Antonio was already at the worktable mixing up ingredients. "I don't suppose you'd care to tell me what that was all about," he said as Etienne entered.

"Your guess is as good as mine." Etienne knew this would never be believed, but it was the truth and the only answer he felt like giving at the moment. "I've never seen the man before tonight."

"You've never been to Paris or Avignon?"

"I didn't say that."

"Avignon, no doubt. You had a tonsure when you came to us, don't think I've forgotten that. It's only too easy to picture you toadying to some fat cardinal, or scribbling out indulgences in the old Antipope's chancery —"

"Well, since you seem to despise all clergy everywhere, I don't doubt you'd find my mortal occupation distasteful no matter what I was doing."

Antonio scowled at him. "What you did when you breathed is no concern to me, brother, except as it might bear on the present. It's your own fault. You prodded him into it."

"Into what?"

"Recognizing you."

"Did I? And how in Hell's name did I do that, may I ask?"

Antonio ground the herbs in his mortar a little finer. Etienne wished he would delegate the task; it would be soothing to grind something just now. Instead, the Florentine pointed over to the little brazier that stood in the corner. "Bring me that pot of wax there, if it's done melting. By chattering on like that. You gave him every chance to be reminded. Now he's netted and hauled us in with this farce of a Mass." He sprinkled in his mix of herbs, then threw in a pinch of powdered synochitis from the little jar he'd set out on the counter. Alexander's laboratory had turned out to be as much a jumble as his bedroom, but at least there was a good complement of basic equipment, including various mineral dusts.

"What makes you think it's a farce?"

"Come now. You don't honestly suppose he's overcome with grief and concern for the fate of a pair of Tremere souls. At best, it's hypocrisy."

"You haven't been reading his letters, brother."

"No, I haven't, but perhaps I should."

"Be my guest. On the other hand, you surely were watching his colors."

"Yes."

"And? What did you think?"

"I think he has a cool head and a colder heart. You saw how he slipped free of your questions. At any rate, he didn't put me in mind of St. Francis, meek and mild."

"Well, he's Dominican," Etienne muttered.

Antonio snorted. "Go on. Two drops into the wax."

"Two drops of what, my blood?"

"Whose else would I mean?"

Etienne hesitated. Something about the set of Antonio's thin lips bore a suspicious resemblance to amusement.

"I thought we were breaking the ward on Taliesin's door tonight."

"We are. Do as you're told."

Etienne obeyed. "Then why the wax?"

"Good. Now that needs to cool just a little."

"One would think you were making a poppet of me."

"I am making a poppet of you."

"Well, what does that have to do with Taliesin's door?" Etienne tried to blunt the edge of impatience in his voice, but did not entirely succeed.

"His ward is too strong for me to break, that's what it's got to do with it."

"Yes, I knew that."

"That's why Lord Gilbert has to help."

Whatever it was, Antonio clearly wanted to savor it. Etienne turned to the leading edge of Alexander's rubbish pile and tried to sort a little further through it, but the clutter defied him as well. Antonio took out chalk and yarn and began contentedly marking lines for magic circles.

"All right, I can see you're dying to explain whatever unpleasantness you're about to inflict," the Frenchman blurted at last. "You may as well have out with it."

"Don't be so nervous. I promise you, not a hair of your head will be harmed. It's just that his lordship obviously can't come all the way here simply to work this spell for us."

"Can't he?"

"Not if there's a better way. The poppet is to keep your spirit in while your body channels him. So you see, you won't even have to do anything." Antonio could not resist glancing up to catch the look that was dawning on his brother's face.

"Great Tremere, Etienne. You're going to be the safest of the three of us. Is this all the gratitude you can show?"

"Channels him..."

"It's not as though he's going to take it and dash it against rocks. But he must have the use of physical hands. It's only for a little while."

"You mean he's going to be wearing my flesh, seeing out of my eyes — talking in my voice!"

"That's right. You've grasped it perfectly. I'm glad; usually we don't thoroughly cover the topic of possession till Fifth Circle."

The sarcasm passed nearly unnoticed. "And I'm to be put into that...that..."

"Yes. If you like, you can be the one to sculpt it. It doesn't have to look that much like you, but mind you carve your sigil in it. Go ahead. You may as well do a little to help."

Etienne's head felt as though it had been emptied of everything but a soundless buzz: far too similar a state to the one he had just escaped by sheer force of will a little while before. Evidently he was meant to spend all night either sprawled or reeling from others' offhand remarks. He scooped the soft wax out onto the worktable and began to mold it. The humming in his head swelled to near-audibility. A honeycomb pattern swam before his eyes. His sense of balance erupted into chaos. I'm fainting, he thought with dim amazement, and then immediately after that, No. Don't entertain him any further. He grasped the sides of the table until the dizziness faded.

Bracing the last two fingers of his hand against the surface of the wax, he was able to hold the silver stylus Antonio provided steadily enough to mark out his wizard's sigil across the chest of the poppet. Aside from that, he provided only a few distinguishing details — the overall shape of the hair and the basic cut of the doublet, a triangle of a nose. As an afterthought, he added pinholes and lines for nostrils, eyes, and ears, as well as a mouth-slit. There was no way to know which of the two would be more disturbing, possessing his senses in that state or being deprived of them; still, in case something went wrong, it seemed best to give himself as much power to perceive and react as possible.

