three crosses emblazoned on it—
An abbot of the Servants? But who? I don’t recognize him—
A woman in the habit of a nun of the Servants.
Whose eyes were—lifeless. Then something looked out of them.
At him. And saw him. And knew him!
And last, before he could react to that flicker of malevolent recognition, the darkened canal, with something swimming below the surface.
He bent nearer, closer to the water, trying to make out what it was.
It was coming out.
It sent one clawed hand, then another, to fasten into the stones of the canalside. Then it heaved itself up out of the water faster than a striking adder, and it turned, and it looked at him!
He screamed, and involuntarily thrashed at the water, breaking the spell. Just in time.
One moment more, and it would have been through the water-mirror, meant only for scrying, and at his throat, feeding on his life.
And his soul.
Reflexively, Luciano called up all of his defenses until he lay, panting, within a cocoon of power. Oh, anyone looking would See him now—but it didn’t matter. Not after that. They knew he was out here, and it wouldn’t take long for them to find him. How many undines would die protecting him?
For a very long time he couldn’t think, he could only sit and shiver with fear that turned his bowels to water. As the moon climbed higher in the sky, he sat, and shook, and even wept unashamedly.
Not to me! This can’t come to me! I’m too old, too tired—
But on his shoulders rested the Winged Mantle. He felt it, though it was invisible. There was no one else. Marco was untrained and unaware and could not take the Mantle in any case until Chiano was dead. The Mantle had come to him on the death of his ­predecessor—irony of ironies, it had been a little Hypatian priest-mage, out of a bastard branch of one of the four Old Families, and not one of the Strega.
No, Chiano was the bearer, for the good of Venice. If there had been anyone in all of Venice fit to wear it, it would have gone to him, or her, the moment his body hit the water, senseless, and he would have died. Extraordinary measures had been taken to ensure that he did not. Marco no doubt had the Mark, even then, but he hadn’t the training, had no one to