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Enzo jerked his head up and whirled toward the voice. He found one of the footmen standing on the threshold, with Carlotta awaiting just behind him.
“Alvise,” said Enzo. He picked up the note and, still cradling Fiore’s finger in his other hand, approached the footman. He held out the note for his inspection, flipping it over to show its back as well. “Did you receive this package?”
Alvise nodded with furrowed brow.
Enzo showed him Fiore’s finger.
Alvise paled, but to his credit, he did not balk.
“Who delivered it?” Enzo enquired. The effort he made not to shout forced his tone into something low and cold.
Alvise likewise limited his expression of alarm in a mere widening of the eyes. “A messenger.”
“In what livery?”
“None.”
Enzo’s patience wore thin. “What did they wear, then? What color? What cut? Their hair, their height, their stance—anything. Now.”
Alvise swallowed hard. “He seemed like any other errand-runner. Freelance. Nothing he wore particularly fine or particularly ragged. About middling height.”
“Young or old?”
“Middling aged as well, I’d suppose.”
Enzo appreciated his efforts regardless of what little fruit they bore. “And his face?”
Alvise winced with a helpless half-shrug. “Forgive me, m’lord. I didn’t think anything of the matter at the time…”
Enzo understood despite his disappointment. “Would you know him if you saw him again?”
Alvise nodded almost before Enzo had finished speaking, doubtless eager to do anything to allay Enzo’s fabled wrath. While Enzo had never shouted at the staff, much less struck them, the reputation of one who’d dueled a fellow university student nearly to the death proved difficult to overcome.
And so Enzo withheld his considerable frustration. “Thank you. You may go.”
An almost-silent sigh of relief escaped Alvise. He bowed and departed.
Carlotta remained.
“I suppose the prince will wish to hear of this,” said Enzo, bitterness seeping into his words. “But I have some tasks for you before you inform her.”
Carlotta acknowledged this with a deep nod.
“I require one hundred zecchini from the vaults. Send for Dr. Venier and Dr. Malvestio. And summon Zanetta, Ferruzzi, and Canello to me.”
Whatever Carlotta thought of the demand for gold, chirurgeons, and three members of the household guard, she kept to herself as she bowed and withdrew.
Enzo shut the door after her. Now was the time to preserve the finger as a wet specimen. To keep it safe and secure. To set it aside at last and turn his mind over to the matter of readying himself to unleash his fury on those who’d dared touch his Fiore.
And still he could not do it.
He continued to stare down at the pale slender fragment of Fiore in his palm. What horrors was he enduring even now? What else had his captors done to him in the precious minutes—or, Bellenos forefend, hours—since they’d mutilated him? Did he know Enzo would come for him, or did he think himself abandoned? Whatever Enzo himself suffered, Fiore’s agonies must be a hundredfold.
Enzo’s fist closed gently around Fiore’s finger. Then, as his instincts bid him, he slipped it into his waistcoat pocket, just over his heart.
~
The throbbing agony in Fiore’s hand almost outweighed the burning ache in his joints as he lay curled backward on his side amidst the bones. The hot knife hadn’t worked quite like he or his captors had hoped. Blood poured down his hand, swiftly turning cold in the damp darkness. It didn’t do much for the chafing of the ropes against his wrist. But it did make his skin more slick, and this, combined with the fact that, like or not, he now had a hand that much smaller and more slender, gave him some distant hope of escape. He tried to lift his mind above the pain to think of a plan.