Antonio looked over the completed mannequin and pronounced that it would probably do. Then he led Etienne into a different chamber of the chantry, one with a rudimentary bath dug into the center of the stone floor. Etienne hated going nude before the other Tremere — he particularly hated doing it before Antonio just now; but the purification was necessary to ensure a smooth transfer of essence. Heated rocks plunked into the bath now and again would keep it warm over the course of the hour. Antonio also lit a censer full of something thick and heady and directed Etienne to take deep breaths of the smoke.

"I suppose it would be out of the question for me to say my rosary while I'm at it," Etienne remarked as he wet his hair.

"Of course it would."

"Could I at least hold it? You must want me to be calm or you wouldn't be drugging me."

"I want you calm, but you're not to have any protections, not even in religion. The whole idea is to make yourself open and ready to receive. Now shut up and do your meditation."

Ready to receive. Ready to receive Gilbert, called the Manichaean, certainly an ancient, monstrous sorcerer, possibly a heretic as well. Ready to receive into his very flesh, this body he had thought was his, that God had built to house and tempt his spirit alone. Any passing fondness Etienne might once have entertained for the old man drifted out of him on the smoke.

At least the fumes were powerful enough to overcome even an immortal constitution. Antonio moved skillfully, unobtrusively as he attended the bath and the censer; there was a certain odd comfort in the whispering sound of his robes and shoe-soles on the floor. Etienne breathed in slow, deliberate rhythm. This always felt like a farce at first, but while the breath carried no life with it, it did cleanse the mind of extraneous thought. Right now, of course, it was also necessary in order to absorb Antonio's drugs.

At some point, once he was thoroughly spiced and stewed, his brother helped him out of the bath. His limbs felt heavy and clumsy, flopping like landed fish. Antonio dropped a thin robe over his shoulders and guided him back down the hall into the ritual room, which was now in readiness, dark except for the glow of precisely-charted candles. With his ceremonial dagger Antonio opened temporary doors in the substance of the circle wards — they were flowing strongly enough for ordinary vision to see, rippling like the waves of heat above a campfire — and then resealed them as he took Etienne through.

"Right, you're in now. Sit here. Good. All you have to do for now is sit and stay awake."

This part of things was familiar, recognizable even to his halved wits. Antonio had dragonsblood burning in a little brazier, to which he added three times three drops of his own blood. In a second brazier he added three times three of Etienne's, pricking Etienne's finger with the tip of the dagger.

"Don't heal that yet. Just hold it up so it doesn't drip. Oh, for — here. Used too much henbane, I suppose." Cool hands moved Etienne's arm, propping up his right hand in the crook of his left elbow. The water on his wet finger trickled down slowly, but the thick vampire blood simply blossomed into a tiny dome of glistening red and then stopped.

Where was the poppet? Etienne tugged his head, trying to rouse the effort required to turn himself around.

"It's behind you. We're in rather cramped quarters. Don't move. You'll be able to sense it in a moment, when I've named it. If you want to help, go back into your meditation. Use the Names of Tremere."

That meant he was to chant them, the seven least-secret names of Great Tremere himself. Reportedly, these sonorities were in and of themselves magical; Etienne privately suspected that they were good for vibrating the skull into a stupor and not much more. He intoned them one by one, moving his numbed lips carefully at first. But they sounded all right as they came out, and he soon relaxed into the cadence of it.

Meanwhile, Antonio continued the ritual. In what would have struck Etienne (in a more wakeful state) as a blasphemous parody of baptism, he christened the poppet Stephanus Valensis and retraced its sigil; as he did, what he had promised came to pass. All at once the thing was present in the circle as an essence in its own right. Etienne did not need to see it to know precisely where it was. It was nearly part of him already.

"Gilbertus," Antonio began to call out softly. "Veni Gilbertus, filius Tremere..."

The invocation. A soft clinking as Antonio moved the speculum — a round glass painted black at the back, making a dark mirror — into place before Etienne. Antonio named and called their master by several other formulae, moving the circle inch by inch into some nether place between earth and spirit. Mist rolled into the room and obscured everything outside the line of the ward. Again, this was all familiar. Any apprentice summoning the attention of a brother or elder would do it in exactly this fashion. It was the purpose of the spell, not the procedure, that caused Etienne to feel afraid even under the gloss of his intoxication.

The speculum waited hungrily for his gaze. "Go on," Antonio hissed. "You know what to do." As he obediently turned his head toward it, the blackness within slipped the confines of the glass, engulfing first his vision and then his other senses. Gilbert floated up from the depths like a dead fish bobbing to the surface of a lake. First he was only a suggestion, then a bright spot, then a shape; then quite suddenly he was there, a cluster of various realities, as substantial as Etienne himself.

The ancient magus said nothing as he appeared. His expression was tranquil. Of course; he had been expecting them. Etienne realized in a panic that he could no longer sense Antonio — only himself, the doll's stupid blankness, and Gilbert's encroaching mind.

