“It was before my time. All I know is he was forced out for killing the head of our Family, his uncle. I don’t know why he did it, what could have driven him to take his own Family’s blood, but we weren’t allowed to speak about him.”
“Ever?”
I shrugged. “Ever.”
“That seems cruel.”
“He killed his uncle, his own flesh and blood. There is cruelty in that, too.”
We stared at each other. We had reached an impasse. This training session wasn’t starting as I’d imagined. One more thing I couldn’t do right.
Rafeo would make a joke, but I didn’t know any jokes. Father and Matteo would’ve known better and wouldn’t have found themselves in this place of pregnant silence.
“Can I see your mask?” Alessio’s question jostled me out of my rumination.
“I suppose.” I lifted it off my face and handed it to him.
He examined it closely in the fading light. “It’s cracked.”
I nodded. “I think it happened in the fight. Or the fire. I’m not sure which.”
He rubbed his thumb against the crack and across the eyeholes. I was glad of the darkening sky so he couldn’t see me blush.
“Why did you pick these stripes?” He traced the black marks on the left side of the mask.
“I didn’t.”
“Don’t you choose the pattern? Or am I mixing it up with the color?”
“No, you’re right. The color is signified by Family. Black for Saldana; red for Da Via; orange for the Accurso in the region of Brescio; gray for Bartolomeo, who cover Triesta to Parmo; purple for Caffarelli in the city of Lilyan; yellow for Maietta in Reggia, Calabario, and Modeni; brown for Addamo in Genoni; blue for Zarella in the farmlands; and green for Gallo in the far south. Sapienza, the royal line, has gold, though they don’t actually clip people. Their masks are for ceremony only.
“The patterns are up to each individual, but the slashes aren’t mine. The mask isn’t mine.”
“Do you often trade masks?”
“No, we don’t trade masks. It’s my brother’s mask. Rafeo. I got them . . . confused.”
My chest tightened at the memory of the dark tunnel, and my brother alone down there, my mask resting beside him. Maybe my mask comforted him the way his mask comforted me. I hoped Safraella had given him a fast rebirth. He had probably been reborn already and was being cradled warmly by his new mother. I hoped his new life offered more peace than his last one.
Alessio looked at me. “He died in the fight?”
“Yes,” I whispered, not trusting my voice any louder.
He nodded. “I’m sorry. I understand what it’s like to lose your family. Someday it won’t be so hard, and you’ll be able to think of them without the pain.” He handed the mask to me.
I held it in my lap. “When we were children, once, travelers passed through Ravenna with their menagerie. They had caged tigers. I’d never seen anything like them before, and never since. No books or tapestries could convey the colors, and the way their muscles rippled beneath their fur and stripes, and how their gold eyes stared at me. They were so beautiful.
“Rafeo . . . Rafeo could not stop talking about the tigers. I think they changed him, changed the way he saw the world, saw his place in it. He earned his mask two months later, and it was no surprise when he requested a tiger’s black slashes.” I rubbed my thumb over the black marks on the mask.
“My family were travelers,” Alessio said.
I raised my eyebrows. “Really?”
He smiled and gestured to his face. “Can’t you tell from my handsome nose? My coloring?”
I looked at him closer. Of course I had noticed his skin color, his nose, but I hadn’t known they were markers of some kind. I shrugged. “I haven’t met a lot of travelers.”
Travelers were so called because they would travel across the dead plains without fear. One of their gods protected them from the ghosts. They were menagerie people, keeping dangerous animals and bringing them to cities for shows and viewings. Most of them hailed from Mornia, a country to the east, where they lived until they needed funds. Then they would gather and put on a tour until they made enough money to return home.
He glanced at the mask again. “What did your mask look like?”
“It had azalea flowers.”
“Because they’re poisonous?”
I nodded. “Truthfully, they never meant as much to me as Rafeo’s tiger stripes did to him.” I put it on and then slid it to the top of my head.
“When will I get a mask?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. You should’ve had one by now. As clippers, we’re given one before we go on our first solo job. In Lovero, there are tradesmen who craft the masks for the Families. They’re made from the bones of oxen that are raised on feed blessed and sprinkled with holy blood. It’s a secret craft only they practice. I don’t even know where to begin here in Rennes. Did you ever ask my uncle about it?”
“He refused. You heard him. He doesn’t allow any masks around him. He wouldn’t even show me his. Sometimes, when he’s really drunk, I hear him cursing Safraella. Sometimes I hear him begging. I think the mask reminds him of Her and brings about dark thoughts.”
I shook my head. “He does himself no favors in Her eyes.”