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Enzo untucked Fiore’s shirt from his trouser-waist—which provoked a heartbreaking choked-off cry from Fiore.
“Steady,” Enzo echoed. He gathered his courage and drew up Fiore’s shirt-front.
There, beneath the crusted crimson smears over bone-white skin, lay two distinct punctures. One just above and to the left of the navel, the other below and to its right. Both spilled over with every frightful breath that escaped Fiore.
Enzo shoved down his rising alarm. He replaced the shirt and Fiore’s wounded hand over it.
“Hold on,” he bid him, and with a final draw, brought him whole out of the crevasse.
Fiore gave a sharp inhale but did not cry out. Enzo didn’t know if that meant the movement hadn’t pained him overmuch, or if he no longer had the strength to give voice to his pain. He cradled Fiore in his arms regardless. Fiore curled in on himself, fitting into his grasp as if he were molded for Enzo’s embrace.
Enzo stood. Fiore cast his dark and haunted eyes up to meet his gaze. Their depths shone bright with fever. Then they closed with a shuddering sigh as Fiore turned his head and buried his face in Enzo’s collar.
~
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The near-silent ride out of the catacombs and through the city’s canals seemed to last eons. The gentle lapping of water against the sandolo’s hull seemed deafening compared to the soft shuddering breaths that emerged from Fiore. Enzo attuned his ears to them as he cradled Fiore in his arms. He’d wrapped his cloak over him to shield him from the cold and imbue him with some of his own warmth, but still Fiore remained icy pale. The dark and beautiful eyes Enzo loved so well hadn’t opened since they left the catacombs. Now and again a half-mumbled whimper escaped Fiore’s lips, which had gone from a deep and dusky rose to parchment-pale. Each pained sound sent another knife into Enzo’s heart.
“Nearly there,” Enzo murmured, idly stroking the dark curls which sweat had plastered to Fiore’s brow.
Fiore didn’t seem to hear him.
Soon afterward—though not nearly soon enough for Enzo’s liking—they turned a corner on the Grand Canal and drew within sight of a particular entryway, the lamp suspended from the highest point of its rounded arch casting a warm glow down over the scales carved into its pillars and reflecting shimmering, slithering lines of light off the water against its own domed ceiling. They had arrived at Ca’ Scaevola.
The sandolo slipped beneath the arch into the water-story. A corridor of water ran under the palazzo and allowed the sandolo to withdraw into the shelter of the warehouse. Doors to storehouses of merchandise lined either side of the watery corridor. Ahead lay the sweeping cascade of the stair leading up into the house proper. More lamps burned within, casting the same watery reflections up onto the vaulted ceiling. Every splash, no matter how minor, echoed off the surrounding marble; yet still Enzo kept his ears attuned to the weak hiss of Fiore’s labored breaths.
Ferruzzi leapt ahead and darted up the steps to alert the household while Canello and Zanetta secured the craft. Noise erupted from every corner, echoing throughout the marble edifice as staff flew through the halls. Enzo disembarked with Fiore and carried him upstairs in silence. His slender weight felt as delicate as a bird in his arms.
Enzo wanted to bear him up to his bedchamber where he might lay in comfort. Instead he brought him to the kitchen, where all but the cook had cleared out, and the bare table in the midst of the room still steamed from the cauldron of scalding-hot water flung over its wooden boards.
Dr. Venier and Dr. Malvestio awaited him there, their instruments already set out on the counter. Enzo returned their greetings with a bare nod and laid Fiore down on the table. The cook passed him a clean towel to cushion Fiore’s head. His already small and slight form appeared still more fragile and frail compared to the enormous length of the table. A pang of reluctance struck Enzo’s already-bleeding heart as he let his arms slip out from beneath Fiore’s body.
“You may leave us,” Dr Venier told him as he straightened.
Enzo served her a blank look. To leave his Fiore’s side now was unthinkable.
Dr Venier stood firm. “The risk of infection is high enough already, given where you dredged him up.”
“I can help,” Enzo protested. Though he hadn’t attained his degree, he’d come near enough to make him a competent nurse at the very least.
Dr Venier held his gaze with a hard stare. “Can you?”
Enzo knew not what she meant by it. He’d opened his mouth to demand an explanation when a soft whimper resounded like a thunderclap in his ears. He whipped his head ‘round to see Fiore still laid out on the bed, pale and trembling, with Dr. Malvestio delicately drawing up his shirt to reveal the two crimson punctures in the scarlet-smeared hollow of his stark-white sunken belly.
Enzo had anatomized at least a dozen corpses by his own hand at university. He’d watched the dissection of a hundred more. In the dueling society, he’d spilled blood from scores of his fellow students.
Yet to see those crimson punctures in Fiore’s pale flesh staggered him.
He thought of taking a scalpel to their corners to open the wounds up far enough to repair the damaged organ deeper within. He imagined piercing his entrails with needle and thread over and over to suture the ragged edges back together. He envisioned how Fiore’s flesh would recoil from the sting of carbolic acid spray. It sorely tried his nerves—but he’d stuck by Fiore throughout his appendectomy, and even if he couldn’t hold the scalpel or needle himself, he could at least do something. He turned to Dr Venier.
But before he could speak, a maid appeared in the kitchen doorway.
“Begging your pardon, m’lord,” she said, her eyes wide at his evident impatience for her interruption. She ducked her head in a curtsey. “The prince would speak with you.”
Enzo stared at her in disbelief. “Tell her to wait.”
The stunned silence that greeted his command did not dissuade his course. He couldn’t read the chirurgeons’ faces beneath their masks, but both their beaks turned in his direction. The cook raised her brows, which was more animation than Enzo had seen in her countenance in all his days. And the maid, poor girl, looked frankly terrified. Enzo didn’t envy her position—caught between a duke and a prince—but nor did he let it sway him. On another night compassion might have moved him. Tonight he had none to spare and held her gaze until she fled the room.