"Open to me, Stephanus Valensis," Gilbert murmured in Latin. "Open to me, child of Tremere, brother in blood and vow. Meet my eyes."

Etienne was long past the question of defying such an order. Gilbert's voice held such authority, and his traitorous mind only wanted something, anything besides the void around them to focus on. Their pupils connected, dilated. Again a glassy barrier seemed to vanish and another abyss opened up before him — this time the smaller but fiercer one behind Gilbert's eyes — and he knew he was meant to fall into this one as well.

It was at this belated point that something in him said No.

"Don't resist me, Etienne..."

And yet all at once he was doing exactly that, thrashing futilely against Gilbert's tidal pull. A sole thought, unclouded by either henbane or terror, shrieked: You fool! But this was too elemental, the need to rule one's own flesh. Besides, who knew Gilbert might perceive as he entered, what he might catch of Etienne's soul as he edged it out...

"Etienne. You must calm yourself. You must open. Do you hear me? Open now. Or shall I command you by what I hold?"

There was no need to name it. The moment it was alluded to, Etienne perceived it, a hot emanation in Gilbert's rising hand. The old fiend must have gotten a few drops out of storage, must have — and this was the truly monstrous thing, that Etienne could be conjured by it like some fairy-tale creature, or expelled like a ghost at cockcrow; but it was nonetheless true. Antonio's ministrations had already sapped whatever small power he might have had against his own blood.

At his surrender, Gilbert drew them together, taking up in an instant all the slack that separated Etienne from his blood in Florence. The two vampires' essences met, tangled uneasily, then disengaged again as the master, whose grasp was firm now, began to push Etienne the other way, back toward the poppet.

"Good. That's it. You have given yourself over...now abandon this body, Etienne. Leave it; it will be here when I bid you return. Another vessel is prepared for you. Feel the link between it and you. It is blood of your blood. It bears your name and your sign. It will receive you readily. You have only to follow that thread...grope along it...that is your path...Go."

Something slammed into him, shoved him, naked of flesh, out into the open space of the circle. He floundered like a man thrown overboard — blind and deaf — for a terrifyingly long moment before he caught hold of the thread Gilbert had spoken of. Then his spirit-eyes opened. The conduit gleamed silver beneath him, beckoning, reassuring. He poured himself meekly into the wax shape at its other end, slipping into its arms and legs as though they were shirtsleeves and hose. The wax felt strange, the fit was too tight and his powers of reason were utterly lost to hysteria now; still, he had done as required. He was inside, and once inside, the bond between him and the poppet was too strong to casually break.

In any case, Antonio now severed the only other route available by picking the poppet up and wrapping it round with a length of red velvet ribbon, then setting it back down again. All sense of Etienne's body, his true body, disappeared completely.

"Well." His voice, contorted into Gilbert's accents. It sounded a bit distant (it seemed wax ears were not good for much), but it was there, undeniably. "He certainly didn't make it easy..."

"He never makes anything easy," Antonio replied dryly.

"Bonisagus' beard, Antonio, how much henbane did you give him? I'm dizzy. Wait a moment...there, that's better. He needs to feed, too. Perhaps we'd better visit the larder before we try the spell."

"Well, at least it looks like he's settled in the poppet now."

A brush against the edges of Etienne's mind. "He's there," the mongrel voice assured Antonio. Etienne's vision was quite blurry as well, but for one terrible moment his own face loomed close over him, grotesquely huge, wearing an alien expression of satisfaction. "Yes, he'll keep well enough I think. Good lad, Stefano. Shall we to business?"

"Actually, my lord, I thought as long as you were here I might show you something of interest first."

"Oh?"

"I've made these diagrams of Taliesin's wards, you see, and they're really quite unusual. Particularly those at the Domenici villa. I was eager to know your lordship's thoughts on their operation. I don't know if it bears any relation to anything, but then again it always might."

"Ah. I'll have a look afterwards."

"You don't wish to study them beforehand?"

"Yes, well...I do see your point, my boy, but I can only keep this up for so long. Best to strike while I'm sure I have my strength."

"Yes, my lord."

"You save your strength, too. Don't bother putting the circles back up."

"Could he not wriggle free — accidentally, of course?"

"Of the ribbon? I doubt it. That wax would break before it bent."

"Yes, my lord. Now behave yourself, Etienne..."

"Antonio." That indulgent chuckle followed the two of them out.

Etienne could not form a cogent thought beyond No, no, no, no and Sainte Marie, Saint Francois for some time afterward. As the evening wore on, however, he managed at last to get through the prayers of the rosary, then found himself exploring the properties of his new form for sheer lack of alternatives. He found he could induce it to move slightly, very slightly, under the ribbon, but Gilbert was right about its fragility. To bend it more than a tiny fraction of an inch would break it, and he had scant desire to find out for certain whether that would hurt.

