I pulled on the white dress while Lydia did touch-ups to her own hair and makeup and got a red dress from the closet. As she changed into it, I noticed a tattoo on her rib cage.
“I thought you didn’t get the tattoos until your seventeenth birthday,” I said.
Lydia ran her fingers over the inked skin. “This isn’t the Saxon symbol.”
She turned and showed me the tattoo—a flower, with only a few petals filled in, like someone had been playing he loves me, he loves me not with the rest. It looked fresh. She pulled her dress on, covering it.
“What does it mean?” I said.
She smiled at herself in the mirror. “I’ll tell you someday.”
I looked at us side by side in the mirror, me, pale and in all white, like a ghost of my fiery sister, with her olive skin and bright lipstick and red dress. She took my arm. “Ready to meet suitor number five?” she said. “This one’s hot.”
? ? ?
The boat pulled up to the landing outside the Mikados’ hotel, and a man in a pressed suit and top hat held out his hand to help me onto solid ground. The Saxons’ guards surrounded me immediately, Jack sticking closest.
I glanced over my shoulder at the sun setting over the Grand Canal. It had been a gray day, with rain pockmarking the canals on and off throughout the afternoon. Just as we’d left the hotel, though, the sun had broken through, and now the whole city glowed rosy, the building facades stacked like multicolored dominoes.
Reflections of the San Marco Basilica and the surrounding buildings shimmered on the canal’s surface, making watercolor paintings in the misty light, until a vaporetto—a water bus—cut through it, the ripples glowing bright orange in its wake. I wished I could enjoy the view, and the party. I was supposed to go there and smile and have fun. The last time that had happened, I’d been in India, and now Dev was dead. It felt wrong, and on top of everything else, I was starting to get really nervous that we wouldn’t find anything when we tried to follow the La Serenissima clue tonight.
“Is everything all right?” my father asked, and I jumped.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yes. Fine.”
“I know it’s frightening,” he said. “But we’ll keep you safe.”
I nodded again, though my own safety was the least of my worries. I took one more look over my shoulder and followed him inside.
The Mikados were ostensibly in Venice for a fund-raiser—the kind of vague charity rich people used as an excuse for a social event. But I doubt they would have made the trip if they didn’t want to meet me, especially because they were actually the first family of Japan. Most of the Circle families had lower-ranking family members doing the public jobs, but Ryo Mikado was prime minister.
Of course, attendance had swelled once the Mikados announced that I’d be coming. My father said they had to cap the guest list, and enough celebrities had joined up that the event was going to be taped, with parts of it broadcast live. I thought people might back out after the latest assassination, but the news seemed to have the opposite effect. It did make for a massive security detail, though. Jack stood with a small army of guards who spoke quietly into their lapels and watched the velvet-draped windows that looked out on the Grand Canal.
I was seated with my father and Lydia and Cole at the head table, under a faded but intricate ceiling mural of scenes from Greek mythology. Straight across from us and past some smaller tables was a stage, where a jazz trio had been playing since we came in, and where the main attraction—Sunday Six, the most popular boy band in the past few years—would be performing between the appetizer and dinner courses.
And between me and the stage were dozens of Circle members.
In India, the guests’ interest in me had been overt, but here I was the object of subtle glances, whispers, and a steady stream of well-wishers who couldn’t stop staring at my eyes. I understood for the first time what it would be like to be famous and have the whole world think you belonged to them.
I wished I could make them stop. I wasn’t so sure I was going to be a good Circle princess tonight.
Soon, the crowd hushed and Lydia reached around my father’s chair to squeeze my shoulder as the doors opened and the Mikados made their grand entrance.
I pasted on a fake smile. Lydia hadn’t let on whether the Mikados would be an “advantageous match,” but I suppose it didn’t matter—it wasn’t like I had to impress them. They’d want me no matter what. The family made their way to the head table, and Takumi bowed before sitting next to me. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said quietly.