Page 9

Chapter Nine

If I was a man prone to tears, I would weep as my feet crossed over the flame on the water, or when they touched the stones on the other side of the pool. If I was ever prone to overwhelm, my knees would collapse under me as he approached with his member at full attention.

“How long have you been sacking this city?” His breath stinks of copper.

“I have not.”

“How dare you lie to me.” He slaps me so hard I am thrown against the wall.

Dizzy, I slide down to sitting. There are two of him in the unnatural firelight, both looking down in rage and disgust.

“Pope Clement called for help! And you brought your filth.” He crouches to my level. “How long ago did you enter the walls of Rome?”

I can’t think straight. I am not sure how accurate he needs me to be. I hold up three fingers. My eyes make six.

“Three days? Three moons?”

“Moons.”

“I have slept away three months?”

My retreat into Rome should have nothing to do with him. I open my mouth to tell him I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I can’t make words quickly enough.

“That could be.” He nods, deciding that’s an acceptable answer. “Has Clement fallen?”

I shake my head and whisper, “No.”

“Three months,” he says more to himself than me. “Norman scum were just starting their pillage when I fell into this pit, and there’s still blood in the drains.” He looks at the ceiling and smiles. “I didn’t think the antipope had three days left in him.”

No. He’s confused. There’s only one Pope. I can leverage his ignorance, if I just had a clear moment where his magic spell was lifted. But I receive no such gift.

He takes my face in his huge hand. “Speak.”

“Clement. Antipope.”

“Yes?”

“The third is dead.” I’m jumbled. I fear I’m not making sense until he grips tighter, pulling my face to his.

He looks right through me. If I had a drop of spit in my mouth, I’d launch it at him.

“You can’t be lying.” His breath burns my skin like a bitter cold wind. “Are you so stupid? You said he didn’t fall.”

Yes. I am stupid for coming into this trap. I am reckless for thinking I could protect anyone. I am a fool for hoping I will ever leave this place. But the truth has disarmed him, and disarmed monsters make stupid mistakes.

“Yes.”

“So who rules Rome?”

“Clement.”

“So you said.”

“The seventh.”

He stands, holding me high by the jaw, my heels kicking three palms over the floor.

“How long?” He holds me higher.

A little more and my foot can make contact with his face. It will disorient him for the split second we need. I grip his wrist, holding my answer until he holds me high enough.

“How long since the third?!”

“Five hundred years.”

His eyes go wide and his mouth tightens. This is my moment. I swing my foot wide. I can land it. I will?—

But there’s a flash and pop. The monster drops me like a bundle of sticks.

On the opposite side of the pool, Paolina stands next to Tinoro and my arquebus, the steel flint dropping from her fingers.

He holds out his fist. They must have missed him, because he’s still standing there with the rest of my party cowering on the other side of the pool.

He looks at his open fist with curiosity. “Five hundred years.” Tossing the bullet on the ground before the heap of my body, he crouches to slap his hand on my face. “You will teach me, beautiful one. But first?—”

My head is tilted all the way back, exposing my throat in a grip too powerful to escape.

“First, you will feed me.”