As for moving it further, off the table, for instance, that was impossible. Over the past few decades he had gotten quite handy at moving small objects with his thoughts alone, so this failure was a disturbing one. He supposed it must be the magical binding at work. Or, a far less pleasant theory: it was quite likely that Gilbert now had at his disposal not only the blood-energy of his own body back in Florence — to which he was presumably still linked, since it would be foolish of him to close off that exit — but that of Etienne's body as well. After all, the entire premise of this travesty was that Gilbert would be able to channel his powers through the unfamiliar medium of Etienne's flesh. If that sovereignty extended to Etienne's blood as well, then it followed that Etienne himself would be unable to fuel his own gifts for as long as it lasted, binding or no binding.

Once he had exhausted the all-too-limited possibilities of the mannequin, he lapsed back into idle ruminations. The Lucius suggested itself, and Dantini's letters. Neither was flawless, nor did they agree on all points. Still, they had much to recommend them: the universal logic of Aristotle, the intimate passion of Augustine, beautifully wed and applied to the very question that had haunted him ever since his own mock-resurrection. Perhaps in returning the Lucius, he could find excuse to talk to Dantini in private, find out what the Lasombra truly remembered of Avignon — and what he was still hiding about Alexander? Antonio would be suspicious, but if Etienne could bring back any fruitful information about their mystery, surely that would make up for it. Then again, perhaps it was too great a risk —

All at once a searing pain flooded the poppet, overflowing it in an instant. Twin screams pealed out from the nearby hallway. He was burning, the wax running down onto the table in scalding rivulets. The velvet ribbon crisped and curled against him, etching him deeply. He had no power to cry out, to move, nowhere to release the mounting agony; he was bound too well, a vessel without a spout. But then the ribbon cracked. Sheer terror propelled him through the fresh breach and away, snapping him back into his true flesh like an overstretched rope.

Gilbert was not here, or if he was, he was insensible. Etienne's entering soul connected only with the mute body-intelligence that had already caused limbs to recoil, his arm to cradle against his chest. This was the wellspring of the pain, this spindly blackened thing protruding from the ruins of his sleeve. It was a great effort to gasp in enough air to howl out his misery — but evidently a necessary one.

Antonio was nearly on top of him. "My lord...my lord!" he kept chattering, as he tore off his own ritual robe and tried to get it around Etienne's hand to smother the heat.

"Bugger. Son of a putrid whore. Shit-licking wizards..."

"My lord?"

"No!"

That dissipated most of the Florentine's urgency. "Well, hold still," Antonio snapped. "Let me wrap it and we'll go back to the bath...where's Gilbert?"

"In hell, I hope!" Etienne growled, then added an out-and-out shriek as Antonio's robe touched his charred skin.

A sinewy hand went over his mouth and clamped it shut. "Stop it! Do you want the whole household down here? Come on. Can you get up? Come on. Let's immerse it, it's still smoldering. Hurry!"

Every bump and jostle was excruciating. To his credit, Antonio did not dawdle in bringing Etienne back down the hall to the now-cold bath, where he unwrapped the robe, then, still heedless of his own nakedness, thoughtfully stuffed it into Etienne's mouth so that his lengthening fangs would not cut his lips and tongue to ribbons when Antonio thrust his arm into the water.

Immediately after the first exquisite shock of the thing had faded, Etienne passed out.

"What time is it?" he asked upon waking. He was on Alexander's tousled bed, his hand bound now in strips of bandaging, greased so as not to stick to the wound.

Antonio sat nearby, reading the Dantini letters. "There's a little over an hour left till dawn. I checked it just now. You've healed it up a bit in your sleep, but even we don't shrug off burns. It could be a week of extra feeding to get the full use of it back. I've sent Spinello to get another."

Another victim, he meant. Etienne looked down at the shapeless wad of cloth; in doing so, he also noticed the spatter of blood on his robe.

"It looks as though Gilbert's already had me in the larder once."

"Yes."

He lay there, acquainting himself with the huge, slow throbs of pain that emanated from the wound, and decided he did not wish to pursue this subject any further tonight. Whatever Gilbert had done was Gilbert's doing, not his.

"You're quite certain his lordship is not with you," Antonio queried anxiously.

He groped once more through the recesses of his awareness. "I certainly don't sense him, no, and I doubt he'd be easy to miss."

Antonio scrutinized him, perhaps hoping Gilbert's presence would betray itself in the set of Etienne's expression, then sighed — an unexpectedly human gesture. "I suppose I should try to invoke him...or perhaps Luchino would be a better choice. He would be the one in charge with his lordship and me both absent."

All in all, Etienne reflected, he would prefer to be in Antonio's shoes rather than his own, even if it did involve an extremely awkward report to Florence. He simply nodded.

"Just out of idle curiosity...did you get the ward open?" he asked after a moment. It would be most droll if this had all been done in vain.

"Yes. Not cleanly, I'm afraid. From what I can tell, Gilbert managed to divert some of the fire-ward's power — and a good thing, otherwise you'd be a cinder — but unfortunately, he diverted it through the door into the laboratory. It's a wreck in there. Hopefully we haven't lost anything crucial to our investigation...that would be just our sort of luck."

"Well, at least your boasts about Taliesin's prowess are proved true. The man's ward defeated the wizardry of his own superior."

"His lordship was under a handicap, working through your flesh." Antonio looked both piqued and uncomfortable; he had certainly never meant to suggest that a Regent's skill should be admired above a Lord's in such elemental matters as warding and the conduction of occult energies.

