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“O h, blast,” I heard Elder mutter. “I don’t like crying women.”

“Then go away!” I sank down on the floor, pulled my knees up to my chin, and rocked and wept. Loudly. Freely. Whenever I opened my eyes, I could see his feet uncomfortably shifting back and forth. I closed my eyes and wept some more. I don’t cry often, so when I do, I make a good job of it.

At last, Elder sat beside me and said, “I’d hug you, but you wouldn’t enjoy the sensation.”

I shook my head. “Don’t hug me. Don’t comfort me. Go away. I don’t want anybody to see me like this.”

“I don’t have a body, so I’m not strictly any body. Anyway, I can’t go away. I need you.”

That made my breath catch and my tears slow. “Of course. The former podestà isn’t merely a ghost who appears randomly to me. You want something.” At this moment, I loathed all men, living and dead.

“I need something,” Elder corrected.

“What?”

“When you stop crying and wipe your nose, I’ll tell you.”

“Turn your head,” I instructed.

“Why?”

“I’m going to tear off some of my underskirt and I don’t want you looking at my legs.”

“Woman, I’m a ghost!”

“Turn your head or I’ll sit here with a snotty nose.” Experience had taught me that a man who hates a crying woman hates a snotty nose worse.

He sighed loudly and turned his head.

I lifted my skirt, yanked free a piece of linen—no small feat, for linen is tough—and lowered my skirt.

He pointed toward my foot. “That’s my stiletto you have strapped to your leg. Where did you get my stiletto?”

“You looked!” I used the linen to wipe my eyes and blow my nose.

“Of course, I looked. I’m dead, not”—he struggled to find a word—“cold!”

“You lied!”

“I prevaricated.”

“Why? Why look at my leg? The priests tell us when you die, you leave all earthly desire behind.”

“How would they know? They’re not dead, are they? Anyway, I don’t desire you; I simply enjoyed the view. A woman’s well-turned ankle warms me without purgatory’s pain.” He smiled reminiscently. “Now, tell me, how did you get my stiletto?”

I reached down and pulled it free of its scabbard. “Are you sure this is it?”

“Indeed, for I know my weapons well.”

“Your son gave it to me.”

Elder got a most peculiar expression on his faintly obscure face. “I gave it to him. He gave it to you.”

“He believed I was in danger. He’s exceptionally responsible, your son.

He carries the weight of his office as he walks the streets of Verona, speaks to the people, listens to what they say, makes sure that they’re content, and at the same time, he listens for any rumblings of another to overthrow the house of Leonardi.

” I thought Elder, who seemed to have blanks in his knowledge of Verona’s happenings, would be glad to know that his son ruled so wisely.

Instead he gazed at me as if he knew something I didn’t. “So out of all the weapons in the palace he could have given you, he gifted you the stiletto I gifted to him on the day before my untimely death.”

“Really? Are you perturbed with him? Because I can give it back.”

“No. Keep it. You may have need of it.”

“Indeed, I have already put it to good use.”

“Your father is wrong,” Elder said obscurely. “You’re not clever at all . . . I have no idea how long we have before my son misses you and mounts a search, so let me tell you what you must do.”

I was not amused by his high-handedness. “What I must do ?”

“Yes. What I need.” He tilted his head as if listening, and spoke more swiftly. “Find out who murdered me.”