Kyle lowered his head again and waited. His heart beat faster, as he awaited their judgment. Of course, it would be in their best interest to help him, and he could see no reason why they wouldn’t.
But then again, these creatures, alive for millions of years, older even than he, were completely unpredictable. He never knew what agenda the twelve of them had, and their rulings always seemed as arbitrary as the wind.
He waited amidst the thick silence.
Finally, there was the clearing of a throat.
“We know of whom you speak, of course,” came the gravelly voice of a judge. “You speak of Caitlin. Of what will be the Pollepel Coven. But who is, really, of a different, and far more powerful coven. Yes, she arrived in our time yesterday. Of course we know this. And if we wanted to kill her ourselves, don’t you think that we would have?”
Kyle knew better than to respond. They needed their little point of pride. He would just let them finish their speech.
“But we do admire your determination, and your future war,” the judge continued. “Yes, we admire it very much.”
There was another moment of thick silence.
“We will let you track her down,” continued the judge, “but if you find her, you will not kill her.
You will capture her alive, and bring her back to us. We would rather enjoy killing her ourselves, and watching her die slowly. She will be a perfect candidate for the Games.”
Kyle felt himself seething with rage.
But it was not what he wanted for Caitlin. He wanted her dead. Period. Not that he minded her being tortured. But he didn’t want to waste any time, to leave any room for chance. Of course, no one had ever escaped or survived the Games. But at the same time, one never knew what could happen.
“But, my masters,” Kyle protested, “Caitlin, as you said, hails from a powerful lineage, and she is much more dangerous and elusive than you imagine. I request your permission to kill her instantly.
There is too much at stake.”
“You are still young,” said another judge, “and so we will forgive your guessing our judgment.
Anyone else, we would kill on the spot.”
Kyle lowered his head. He realized he had gone too far. No one
“She is in Assisi. That is where you will go next. Go quickly, and do not delay. Now that you’ve mentioned it, we quite look forward to watching her die before our eyes.”
Kyle turned to go.
“And Kyle,” one of them called.
He spun around.
The lead judge pulled back his hood, revealing the most grotesque face Kyle had ever seen, covered in bumps and lines and warts. He opened his mouth and smiled a hideous smile, showing yellow, sharp teeth, and shining black eyes. He grinned even wider: “Next time you show up unannounced, it will be
Caitlin flew over the idyllic Umbrian countryside, passing over hills and valleys, surveying the lush, green landscape in the early morning light. Spread out below her were small farming communities, small, stone cottages surrounded by hundreds of acres of land, smoke rising from their chimneys.
As she headed north, the landscape changed, shifting to the hills and valleys of Tuscany. As far as she looked, she saw vineyards, planted in the rolling hills, and workers with large straw hats already at work, tending the vines in the early morning. This country was incredibly beautiful, and a part of her wished that she could just descend right here, settle down and make herself at home in one of these small farm cottages.
But she had work to do. She continued on, flying further north, holding Rose tightly, curled up inside her shirt. Caitlin could feel that Venice was approaching, and she felt like a magnet drawn to it. The closer she came, the more she could feel her heart beat in anticipation; she could already sense people there that she once knew. She was still obscured as to who. She still couldn’t sense whether Caleb was there, or whether he was even alive.
Caitlin had always dreamed of going to Venice. She had seen pictures of its canals, of gondolas, and had always imagined herself going there one day, maybe with someone she loved. She had even imagined herself being proposed to on one of those gondolas. But she had never expected to be going like this.
As she flew and flew, getting ever closer, it struck her that the Venice she’d be visiting now, in 1790, might be very different from the Venice she’d seen pictures of in the 21st century. It would probably, she imagined, be smaller, less developed, more rural. She also imagined that it would not be as crowded.
But she soon realized that she couldn’t be more wrong.
As Caitlin finally reached the outskirts of Venice, she was shocked to see, even from this height, that the city beneath her looked startlingly similar to its pictures in modern times. She recognized the historic, famous architecture, recognized all the small bridges, recognized the same twists and turns to the canals. Indeed, she was shocked to realize that the Venice of 1790 was not, at least in outward appearances, all that different from the Venice of the 21st century.
The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. Venice’s architecture was not just 100 or 200 years old: it was hundreds and hundreds of years old. She remembered a history class, in one of her many high schools, teaching about Venice, about some of its churches, built in the 12th century.
Now she wished she had listened more carefully. The Venice below her, a sprawling, built-up mass of buildings, was not a brand-new city. It was, even in 1790, already several hundred years old.
Caitlin felt comforted by the fact. She had imagined that the year 1790 would be like a different planet, and she was relieved to know that some things actually hadn’t changed that much. This looked to be essentially the same city she would have visited in the 21st century. The only immediate difference she could see was that its waterways did not contain a single motorized boat, of course.
There were no speedboats, no large ferries, no cruise ships. Instead, the waterways were packed with huge sailing vessels, their masts climbing dozens of feet high.
Caitlin was also surprised by the crowds. She dove lower, now only a hundred feet over the city, and could see that even now, in the early morning, the streets were absolutely packed with people.
And that the waterways were absolutely packed with boat traffic. She was shocked. This city was more congested than Times Square. She had always imagined that going back in history would mean fewer people, smaller crowds. She guessed she was wrong about that, too.
As she flew over it, as she circled it again and again, the thing that surprised her most, though, was that Venice was not just one city, just one island—it was spread out over many islands, dozens of islands stretching in every direction, each holding its own buildings, its own small city. The island on which Venice sat clearly held the most buildings, and was the most built-up. But the dozens of other islands all seemed interconnected, a vital part of the city.
The other thing that surprised her was the color of the water: a glowing, blue aqua. It was so light, so surreal, the kind of water she might have expected to find somewhere in the Caribbean.
As she circled over the islands, again and again, trying to orient herself, to figure out where to land, she regretted never having visited it in the 21st century. Well, at least she’d have a chance now.
Caitlin was also a bit overwhelmed. It seemed such a large, sprawling place. She had no idea where to set down, where to even begin to look for the people she might have once known—if they were even here. She had foolishly imagined Venice to be smaller, more quaint. Even from up here, she could already tell that she could walk this city for days and not go from one end to the other.
