face like a melody
Upon returning to Villa Auditore, after having spent the day training and catching up with childhood companions at the Roma Motherhouse, Mari immediately headed for her mother’s private family parlor, which had always been a veritable haven of comparative privacy for her and Ezio in the otherwise exhaustingly public world of Assassin Roma. She paused to scan the room from the doorway with her second sight before she entered, determining that it was uninhabited, as expected, but it never hurt to double check. Altaïr would be pleased.
He’d ambushed her in a hallway of the Motherhouse, before leaving for one of his marathon-length runs in the Mirror Roads, to saddle her with telling her mother not to expect his presence at dinner that evening – coward – and Ezio had slunk out earlier, to do god only knows what – more like who – but would probably be back for dinner. Meals with her mother typically went better when there were more people around the table to dissipate Madonna Maria’s attention. Taline was actually incredibly helpful in that respect – her brother’s otherwise useless wife was even better at keeping their mother and uncle on civil terms than Ezio was – although it pained her slightly to acknowledge it.
She sighed and tapped her blade against the thin copper tube mounted on the wall beside the door to summon a house elf before loosening the laces of her boots. While an elf didn’t appear as quickly as they usually did when her mother or a Master summoned them, one still arrived before she had a chance to get too impatient; her mother had no tolerance for shoddy service. It bowed out after she had ordered her beverage, and even lit the fire for her. She could have easily cast a fire, but it felt nice to be waited on, so she didn’t insist on doing it herself just to show that she could, like she would have before her transfer to Alamūt. She drifted over to the fireplace to glance over the handful of framed photographs her mother had selected for display while she waited for the elf to return.
The oldest photograph was of her mother, presumably on her wedding day from the way she was dressed, with her sisters Berniece and Aaliyah on either side of her. Berniece was smiling, smoothing Maria’s hair and adjusting her veil, as she gently laughed and chatted with her younger sisters. Aaliyah looked uncomfortable, uncertain, fidgeting with the flowers of her older sister’s bouquet, her expression intense before she realized a photograph was being taken and then she flashed a sharp smile at the camera.
The three sisters, Mari thought, touching the corner of the heavy silver frame with a single careful fingertip. Medic, shadowbroker and fidā'ī.
It gave her a bit of a chill to realize that, out of the three women in that photograph, her mother was the only one to live past the age of thirty. She willfully shrugged away the thought and went back to studying the picture. While her mother didn’t look especially happy at the prospect of her impending marriage, she did look almost impossibly beautiful – which was probably why she had chosen that picture for the mantle. There were, undoubtedly, other pictures of the three sisters her mother could have chosen.
It’s probably for the best that you’re not a beauty like your mother.
She clenched her teeth and turned away from the photograph. She hated how much that casual comment had stung. It’s not like I really need to be told that I’m not good looking enough to be considered beautiful, Uncle. Pretty sure I already figured that out myself. Ezio, ever the peacemaker and apologist, would just tell her she’d misinterpreted what their uncle had meant, as if that somehow excused the fact that he’d felt the need to say it in the first place. News flash: it didn’t.
The next photograph was of Mario holding baby Ezio, four-year-old Federico hanging over their uncle’s shoulder, grinning and mugging manically at the camera. Mario had the stupidly awestruck look of someone who’d just been hit by a powerful enchantment as he cooed at the baby in his arms, seemingly oblivious to both the camera and his older nephew climbing all over him like a training tree. She wasn’t surprised that her mother hadn’t chosen a picture with Giovanni – there weren’t pictures of their father around the house even before he had died – but, given her mother and uncle’s contentious relationship, it struck her as a bit strange that Maria chose a picture of Mario with Ezio and Fredo. As with the wedding picture, there were undoubtedly scores of other photographs her mother could have chosen in its place.
A peace offering, perhaps?
That seemed like an angle her mother would definitely take. It was impossible to tell if the pictures had been on the mantle long, or if they had been specifically selected just for this visit – when Maria knew Mario would come in the room and see them. Her mother changed the photographs displayed on the mantel from time to time as it suited her, and the elves knew better than to leave a speck of dust on anything anyway.
She was about to move on to the next photograph when something she’d never really noticed before caught her eye. Mario had to be in his late twenties in the picture, slightly older than Ezio was now, and the resemblance between her uncle and brother was uncanny. They shared the same profile, same hairline. Mario’s face had always been heavier than Ezio’s, but the shape of their eyes was the same. She caught herself frowning as she studied the photograph more closely and immediately forced her expression blank. The last thing her not beautiful enough face needed was frown lines, but she actually smiled at the next photograph.
God, I was a fat baby.
