Queen of the Night (The Revanche Cycle Book 4) (31 page)

Then she heard a cord snap.

And the row of Leggieri’s smoke bombs—four of them nestled on a bed of wood shavings inside the box—all went off at once.

Renata twisted her wrists, the trick manacles clattering to the ballroom floor, and twin daggers dropped into her hands from concealed sheaths under her sleeves. The cleaver whipped free from Sykes’s belt as he spun, driving it up under one man’s chin and splitting his jaw in half with a sickening
crack
. Lydda unslung her crossbow as smoke billowed around her, took careful aim, and fired.

The bolt sliced through the wire noose, dropping Felix to the banquet table as he gasped for breath.

“One thing you oughta realize about us by now—” Lydda said as she drove her boot between one of Aita’s henchman’s legs, doubling him over and shoving him toward Sykes.

“—is that we lie a
lot
,” Sykes said and chopped the cleaver down into the back of the man’s neck.

Achille, small and fast, darted through the chaos. He jumped up on the banquet table and snatched his tiny knife. Plates rattled and wine bottles spilled as he rolled Felix onto his stomach, sawing at the ropes binding his wrists. One of Aita’s men, quicker-witted than the rest, grabbed for him; a hand clamped on the man’s shoulder, spinning him around just in time for Gallo’s fist to pulp his nose and drop him to the floor.

Aita was gone, her chair empty, the gift box tossed to the floor and still hissing as it spat plumes of gray fog. Renata went hunting. The smoke snatched at her breath, making her throat itch and her eyes water, but determination drove her footsteps.

She strode through the smoke, her knives poised and ready like a viper with two heads. She turned at the sound of a maniacal scream. A shadow barreled toward her: Aita, gripping a carving knife, shrieking with incoherent rage as the blade whipped at Renata again and again, driving her back across the ballroom floor. Renata held her footing, waited for a split-second window, and darted in, throwing her shoulder into Aita and knocking her back. One of her daggers sliced a red rent in Aita’s gown, drawing a strangled-cat yowl of pain.

“What’s wrong,” Renata asked, “don’t know how to brawl? Guess that skill’s just too
common
for you.”

She smashed her elbow into Aita’s face, sending her staggering. Renata took a deep breath and swallowed smoke. It burst from her lungs in a wet, ragged cough, her vision blurring, a taste like burnt charcoal on her tongue. Aita was coughing too, clutching one hand over her mouth and one to her bleeding hip as she turned and ran.

“Renata,” Gallo shouted over the din, “over here! Hurry!”

She watched Aita fade into the smoke, every nerve screaming to chase her down and finish it—but they were still outnumbered by Aita’s men, and every passing second, the smoke slowly clearing, would whittle down their odds of getting out alive. She spun and sprinted toward the voice, dodging around the coughing, choking outlines of men in the fog. Gallo stood at one of the open windows, his foot up on the sill. He waved to her, caught her wrist, and gave her a hand over the sill, onto the dewy grass outside.

“They’re waiting at the stables. Let’s go!”

They raced across the rolling lawn, down to the stables, where Sykes, Lydda, and Achille were harnessing a pair of draft horses. Renata’s lungs burned and she gulped down the clean night air, cold and crisp. In a sudden panic, she looked left and right and—

—and there he was, stepping down from the back of the coach. Felix turned to her and smiled, and opened his arms wide.

She ran to him. And he pulled her close and held her tight, lifting her off the ground, spinning her around as they laughed. Then her feet touched the ground and he kissed her like they’d been kept apart for a lifetime. She pulled away, slowly, and brushed her fingers across the stubble on his cheek.

“I know I asked you this once before,” Felix said, “but it feels like ages ago, and I need to make it real.”

He clasped her hand and fell to one knee.

“Renata Nicchi, will you marry me?”

Renata smiled down at him, shaking with relief, with joy, with an elation that burned like fire.

“Still yes,” she said, one balled-up hand fumbling at her eye. “Always yes.
Yes
.”

Up on the driver’s perch of the black coach, Sykes punched Lydda in the arm.

“This right here,” he said, “this is why we don’t help people. Hey, you two! Get on board or you can
walk
to the docks. I’m sick of both of you and I just
met
him, so he must be
extra
insufferable.”

Lydda sat back and smiled.

