“She’s in pain,” Piero said, without looking at her. “And she’s lost a lot of blood.”
Belladonna’s eyes met Cass’s for only an instant. They were like two hard stones—no trace of the warmth or charm she had exhibited at her birthday party. “Not too much blood, I hope.” She turned to leave, pausing at the doorway only to add, “Keep me informed.”
“Friendly,” Cass said. Her mouth seemed to take a long time to form the word.
“She’s just worried about you.” Piero hovered above Cass with his scalpel, preparing to cut away the soiled bandages. He was still talking, but his voice had slowed down. Everything was slowing down. Cass swore that even her heart slowed to a stop beneath her rib cage. She was sinking into a gentle pool. No, a well. Down. So far down. “Piero,” she murmured, lifting her good arm toward the light.
He peered over the side of the well, smiling. Could he see her? She didn’t think so. It was dark. So dark. But she could see his face, backlit by the daylight behind him. Only he didn’t look like Piero. He looked like Falco.
“Shh,” Piero-Falco whispered. “Just relax.”
She blinked, and suddenly he was down in the well with her. She sensed bandages falling to her bedsheets, but she couldn’t see her arm anymore. It was too dark. Her eyelids were heavy. It was time to sleep.
The elixir of mandrake and feverfew helped Cass sleep so soundly that when she woke up, she felt better than she had in days. She was able to eat for the first time since her attack, and she also managed to drag herself out to the garden to get a bit of sun. When it was time for her to go to sleep again, she begged Piero for another dose.
“Did it give you strange dreams?” Piero asked.
Cass thought of the well, and the fact that Piero had become Falco. “They were unusual,” she said cautiously. “But not unpleasant.”
“I suppose another dose wouldn’t hurt, then.” His hair fell forward over one eye. “You do seem to be in exceptional spirits.”
She took the silver tumbler and drank willingly. She hoped Falco—the real one, not the one from her dream—would be able to sneak into her room for another visit.
When she drifted off, she had the same odd sensation of sinking straight down into her mattress, just like going into a well. Again Piero-Falco appeared at the top of the well. Cass called out to him and he reappeared by her side. “How did you do that?” she asked.
He smiled but didn’t say anything.
“Are you really Falco?” she asked.
He didn’t answer.
Cass tried to stand but couldn’t. She was completely surrounded by water. “What am I doing here?” she asked. “What am I looking for?”
His eyes flashed dark for a moment and he became someone else, a stranger. But then he ran his fingers through her hair, pushing her tangled tresses back away from her neck. Cass relaxed. She would know Falco’s gentle touch anywhere. His lips grazed the soft skin of her throat, and her whole body went soft. She was melting. She was liquid. She was fading away . . .
And then there was a crash, and a dripping sound. Cass groaned and opened her eyes, one at a time. Her eyelids felt heavy, as though they’d been weighted overnight. What was dripping? Why was it so bright? Had Falco come to visit her last night as he had promised?
“
The servant went to the window and opened the curtains. “We thought maybe you were going to sleep away the entire day.”
“Is it really midday?” Cass asked. She wanted to sit up, but her body, too, felt weighted.
“That it is,” the servant said. “Your friends came for a visit, but Dottor Basso told them you were sleeping and turned them away.”
Could she possibly have slept fifteen hours again? If so, why did she still feel exhausted? Her limbs were anvils. Cass knew she’d fall right back to sleep if the shades were drawn again.
The servant left and returned with a tray containing sliced fruit and a bowl of tomato soup. Cass took a spoonful of the deep red broth. Her fingers were shaking. For a second, she saw two hands, holding two wobbling spoons. The soup was far too salty, and its color reminded her of blood. It even smelled like blood. She dropped the spoon and pushed the whole tray to one side.
Piero came into the room with her medicines. She tried to sit up, but her head still felt like it was full of wet cloth. Her soft mattress drew her down into its depths, like the ocean welcoming an anchor. She managed to turn toward Piero. He was cloudy at the edges, his hands disintegrating into fog. For a second it seemed like he was floating. Hovering. Cass blinked hard. She rubbed her eyes. Piero stood on the floor, just as he should.
“I think the mandrake is making me see things,” Cass said.
“What do you mean?” Piero looked concerned.
“I’m not hallucinating,” Cass said quickly. “But objects look hazy instead of clear. Sometimes my vision seems to double.”
Piero nodded. “It happens. How is your pain?”
“Better,” Cass admitted. She looked down at her newly bandaged arm. “But I can’t believe I slept all day and still feel so weak.”
“You do look pale.” Piero touched a hand to her cheek. His fingers felt so warm against her icy skin. “I think it’s best if you continue to rest,” he said.
“More sleep?” Cass heard the pinch of frustration in her voice. “But Madalena and Siena—”
“Can wait until you’re feeling stronger,” Piero interrupted her. He handed her a cup of cloudy gray liquid. “No mandrake,” he said. “Just something to keep the pain away.” Cass drank it, despite its foul smell. He was a doctor, after all. He would make her well.
twenty-one
“Dreams are a portal to our fears, a harbinger of what may come to pass. Thus we must cull the most valuable insights of our sleeping minds, unafraid, or risk life’s greatest mysteries eluding us forever.”
—THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE
But Cass didn’t get well. Over the next few days, she grew sicker and sicker, despite Piero’s constant attentions. Her temperature fluctuated. Her muscles weakened until she could not get out of bed without assistance, and, although she did not tell anyone, she began to have all sorts of hallucinations, especially just as she was drifting off to sleep. One night, the walls of her room pulsed with faint reddish light, expanding and contracting as if she were trapped inside the villa’s beating heart. The next night, the ivy that ran wild over the back wall of the garden twisted its way through the tiny crack in her shutters. Vines writhed past the heavy curtains, growing toward the bed where Cass lay helpless, reaching out to her like grabbing hands.
She became convinced the Book of the Eternal Rose was nearby, but that it was slowly disappearing, a page at a time, that if she didn’t find it soon, it would be nothing but an empty leather-bound cover. As ludicrous as the idea was, she couldn’t shake it. Often after Piero administered his mandrake, Cass saw scraps of paper floating in the air. Each time she reached out to catch one, the parchment disintegrated into dust.
Then Cass would grow tired and fall into the well, only now instead of Falco coming for her, the man who appeared in the well was a vampire, with Piero’s face and Falco’s voice. He would materialize beside her and she would try to scream, but what came from her lips was a pathetic gasp of air, almost a sigh.