She was perched on Federico’s lap – he was probably eleven, based on the age gap between them – with six-year-old Ezio sitting beside them. She was gripping one of her older brothers’ fingers in each fist, staring straight at the camera and shrieking with delighted excitement as Fredo and Ezio laughed and took turns kissing the top of her head.
In death, Fredo had become almost as distant to her as a screen idol from some half-forgotten silent film, fading further and further away from her as the years passed. Her memories of him were becoming grainy and blurred around the edges, like images preserved on decaying celluloid film stock, and the timber of his voice had long since faded. She wished she had at least one memory of Fredo that had been safely stored away in one of the unbreakable glass phials the Order used for preserving contract memories.
I bet Mother has a few hidden away somewhere, but it’s not like I can just ask to see them. Her eyes stung and she turned her gaze to the final photograph on the mantel.
It was a group shot from Malik’s wedding. Her mother stood in the center, flanked on either side by Malik and Sakineh, the blood from their marriage contract still wet on their chests and soaking into their clothes. Mal had an arm slung around Altaïr’s shoulders, the fingers of that hand interlaced with Kadija’s, who was standing beside them with her other arm slung around Altaïr’s waist. They were so close. It was easy for her to forget sometimes how close Malik and Kadija had always been, more like siblings than cousins, really, and that they had raised Altaïr after Grandfather Cyrus had fallen.
Her cousins had all come to Roma when her father and Fredo died; her mother desperately needed their comfort. Filomena had kept the Rosa in Fiore running while her mother had been all but paralyzed with grief, and her cousins had temporarily moved into Villa Auditore to help with sorting through Fredo’s things – over her grandmother’s strident protests. Kadija had been the one to take the fight over Giovanni and Fredo’s earnings, and Maria’s ownership of Villa Auditore, to Al Mualim when her mother was still too grief-stricken to strategize. As head of the Persian side of her family, Mal had fought her father’s family for their financial support like a lion, and, after being legally outmaneuvered, Mal and Kadija, and also Altaïr – as soon as he was allowed to take paying contracts – had sent a portion of their earnings to her mother.
To help Mother support herself and me, she noted angrily. Uncle Mario made sure that Ezio always had everything he needed. She tried not to be bitter about that. Bitterness is bad for one’s soul, moosh-am, her mother had so often lectured her when she still lived in Roma. She would know.
She tried to distract herself from the intrusive thoughts by refocusing her attention on Malik’s wedding picture. Federico was grinning and laughing beside Sakineh, one arm casually slung around Ezio’s shoulders as he stood beside him. Sakineh had one hand shielding her mouth from view as she laughed with Fredo, the edges of the gauzy veil she’d worn to cover her hair fluttering around her face as she tremored with only partially suppressed laughter. Sakineh was always morbidly self-conscious about showing her teeth, shielding her mouth with her hand whenever she laughed or spoke if it wasn’t already hidden behind a veil. She’d always at least half suspected that Sakineh habitually wore a niqab less out of piety than because it completely obscured the lower half of her face.
Ezio was laughing with Sakineh and Fredo as he leaned into their older brother’s side, eyes bright and perfect teeth flashing in his signature megawatt smile. Fredo had fallen before he’d really grown into his looks, still boyishly handsome, but on the cusp of maturing into the full flower of his masculine beauty. Less classically handsome than their brother had been, it had taken Ezio longer to cross that threshold; he’d finally really grown into his looks a few years ago, not long after he became a Master. She wondered if it had ever bothered him, being compared to Fredo and judged as less handsome. It was hard to tell with Ezio sometimes, but it definitely bothered her.
Her nine year old self was standing on Ezio’s other side, clinging to his hand like a lifeline and desperately trying to understand what the others had found so funny while not scratching at the itchy lace dress their mother had selected. The photograph had to have been taken immediately after Sakineh and Mal exchanged their vows because her hair was still in more or less silky sleek sausage curls and contained within the delicate net of knotted silk and pearls she’d been allowed to wear for the occasion. She felt the faintest aches remembering the long and unpleasant process of getting her hair to look like that, and how cruelly those old-fashioned high button boots had pinched her toes. She’d looked more like a turn of the century porcelain doll than herself, which had probably been the point. You’re not a beauty like your mother.
The elf reappeared, bearing an intricately lacquered tray service containing a gasogene of soda water accompanied by several glasses and a small bottle of gojé sabz syrup, which was deposited on her mother’s marble coffee table with the barest clink of glassware before it bowed back out the door. She sighed and mixed a drink. She’d asked for strawberry syrup, but either the elf had misunderstood her request or the kitchen was out of the thick sweet syrup she liked best. Her mother, brother, and cousins all loved gojé sabz – Persian sour plums – and gojé sabz syrup with soda water was always a popular drink with her family, especially during the summer when the hot weather made its sweetly tart flavor even more refreshing. Uncle Mario claimed the sourness hurt his stomach and would only drink it after adding sugar.