"I'm sorry indeed if it inhibited him so."

"Yes, I can imagine how sorry you are."

Antonio set the stack of letters down on his chair and went to summon whoever might be there to answer in Florence. Etienne reflected that at least Antonio could have left them on the bed, for convalescence reading, but found himself too paralyzed by anger and futility to get up and fetch them.

The Milanese Chantry, IV Id. Apr.
(April 10 — Holy Saturday)

"Be what use you can," was Antonio's exhortation the next evening, as they began to pick through the remains of Taliesin's sanctum.

"If I hadn't been so much use earlier, perhaps I could do better now," Etienne remarked.

Antonio finished running his fingertips over the great wizard's ritual robe, a threadbare rag with what might once have been the Seals of Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and the Moon embroidered on it, and passed it over to Etienne. Etienne took it in his good hand and shook it out.

"What am I to do with this mangy thing?"

"Damned if I know. Put it somewhere it won't get stepped on."

"It's been charred. Surely Taliesin didn't just leave it on the floor by the door."

"Well, if he was as bad at keeping house as Alexander..." Antonio said wryly. "But no, I daresay not. It must have been hanging on a peg, and gotten blown off."

"There is no peg by the door; they're all on that wall."

"Then perhaps it was on the table with the apparatus and vials of earths. Or what smell like they were earths, anyway. Think what it would be to be mortal and breathing these fumes. We need to find the back way out of this chantry just to ventilate it, if nothing else."

"Or perhaps the robe got burned on some other occasion," suggested Etienne.

"I'd like to think he knew enough of what he was about not to set himself on fire."

"Where would the back way out be, I wonder. I don't suppose it would start from the bedroom...that would be just as handy for one's enemies as for oneself."

"We'll see when we get in there."

"Which brings up a more essential question. How will we get in the bedroom? Luchino said Gilbert lies stricken in Florence and won't wake up —"

"I'll get in."

The finality of the declaration brought Etienne up short. Several doubtful replies arose in his mind, particularly one to do with his own involvement in such a project, but the only one he voiced was "Can you?"

"Well, I'll have to, won't I? It seems to be a simpler ward than the one on the hallway door. Besides, I could look through his notes — if they didn't get burned — try to get a better idea of how he designed his enchantments."

"Let's hope his notes weren't in this stack, then. At least the books are all right." Etienne poked morosely at a coal-black lump of parchments and papers, curled and fused together in the heat. They bore an unhappy resemblance to his poor hand. Then he went over to the far wall, where numerous books were set out on a long reading table, library-style. Taliesin had ingeniously laid down a strip of well-waxed wooden flooring and then fixed thin layers of horn to the bottom of his chair's legs, so that he could glide easily back and forth between two books without even having to get up.

"Yes. Don't touch them," Antonio admonished. "Not till I've gotten to them."

"All right, all right. I'm only looking. Clever fellow, this Steffan; have you seen his lazy man's chair over here?"

"Not yet. Are there any notes?"

"It looks like some of the books have parchments stuck in them, and this open one's been glossed pretty thoroughly."

"Ah, this must be the ritual equipment, here in this chest. I know this style of ward...what is the book?"

"The open one?"

"Yes."

Etienne glanced over it. The lettering was antique and ornate, with a number of idiosyncratic abbreviations, but he recognized it after a moment. "It's Meerlinda's commentary on the Emerald Tablet, open to the bit about places sacred to the ancient Romans. Very hard to read. One of those infernal old Merovingian hands."

"Ah. Perhaps that's why Taliesin had Alexander copy it."

"He did?"

"I found a big piece of scrap parchment in Alexander's laboratory the other night. The commentary was on the other side. Looked like he'd gone and skipped a couple lines without realizing it till he was almost finished with the page, the hapless fellow."

"Indeed. Would it be all right if I opened the other books as long as I used the robe to shield them from touch?"

"Very well. Just don't handle them any more than you must."

Antonio fell silent for a long interval while Etienne perused the books. There were so many of them, nearly as many as in Gilbert's study. Several were works by the old magi of Toledo, written in Arabic, which script Etienne could not yet read; several others were in Hebrew, which he could pronounce but understood very poorly. Even the foreign books, however, were labeled in Latin for quick-reference, so that he could at least guess at the contents.

"I've got it," Antonio exclaimed at last. "He's said the charm to this chest so many times, I caught its echo. Now if this ward was built the way it appears to have been...wish me luck." He muttered and made a gesture, then tapped on the chest seven times.

"Antonio, I think I've found his personal copy of his geomancy text."

"Good for you. — Well, that seems to have disenchanted the thing. I hope it's all right not to use the key. You haven't seen a key about, have you?"

"Not yet. The title is Sacred Geometry and the Drawing Forth of Essences and Influences? Fifteen chapters long?"

"Thirteen."

"There are fifteen chapters here."

Antonio stood up, frowning. "You must be mistaken."

"Look for yourself."

The Florentine came over to the reading table, flipped the book over onto its front cover and rifled backwards through it.

"Well, you're right. Here we are, Chapter Fourteen...Chapter Fifteen...How odd. I never read these."

