“Sending the Carbonari man was an error. My intelligence was incomplete—if I’d realized who your lovely companion was, I would not have targeted her.” He inclined his head toward Elsa in a brief acknowledgment of her presence.
“Of course,” said Leo. “Why destroy a person you already have means of controlling?”
Ricciotti continued as if Leo hadn’t spoken. “In any case, my agent was under strict instructions to only deliver the poison. The train to test your mechanics, the poison to test your alchemy. And of course the problem of finding me, which would have tested your scriptology if you hadn’t yet again allowed others to do your work for you.” He gestured toward Elsa. “I never intended Jumi’s daughter to die, and as she appears quite well, I hardly see what you’re making a fuss over.”
Elsa felt as if her mother’s name were a punch to the gut, robbing her lungs of air.
“What is wrong with you?” Leo demanded. He looked about ready to pop a gasket. “I have to figure out you’re alive by deduction and conjecture? You couldn’t have—I don’t know—sent a telegram like a normal person?”
But Elsa was still focused with the intensity of a microscope on those two small syllables: Jumi. “So you admit it,” she snapped, the words like acid in her mouth. “You are the one who took Jumi da Veldana.”
“She speaks,” Ricciotti said, amused and unabashed. “Indeed, I have her.”
Leo looked stricken at the shamelessness of the confession. He bent his head toward Elsa and spoke hushed words for her ears only. “There is nothing I can say in his defense.…”
She squeezed his arm. “You are not responsible for this.”
“I told you,” said a voice behind them, “we should have brought him back sooner.”
Elsa jumped and whirled around, but Leo turned slowly, as if he already knew who it would be. A young man, perhaps a few years older than she, leaned casually in the doorway. His hair was dark, but he had the same wide-set tawny eyes she’d grown accustomed to seeing in Leo’s face. He had Leo’s beauty, too, but he wore it like a mask over whatever lay beneath. Aris.
He pushed away from the doorframe and sauntered over to Leo, and with the two brothers standing close to each other, she could see Aris was somewhat taller but also slimmer. “You should know it was for your own good,” he said to Leo. “One doesn’t bring children to war. I wanted to send you a message, at least, but Father insisted you would never be content to stay away if you knew we lived.”
Leo shifted his weight, as if he wanted to step away but couldn’t, held in place by the magnetic pull of brotherhood. “Well you’re right on one point: there’s nothing you could have done to content me after Venezia.”
The corner of Aris’s mouth quirked. “Haven’t lost your flair for the dramatic, I see.” His gaze flicked past Leo to land on Ricciotti, and his voice took on layers of meaning that Elsa found difficult to parse. “Same old Leo, isn’t he?”
Leo’s hand flashed out and snatched ahold of Aris’s sleeve, demanding his brother’s full attention. “Aris—” His voice came out hoarse and urgent. “Where’s Pasca?”
Ricciotti started to say, “Now is hardly the time to—”
“He’s dead,” Aris interrupted, staring intently back into Leo’s eyes. Leo seemed pinned beneath his gaze. “Pasca was supposed to be at fencing lessons with you. Signora Rosalinda was supposed to get both of you out. By the time we knew he was unaccounted for, it was much too late.”
Leo’s eyes went wide, and all the color drained from his face. He looked as if he might be sick. Elsa couldn’t begin to guess what he was thinking in that moment—but, apparently, his brother could.
Aris cupped Leo’s face in his hands. Unlike with Ricciotti, Leo made no move to stop him, and this more than anything else chilled Elsa. “Oh, little brother,” Aris said, “you couldn’t have known. Pasca was always sneaking off, skipping lessons. It isn’t your fault.”
“Of course it’s not his fault,” Elsa said, her temper finally snapping like a brittle twig. “He’s not the one who set fire to the house!”
The brothers both looked at her, Aris with a trace of annoyance, Leo as if he were trying to focus on her through a thick fog.
Elsa turned her wrath on Garibaldi. “We’re not here for a reunion,” she said through gritted teeth. “Why did you take Jumi? Where is she?”
Garibaldi clasped his hands behind his back. “As to the second matter, Jumi is alive, she is under my care, and I will remand her to you in exchange for a favor.”
Fury flashed through her veins, but Elsa lifted her chin and tried to channel the brazen calm with which Porzia might have this same conversation, were their positions reversed. “And as to the first matter?”
“Therein lies the rub,” he replied, the corner of his mouth lifting ruefully. “My men had instructions to gain access to Veldana with Montaigne’s assistance, then acquire your mother along with a scriptology book she created.”
Elsa felt an absurd sense of triumph at hearing Montaigne’s betrayal confirmed. And the scriptological weapon they’d heard rumors of—it must be inside the worldbook that had gone missing from the cottage along with Jumi.
“Unfortunately,” Garibaldi continued, “the mission went awry. A third party killed Montaigne, set fire to the house, and in the ensuing confusion made off with the book.”
Elsa said, “So where is this book now? Who has it?”
“I know not. A double agent for the true Carbonari, some vindictive Veldanese, a spy for Sicilia or Veneto or the Papal States…” He took a breath, and for a second he almost seemed rattled before regaining his smug superiority. “I’ve had agents searching for it, unsuccessfully so far. But now I think this is no longer my problem to solve.”
“You’re proposing a trade. You want me to find it for you.”
“Who better to find the book than the daughter of its creator?”
Elsa kept silent for a moment, watching him. The creator herself would surely be better than the creator’s daughter, and this thought sent a spike of fear through Elsa. “I’ll see my mother now. I want proof she’s alive before agreeing to anything.”
Garibaldi gestured to another door at the far end of the room. “Signorina, if you’ll accompany me, I’ll take you to her.”
This seemed to sober Leo enough for him to regain control. “She’s not going anywhere with you—”
Elsa rested a hand on his arm to quiet him. “It’s all right. I’ll be all right.”
She followed Garibaldi despite Leo’s protestations and found herself traversing a narrow, windowless hall, and doubting whether it was wise to be alone with him in a confined space. If anything, Garibaldi seemed amused by her stiff reluctance.
“Think what you will of me, but everything I do is for the good of the people. To put an end to foreign rule and crushing taxation, an end to religious laws strangling the progress of science. To unite my countrymen for a better future.”
Elsa glared at him. “You have a funny way of showing it, abducting an innocent woman from her home.”