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I frowned. “Don’t you know any details about what happened between then and now?”

“I do not need to know such details to care for Zeno.” Then, seeing my disappointment, she acquiesced. “But I am willing to hear them.”

“Really?!” I clasped my hands together.

“Yes, if it will help you.”

I ran and grabbed several books, which contained Medici portraits, and sprawled them out along the table.

“You see, I was recently researching the family in the seventeenth century, but my interest actually stretches a century beyond it. I’m mostly fascinated by the Medici succession of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.”

I gave her a moment to butt in and make some excuse to leave, like so many had before her, but to my joy, she remained silent and still. I was flustered to have an audience for my lectures for the first time in so long. “Um, well, at that time, Cosimo III de’ Medici faced an unusual problem, right? More specifically, the likely extinction of the Medici dynasty. Cosimo and his wife had three children—Ferdinando, Gian Gastone, and Anna Maria Lucia. Sorry, that’s a lot of names to remember, isn’t it? Please stop me if you get confused. Actually, I guess these portraits here can help? Um, anyway, Ferdinando, the eldest son and presumptive heir, died before Cosimo could pass along the throne, and in desperation, Cosimo proposed a bill to allow for female-line succession so that Anna Maria Lucia could inherit the family name. Unfortunately for him, this law was revoked after his death, leaving the Medici name in the hands of Gian Gastone.”

By this point, I had fully fallen into my lecture and forgotten to feel self-conscious.

“Like his sister, Anna Maria Luisa, Gian Gastone’s marriage was barren—in his case, because he was not interested in women, and in her case because she was infertile, probably because of syphilis. After Gian Gastone’s death, it was known to all of Italy that although Anna Maria Luisa may have inherited the Medici family’s treasures, the dynasty was already dead. That was, however, until Anna Maria Luisa revealed Ferdinando had secretly sired a child prior to his death. So it was that in 1740, Enzo Armando de’ Medici, a bastard and a vampire, emerged from the shadows to claim his title as Grand Duke and revive the Medici family.

“There was plenty of mumbling at the time that Enzo Armando was an imposter introduced by Anna Maria Luisa on her deathbed, but the nobility was too afraid to say anything. The Grand Duke had several children and grandchildren who became artists, bankers, and even popes. It was at this point that vampirism became associated heavily with the Medici family. Now, centuries later, historians are even more skeptical. After all, the Medici family had been sparse on vampires, and many doubted Ferdinando would have been a carrier for the mutation, much less have encountered a presumed prostitute who was also a carrier. So, many wonder who the mother of the Grand Duke was, and why Enzo Armando kept himself secret. Being a bastard was scandalous but not worth abandoning a fortune, right?”

I could’ve sworn Noor grew darker by the second, but words were spewing from my mouth uncontrollably. I had already said this much.

“Well, when I was doing a research paper on Enzo Armando as an undergraduate, I read through quite a few letters that one of my professors had found between Anna Maria Lucia and Enzo Armando. Nothing was explicitly said, but there were enough clues left that I have a theory. I believe that Ferdinando himself was the result of an affair between Cosimo’s wife and a French vampire noble—you know that French nobility has a lot of vampires, right? Furthermore, I believe that Ferdinando unknowingly had his child with the niece of that noble, his own first cousin! Enzo Armando wanted to go into the clergy, so of course he couldn’t admit he was the product of incest.”

“That’s—”

“—a stretch, I know. But there’s more evidence floating around too! Genetic records, family trees . . . IknowI’m close to making a proper argument. I just need a few more things. I think I have a good lead too! See, there was this vocalist nicknamedLa Bambagiathat Ferdinando fell in love with—he adored music—but nobody knows who she is. Anyway, I know there’s this daughter of a famous French opera singer he was a patron of who died of syphilis shortly after Ferdinando died, and Ferdinando was a known carrier of syphilis, and—”

“Cora,” Noor finally cut in, her voice low and serious, “I will help you find what you need. I will even search around Sicily and Tuscany. Just don’t tell Zeno. He may find all of this a bit too . . . familiar.”

“What do you mean?”

Noor gave a long, slow sigh, as though blowing out the smoke of a cigar, and moved her chair from the table. On cue, Signora Carbone entered the room, gathered up the porcelain, scooped up the tea caddy in a swift motion, and hastened out with it. I wondered how long Signora Carbone had been lingering outside of the room with a tray, or if she’d heard any of what I had said.

I wondered how much I would regret mentioning any of this.

Noor stood, looked me deep in the eyes, and repeated, “Don’t tell Zeno. Your thesis is none of his business, and his past is none of yours.”

While her words were not cruel, the whiplash of the day made me feel sick. She pressed the satchel of books into my chest.

“I need to put these away, I think,” I grumbled. I ran away before she could say another word.

Chapter 17: Recitativo

Even though they were leather bound, the books Noor brought me were small and thin, not much larger than the cheap thrift-store novels that had crowded my college dorm. Yet this trio felt heavier in my hands than textbooks. The three-month mark of my arrival was coming up soon, when I’d have to tell Noor if I wanted to renew our contract.

Nearly three months, and what did I even have to report to my thesis adviser? I couldn’t help but wonder if the problem was me, or if this place really was a dead end. I looked down at the books again only to discover my nails had embedded a series of deep crescents in the leather.

I cursed beneath my breath and awkwardly shuffled them into my arms to avoid any further damage. As I shifted, one end of the bandage on my wrist unfurled, causing the cotton ball to dangle askew off my arm.

“Oh no!” I cried, trying to maneuver the books and free my hands. When a gust of wind threatened to peel off the other half, I let the books crash to the ground. I was too late—the bandage fell in an unceremonious heap on the floor, curled up around the cotton ball like a dead bug.

With a gasp, I snatched it back up, but its sticky interior was now encrusted with dust and cotton fiber. It was only when I tried to force it back on that I realized the absurdity of it all. I had abandoned potentially invaluable artifacts for a bandage. A meaningless bandage.

It isn’t meaningless, though, is it?I thought, caressing the spot where his lips had been. Some sort of feeling toward Duca de’ Medici grew stronger and stronger within me every time we spoke, and I didn’t know what it was. All I knew was that it wouldn’t—and couldn’t ever—be reciprocated. At the end of the day, this was a job, one I would have to leave eventually.

I left the books on my desk in the little library and left immediately, knowing full well I wouldn’t be able to read a single page with my mind jumbled like this. As opposed to to the gentle yet bright glow of the lights in the little library, the sconces around me had been turned down to their lowest level. Each one alternated with minute differences in brightness, which caused the overall direction of light to ebb and flow irregularly. My shadow, barely visible, wavered back and forth out in front of me, creating a disorienting effect.

I took a slow, deep breath that was meant to be grounding but had the opposite effect. The air was thick with dust; the floors had been freshly swept, which combined with the abbey’s usually comforting odor to create a stifling feeling. I sneezed, and despite how soft the sound was, it echoed around me.