Don’t waste your time on a man that doesn’t like gojé sabz, moosh-am, her mother had told her just before she left for Alamūt, leveling a pointed look towards Mario. It means he isn’t any good as a lover.
Ezio, who absolutely loved gojé sabz, had nearly cried with laughter at that. She still wasn’t sure what had motivated her mother to offer that peculiar piece of advice, or why her brother had found it so funny.
She slowly sipped her drink as she mulled over the various possible meanings behind the photographs her mother had selected for display, toeing off her boots and kicking them under the coffee table before settling down on the couch nearest to the fireplace. There had always been an undercurrent in the interactions between her mother and uncle, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Ezio noticed it too, even if he shrugged it off whenever she tried to bring it up.
There’s a lot of history between them that isn’t our business, un’asina. Let them have their secrets.
Secrets, she bitterly mused. Everyone in this family but me is allowed to have their secrets – Mother and Uncle Mario, Kadija and Altaïr, my brother’s useless wife, even Ezio. She sighed and frowned at the flames dancing in the fireplace. Especially Ezio.
Something had happened on Ezio’s contract in Armenia – she wasn’t stupid, and even if she hadn’t known her brother as well as she did, the signs were all there. The drinking wasn’t exactly new – Ezio had been drinking since he came back from Germany six years ago – but he clearly drank a lot more now than he had before. And neither Ezio, nor any of the other Masters at Alamūt, would divulge any information about that contract that wasn’t already commonly known, and the memories from it weren’t available for review – at least not to the Dapīr or any Fidā'ī ranked lower than Master – which was, unusual. What she had managed to piece together was that the contract had been for an indeterminate, presumably large, number of Cathari – probably located in or around the capital city of Armenia – that took an unusually long time to complete, and that none of the Fidā'ī assigned to it, aside from Ezio, were stationed in Alamūt. That only the supervising Master on a contract of that scale was from Alamūt was unusual enough to be noteworthy in and of itself; it was standard practice throughout the Order that most of the lower ranking Fidā'ī assigned to larger contracts came from the same Motherhouse as the supervising Master. Has to be something to do with Taline, she’d decided, but she wasn’t sure exactly what. Undoubtedly Ezio had been assigned to that contract both as a punishment for marrying a kāfir without permission and a test of his loyalty to the Order, but it somehow felt like there was more to it than that. She sawed her teeth across the edge of her lower lip and picked at a tiny chip in the rim of her glass with her thumbnail as her skin prickled with the pins-and needles awareness she’d come to associate with Cesare’s presence.
Cesare hadn’t shown himself again after their encounter on her first day back in Roma, but she could feel him, lurking, watching her every movement and deciphering every thought. He’d always hung around her mother’s brothel – that hadn’t changed – only now she was hyperaware of the super-charged atmospheric hum of the incubus’ feeding. She’d overheard her mother telling Uncle Mario once that Cesare was great for the brothel’s business, especially when he was hungry. She’d been too inexperienced and sheltered to understand exactly what her mother’s comment had meant at the time – Cesare had seemed exotic to her as a child, with his buttery white-gold skin and luminescent eyes, and she’d felt a thrill at meeting the apex predator’s gaze when he looked at her – but she understood her mother’s meaning clearly now. Cesare was a living, breathing, aphrodisiac; an aphrodisiac that people could, and often would, reach out and touch. People couldn’t resist being drawn to him, and her mother’s clients sought to emulate his dark charisma in every way they could. They drank the liquors he drank – no matter the cost – they wanted any woman he acknowledged – every girl whom Cesare smiled at or made a quip about could charge three times her usual rate that evening and men would nearly come to blows for the privilege of paying her – and they boasted – to Cesare, to Madonna Maria and Filomena, to the whores and to each other – state secrets and military secrets and financial secrets, society gossip and rumor; they repeated reports from the Italian fascist inner circle and from sources outside of Italy as well, and Madonna Maria’s power grew.
Where do I fit in all this? she couldn’t help wondering. Mother won’t allow herself to be supplanted by anyone, especially not by me. The incubus, on his part, seemed at least somewhat attached to Madonna Maria as well. …your mother has been good to me, to the Maraas; I would spare her further grief if it is within my power… Cesare had told her months ago at Alamūt, on what turned out to be the night before her brother’s marriage. While she knew Altaïr had some sort of physical relationship with Sirocco, she did her best to avoid thinking about what that might actually entail. Presumably, her mother had been involved in a similar relationship with Cesare at some point. For all I know she still is. Her skin crawled at the thought; there was no way in hell she was ever going to ask her mother about that. Cesare might tell me… She suppressed that line of thought with a shudder. Ugh, yuck, no. Too creepy. Way, way too creepy. Even still, part of her did kind of want to know, maybe, a little.
