Elsa burst through the doorway to find, of all things, Leo asleep in his bed. He was thrashing in his sleep, the sheets tangled about his legs, his hair damp with sweat. The fear and vigilance drained from Elsa, leaving behind a giddy relief. She’d expected blood and death and assassins, where there were only nightmares.
Leo was shirtless, his clothing below the waist—or lack thereof?—concealed by the bedcovers. For a moment Elsa stared at the sight of his smooth, golden skin seeming to glow in the candlelight, the ridges of his muscles accentuated by the play of light and shadow. She shook her head, feeling foolish, and set the candle on the table beside the bed.
“Leo?” she said softly, and then a little bolder, “Leo!” but her voice didn’t rouse him.
“Aris…,” he moaned in his sleep. “Lemme go, we have to go back.…”
Elsa perched on the bed beside him, reached forward, hesitated, then grabbed his shoulder and shook him. “It’s only a dream, Leo. Wake up.”
He jerked at her touch, and his eyelids peeled open. “Elsa?” he said blearily, as if unsure whether he was awake or still dreaming. “What’s happened?”
“You were crying out in your sleep.”
He looked at her again, and his eyes went wide as saucers, as if the fact of her presence had finally sunk in. “What are you…” He tugged at the blankets, but it was a poor show of modesty—since Elsa was sitting on the bed, the blankets pinned beneath her, he would have had to dump her on the floor to cover himself thoroughly.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said, exasperated. “It isn’t as if I’ve never seen a boy without his shirt before.”
If she’d thought it wasn’t possible for him to look more shocked and horrified, he now proved her wrong. “It isn’t?”
“You’re as prudish as an Englishman.” She crossed her arms. “I promise not to take advantage of you in your current immodest state.”
Even by candlelight, she could see him flush. He sat up and scooted away from her, hands still knotted in the sheets. “No—I’m not—Y-you shouldn’t be here…,” he stuttered. “What would people think?”
“Let me worry about my own virtue,” she said. “Now, are you going to tell me?”
He rubbed his face with one hand, as if trying to scrub away the memory. “As you said: only a dream.”
Elsa abandoned any remaining mockery in her tone in favor of seriousness. “Do you always have nightmares that set you to screaming?”
“Not for a while now,” he answered quietly. “It’s just this business with … Never mind. It’s not important, I’m fine. Are you okay? I’m so sorry about my father and the assassin and—”
“Stop,” Elsa interrupted. “You have nothing to apologize for. You are in no way responsible for Garibaldi’s actions.”
Leo’s jaw clenched, but he said nothing.
Elsa decided to try another cautious foray into the subject of nightmares. “You said a name in your sleep. Who’s Aris?”
He didn’t respond for so long she thought he was ignoring her, but eventually he arrived at some sort of decision and said, “He was my older brother. Or is? I don’t know.”
Outside, the clouds parted from the low-hung moon, and pale silvery light spilled into the room through a pair of glass doors—balcony doors, Elsa realized when she looked up. The moonlight softened the shadows of his face and turned his olive skin wan as a ghost.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she said softly.
He looked away toward the windows, avoiding her eyes. “I used to think, What’s the use? Talking never brought back the dead. But now they’re alive after all—my father and Aris and maybe even Pasca—and the man I knew as Father never really existed in the first place.” His throat worked, as if the words threatened to choke him.
How awful, Elsa realized, to be abandoned by one’s own family. They’d fled from Venezia and left him behind like an obsolete machine.
“I’m not sure this isn’t worse.” His voice fell almost to a whisper as he stared, unseeing, past her. “Before, when I thought they were dead, it wasn’t their fault they were gone. But to be discarded like this…”
He was like a fine piece of clockwork that had been carelessly dropped too many times, the delicate gears jarred apart so they spun and spun but never connected. Broken. She brushed a strand of his brass-blond hair out of his eyes. He gave a very slight twitch at the feel of her fingertips on his face, but did not pull away. Oh, how she itched to open his chest and set the gears straight again. The thought surprised her; she’d often felt the urge to fix objects, but this sudden desire to fix a person … where did it come from?
Elsa shook her head. “You mustn’t leap to conclusions with so little evidence. Perhaps they believed you had died, or hoped you’d lived but didn’t know how to find you.”
Darkly, Leo said, “They sent that assassin to kill you. They probably arranged the train hijacking, too. I’d guess they knew exactly where I was ever since Venezia.”
Elsa swallowed, her throat tight. How many people would have died if they hadn’t been able to stop the train? And the assassin was dead, not to mention Montaigne. Apparently, Garibaldi did not hesitate to gamble with the lives of his own compatriots, let alone with the lives of innocent bystanders.
No one was safe. Least of all herself and Leo. But that wasn’t what he needed to hear just now, so Elsa simply shrugged and said, “Family is complicated.”
Leo snorted, the corners of his lips curling up into an unwilling smile. “You have a way with words, signorina.”
“I know this seems like an impossible mess, but we’ll figure it out together. I promise.”
“I don’t see how. My father is the sort of man who has no qualms about abducting or killing people. I wonder if I ever knew him at all. Even his name was a lie.” Pain was etched along his brow and under his eyes.
Elsa couldn’t remember ever hating anything as much as she hated Garibaldi in that moment—not just for stealing her mother, but for how he’d hurt this beautiful, brilliant boy. Her hatred felt cold and pure as ice, but at the same time she knew Leo could never feel that clarity of hate for someone he’d once loved. She would have to carry the hatred for both of them, to hate Garibaldi on his behalf.
So she tucked the hatred away in a hidden corner of herself for safekeeping, and she gave Leo’s hand a quick, reassuring squeeze. “Try to sleep, if you can. There’s nothing to be done now. We’ll start afresh tomorrow.”
He sighed. “You’re right, of course.”
“I should probably…,” she said, shifting her weight to stand, but his hand flashed forward and caught her by the wrist.
“Don’t go,” he whispered.
Elsa knew she should resist that magnetic pull she felt behind her sternum, but there was something strange and desperate in his expression, and she found she could not deny him. “I’m no talisman against nightmares, but I suppose I could stay if you—”