Starling (104 page)

She kicked at a blackened lump of wood, and it turned to dust
beneath her feet. Another spot of color drew her into the center of the
destruction. It turned out to be a mottled lump of flesh. She gagged.
Bending over, she emptied her stomach onto the charred stone.

“Sister.” A woman stood in a doorway across the alleyway, her
brow heavy with concern. “They say the air is still rife with poison.
Come away. There is no one left for you to pray for.”

Cass stepped away from the smoking wreckage. “How many
died?” she asked. “How many of God’s children lost?”
“Four, that I saw,” the woman said. “But perhaps more. No one
could have survived. The fire burned as if the Devil himself set the
blaze.”
Cass’s heart shrank cold in her chest. She had seen the building
begin to come apart with her own eyes. The curtains of flame had
brought the ceiling’s support beams crashing to the ground. Wood.
Stone. The entire workshop reduced to rubble. She had known there
was little chance anyone could have survived, but hearing it from
someone other than Cristian made it real.
Four bodies: Belladonna, Piero, the guard, and Falco.
Cass fell to her knees in the rubble. There could be no more denying it. Falco was dead, and it was her fault. Bowing her head, she
prayed for Falco’s soul, that God would not sentence him to hell for
worshipping science. She knew that his heart was pure, that he had
just never recovered from losing his first love, Ghita. Perhaps they
had been reunited.
Comforted by that thought, Cass stood and turned from the
wreckage. Something shiny caught her eye as she did so—a glint from
beneath a pile of stone and smoldering wood. And though she was
ready to put the fire behind her, she felt herself turning back. As she
approached the heap of rubble, she saw sunlight reflecting off shattered glass.
Glass . . . Could it possibly be? Bending down, Cass displaced
charred wood and stones until she unearthed the remains of a cabinet. She rubbed the soot from the shattered glass front, and her
breath caught in her throat.
There beyond the glass was a thick sheaf of papers encased in a
leather cover. The Book of the Eternal Rose. It was blackened with
soot, but it had survived the fire.
Cass had been given a pair of sturdy leather shoes by the nun at
San Zaccaria, and it took just a single kick to transform the broken
cabinet into shards of glass. Eagerly, she reached down for the book.
She brushed the ash from the cover with her sleeve, revealing a sixpetaled flower inscribed in a circle.
“How can this possibly be?” Cass murmured to herself as she
folded back the worn leather cover. It was more than good fortune—
it was destiny, it was divine intervention.
Or was it?
The parchment spilled out over the ash and crumbled stone.
The Book of the Eternal Rose—it was empty.