She had a sense of movement, just beyond the edge of her peripheral vision, and bolted to her feet, fingers convulsively tightening around the glass in her hand.
“Peace, Mari. It’s just me.”
“Lucia,” she breathed, releasing the sudden tension in her chest with a sigh as she sank back down onto the couch. “You startled me.”
“Obviously,” Lucia drawled as she drifted towards the drink service. She examined the bottle of syrup with the slightest frown before setting it back down with exaggerated care. “What’s got you so jumpy? Were you expecting someone else?”
“I’m not jumpy. You startled me is all,” she retorted as she slumped further back into the cushions of the couch and gouged at the chip in the rim of her glass with her thumbnail. She felt a sharp sting as her nail bent and a flake of nail polish fell into her drink. Mannaggia.
“Yeah, okay,” Lucia hummed, tapping a finger against the upturned bottom of one of the extra glasses the elf had included on the drink tray. She watched Lucia’s eyes drift half-shut as she worked through the calculations of her next move, like she’d watched her do hundreds of times over the years, and then Lucia turned back to her with an artificially bright smile and she felt the tips of her fingers go cold.
Don’t be so paranoid.
“Is it true that Ezio transferred a student to another Master to appease his jealous wife, and then ordered some Veteran to beat her senseless when she started making a fuss about being used and then discarded?” Lucia chirped, alighting on the couch beside her and shaking her tightly braided hair loose.
The suddenness of Lucia’s suspiciously specific question caught her off guard, and she hesitated in the act of tucking her stockinged feet beneath herself before she remembered her training and forced herself to lean back in a casual slouch. She took a long, careful sip of her gojé sabz soda while deciding how exactly she should respond. She’d known Lucia as long as she could remember, and Lu was basically family, but Ezio was actually her brother and what Lucia was asking wasn’t really anyone else’s business.
God, they love to gossip about Masters here.
She could practically hear Altaïr’s voice reminding her that, in all fairness, Assassins throughout the Order gossiped about Masters – which was true – but it was especially endemic in Roma and she wasn’t interested in speculating as to the reasons why.
“Where’d you pick that gossip up, Lu?” she asked, forcing a smile, surprised at how specific Lucia’s information was, and how quickly she had gotten it. That thing with Ingeborg and Irika happened literally a few days ago, how the hell did Lu hear all about it already?
“Oh, you know, around. You know how gossip tends to spread around the Order,” Lucia equivocated, idly toying with a lock of her hair, the smirk she wasn’t quite hiding smug and serrated. “Is there more to the story, Mari? The version I heard seemed a little – one sided, you know?”
She couldn’t be certain, but she was pretty sure Lucia had gotten blonder since the last time she’d seen her.
“Ingeborg became obsessed with Ezio the moment she clapped eyes on him,” she replied with a shrug too tight to read as casually as she would have liked. “And I mean obsessed. She was basically stalking him.” She scrunched her nose at the memory of some of Ingeborg’s more outrageous behavior and took another sip of her soda. “Then she got all obsessed with some delusion that he was going to marry her, as soon as he got tired of Taline.”
As if that would ever actually happen, she mentally added, suppressing a shudder as she unwilling recalled the encounter she’d overheard between her brother and his wife through their shared bedroom wall so late the night before it basically counted as that morning. Besides, Mother would flay Ezio alive if he ever tried to put aside his wife for another woman, and he crumples like a paper tiger at the slightest hint of her disapproval.
“Just like that,” Lucia prompted, smile wide and encouraging as she replaited her hair into a loose braid. “You’re sure he didn’t give her any reason?”
“No reason whatsoever,” she replied firmly. Something in Lucia’s smile, her tone, the slant of her shoulders, was off, wrong. Something about how Lucia had been acting, especially around Ezio, made her uncomfortable, but she couldn’t say for sure exactly what it was or why. “He’s been completely besotted with Taline from the moment he saw her. I mean, you know, he married her barely twelve hours after they met.”
And he forces himself on her at least once every night, but there was no way she was going to tell Lucia that part. Roma’s rumor mill would just explode – like what happened to Pompeii, but uglier – with the addition of that particular bit of prurient information getting mixed into the gossip.
“You never know, he might be getting a bit bored of her already. E-zo’s always liked variety in his bed.”
She really didn’t want to know how Lucia seemed so certain of that.