"Perhaps he's been adding to the book. Revising it?"

"It is an old Hermetic text." Antonio tapped the page. "Yes, that would explain it. Maybe Fortune is with us after all. This is exactly the sort of thing to help me get past the other ward — and to better study the occult geometry here and at Domenici's. All posthumous honor to the old wizard for writing it down. I shall gain more from him than his own pupil likely bothered to."

"Yes, of course, Antonio," Etienne said, more sharply than he should have. Quite apart from the pain of the burn, having to fumble with his left hand for everything had him in a bad humor. That Antonio seemed to feel Alexander's death was of little consequence, simply because the lad had evidently been a halfhearted student, grated even more. "But what explains what? Why shouldn't these chapters have been in the text you memorized?"

"Because the work was made famous centuries ago, before the Great Experiment."

"So I've gathered."

"Don't be dense. Everything changed after that. The lessons in this book were originally meant for mortals. Gilbert had to teach me how to fit them to our arts. No doubt Taliesin had to do the same for himself. Look: both of the new chapters are about using blood to ignite the enchantments."

"Yes, I see that. But why didn't he circulate the new chapters to his vampire colleagues just as he circulated the original to his human ones? Surely it'd be appreciated."

"Perhaps he wasn't yet sure of all his conclusions, or perhaps he was refining them." Antonio skimmed a finger over the squirming calligraphy. "It's taken some of the old magi decades, centuries to relearn what they knew in a manner suited to their new form."

"Or perhaps he was simply jealous of his secrets."

"That, too, is possible." He turned a page. "Our Oath asks of us that we freely share knowledge. Still, I imagine the temptation to withhold can be strong...especially when that knowledge was hard-earned by long, lonely labor."

"Something else bothers me." Etienne had returned his attention to the other volumes.

"You're always looking for something to be bothered about." Antonio glanced at Etienne's lump of a hand. "What is it now?"

"Look at the titles. Does anything strike you about the collection overall?"

Antonio spent several moments lifting up covers and peering, then answered, "Only that I'd give my fangs to own it."

Etienne gave his brother a token smile. "Yes, but past that."

"No. It's all just the sort of thing I would have expected to find in an elder magus' library."

"That's precisely the point."

"Now you're trying to sound superior."

Etienne slammed his good hand down on the table. It felt strangely pleasant: the sting on his skin and the impact travelling up his arm, uninjured flesh reacting as it should. "Damn it, I'm not — I — I wouldn't think of sounding superior. Just look again, please. I've spent a goodly portion of my existence in libraries, Antonio. The books always reflect the man."

Antonio glared at that, then quickly recovered himself. He walked up and down the reading table, touching each book for its spirit-traces, but evidently the second examination was giving him scant more than the first. "You're saying these do not reflect him...what you remember of him? I did ask you to tell me all you knew."

"They don't reflect anyone. It's just as you said — they're all valuable, to be sure, and some must be quite rare indeed — but where are the pet subjects, the minutiae, the ridiculously obscure arcana? Think about Gilbert. Think of all the bizarre things he's collected over the years. Not just books of magic, not even just books. This room should be overflowing with all sorts of surprises, and it isn't. Except for this." He pushed the chair; it coasted over to Antonio.

"Well. That's true, of course...but I expect there'll be more in the bedroom," Antonio returned, nonplussed.

"That's where he slept, not where he worked. He's not going to have another library in there."

"Perhaps not. Still, we'll have a look. Perhaps he was a private sort of man and liked to keep his hobbies to himself. Alexander certainly hid enough from him." Antonio grumbled as he sat down in the chair Etienne had conveniently provided and pulled Taliesin's geomancy book closer. "It'll take hours to digest these chapters, and likely hours more to get through the ward."

"The dawn will have caught you out by then. Don't forget we have engagements tomorrow."

"I said I'd go to the Mass — I'll go to the blasted thing."

"But what about court beforehand?" Etienne asked. An invitation had arrived earlier that evening, bearing the seal and signature of Lady Isabella, Ercole's consort — implying a less stiff, less statesmanlike, probably much more enjoyable, gathering than the other night's formalities.

"Court, who cares about court! You can go if you like, and make my excuses. It was a last-minute invitation, after all. Say I'm onto something in our investigation. See how they react."

Etienne's spirits rose immediately. Well, that was even better. He would be free to ply his charms without interference; the only real bother would be explaining (or, more to the point, not explaining) his hand. Perhaps he could even heal it enough to get a glove on it and thus avoid the issue altogether.

"Probably they won't react at all. I expect they'll simply wonder in silence what wickedness you're up to," he said mildly.

Antonio glanced back at him, lips pursed into a sour expression.

"I expect you're probably right."

Il Palazzo de Hauteville, III Id. Apr.
(April 11 — Easter)

"We are so pleased you could come, Messere." Although Isabella apparently did not enjoy the honor of co-regency — Ercole alone had ever been addressed as "Highness" in Etienne's hearing — she did not hesitate to assume the ruler's pronoun of we. Then again, perhaps she merely meant herself and her other guests.

In either case, Etienne did not begrudge her. She had a smile radiant enough to make the most empty pleasantry flattering. Her teeth were small, white, and perfect; even his experienced eye could not tell her dormant fangs for what they were.

