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fully opening her eyes, and the boy smiled.
    “ Zio ,” the boy said, turning away, “ zio, sveglia .”
    Blinking again, Jess turned from the boy and looked around her at rough-hewn rock walls adorned with finely detailed hanging tapestries. Twenty feet overhead, large wooden beams supported a ceiling of terracotta tiles, and a huge dark wood chandelier hung down from there, almost to head height. Sitting upright, she found herself surrounded by a sea of brightly colored pillows. A man sat on the foot of the bed, by her left leg, while two other men stood at a distance in the corner of the room. The small boy retreated and pulled on the man’s arm.
    The man at the foot of her bed looked familiar, his long black hair pulled back in a ponytail over broad shoulders and his face square-jawed with a scar above his left eye. “ Signora , how are you…?” Leaning forward, he touched her leg.
    “Don’t touch me!” Jess yelled, recoiling and pulling her left leg away from him. “Get away from me.” She pushed pillows to cover her leg. She still wore her jeans and sneakers, with her hoodie on top.
    The man withdrew in haste. “I am sorry, I didn’t mean—”
    “Jessica, are you okay? You were out for a few minutes, gave us a scare.” Her mother’s voice echoed from a hallway, and an instant later Celeste appeared through the bedroom door, rushing to Jess’s side. “This is Baron Ruspoli. You remember, from the museum tour?”
    That’s righ t, the castle museum tour. Her mind was still foggy, a dull ache behind her eyes, with the metallic tang of blood in her pasty mouth. A breeze from open windows pulled freshness into the musty room. Jess closed her eyes, drawing her body together. The tour. The police. She opened her eyes in panic, trying to focus on the two men in the corner of the room.
    “Please, call me Giovanni.” The Baron stood but hovered over her, the boy clinging to his side.
    The boy. Hector , Jess remembered. The Baron’s son.
    Jess craned her neck to one side to look out of the half-open door to the room leading into the hallway. No one else out there. She looked back at the two men in the corner of the room. They didn’t look like police. “Mom, are—”
    “Everything is fine, Jessica.” Celeste sat beside her. “Calm down. You took a nasty spill.”
    “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” added Baron Giovanni, taking a step back.
    “Where are we?” she asked her mother. This wasn’t their room. They were supposed to stay one night here, in a small cottage at the side of the castle; part of the whirlwind “castles in Chianti” mini-tour Jess had organized.
    “I hope you don’t mind, but I moved you into our private quarters,” Giovanni said. “This is a room in the main tower of the castle. The doctor is on his way.” Giovanni slipped his hands into his pockets and took another step back while clearing his throat. “Your mother said it would be all right.”
    So I’m in a castle tower . It sounded like a prison. Jess pushed her arms down to sit higher, and pain shot through her head. Reaching one hand up, she felt a goose egg on the side of her head. Tender.
    “Nico and Leone saved you,” Celeste said, her voice low and soothing, motioning to the two men standing behind Baron Giovanni.
    One of the men, the younger one, waved a tiny salute. It was Nico, their tour guide from earlier. Where the Baron had rugged good looks, Nico had more of a boyish charm—tousled brown hair pulled back to one side, a carefully groomed beard of two-day-old stubble on a slender, smiling face that radiated warmth. Jess smiled back.
    The other person was the old man who had poked his head into the museum, the one with white fly-away hair over the deeply tanned scalp. He’d announced the police at the gate. The pipe still in his mouth, he narrowed his eyes and nodded at Jess.
    “You would have fallen right off the ledge, twenty feet at least.” Celeste added, “They might