Page 42 of Just for a Taste

T hat night, I dreamed of her. The dream itself was vague, more abstract than a full experience. Flickers of light combined with the scent of flowers and sweet tea in some unknown time. She and Zeno were both vivid, though—every feather, every pore, like I could touch them. In my dream, she was together, alive, and breathing. It was like those early days in the aviary, when she startled at my every movement and watched me closely. But no matter how wary, Leonore was happy. And holding her in his hands, so was Zeno.

Beside me, across the veil of sleep, the real Zeno shifted beside me in bed. I tried desperately to go back to that place and could for a few wonderful minutes. Then my mind drifted across the events of the past few days and lingered momentarily on the carvings in the bookshelf.

Festina lente. The words entered my mind the minute I opened my eyes.

I was able to restrain myself enough to sit up slowly in bed. I immediately shielded my eyes, as the bed was covered in sunlight, the curtains having been opened. The smell of slightly burned pancakes wafted into the room, but it was faint and old.

Squinting, I leaned over to peer out the window and saw the light had taken on the orange hue of dawn.

Zeno must have left a while ago, and given the sun protection he would have had to wear to open the curtains, he would be gone a while longer.

When I brushed against a piece of paper, all of my sleuthing became irrelevant. It was covered in the unmistakable flowery script of Zeno—one of his morning love letters that kept me company when he left for a day trip.

Cora,

I mourned not being able to share the day with you, or see the look in your eyes this morning when you awoke. I curse that I cannot see you shine as you speak about our books. I may have departed, but my heart remains with you. I will come back to you soon to fetch it in exchange for kisses. Please keep it safe, and smile while I am gone.

I love you.

—Zeno

P.S. Sorry I burned the pancakes. I tried my best.

If not for the enthusiasm coursing within me, I would have probably taken the letter with me and eaten pancakes. Instead, I roughly pulled a dress over my nightgown and raced to the archive.

The stool wobbled and threatened to overturn when I leaped onto it, but the risk of toppling over was one I was willing to take. I grabbed the box and pulled it into my chest, and the movement was enough to stabilize me. I let out a breath and slowly climbed down with my treasure.

I rushed to the living room, placed it on the rug, and sat cross-legged before it. The dials resisted against my fingers initially, but each one slowly turned.

F-E-S-T-I-N-A

I moved onto the next set, which was equally stubborn, but similarly gave in.

L-E-N-T-E

Click .

“Holy shit,” I whispered. “It actually worked.”

Slowly, gingerly, I slid my finger into the crevice of the lid. Though the hinges were slightly rusted, it opened all too easily.

As I had suspected, the old box was full of photographs and papers. I dumped them on the floor and rifled through. Photographs, dozens of them, from different time periods.

Even at a glance, a pit fell into my stomach. These photos featured harsh lighting, askew subjects, and blurred focus. They were clearly candid, to put it nicely. I held one up to the light.

It was a moonlit portrait photo of a woman smiling over her shoulder beneath a large willow tree. The woman was beautiful, pale and delicate as a porcelain doll, with wavy, white-blonde hair and crimson, doelike eyes. Her stomach was strangely bulbous on her slender frame. Upon her full lips was a crooked smile, showing a single fang.

I did not know this woman, but I knew her smile. It was one I saw every day.

I flipped it over and discovered the photograph was dated from early September, almost three decades back. Dolores with child .

I recognized that name, but it took me a bit to register from where. Dolores d’Orléans, a famous theater actress who had faded into obscurity after a few plays. But I knew her mostly as a member of the Medici family—and half sister to the current head of the family.

The photo slipped through my fingers and fluttered to the ground.

I quickly grabbed another one, which showed a face I knew very well. A school-aged Zeno was beside his cousin in some sort of fancy Italian building. Zeno sat on a piano bench with a trophy almost as large as himself in his lap. He was blank and unsmiling, as icy and stony-faced as I had seen him. Next to him was Basilio, grinning broadly despite the much smaller trophy in his arms. Behind both, staring with watchful eyes, lingered Signore Urbino. Cousins in competition , read the caption on the back, in that small, square handwriting I assumed belonged to Zeno’s father.

I pulled yet another one from the pile. This one featured no caption, only a date from a decade and a half ago. Signora Carbone, with a toddler Lucia waddling toward her. I had never seen her smile like that before. With a similar smile finally gracing my lips, I looked at another photograph.

It was crudely taken, with fingerprints on its edges indicating it had been roughly pulled from the camera far before the image set. The photo itself was shaky and slightly crooked, but what it showed was unmistakable: a man in a suit, lying in an uncomfortable position on the ground. But based on the fresh bullet holes in his head and chest, and the even fresher blood pooling at his throat, he probably didn’t care. The only brightness in the photo came from his eyes—downturned, baby blue, and horrifically empty.

Bile stung the back of my throat and my stomach lurched, but I swallowed it roughly and winced at the burn. I squinted through tears to discern anything other than a corpse. Part of the caption was scrawled across the photograph itself—some coordinates and a name I did not recognize.