Felix opened the coach door, holding it as Renata stepped inside, sitting on the bench across from Gallo and Achille. Felix followed her in.

“That’s right, that’s right,” Sykes grumbled, “all aboard, here we go.”

With a crack of the reins, the horses lurched from the stable, taking a hard turn to the left and thundering toward the mansion gates.

“You’ve been making interesting friends,” Felix told Renata.

She laughed. “You don’t know the half of it. Felix, this is Gallo and Achille.”

“At long last,” Gallo said. “She’s
your
curse now, Signore Rossini, and I wish you all the luck you’ll need to survive living with her.”

The coach rattled through the streets, hoofbeats pounding across blood-slick cobblestones. Renata paled as she glanced out the window. A mob of civilians ran up a side street, screaming, trampling each other to escape. And behind them came an implacable wall of Imperial troops, their blades hammering their raised shields as they marched like a juggernaut.

The carriage rocked on its wheels, hit from the other side by a blast of arid heat as the sky flared orange and a guttural roar echoed off the dilapidated houses. Behind a wall of boarded-up shops, flames licked at the air.

“Was that—” Achille said.

“No.” Felix shook his head. “Not the Imperials. Lodovico Marchetti.”

“How do you know?” Gallo asked him.

“Because he’s done this before. And I know Lodovico. If he can’t have Mirenze, he’ll make sure nobody can.”

Renata’s stomach clenched. And reading the tight lines of Felix’s face, he was feeling the same thing she was.
Just let it go
, she told herself.
You have each other. You have your lives. Mirenze isn’t your responsibility, and neither is Lodovico Marchetti
.

The carriage slowed to a crawl. A press of bodies filled the road to the docks, packing the streets as they struggled to find any escape they could. Dragging crates and lugging bindles over their shoulders, whatever meager possessions they could carry, consigning the rest of their lives to the fire. A haunted-looking man, his clothes torn and soot-stained, carried a squalling infant in his arms.

“That’s it,” Sykes called down, giving the roof of the coach a kick. “We’re not getting any farther like this—rest of the trip’s on foot.”

As they clambered out, joining the teeming masses, Renata jumped up on the driver’s perch to get a better look. Down below in the harbor, ships were leaving. Leaving with decks packed full, with people clinging to masts and dangling from railings, the boats so overloaded that they floundered in the icy water.

“Looks like nobody’s stolen the fishing boat yet,” Lydda said. “Let’s get down there before they do.”

Sykes nodded. “Can’t tell if the Imperials have a blockade out there, but half of us are Murgardt. We’ll just dump our weapons overboard and play ‘poor innocent refugee.’ That’s our safest way out of this cinder.”

Another explosion boomed at their backs, the shock wave bursting windows and spraying glass across the screaming crowd as they pushed and shoved toward the harbor. In the distance, down the road they’d just traveled, a firestorm swept across the cobblestones.

Renata jumped down from the perch and met Felix’s eyes. He nodded, a wordless understanding passing between them.

“Let’s get moving,” Gallo said. “The sooner, the better.”

“You go,” Renata said. “We’re staying.”

Gallo arched an eyebrow at her. “Huh?”

Felix put his arm around Renata’s shoulder. “Lodovico. He has to be stopped.”

“This isn’t your fight,” Gallo told them. “Look, we’re finished, the boat’s waiting for us, let’s
go
.”

“He made this our fight,” Renata said. “He dragged us into this madness. Felix and I have to finish it. Together.”

Sykes snorted. “Great. You two have fun with that.
We’re
leaving.”

Lydda put a hand on her hip. “Barmaid.”

Renata turned her way.

“You did all right.” Lydda gave her a nod. “Watch your left. You’re still sloppy about guarding on that side.”

Renata smiled. “If you ever end up in Kettle Sands, stop by the bar. Drinks are on the house.”

“Oh, we’ll hold you to that.”

Gallo stepped up, shaking his head.

“You’re really going after him.”

“He knows where the bombs are,” Felix said. “He’ll destroy this entire city if he thinks he’s going to lose, and by the time the Imperials get to him there won’t be a Mirenze left to save. It’s up to us.”

“All right, then.” Gallo took a deep breath. “Signorina, I’d say it’s been a pleasure to travel with you, but that’s the kind of lie that damns a man to the Barren Fields. And, Felix…your lady walked through fire to find you again. Treat her right.”

