Hey, what happened to that guy you had a crush on? I can’t remember his name. Did you ever ask him out?

Let’s talk soon.

Love,

Cara

XO

Raven sat back from her computer, resisting the urge to send a terse and angry reply.

She loved her sister more than anyone, but they had lived radically different lives. Carolyn was seven years younger, so she didn’t remember their father or the happy life they’d had as a family living in New Hampshire. She certainly didn’t remember the accident.

Raven took a moment to muse on the way her mind always attached a euphemism to the event that had disabled her. She flexed her feet beneath the desk, reminding herself that whatever she called it, its effects had disappeared. That fact alone made her more positively disposed to her mother, but barely.

When Carolyn was old enough, Raven had told her what had happened. Carolyn, to her credit, had listened carefully. But her memories were so at odds with Raven’s account, she had trouble believing it.

On one level, Raven viewed Carolyn’s lack of memory as a good thing, so she didn’t revisit the subject. She remained silent, even in the face of their mother’s revisionist history.

But she refused to see her mother, speak with her, or be in the same room as her until she acknowledged the truth. Which meant she hadn’t seen her mother since she’d left home for college over ten years earlier.

As for Carolyn’s question about her old crush on Bruno, who was her neighbor’s grandson, well, of course it had come to nothing. She’d almost forgotten about it, and him, given the previous day’s events.

Hi Cara,

It’s good to hear from you.

I’ll think about coming to Miami, but if I do, I’ll pay my own way. I won’t be seeing Mom. She knows why. There’s no point in getting into it.

As for your visit, it would be great to see you. But things are really busy at the moment. Let’s talk later about this, okay? I’m swamped at work.

I love you,

Rave

Raven sent the e-mail and closed her laptop, not bothering to scroll through the rest of her in-box.

She walked to the bathroom, putting thoughts of her troubled family life aside.

She wondered why some unnamed group would take an interest in her. She wasn’t going to abandon everything she’d worked so hard for, just because a mysterious criminal with connections to a secret association told her to leave the city.

She bristled as she remembered what the intruder had said about her sleuthing skills. She was going to redouble her efforts at investigating William York and the Palazzo Riccardi and, hopefully, find something that would convince the police she was not an accomplice to the Uffizi robbery.

As she brushed her teeth, she began formulating a plan. She’d stuff the euros in a shoe box for now, then donate the money to the Franciscan mission.

She spat out her toothpaste and gazed at her appearance. It was still difficult to accept that the attractive woman staring back at her from the mirror was real.

Her gaze dropped to the relic around her neck. She was going to have to hide it under her clothes.

She muttered a few choice expletives and went to get dressed.

Chapter Twelve

“I’m telling you, the time is now!” Maximilian raised his voice, his imposing figure moving forward in the predawn darkness.

He and his companion stood high atop the Palazzo Vecchio, arguing. His interlocutor lifted a hand to stay him.

“Patience.”

“We’ve been patient enough. I say we kill him tonight.”

His companion sighed dramatically. “Have you learned nothing from the Venetians? It will take more than us to fell him, particularly if one of the others is with him.”

Maximilian drew his sword. “We aren’t exactly young. Who’s to say the others will defend him? They’re probably just as eager as we to seize control.”

“Precisely why we must be confident in our alliances. Now is not the time for haste, particularly when you’re in danger of losing your temper. It makes you reckless, Max, and that is something you cannot be when dealing with the Prince. He’s more powerful than you can imagine.”

Max cursed, swinging his broadsword through the air. “I disagree.”

“Then you’re a fool. Even I don’t know the full extent of his power. I’m not about to find out only to lose my head.”

“Must we wait until his thousand years have expired?”

“Don’t be pessimistic. I made a mistake colluding with the Venetians. Now I’m cultivating other, stronger partners. And there’s always the ferals and the hunters.”

Max sheathed his sword. “Now you’re talking nonsense. Ferals can’t be controlled. And why would you want to work with the hunters?”

His companion smiled slowly.

“The Prince is old. The hunters would be only too glad to have his blood. They’d probably sign a treaty to leave the city alone if we were to deliver him up to them.

“Our borders have been somewhat porous recently. If a pack of ferals were to appear, they would wreak havoc. The Consilium will hold the Prince responsible. Not to mention that our noble prince has made a few errors recently—errors that threaten to expose him.”

Max rested his large paw on the hilt of his sword. “The Consilium is riddled with his allies.”

“And his rivals. They know his reign won’t last forever. All they lack is a leader who is willing to depose him, and a little motivation.

“Be patient, Max. The city will be ours soon enough.”

Chapter Thirteen

Raven sighed as she sat at a computer terminal in the archives of the Uffizi Gallery. She’d been demoted.

Professor Urbano had welcomed her back after her weeklong absence, but he hadn’t allowed her to continue her work conserving the Birth of Venus. Perhaps this was his way of exercising his skepticism about her appearance, despite the fact that her fingerprints had been verified.

Yesterday, she’d been relegated to errand runner, while on this day, she’d been sent to the head archivist and told to follow her instructions. Someone else was sitting in her chair in the restoration lab, holding her brushes and carefully covering part of the surface of Botticelli’s masterpiece with protective varnish.

Professor Urbano assured her she would be the one to apply the second and third coatings after Anja Pahlsmeier, a postdoc from Berlin, had completed the first. He was unwilling to interrupt the work she’d begun in Raven’s absence. Or so he said.

Raven tried very hard not to be resentful, and failed.

The head archivist tasked her with organizing the printed and digital scientific reports the restoration team had done on the Birth of Venus. Then she was supposed to scan the printed reports and send all the digital files to Patrick, so he could input them into the archives’ database.

The archivist had instructed Raven to familiarize herself with the files on the restoration of Primavera and to organize the new files in the same way. Raven was scrolling through the radiographs of Primavera, when she noticed something.

Radiographs are photographs taken by an X-ray machine, and they reveal details about a painting that aren’t visible to the naked eye. In this case, Raven’s attention was drawn to the radiographs that revealed the pentimenti, or outlines of the various figures Botticelli had drawn before he began to paint.

When she enlarged the radiograph of the figure of Mercury, she noticed something surprising. Originally, Botticelli had sketched him with shorter hair.

Raven had spent a lot of her own time studying Primavera and its restoration before she began working on the Birth of Venus. No one had ever commented on this particular change in Mercury’s appearance or why Botticelli had lengthened his hair.