“Anyway, enough about Ezio,” she declared as she swung her thick braid back over her shoulder. At least it wasn’t as frizzy as it usually got after a day of training; probably because she hadn’t bothered to wash out the smoothing serum she’d soaked her hair in for the previous evening’s formal dinner. “You look really great, Lu. Have you had more done?”
“A few things,” Lucia acknowledged with an easy shrug. “I’ve had my tits done; it’s all me under this, no padding.”
“Congratulations. They look great, um, very natural.”
She couldn’t be entirely sure, but Lucia’s jaw looked a little different than she remembered. She’d heard it had been broken pretty badly a little over a year ago, but it looked like she’d done more than just have it reset, and her teeth looked slightly straighter. Her nose also seemed to have changed, narrower across the bridge and slimmer around the nostrils. The contours of Lucia’s throat looked different too. She’s had her Adam’s apple shaved down. Christ, all that must have cost a packet.
“Thanks.” Lucia shot a grin at her before turning her attention to rummaging through her pockets. As she fished out an enameled cigarette case and matching lighter her grin turned sheepish.
“Don’t say anything to your mother, yeah?” she asked, motioning to her cigarettes.
“I’m not going to rat you out, Lu. One of us is a decent person, you know.” It still stung, the way Lucia had outed her relationship with Hiro to her mother.
“Hardly,” Lucia snorted, pausing to light her cigarette. “Decent people don’t become fidā'ī.”
She watched Lucia take a deep drag off her cigarette then nervously fidget with her lighter and pick at her nails, and she held her tongue. There were violet shadows at the inner corners of Lucia’s eyes and her bottom lip was chaffed. Something’s bothering her. She knew Lucia well enough to know that the lengthening silence would draw whatever it was out of her more quickly than cajoling. That seemed to be the way most people worked; she’d learned that from watching the way Altaïr’s taciturn nature seemed to encourage others into confiding in him, although she highly doubted that was his intention. He wasn’t a good enough actor for his discomfort in those situations to have been anything less than genuine.
“I need to transfer out of Roma, Mari,” Lucia blurted out, eyes flicking towards the door like a cornered creature as her increasingly rushed explanation tumbled past her lips. “There’s this clever doctor, in Switzerland, who’s pioneering lots of new treatments, for people like me. They say he’s so cunning with his scalpel, by the time everything’s all healed, no one would ever guess how I used to be unless I want to tell them. I’ll feel just like any other woman they’ve fucked, except I can’t get pregnant, so maybe even better. The problem is, that clever doctor is really horribly expensive, and under your uncle I’m barely getting enough work to feed and clothe myself, and I’m probably only managing that because of your mother’s charity. Can you help me get transferred to Alamūt?”
Lucia wasn’t exactly telling her something she didn’t already more or less know, but hearing it spoken so starkly made it unignorably more real.
Then how the hell did you afford all the work you’ve recently had done?
She immediately felt guilty for the thought and nibbled at the inner edge of her bottom lip as she resisted the urge to more noticeably fidget. While it would be nice for her to have another friend around Alamūt, and it would undoubtedly be better for Lucia to serve anywhere but Roma, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, in addition to her own embarrassingly selfish reasons, made her hesitate and she hated herself for acknowledging that hesitation.
“I’m just a Disciple – and not one in the best standing, either – I don’t know what you think I could actually do that would be helpful,” she cautiously replied. “Wouldn’t Ezio be the one to ask?”
“He would,” Lucia acknowledged carefully, fidgeting with her lighter. “But the Granmaestro won’t like it. He might not agree to the transfer, if Ezio’s the one to request it.” She took another long drag off her cigarette. “Could you put a word in for me with Altaïr Effendi? Nobody would dream of telling him no.”
“Except my mother,” she retorted before she could help herself. “And his sister, and Al Mualim-”
Lucia made a disparaging sound in the back of her throat and flicked the rest of her half-smoked cigarette into the fireplace.
“You know what I mean.”
That’s a lot to waste, for someone claiming to be so poor. Cigarettes aren’t cheap, especially not with how much she smokes.
She hated that that’s the way she saw things now. She avoided Lucia’s eyes and tried to smooth a loosened tendril back into her braid.
“You mean my uncle wouldn’t dream of telling Altaïr no.”
“That’s the idea, yeah.”
She considered it carefully. Generally, Lucia’s assumption was true; Altaïr could more or less have his pick of students from any of the Order’s Motherhouses. But her uncle seemed to be nursing a grudge over Ezio’s reassignment, and he’d never really gotten on with Altaïr anyway, so he might try to block any further transfers out of spite. The other hitch in Lucia’s plan was that she was pretty sure Altaïr wasn’t interested in taking on more students, not for a while, at least. She could tell Altaïr was already frustrated that he couldn’t give his current students more attention, and, if she was going to be perfectly honest with herself, she didn’t want to have to share him with Lucia – it was bad enough that Lu was closer to her own brother than she was. She hated herself for feeling like that.