Felix nodded, firm. “I plan to.”

Achille raced over and embraced Renata. “Thank you,” he whispered as he pulled away.

Gallo looked to Achille. “You got anyplace to go, lad?”

Achille shook his head.

“Might as well come with me, then,” he said with a long-suffering sigh. “Now that you’ve touched her, her bad luck’s probably rubbed off on you. For that matter, we may all be cursed.”

“We could teach the kid how to hunt,” Sykes said as the four of them walked away, blending into the crowd.

“You’re not teaching him a damn thing. He’s going to be a respectable young gentleman.”

“Yeah, yeah. Keep talking, old man. I might
still
decide to pitch you overboard…”

Felix and Renata moved to the side, standing under a dirty canvas awning out of the stream of people. The faces of the crowd—desperate, lost, terrified—turned Renata’s backbone to cold steel.

There was no question when his hand curled around hers. No second thoughts, no glances back toward the harbor and the promise of escape. She wouldn’t have been able to live with herself. Neither would he.

“It’s a long way to the governor’s manse,” Felix said.

“Let’s go, then,” Renata said. “This madness. All of it. It ends tonight.”

They turned as one and walked against the crowd. Reunited at last, in the eye of the storm.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

For a city of piety and peace, Lerautia had a prison to rival any other. It was a squat block of ugly stone with a courtyard at its heart and a hangman’s gibbet for a centerpiece.

Dante and Marcello walked side by side down a dank corridor, faces grave, both of them trying to hold the contents of their stomachs down. The bowels of the prison stank of piss-soaked straw and sweat, the stagnant air so cold in places that Dante’s breath left curlicues of frost, and in other stretches it felt as if he were standing next to a roaring furnace.

The warden, mopping his brow as he ambled up to meet them, looked like a whipped dog who was expecting a kick at any moment.

“There’s trouble,” he said.

Marcello folded his arms. “Of
course
there is.”

“What of Mari?” Dante demanded. “Is she alive?”

“The one with the sickles, right? We got her. But here’s the thing: I know you only wanted her, but the boys grabbed a second prisoner. I guess they were hoping they’d get a bounty price for her.”

“Tell me you didn’t put them in the same cell,” Marcello said.

“Of course not! No, I’ve got her on the other side of the building. She ain’t much of a threat. One of her hands is all withered up, like she’s half corpse already. They got her chained up by herself, so she can’t work no curses on anybody.”

Marcello rolled his eyes. “Well, it’s certainly a relief that she won’t be ‘working no curses.’ I feel safer already.”

Dante leaned close to Marcello and whispered in his ear.

“She has to go. If Livia finds out about
any
of this—”

Marcello nodded, then looked to the warden. “I have a notion. How fast can you arrange an execution?”

The warden shrugged. “First light. It doesn’t take long.”

“Good. You see, as it turns out, Carlo had a witch on his payroll. That’s why he was able to beguile the minds of the weak and turn them against the good Pope Livia. We’ll burn the other prisoner at dawn. Dante, you stay here and do what you do best: whip up the crowd and give them a story to remember. I’ll be at the manse, keeping Livia distracted until the deed is done.”

“Brilliant,” Dante said. “Now what about Mari?”

The warden winced. “That’s the other problem.”

They heard her shouting before they saw her, locked behind rusted steel bars. She paced the floor like a caged tiger, stripped down to her linens and her weapons gone, but the three guards keeping a safe distance from the bars—two of them sporting freshly blackened eyes and the third cupping a cloth to his broken nose—showed she was no less of a threat. Spilled porridge coated one wall, a wooden bowl lying amid the straw scattered at her feet.

She saw Dante and lunged, one arm shooting between the bars, her fingers straining to claw at his eyes. He jumped back, breath catching in his throat.

“Where,” she shouted, “is my
liege
?”

“Mari, listen, we’re here to help you. You…you should really eat something.”

She glared and pointed at the spattered porridge. “It tasted wrong. They
put
something in it.”

The warden looked to Dante and lowered his voice. “We’ve got another bowl ready.”

“Mari,” Dante said, “you don’t understand. You’re confused.”

“
Confused?
Oh, no, it’s all very clear. We had a deal. And you broke it. I want my liege, Dante, and I want her now. Where is she?”