Finally, Jack snapped his fingers. “Would it be possible to rotate and manipulate the pages together in a computer program?”
Ten minutes later, we were all staring at the four pages lined up next to each other in Photoshop. The pages featured lines and dots, rectangles and squares. No words other than the one scribbled line.
Calling precise directions, Jack had Tennyson turn and rotate and move the pages around each other.
“This is like a bizzaro game of Tetris,” I sighed as Tennyson turned one of the sheets upside-down.
“They are odd,” Jack agreed. “They actually look a lot like—”
His voice stopped, a thought obviously blazing through him. Jack barked a few more orders, moving the pages again.
“What are you thinking, Jack?” Tennyson asked.
“I’m not sure. But I do remember seeing something similar over and over on my own father’s desk.”
“What?”
Jack’s face suddenly animated, grin stretching wide. Abruptly, he looked like teenage Jack, happy and excited and ridiculously adorable. I sternly told my over-eager heart to stop with the acrobatics.
“These look a lot like an old architectural floor plan,” he said. “The way it would have been drawn in the early eighteenth century.”
Most of me wanted to hate him for being so smart, but it was kinda hard. He was just so . . . excited. And so . . . cute. And so . . . clever. And so . . . Jack. My heart continued to jump and leap in my chest.
Jack and Tennyson shuffled the drawings around, trying to make them fit together, the four pages making one larger image. If this was a floor plan, what would it be?
It only took a few seconds to put the images in the right places. I studied it for only a minute or two. The answer was obvious.
Tennyson frowned. “Is this—?”
“Villa Maledetti?” I asked. “It is indeed.”
We studied the plan. It was clearly thepiano nobileof the D’Angelo villa where Tennyson and I sat. The drawing room, study, kitchen and so on clearly visible.
My forehead furrowed into what was probably mythinking hardlook.
“This doesn’t make sense, though.” Tennyson ran his palm over the section of the floorplan where the modern kitchen stood. “The kitchen wasn’t here until about twenty years ago. Nonna created it out of a secondary drawing room. I still remember all the dust from the renovation. And Mom added the bathroom under the stairs only five years ago. Why is the modern floorplan showing up in an eighteenth century document underneath blacked-out paper?”
Chills zinged my spine. “Cesareil Pompasomust have seen the future. He obviously saw a lot of other stuff accurately, given what happened with Dante and Branwell.”
The guys were quiet for a moment.
“I mean, sure, he could have seen the future. But why?” Tennyson asked. “Why use this specific time period?”
I ran my fingertips over the scribbled words:
My namesake will light the way.
“Do you think that this could refer to Babbo?” I asked. “They were both Cesares.”
Jack nodded. “That would explain why the diagram shows the floorplan as it looks now.”
I studied the architectural rendering a bit more. One thing becoming frighteningly clear.
“The text runs over the top of the ruined tower.” I tapped the point.
Silence.
My namesake will light the way.