On the back, in that same tight script, was only one word: First.

I’d had enough of the photographs. I couldn’t stomach them any longer, couldn’t bear to see whether the reminders showed corpses or memories.

Convincing myself I didn’t see the others, I shifted my focus to papers. I discovered doctored ledger papers, quickly scrawled maps of unknown purpose. And worst of all, stapled packets with names on them.

I was struck with the memory of the list I had seen on Zeno’s desk, as well as the realization that doing such a thing had come so easily to him.

I rifled through them, and one stuck out immediately: Noor Ntumba .

A trio of candid, stealthy portraits of her taken decades ago, per the date scrawled on the bottom of the photograph that had been taped above more recent photos. All of them had been clearly taken without her knowledge and were attached to pages of information on all of her children and distant relatives, and every address she had lived at. Every client she had worked with. Warrants for her arrest in various countries. Beneath it, several informal contracts.

My hands trembled so violently that the papers became a horrid blur, and my mouth grew painfully dry.

I squinted past the blur as best I could, picking out snippets.

Duca Zeno Giovanni de’ Medici is to be the exclusive patient of Noor Ntumba.

During employment, full international amnesty shall be granted, but upon dissolution . . .

Then, a sentence that made my heart stop.

Administering physician-assisted suicide to patient Zeno Giovanni de’ Medici is a mandatory action should 1. It be determined via a combination of physician examination, laboratory findings, and third-party pathologists that the patient’s condition is terminal, and 2. The patient request it.

Physician-assisted suicide. So that was her unusual specialty.

A pair of ambling footsteps neared, the unmistakable cadence of my other half, as light and casual as ever. I whipped around to face him.

“Hello, mia passerotta ,” he said, smiling as warmly as usual. “What are you—”

“Zeno!” I cut in, gesturing to the mass of photos and documents. “What is all this?”

With a confused frown, Zeno knelt and examined the photos. He barely had to rifle through them to come to a conclusion. He met my eyes and spoke, evenly and slowly. “Where did you find these?”

Words eluded me. I gestured toward the box, which had been tossed aside, then pointed to the library.

He followed my motions, darkening by the second. “So that’s what that month here was for. My father was tying up some loose ends from afar. But what . . .” Zeno’s words petered out, for he discerned the answer from the trembling papers in my hand. He took them from me and flipped through them quickly, then shifted around the photos and documents on the floor. “Oh, how touching. So while he was arranging my death, Father did make me my own box,” he said bitterly. “I guess he does care after all.”

A horrified combination of a laugh and a “What?” escaped me. At my expression, Zeno softened and reached out to place a hand on my shoulder. I flinched—and he utterly unraveled at the gesture.

“Oh, Cora.” Zeno slowly rose to his feet and walked off. I raced after him and grabbed him by his wrist, but he pulled away. “You don’t understand,” he said through gritted teeth. “This is me. This is my blood.”

I grabbed his hand. How fragile it felt in my fingers, yet how powerfully it was clenching. “What makes you think you’re anything like your family? You’re nothing like—”

He looked up at me, gaze darkening more than I had ever seen before, his eyes shooting icy daggers into me. “Your ghosts are gone. They’ve been gone.”

Eyes wide, I took a step back, then another, until I had backed into the wall. For several seconds, all I could do was shake my head. The people Lucia had seen, that I had seen since our ritus sanguinous —they weren’t our ghosts at all, but flesh and blood.

“So what I saw around the abbey . . .” I whispered.

“Men. My men. I had them patrol around the abbey, at least two keeping watch of you at all times you were alone.”

“What?” My voice was weak, strength having vanished from my entire body. My legs gave out, and I slid down the wall. “Why would you do that?”

Zeno neared me slowly with his hands raised, as though I were some rabbit on the verge of flight. The way my heart was racing, he was likely not mistaken.

Once he was within arm’s length of me, he lowered to his knees, and I drew my legs into my chest. “I do not trust Basilio, or any of my family, for that matter. Least of all, my father. I cannot trust men with the same blood as me boiling in their veins. I thought you’d be safe here, but clearly, I was wrong.”

“Wrong? Surely they wouldn’t harm me.”

The words I spoke carried no weight behind them. They were, if anything, more of a desperate plea for reassurance. When Zeno gazed into my eyes and clenched his jaw, I knew it was a solace that would be denied.

“I know their cruelty firsthand. I have felt it in every sense of the word. You have seen the contents of the box. You have seen my scars. My father’s hand has been behind them all.” He slowly reached forward and caressed my cheek, sending a chill down my spine. “To them, you are little more than one of my birds. And when it comes to you, Cora, I am little more than a rabid dog. I shall act accordingly.”

“What are you planning on doing?” I managed to ask through quivering lips.

“I intend to do what any beast does to the vermin that nears its treasure,” he replied with a warm, sweet smile. “If they dare touch you, I will tear them limb from limb.”