“Or Kadija,” Lucia added quickly at her hesitation. “It would be such an honor to train under Kadija Effendi, if she would take me. D’you think she would, Mari?”
Not a chance in hell. Kadija was spread even thinner than Altaïr, if that was even possible, and certainly wouldn’t be inclined to voluntarily take on the additional work of yet another student. And another student would leave her even less time to spy on me and micro-manage Altaïr, her two favorite leisure activities.
“Maybe.” She forced herself to smile. “Kadija and Altaïr are both more Assassin than human, Lu. I still think Ezio’s your surest bet. You know he’s going to take one look at Vincenzo’s kicked-puppy-face and insist on packing his favorite back to Alamūt with us when we leave. You’re a much better fidā'ī than Cenzo, not to mention practically family anyway, why not just ask Ezio to push the transfer through?”
“Maybe I don’t want to end up bleeding in the mud like the last dolly he discarded.”
“I don’t see why you’re so preoccupied with what happened with Ingeborg, unless you’re also trying to get in my brother’s pants,” she retorted.
Lucia’s mouth twisted as she averted her eyes and the silence extended several beats beyond comfortable. Mannaggia! She openly gaped and Lucia looked even more uncomfortable.
“Look, what goes on between me and Ezio is nobody’s business but our own-” Lucia finally said, words clipped and posture stiff.
“That might have been true nine months ago, Lu, but you can’t honestly still think that,” she interrupted with an impatient toss of her head. “Ezio’s married now, his junk legally belongs to Taline – and if what happened with Ingeborg is any indication, I don’t think that she – or Ezio – is interested in sharing.”
She’d heard that her sister-in-law had gone to visit Ingeborg in the infirmary from Isra, who somehow always managed to be perfectly placed to rake up the latest gossip about her family. You know Mari, she’s a little creepy, your brother’s wife. She brought a basket of tea cakes and was all sympathy and smiles, but Ingeborg’s pain medication spontaneously stopped working when the khanum came to visit, and nothing we could give her had any effect, even hours after the khanum had left. Isra, of course, had no idea that Taline was Cathari; but Mari knew, and she suspected that Taline had gone to the infirmary to make sure Ingeborg was suffering as much as possible. The thought gave her a bit of a chill, actually, if she let herself dwell on it for too long.
“Although,” she hesitated, thinking of the bruises and the way Taline had started flinching around Ezio and the appalling sound of him brutalizing her nightly. Regardless of how she felt about her brother’s marriage or his questionable wife, it seemed pretty clear to her that things between Ezio and Taline couldn’t continue the way they were for much longer. Something – more like someone – was bound to snap, and she was pretty sure that the fallout for Ezio afterwards would be even worse than what had happened with Cristina.
I probably shouldn’t be telling Lu this, she realized with an uncomfortable creeping feeling. But who else is going to listen?
“Honestly, I almost think it might be safer, for Taline, if Ezio took up a mistress, or something,” she admitted, avoiding Lucia’s eyes.
“What d’you mean, safer, Mari?” Lucia demanded, leaning in and gripping her upper arm. Lucia’s eyes almost seemed to glow fever-bright with something – something that felt twisted and torrid and ill-fated – as her grip tightened on her upper arm.
I’ve made a mistake. I shouldn’t have said anything.
“Let go of me, Lu. That hurts.” She tried to twist her arm away but Lucia tightened her grip further and dug her thumb into the pressure point on the inside of her arm.
“What d’you mean safer, Mari?” Lucia repeated.
“Never mind,” she snapped, finally wrenching her arm out of Lucia’s grasp. “Forget I said anything. Jesus Christ, Lu, no need to get super creepy about it.”
She caught a glimpse of Lucia’s expression just before the other woman masked it behind a disingenuous cough of laughter.
“I’d forgotten what a tease you are,” Lucia gurgled, swinging her feet onto Mari’s lap and daintily crossing her ankles. “You’re always hinting at things and pretending to know more than you actually do. That’s a dangerous habit, moosh. Someday the wrong person is going to believe your charade.”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped, shoving Lucia’s feet off her lap. “What’s the matter with you? Why are you being so weird about Ezio?”
“I’m not being weird about anything,” Lucia hummed, pointedly inspecting her nails. “You know, you could totally be a writer, if you can’t make it as a fidā'ī. You’ve got such a vivid imagination and a real gift for conjuring up stories, you know. A real talent.”