Etienne rose at her gesture. "An honor I hardly deserve, your most illustrious and gracious ladyship; and a delight I had not thought to hope for, to linger among this noble company even a brief while."

Off to her left and out of her sight, Benedio Brandini passed a glance to the young dark-haired courtier whose face was among those Etienne recognized from the other night.

"Nonsense, Messere. I see that you are fair of speech. You cannot be that much a stranger to noble company." It was a token rebuke; anyone of Etienne's rank owed her the flattery. "Moreover, tonight it is we who are in your service. We are all going to attend the Mass Monsignor Dantini has so thoughtfully arranged on your brothers' behalf. He is invoking God Himself to your aid. Surely the least we can do is escort you there and join our voices with his in prayer."

"I have indeed prayed in solitude for the souls of my brothers, madame," Etienne replied seriously, and it was true, even if he did think God rather unlikely to exert Himself answering a vampire's pleas for another vampire. "To know that I am not alone in my prayers heartens me greatly, and I do hope the Almighty smiles on our efforts."

"Indeed, Messere. You have not, I think, been introduced to our companions yet, with the exception of Signor Brandini."

"Signore." Etienne bowed toward Benedio in respectful recognition. It was returned decorously enough. "No, your ladyship, I regret I have not."

"Then you will no doubt permit me to do so." She raised a jewelled hand and gestured to her right. "Signor Marius Della Torre dell' Aquila, Clan Lasombra..."

It was the dark-haired courtier, named at last — less resplendent than he had been previously, perhaps out of religious humility; but no less graceful in his carriage. He and Etienne exchanged bows. His eyes, struck by the torchlight, were not actually black as Etienne had thought them, but rain-grey. The sword at his side was of the lighter modern type, hung at the fashionable angle, and had a handsome scabbard. Etienne wondered how well he could use it. He seemed quite accustomed to managing it and the cloak together, at any rate. This, then, was Contessa Alianora dell' Aquila's younger childe, Dantini's 'brother' — the one who, Florentine elders liked to imply, still coveted the family throne that Ercole now held.

"Messer Tremere," murmured Della Torre. Isabella hastened to correct him.

"Messer Etienne de...de Florence, shall we say?" Her ladyship looked at Etienne kindly, curiously. Would he provide a proper surname? Many vampires did not — but just as many proudly did, and decried everyone else as obvious commoners. He had a sudden, unexpected ache of the spirit. He was no more born a Florentine than a Tremere. Yet how could he name his father and the quiet, verdant land that had cradled him now, to these people?

"That will do excellently, your ladyship — although Etienne of Tremere is certainly no less accurate, I am proud to be called Florentine." He offered a wary nod to Della Torre. The man's expression was hard to read — cool and, Etienne sensed, no deeper than the skin that formed it.

"Then Signor Rucellai is indeed your countryman, and yet he tells us you have never met. Signor Cecco Rucellai, Clan Ventrue, our resident Florentine ambassador." At her mention, a second gentleman came forward. This one appeared a few years older than Della Torre, a well-made man with wavy chestnut hair. Rucellai, now: that was a name Etienne had dwelt in Tuscany more than long enough to recognize.

Signor Cecco smiled. "My sojourn in Milan has been delightful," he said jovially, "but rather extended. You must consent to come and give me all the gossip, Messere. I so hunger for tidings of my beloved patria."

"I would consider it an honor, Signore," Etienne replied. "It has not yet been my fortune to make the acquaintance of one of the illustrious Rucellai...I am as happy to remedy that as I am to meet a fellow-citizen so far abroad."

"Fair of speech, indeed," the ambassador chuckled. "I'm but a twig on a vast family tree, Messere. But I'll allow it's a sturdier trunk than most that supports me, so I don't suppose I can complain."

"And the ladies," Isabella went on. "The Doña Teresa de Leon, Clan Lasombra."

It was the tall, lovely woman in mourning-dress that answered this summons. "Messere." Her voice was lower than Etienne had expected, but beguiling all the same, the Spanish s punctuating the otherwise smooth-flowing Italian most pleasantly, like a dash of spice in soup.

"Doña. A great honor and pleasure indeed." Etienne would have liked to say more. Something roused the desire in him to amuse her — to see if his wit could make that demure mouth open in husky laughter. He only needed the opportunity; even in mortal days, burdened by cassock, ring, and middle age all at once, he had been able to make young ladies forget their manners when he wished. But Isabella was not finished.

"And Signorina Elisabetta Bossi, Signor Brandini's sister in the Blood."

Elisabetta did not quite appear the youngest (Benedio actually held that honor), but since Isabella had left her for last, she probably was. She curtsied daintily. Her face was cherubic like her brother's; her fair hair, unlike his, a little too bronze to be natural, but exquisitely coiffed and netted with fine gold chain. "Messere."

"Most enchanted, Signorina."

Isabella bade Etienne sit then, and things progressed into the gracious little activities of an informal company with a bit of time to pass: Benedio and Cecco started up a game of backgammon, Doña Teresa took out her sewing, and the remainder circled Isabella's chair for conversation. The salon opened directly onto a vast second-story loggia, which brought in cool evening air and scents from the garden.

