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Chapter Three

The table is an abandoned street lined with pebbles of bread and gutters running with spilled wine.

An ass-shaped spot has been rubbed clean where I fucked Paolina so hard the table moved the length of an arm.

My dick is so sore it hurts to walk, which I don’t mind, except that the sun is coming up and a day of new pleasures is beginning.

What is there to do with so many empty hours?

I can have plenty of fun without abrading myself further, but I prefer fucking to healing.

“Hey,” I whisper to Agata, who’s wrapped around Tinoro. She groans and turns without opening her eyes, one long black curl stretching across her throat. “That cream. Lucia’s. Where is it?”

“Mm. Bath.”

“ Grazie .”

The tub water is cold, with a smoky sheen of human fluids across the surface. The silver pot of cream is tipped over on the floor, and it is empty.

Out the window, a small handbell rings. In the convent across the street, a light flickers through the window grate. The nuns are always up this early, but there are more candles today, and they rush from window to window with an unusual urgency.

I peer down. A man runs across the cobblestones.

Also not unusual. But something is off.

When the wind changes and I hear it, my heart goes cold.

A wash of shouts and clacks. A pop and scrape.

Fuck. I know the sounds of a wall being breached.

Clement called their bluff. Hungry men are going to die today.

I pick up my arquebus and jab Tinoro with the butt. “Get up. They’re climbing the wall.”