

The thought made Adair’s blood freeze in his veins. It was impossible to trust his mind anymore it seemed. Did this mean he was going mad, finally? It had always been his greatest fear. Man was not meant to have so many memories, the collected stories from a thousand years of existence. It was inevitable that one day the well of memory would overflow.

These conflicting memories had been coming to him since he’d set foot on the island. It was as though whatever forces were alive on this piece of rock were demagnetizing his brain, and all the little bits and fragments of his past were lifting from the shoals where memories were kept. Lifting and becoming tangled, mixing and shifting before disappearing into the ether, clouded and then lost to him forever.

He looked at the woman lying in his arms and wondered if the same thing would happen to his memories of her. Would he start to forget their time together or confuse her with someone else? As much as the possibility hurt him, there was one memory he would be happy to lose, that of her betrayal. As it was, he was doomed to live with the knowledge that she could brick him up in a wall and leave him there to face eternity, that she had it in her to be as cold-blooded as—well, he. Maybe he was a fool to love such a woman, but love her he did.

Too, he wondered if—seeing that he had two memories of his childhood and of Cosimo—there were two versions of his life, and if in the other version he’d never hurt Lanore. Perhaps there was a version where he’d never abused or imprisoned her, never gave her a reason to doubt that she could trust him with her love. If that were the case, he’d do anything to lift the memories she did have of him and replace them with this other set. What he wouldn’t give to take away all her unhappy memories—her memories of that bastard Jonathan, too. He ran a hand over her brow with a heavy sigh: he would remake her entire life so that she never experienced one moment of sadness; he would make her the only human who had never been lonely or unhappy or afraid, the only one in the history of the world, if only he could.