Starling Read Online Free PDF

separated from its blood will turn hard
and gray, like the cold marble of a statue.” —THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE
f ive
    C
    ass hurried through the throng and ducked into an
alley, her skirts catching on the rough stucco buildings
as she walked briskly past. If she couldn’t get back to
San Domenico, then she knew where she had to go. She
ought to find Luca first, but her curiosity, her need to be sure of her
    suspicions, kept her racing ahead through the twisting, narrow alleys.
Keeping to the back streets, she tried to quell her anxiety as she
skirted the piles of trash and rotting food that littered the cobblestones.
    Finally Cass emerged from the twisted network of alleys upon a
block of private residences that backed up to a small canal. She stood
on one side of the water.
    On the other loomed Palazzo Viaro.
Between them, the Conjurer’s Bridge.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, and a chill crept up Cass’s
    spine. A courtesan, completely drained of her blood. She stared down
at the canal, imagining blood, imagining the pale, lifeless body of a
courtesan floating in the mire. She could almost see the girl, her milk
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pale skin going gray from the murky water, her eyes staring vacantly
upward, the image of her murderer forever locked inside her brain.
    For a second, Cass fought the overwhelming impulse to turn back.
She couldn’t cross the bridge. She couldn’t. Her fingers started to
shake, and she took one tiny step backward.
    And then she thought of Luca.
Of Siena.
Of her parents.
Turning back would mean failing everyone. Once, she had been
    weak, a frightened girl who clung to Falco for protection from a
nameless killer. But she wasn’t that girl anymore. She was strong and
smart and brave. She had broken into the Doge’s dungeons to rescue
Luca. She had swum across the Giudecca Canal in the dead of night
and then spent days hiding out in a stranger’s shed while all of Venice
was searching for her. She wouldn’t fail now—not when she had a clue
that might reveal the Order’s whereabouts.
    Thinking again of the Order caused rage to wash over Cass’s fear,
strengthening her resolve as she looked upward from beneath her
hood. Palazzo Viaro was larger than the other homes nearby, its gray
walls and carved overhangs nearly swallowing up the smaller homes
on either side. She didn’t know much about the Viaro family, only
that the parents and the children had all died of plague. For a while
afterward, a distant relative from outside of Venice had spent time in
the palazzo, but it seemed he was gone now too. Perhaps back to
wherever he came from.
Perhaps murdered.
    Cass forced herself to look at the canal again. All she saw was her
own reflection, distorted so that she looked long and drawn out, so
    thin that a stiff breeze might snap her right in two. She pushed forward, striding toward the Conjurer’s Bridge with determination.
    The street was bare except for bits of trash twisting across the
cobblestones. A handbill posted on the adjacent building made a
scratching sound as it rippled and curled in the breeze. Thunder
rumbled again.
    Gargoyles looked down at her from Palazzo Viaro’s rooftop.
Blackness peeked out from behind a pair of broken shutters high
above her head. Cass crept around the side of the palazzo, her hood
low, her heart pounding. The shutters here were all tightly closed,
making it impossible to see or hear if anyone was moving around
inside the building.
    She continued to the back of the house. The tiny courtyard was
empty except for a single stone bench and a small statue of Jesus. The
whole area was overrun with weeds and liana. Another set of broken
shutters offered Cass her first glimpse inside the palazzo. She cleared
a spot on the dusty glass with the sleeve of her cloak and peered into
the darkness.
    She could barely distinguish the outline of a table and counter—it
was Palazzo Viaro’s kitchen. The back door was secured with a
heavy