“Yeah, sure. Whatever,” she retorted as she got up to leave, so angry her ears were ringing. It took all her self-control to set her glass down on the coffee table instead of smashing it into Lucia’s face. Honestly, it might have been more slammed than set, but only just a little. The glass was chipped already anyway. Altaïr would almost be proud of such self-restraint.
“Get the fuck over it, Lu. With or without Taline in the picture, you never had a real shot with my brother. Just let it go and move on already, before it gets even more pathetic,” she shot over her shoulder as she stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind herself so hard she heard the paintings hanging on the walls rattle.
Probably shouldn’t have said that stuff to Lucia earlier, she admonished herself as she tried not to grimace at the sharp disapproval dripping from her mother’s tone.
“I was being resourceful, Mother, like you taught me,” she protested. “It’s not my fault Al Maulim didn’t appreciate my methods-”
She had a pretty solid suspicion why Lucia’s usual place at her mother’s table was empty that evening; Lucia never took her evening meal at the Motherhouse if there was any plausible reason to avoid it. She and Uncle Mario deserve each other’s company tonight. Unfortunately, that left one fewer person to distract her mother, and it felt like Madonna Maria was out for blood; her blood, to be exact.
“I did not teach you to be irreverent to your superiors,” Maria snapped. “You cultivated those ill-advised mannerisms entirely on your own.”
“Mother, please,” Ezio sighed, lips curving into one of his reconciliatory smiles when their mother snapped her eyes in his direction. “That test is over and cannot be undone. I’m sure Mari’s already had her decisions thoroughly raked over by Altaïr, and then again by Kadija.”
He flashed her a sympathetic wince, and she was reminded that even if her brother hadn’t previously been familiar with how their now eldest cousin expressed her disapproval, he was certainly well acquainted with it at this point. She returned his wince; Kadija was, undoubtedly, even harder on Ezio than she was on her. At least she was occasionally able to take refuge behind Altaïr as his student.
“And my niece and nephew are right to do so,” their mother replied, harpooning a piece of gnocchi with her fork as though it had personally done her wrong. “Our family does not fail in their duty to the Order.”
She swallowed a sigh and wished, for what already felt like the hundredth time that evening, that Altaïr had joined them for dinner. Somehow, Altaïr always knew just how to temper her mother’s moods.
“I’m sorry,” Taline piped up, catching Maria’s attention. “I know you must have told me this already, but what is this dumplings called?”
I can’t believe they actually have her teaching children when she still talks like that, she thought as she took the opportunity to inch further away from her mother until she was perched on the very edge of her chair. Taline continued to smile guilelessly, but she could have sworn her sister-in-law had briefly flicked her eyes towards Lucia’s empty seat.
“Mogliettina,” Ezio sighed. “It’s pasta, not dumplings. I told you tha-” The rest of her brother’s sentence was lost in the Silence their mother cast.
“Peace, Ezio,” Maria murmured, in that deceptively light tone she always used whenever they’d done something unacceptable in public. It was a sinister foretaste of the displeasure they would face later, when they were alone with their mother.
She immediately recognized her opportunity to do a kindness for Ezio, to draw their mother’s attention back to herself and spare her brother the brunt of their mother’s mood, but she felt battered enough already, and it was barely halfway through their visit. Maybe some of Mother’s wrath will put a damper on his libido, at least for tonight. She glanced over at Taline. It’s still doing a kindness, really. The sentiment rang hollow, even as she thought it, but the urge towards self-preservation was much stronger than any finer ideal she might have contemplated at the moment. Kadija would say I’m just being selfish. She couldn’t muster the will to care.
“This particular pasta is called gnocchi, joon-am,” Maria continued, now calmly addressing Taline. “Although it is not entirely incorrect to describe them as dumplings, Italians do not seem to regard them as such-” she flashed a chilling smile at Ezio “-as my son so boorishly just demonstrated. Apparently, dumplings are foreign and un-Italian.”
She clenched her teeth and kept her eyes trained on her plate. She didn’t need to look to know that Ezio was also glaring at his own plate, teeth gritted and cheeks flushed, as he waited for their mother to release the Silence she’d cast on him. Ezio could have easily broken their mother’s spell himself, but she knew her brother would never dare – he’s too far under Mother’s skirts to ever defy her. She wasn’t going to cross their mother any time soon either, but that was more self-preservation than anything else.
