Clio and Sid watched as Anya and the officer talked. Anya removed her backpack. She put it on the ground and knelt beside it. “What’s she doing?” Sid asked. He stepped forward. Clio put a hand on his arm. She didn’t need him getting in the way. She was paying close attention to where all the officers were, how they were armed. She was trying to calculate her next move if she neededto make one, whether a move was even possible, or if it was too late for that. Her heart was in her mouth as Anya reached into the bag and removed a small, ancient book, which she handed to the officer.
The officer smiled as she took it. She cracked it open briefly, just long enough to glimpse a page or two, then closed it and handed it to a colleague, who took it to his car. Anya was safe, but they might have just condemned her mother to harm.
Sid whispered, “Why did Anya just give away her father’s bestiary?”
Had she? Was he right? Clio felt the world go still.
She held her breath as Anya walked down the steps toward them. The officers were standing down and leaving, car engines starting.
Anya was shivering and her clothes were dripping, leaving trails of droplets down the steps in her wake, but she was smiling and hugging her backpack to her chest. Clio could see the outline of something heavy in it, something rectangular.
The Book of Wonder.
“Oh,” Clio said under her breath. “Clever girl.”
Anya
I chose the venue. The Piazza Isotta Nogarola was a nondescript square in a quiet, residential area of the city where tourists didn’t venture. Verona had dedicated one of its least auspicious piazzas to one of their brightest daughters. But it suited me.
A steady stream of quiet traffic passed through the square. There was a roundabout in its center and parking bays around its edges. Beneath low-rise apartment buildings painted in pastel colors, the shop fronts were home to a newsagent, a hairdresser, a women’s clothing store, a real estate agency, and two cafés.
Sid and Clio sat in one. I crossed the square toward the other. It was on a corner, beneath a prominent red awning, a row of blackplastic tables and chairs out front. Pastries were displayed alongside silk flowers in the windows.
A bell jangled as I opened the door. I picked a table beside the window and in the corner, with a view of the whole room. The café smelled of coffee beans, fresh bread, and the bright tang of confectioners’ sugar. Good-natured shouts volleyed between the staff out front and their colleagues in back by the ovens.
It was the safest place I could think of.
Tracy Lock arrived first, representing the Fellowship of the Larks. I was expecting her. I’d contacted her via Sarabeth. I want your most senior representative, I’d told her. Don’t mess around with me. No one else will do. I haveThe Book of Wonder.
Those words were all it took to summon the women in power. Both arrived in Verona and signaled that they were ready to meet within twelve hours. If I’d been in any doubt that the book had been their ultimate goal, I wasn’t anymore.
Tracy arrived wearing shades, a scarf, and a hat. She was low key. No one in the shop would have guessed who she was.
I still wasn’t sure who would take the third seat, but I was confident Tracy had known who to reach out to from the Order of St. Katherine. Where there was power, there were always back channels. Why would these groups of women be any different?
She arrived soon after: Cece Beaufort, my father’s wife. It took my breath away to be meeting with his mistress and his spouse. She and Tracy nodded at one another, unsmiling, and Cece took her seat.
The Order of St. Katherine versus the Fellowship of the Larks. Magnus should have kept his eyes open wider.
I needed to keep mine open, too. It had never been more important. I still didn’t know where my mother was, but I heard her voice as loud and clear as ever.
Be strong. Trust your judgment. You can shape more of your destiny than you think.
“Shall we talk aboutThe Book of Wonder?” I asked.
I laid out my conditions. If they met them, I said, I would give them the book. They listened and asked me for some time. I moved to a table on the pavement out front and watched them through the glass as they talked. Across the street, Clio and Sid were waiting and watching, too.
After a while, Tracy made a call. When she hung up, they beckoned me back inside and explained that an agreement had been reached. They wouldn’t reveal details, they said, but soon I would have proof that they were telling the truth and that my conditions had been met.
“How?” I was afraid they were outmaneuvering me.
Cece said, “We wait until midday, and you’ll see. Are you still getting messages from your father?”
I nodded. Magnus was still violently angry that I’d evaded him. Every time another message arrived from him it sent a chill down my spine.
“We’ll check in with him a little bit later and I think you’ll find he’s not a threat anymore,” Tracy said. Neither of them would say more.
Time ticked. The city’s ancient bells chimed in the distance. There was no small talk and a lot of silence. Both women sent and received messages, moving pieces on boards. We ordered food that we barely touched, took turns stretching our legs on the square. I messaged Sid, keeping him and Clio informed. They were starting to have doubts. They questioned whether it was becoming dangerous. I told them I wanted to wait.
