Leo stared in disbelief at the ramshackle building. “This has got to be a malfunction.”
“No, it’s perfect,” Porzia said thoughtfully. “Unsavory characters can go in and out all day without anyone batting an eye. And who would think to look for upstanding citizen Rico Trovatelli here? Not even his own son.”
Leo’s lips tightened angrily. “My father—”
“Your father was a fiction,” Porzia interrupted. “We know little and less of the real Ricciotti Garibaldi, except for this: we know he can deceive.”
For a moment, Leo looked as if he might like to slap her. Then his gaze shifted back to the tenement house, and Elsa could practically hear the gears of his thoughts shifting. “All right,” he finally said. “I’m going in alone.”
Porzia lifted her gaze to the heavens, as if begging a higher power for patience. “You’re not leaving us behind now, Leo.”
“Look,” he said, exasperated. “We can’t all go in together. If this doesn’t go well for us, someone has to return to Toscana and report to Gia what happened. And, obviously, that would be accomplished most expediently if the return party had a scriptologist to open a portal.”
Elsa stepped closer to Leo. “I’m sorry, but he’s right.”
“What?” Porzia screeched, clearly surprised to have Elsa side against her.
“Leo and I go in. Garibaldi knows about us already, so even if we’re spotted, he gains nothing. But he doesn’t yet know we have help, and we might need that element of surprise later.”
“This is just ridiculous—” Porzia huffed, but Faraz put a gentling hand on her shoulder. She frowned but said, “Fine.”
“Here,” Elsa said, handing over the doorbook to Porzia. “In case you need it.”
Porzia accepted it gingerly, the scowl vanishing from her features. “Are you sure?”
“I’m quite sure I don’t want something this useful falling into the hands of our enemies.” She shrugged a shoulder, hesitant, then added shyly, “Besides, I trust you with it.”
Porzia nodded, her eyes wide, as if genuinely touched by the gesture. “I’ll take good care of it.”
Leo was fiddling with the grip of his rapier, anxious to get moving and oblivious to the weight of the moment Elsa and Porzia had just shared. He said, “Wait for us at the east end of the promenade. If we haven’t met up with you by midnight, get yourselves back to Pisa and tell Gia what happened.”
As Porzia and Faraz turned back the way they’d come, Elsa and Leo crossed the street, keeping to the shadows. The lamplighters had yet to grace this part of the city with their presence, so the growing dark was on their side. With whispers and hand gestures, they agreed to approach the building from behind. They snuck through the cramped, filthy alleyways, the walls of the tenement buildings muffling the sounds of the city. There was the splash of Elsa’s shoes in the alley’s damp muck and the steady hiss of her breath, but that was all. Leo moved as quiet as a cat—she knew he was still with her only by the dark shape of his silhouette.
They crouched low as they drew closer. The first-floor windowpanes were grime-smudged and warped, but they glowed with lamplight from inside, which would ease the task of spying somewhat. Leo crept up to the nearest window, and Elsa pressed herself close to the bricks beside him. The light drew a sharp line across his cheekbones as he peered inside. After a moment he withdrew, shook his head at her—nothing—and slunk over to the next. Pulse pounding in her ears, she followed. If the compass had led them true, one of these rooms might have her mother in it.
Elsa heard a click behind her. Before she could register what it meant, Leo spun around, his hand flying to the hilt of his rapier. Turning, she reached for her revolver, at the same time placing the sound: the click of a cocked-back hammer.
Black-clad Carbonari assassins emerged from the shadows, weapons out and aimed.
15
WHATEVER LIES WITHIN OUR POWER TO DO LIES ALSO WITHIN OUR POWER NOT TO DO.
—Aristotle
Relieved of her pistol, Elsa was half dragged inside by two burly Carbonari. Her instinct was to fight back however she could—with feet and fists and teeth—but Leo caught her eye and, with a subtle jerk of his head, warned against it. They were badly outnumbered and should wait for a better opportunity to effect their escape.
They were led up a narrow, dim-lit stairway. The smell of pine tar clung to one of Elsa’s captors, and it burned in her nostrils. With a Carbonaro attached to each arm, she couldn’t lift her skirts and stumbled on the stairs, but they just hauled her up and kept going.
On the third floor, they passed through a door into a room that was much larger than a single tenement, with rough patches where interior walls had been knocked down. A long, sturdy table that dominated the center of the room held an assortment of papers—maps, blueprints, shipping manifests, and others Elsa couldn’t identify at a distance.
Leaning over that table was a man. All but two of the Carbonari retreated from the room, and when the door slammed, the man behind the table looked up. Elsa knew instantly who he was.
Ricciotti Garibaldi had the same high forehead, straight nose, and expressive mouth as Leo, but he was brown-haired, and—Elsa noted with a spark of surprise—he had a bit of a weak chin. The paternal resemblance was there, but far from complete. She found the differences oddly comforting, as if they were an outward sign of the differences within.
Ricciotti looked at each of them for a moment, his expression unreadable. Then he moved around the table and walked over to Leo.
“Ah, my son. I’ve been expecting you.” He reached his hands forward as if to grab Leo’s head and kiss his cheeks. Leo’s eyes went wide and he shoved him away.
“Don’t touch me,” Leo said hoarsely.
“I see.” Ricciotti straightened, rubbing the place on his chest where Leo’s hand must have connected. “I knew it would be a difficult adjustment for you, returning to the fold, but we hardly have time for your childish antics.”
“My antics? I’m not the one who sabotaged a train full of innocent bystanders as some sort of ridiculous test!”
Ricciotti shrugged it off as if Leo’s accusation were of little consequence either way. “It has been hard to know the proper time to reintegrate you—you were much too immature when we fled Venezia. I wanted to observe a show of your abilities. But, to my dismay, you weren’t the polymath who solved the problem.”
Elsa’s eyes widened at the brazenness of his admittance. What kind of parent subjects his own son to a life-or-death test?
But Leo did not seem horrified at this; instead he let out a bitter laugh. “Oh, poor Father. What a disappointment it must have been, to think I’d finally followed in Aris’s footsteps only to discover the honor belonged to someone else. I suppose that’s why you tried to have her killed?”