“So you can sneak me in,” I continued. “But—” I shot a look at Jack.
Stellan followed my gaze. “Elodie’s staying there, too. Or maybe they’ll think I’m having an especially wild night.” He gave an exaggerated wink. “The Dauphins have more important things to worry about right now, I promise. I was just trying to be nice, but by all means, have fun sneaking back into your gilded cage.”
It only took a quick consultation with Jack to decide on the Dauphins’ apartment. It would be much easier to get back in in the morning in the rush of tourists checking out. We stopped in front of a four-story building, its facade a crumbling but colorful fresco, and Stellan punched in a door code.
I pulled the collar of Jack’s coat up and hunched my face down into it, and Jack ducked his head, and we followed Stellan and Elodie into a hallway that was well lit but still so damp that I wondered if anything in this city ever really dried.
We got to a door on the third floor, and Elodie paused outside. “There’s one more thing I probably should have told you—”
Before she could finish, the door flew open. Luc Dauphin stood in the doorway, with messy hair and red-rimmed eyes.
Stellan cursed. “Elodie, what is wrong with you—”
Luc cut him off with a stream of chatter in French that, as far as I could tell from the looks passing between Stellan and Elodie, was something along the lines of it was my idea to come and she couldn’t stop me.
“Okay, everybody inside.” Jack bundled us in and locked the door.
“It’s horrible.” Luc scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Eli Abraham and Takumi Mikado both. It’s—oh, cherie.” He cut off and swept me up in a hug so tight he pulled me right off the ground. He set me back down and planted a loud kiss on each of my cheeks. “You had to be there. I’m so sorry. I was going to—” He gestured behind him to where a sumptuous buffet of desserts was set up. “I wanted to apologize, and I know you like pistachio ice cream”—he nodded to Jack—“and I thought I might be able to say I’m sorry my family tried to arrange our marriage against your will with dessert, but then this happened. And now . . .” He sighed dramatically and led me into the living room. “And now my party is a wake.”
He stepped out of the way, and I stopped dead. In the center of the darkened living room was what I could only call a shrine.
Between when he heard the news and now, Luc must have raided every newsstand in Venice, and half the religious paraphernalia shops. He’d arranged Virgin Mary statues, crosses, and flickering candles with unidentifiable saints painted on the front in an elaborate diorama around a collage of magazine photos of Eli and Takumi. Eli kissing a Brazilian supermodel. Takumi shirtless on a beach. In the center was the cover of Sunday Six’s most recent album.
Luc fell into a chair set in front of the shrine and made an awkward sign of the cross over his chest. We all stared. Somehow all that came out of my mouth was, “Are you even Catholic?”
“No.” Luc sighed again. “But it seemed appropriate, non? And it was all I could find on short notice. When in Rome.”
“When in Venice, actually,” Elodie murmured.
My mouth was still hanging open. “I’m sorry,” Jack said low in my ear. “He doesn’t mean to be disrespectful—”
“And this is the only jacket I have with me dark enough to be appropriate for mourning.” Luc plucked at the shoulder of his blazer, purple velvet with a subtle floral pattern, if you could really call anything about it subtle. “But I think they both would have liked it. I only met Eli once, and Takumi a few times, but I felt like we had a connection.”
Luc picked up a bottle of wine he already had open on the shrine and took a swig, then passed it back to us. Elodie shrugged and took a drink.
I rubbed my forehead. I’d seen them both die. It was horrible for everyone. But still, it felt weird. “Even if the Order coerced him, Eli murdered somebody,” I said. “Isn’t it strange to look at him as if he were as much of a victim as Takumi?”
They all looked at me, a grim set to each of their mouths. “You don’t understand the Order,” Stellan said. “They do terrible things. Eli had younger siblings. Maybe the Order threatened them. He obviously felt like he had no choice.”
“But to kill someone—”
“Aren’t you planning to give up the thing that could stop these murders to save your mom?” Elodie cut in. “How is it so different?”
“I—” I suddenly felt sick. I studied the shrine again, the happy, smiling faces of two people I’d seen die just hours ago. The lump in my throat that maybe should have been there all night was rising.