"It is so rare to see a new face in court, Messere," Elisabetta broke in at one point.

"That is the disadvantage of belonging to a society of immortals, Signorina," Etienne replied. "You'd think we'd travel more often, but it seems the more time we have, the less we feel compelled to do with it. At least that's my theory."

She laughed and clapped her hands. "Yes, that must be it. Are you a wizard, Messere, like Messer Taliesin? Or Droga? Perhaps you could show us some magic. The only magic I've ever seen is Petrucchio's disappearing act, and that gets so old."

Etienne felt Della Torre's eyes on him at once, questioning. He ignored them as best he could. "Ah, then our Regent never conjured for you, Signorina? A pity...though I understand he was hardly a man of the court. But this Droga, is that the Prince's astrologer? Is he truly a magician as well?"

"He's always saying he is, but he refuses to do any tricks. He just putters with his charts and books and orreries all night. Petrucchio does a rather humorous imitation of him. Could you conjure a rose, perhaps? A real, live rose?"

"Alas, mademoiselle, you find me near the beginning of my occult studies," Etienne shrugged, then added, "I'm sure my brother Antonio could do better, but you would have to get him in the mood for it somehow."

"He's probably no more fun than the old one." She sighed. "What good is it being a wizard if you never perform for anyone?"

"You're trying to get milk from bulls, Elisabetta, if you will excuse the phrase..." said Della Torre. "Nothing I've heard about Tremere magic so far sounds terribly amusing. Mysterious, yes, and powerful. I am sure Messer Etienne has better things to do with his arts than entertain us."

"Right now I can't think of a thing," Etienne said with all due gaiety. "If I had any tricks I thought would amuse, I wouldn't hesitate."

"This is the night of Our Lord's resurrection," came Doña Teresa's soft, accented voice. Her black eyes were fixed on the stitches in her embroidery frame. "And a night of remembrance for those who are lost...perhaps it is better if we do not worry unduly about amusing ourselves. Let Messer Etienne keep his thoughts with his task and his prayers."

"The Doña is always scolding," Elisabetta complained.

"Is there any word on your brothers, Messere?" Della Torre asked.

Etienne hesitated. Silence fell; Cecco and Benedio stopped chatting over their game.

"Our investigation has just begun," he said at last. "But everything we see, everything we find out is a vital clue, Signore. We have only to piece them together. Indeed, I can assure you that my brother Antonio would never have declined our noble hostess' generous invitation if it were not absolutely necessary."

"But he is planning to attend the Mass," Isabella queried.

"Yes, your ladyship. He believed he could get away by then." Etienne let the faintest note of uncertainty creep into his voice. Not that it was at all unwarranted. When he had left the chantry that evening, Antonio was alternately daubing blood in various patterns around the ward and feverishly consulting Taliesin's notes, muttering like a lunatic all the while. Hopefully he had not set off any more booby-traps, or else their mission could come to a most premature end.

"Good, good; that is, after all, the important thing." Etienne's hostess let his dubiety pass without comment, but it would be foolish to think she had not noticed. For just a moment, she sounded more like her husband than the nymph-queen of his spring court. A mortal lady-in-waiting scurried into the salon and whispered in her ear.

"The horses are readied," Isabella announced, and stood. All present rose to their feet immediately. "We have word that Signor Vincenzo and the Contessa will be meeting us at the church."

As Etienne offered an arm to Elisabetta, who had requested it with a glance, he caught a different sort of look from the ambassador, Signor Cecco — puzzlement? Or merely the hope of catching Etienne's reaction to the mention of Alianora dell' Aquila? If so, he was bound to be disappointed. Pretending never to be surprised at anything was a courtier's first art, and Etienne had learned it many years hence.

Outside, in the courtyard, he provided a thoroughly unnecessary hand for Elisabetta to mount her horse by (the scabs under his glove crackling and screaming in protest, forcing him to grit his teeth behind taut lips) — to his relief, she swung up light and swift like an expert horsewoman and flashed him a grin, spurring her mount away to the gate. Another horse was revealed by her departure, a fine-boned Arabian mare outfitted in unfamiliar livery of black, gold, and green. He turned; the Doña Teresa was there, wearing a look of uncertainty to match his own.

She recovered herself quickly. "Messere."

"Doña." He gave her a low bow. "I beg you to bestow me the honor..."

She nodded and allowed him to assist her up as well. She, too, had a huntress' grace even in her heavy black skirts. Perhaps it was a pastime of Isabella's, and all her ladies had become adept. No doubt he was indulging in wishful thinking, but it seemed to him that she let her gloved hand rest in his for just a moment longer than required; she studied him speculatively, as though she were thinking of a question to ask and how to phrase it. But then she raised her glance to something behind him, murmured "Thank you, Messere," and rode off.

What had she been looking at? Etienne turned again and saw Della Torre on his mount — another Arabian, a stallion.

"Your steed is over there, Messer Tremere," Della Torre informed him, indicating the other end of the courtyard with a little jerk of his head.

"So it is, Signore," Etienne agreed, and went to collect it.