Starling (28 page)

ass shrieked, but the festivities drowned out her voice.
She flung her elbow at the man’s midsection, turning to
flee as he stumbled backward in surprise. She plunged
into an alley, leaping over a pile of tangled metal outside a blacksmith’s shop. Gasping for breath, she pulled the paring

She ducked between two buildings, pressing her body tight
against a stucco wall. Her knife wavered in her grip. Peering around
the corner, her eyes widened as the man dressed in black drew near.

“Maximus?” she said incredulously. Cass hadn’t spoken to the
conjurer in weeks.
“Signorina Caravello,” he said. “I thought I recognized you.” He
adjusted his hat and then rubbed the left side of his rib cage. “
Caspita.
Are you wearing armor beneath those sleeves? I think you cracked a
rib.”
“Just my bony elbow, I’m afraid.” Cass smiled ruefully as she
slipped her knife back into her pocket.

Just then, the skies opened and rain began to fall, hard and fast
like tiny swords. She ducked into a doorway. “
Mi dispiace,
but what
were you doing reaching out for me like that?”

“I was trying to talk to you, but you were walking as if the Devil
was clawing at your neck.” Maximus joined her beneath the overhang. “Where are you headed at such a speed?”

“I need to get back to San Domenico.”
“Signorina, that’s an impossibility. No one will travel in this
weather. Worse, just two hours ago I saw boats patrolling the
shoreline—both government and private. If you try to go back there,
you’ll be captured.”
Lightning slashed at the sky again. Cass prayed that Luca had not
been caught. “But I was told by a source I trust that the Senate had
given us up for dead.”
“Aye,” Maximus said. “Someone must have seen you since and
reported it. That would explain why they have begun to search for
you again.”
Cass swore under her breath. “Then it appears I’m trapped here
for the time being.”
“Well, I’m not going to leave you all alone,” Maximus said. “So
we’ll have to be trapped here together.”
Cass smiled. From this distance she could see the bits of gold and
orange that danced in Maximus’s dark eyes and the tiny wrinkles
beginning to form at the edge of them. He was likely close to the age
her father would be if he were still alive, and for a moment she tried
to decide if the two men would be friends.
Yes,
she decided. They
would.
“So pensive.” Maximus produced a single red rose out of thin air.