The Chamber of Ten

thought of Geena then and how she’d be impressed that—

—he is still thinking about his job.

Geena reeled from the flash, staggering sideways and leaning against a wall. She recovered quickly, turning her head left and right, concentrating, trying to sense what direction the flash of words had come from. Keeping her mind open she stood straight again and looked along the nearest canal.

Words she does not know … an object clasped before her, it might be a stamp or seal of some sort, and when it’s brought closer she sees that it is one of the old stamps of the city, Venice’s coat of arms clearly visible on the raised underside, and then the hand—Nico’s hand, she knows its look and touch so well—closes around the seal. He places it in the pages of a book open before him, touches some of the inscriptions on the right page, and—

She lost it. There almost solidly one second, gone the next, and not even any residual tingling on the back of her neck. But she was left staring across the canal at a wider waterway leading westward, and she had a very real sense that she needed to go that way. Had Nico urged her in that direction without consciously doing so? She did not know, and to question too much might be to implant doubt. A hundred yards along there was a footbridge, and she ran for it, her footsteps lonely in the night.

She glanced over her shoulder as she went, but only shadows followed.

Volpe read again for a moment, then started sketching shapes in the air with his left hand. Nico could feel his own arm and hand moving, his fingers flexing and twitching, but there was no sense at all of his controlling any of the movement. He was disassociated, an observer. It made him feel sick, but… fascinated as well.

Volpe continued sketching, and Nico tried to discern the shapes he was making in the air. They were formed of dancing shadow and flickering firelight, but they did not hold, and nothing was left behind. Volpe glanced down at the book again, and then Nico saw that some of the shapes echoed a series of sigils inked into the old paper.

Volpe picked up the seal again, licked its etched base, and stabbed it at the air. He did so five times, repeating the same phrase over and over, seemingly sealing his commitment with the darkness.

I hope I didn’t hurt anyone getting that, Nico thought. Not like that man in the apartment, and maybe that monk. I don’t think there were blackouts in the Palazzo Cavalli, but … maybe they’re so severe I can’t even remember that they happened.

“Quiet,” Volpe said, his voice full of menace. Inside, Nico shut himself off for a moment, the psychic equivalent of closing his eyes and taking a breath. When he looked again he saw—

—the knife!

Geena gasped and went to her knees, looking behind her, ahead again, listening for approaching footsteps and wondering if Nico had lured her here just so that he could …

But no, she had more faith in him than that. Breathing hard, she stood again, hiding from the late afternoon sun in the shadows of a doorway. Clearing her mind, she tried to sense where that new sudden flash had come from. It had been fast, sharp, almost like the—

—knife, coming up toward his face with the dried smear of blood still on its blade, pressed to his mouth, stroked by his tongue, and even though it’s Volpe doing this she can still feel the cold metal against her own tongue, and taste the stale tang of her own blood. She hears his voice again, deep and guttural, nothing like Nico has ever spoken before. There are flames, and shadows. The air is heavy. His excitement rises, a terrible thing, and the vision blurs as Nico draws back until—

She leaned against the cold stone jamb, breathing hard and yet more used to the transition from psychic flash to reality than she had been before. They’re in an old basement somewhere, she thought, and she knew she had been heading in the right direction.

“Some weird ritual,” she muttered. If she could reach him before the ritual was over, perhaps she could do something to help.

But she had to remember that he was still carrying the knife.

A small rowboat slid toward her along the canal. The old man rowing it offered her a grumbled greeting as she drew even with the boat.

“Lovely afternoon,” he said.

“Hadn’t noticed,” Geena replied. He didn’t respond to her rudeness, but neither did he stop rowing. At least he knows where he’s going, she thought. The walkway ended, and she was faced with turning back or trying to continue along the canal herself. Water taxis were rare in these narrow canals, unless they were carrying travelers to and from hotels, and making her way out to one of the wider waterways would only waste time. But there were three rowboats tied alongside the canal.

Her skin tingled, and it was a very different feeling from Nico’s touch. Eyes were upon her … or attention, at least. Someone was concentrating on her. Her skin grew cold, her spine ice-bound, and she hugged herself tight. Goosebumps speckled her arms and the fine hairs on her neck stood on end. Turning a full circle, squinting against the late afternoon sun, she tried to peer into gloomy alleys and shadowy corners. When the horrible feeling suddenly receded, it felt like a molester’s hand stroking across her skin as he departed.

“Damn it,” she said aloud, needing a noise to break the silence hanging heavy around her.

She looked up and around her at the buildings looming overhead, two- and three-story structures with the water as their foundation. Directly above her a second-floor set of French doors opened onto a small balcony. If anyone had been watching her from up there, they had gone back inside.

“Spooking myself,” Geena said as she started unknotting the rope securing one of the dinghies. But she was not sure what had spooked her. She worked quickly, then bundled the line into the boat and stepped in. She unclasped the oars, placed them in their brackets, and pushed off from the canalside. No one shouted Thief, and if anyone did watch as she began rowing away, they were unconcerned.

Taking a huge breath to try and expunge her fears, she aimed the boat the way she thought she needed to go and, mind still open for more flashes from Nico, started rowing hard.

* * *

With Geena’s blood wetted again, Volpe flicked the knife toward all four walls, chanting, “North, south, west, east.” Specks of moisture flew, though they made no sound as they landed. Almost as if the air was absorbing the blood.

He turned several pages in The Book of the Nameless, still clasping hold of the knife in his other hand. Running his finger along lines of text, muttering. Nico thought Volpe had lost himself somewhere in the ritual.

“I know what comes next,” Volpe said, answering the unasked question. “The words must be precise for the Expulsion and Repulsion to be renewed. Then the city will be closed off once more from the three bastard Doges.”

Mad, Nico thought. He must be—

“Mad? Because they’re so old, they’re bound to be dead, of course. Is that what you mean?” Nico did not answer, and Volpe did not need one. “Dead, like me?”

You survived in spirit only, not in flesh, Nico thought. Is that what you’re saying? Somehow they’ve done the same thing?

Volpe hesitated. Nico felt the uncertainty within him.

“I don’t know,” the old magician admitted.

What?

Volpe glanced around the chamber, surveyed the materials of the spell in progress in front of him, and Nico felt him grow impatient.

“Quickly, then,” Volpe said. “And I’ll save the rest for later. I preserved my essence because, without me, the Repulsion would break down. I knew the three of them, the damnable cousins, had each acquired enough of Akylis’ magic to prolong their lives, and I intended to outlast them. When the last of them died, the spell that preserved my heart and spirit was meant to unravel, and then, at last, I could move on to the world beyond this life.”

So, if your spell never unraveled—

“It means that at least one of them is still alive, these long centuries later,” Volpe said. “But one or all three,