She wondered if Altaïr had ever seriously crossed her mother. She couldn’t imagine what it might have been over if he had, but she was absolutely certain he wouldn’t have engaged her directly. Altaïr didn’t argue with people, not the way she or Ezio did, at least. He disagreed, maybe provided his reasons for doing so, if you were lucky, and then disengaged. Conversation terminated. She couldn’t imagine that tactic working against her mother. Kadija didn’t argue with people either; she simply subdued any dissention by applying the sheer force of her iron will. Trying to argue with Kadija was about as effective as repeatedly punching a concrete wall – she’d bust all her knuckles and be unable to use her hand for days, while Kadija would just hose the blood off herself and move on. She envied her cousin’s cold-bloodedness sometimes.
“Mother,” Ezio intoned warningly. “That’s not fair. Uncle has to shoulder a lot of responsibility, and he bears the burden of it alone-”
“Has it escaped you that his drinking is the cause, and not a product, of his isolation?” Maria inquired coldly. “You would do well to acknowledge and learn from your father’s failings. And those of your uncle as well.”
Ezio sighed and stabbed another bite of gnocchi, wincing a little at the unexpectedly loud and uncomfortably wet squelch of gnocchi and sauce. She couldn’t not notice the way Taline flinched at every forceful clink of cutlery against china, and she didn’t blame her brother for not wanting to prolong that particular line of conversation.
“I like this gnocchi,” Taline offered into the spiraling silence. “It’s very good. Is it hard to get back home?”
“Your elf can make it, joon-am. It’s not an especially difficult recipe for them to master,” Maria finally replied.
“Yes, of course,” Taline murmured, casting her eyes downwards as her cheeks flooded with color. “May I be excused, for a moment?” she asked, already getting up from the table.
“Mogliettina-” Ezio began to protest before abruptly falling silent at their mother’s sharp look.
“Only for a moment,” Taline murmured, cheeks now blazing as she scuttled towards the door. “I’ll be right back.”
If nothing else, Taline made her appreciate inheriting her father’s darker complexion. The slightest flush bloomed unmistakably across her sister-in-law’s face, even her nose and ears turned pink – at least she had to really be blushing before anyone noticed – and Taline seemed to blush all the time and at the slightest things. God, that must make teaching teenagers so much more difficult. She’d be shocked if Taline’s students hadn’t noticed how easily their teacher blushed and didn’t exploit it ruthlessly for their own amusement; teenagers lived for doing stuff like that.
“I take it that her nausea hasn’t gotten any better,” their mother commented, in Italian, once Taline was out of the room. “It looks as though she may have lost even more weight in the last few days-”
“The trip over was a little rough for her,” Ezio interrupted, also in Italian, brows drawing together in a stormy frown. “And the treatment she’s received while we’ve been here leaves much to be desired-”
Mari flinched before she could stop herself at the force with which their mother placed her fork on the table. Jesus Fucking Christ, Ezio. A little bit of warning before you charge in and dropkick a hornets’ nest like that would have been nice. She could have sworn she felt the temperature plunge as their mother’s wroth sucked all the warmth from the room.
“What treatment, and by whom, my treasure,” Maria inquired, voice positively glacial.
She suspected Ezio was already regretting his outburst as she watched her brother clench his jaw and carefully lay his fork on the table next to his dish – presumably to delay answering their mother while he worked through what he felt was safe to say.
“You and Uncle have gone out of your way to show Taline kindness… others here have not.”
“Names, Ezio.”
The vague sense of foreboding that had started building the moment Taline had left the room coalesced into a knot in her stomach as she watched her brother meticulously adjusting the cutlery beside his plate. Shouldn’t have opened that box if you weren’t prepared to deal with what would be inside it, E-zo.
“You know how I dislike having to repeat myself, my treasure.”
Understatement of the year.
She didn’t envy her brother’s impossible position, even though he’d dug himself into it all on his own. Really shouldn’t have dragged your little wife along on this trip – Mother would have been indignant about you either not coming for Easter or leaving your wife at home, but she would have come to Alamūt to meet Taline and spared all of us this misery. It killed her that she’d had to sacrifice ten whole days of precious time off, instead of the usual four – more like five, if one included travel time – she’d taken for Easter the last couple years, when those extra days would have been so much more relaxing and enjoyable if she’d spent them somewhere – anywhere – else with Hiro.
She watched their mother’s partially eaten plate of gnocchi slowly move more towards the center of the table, at a slight diagonal, so as to avoid jostling against the glasses of water and wine Madonna Maria had been drinking with her meal. If Maria had bothered to use her hands to direct the plate’s movement, the gesture was extremely subtle; the degree of control with which their mother deployed her magic was, as always, impressive and a little intimidating.
“Lucia’s said a few things – nothing awful – just, not ideal,” he started slowly, still avoiding even glancing in her direction and she knew that he was stalling while he decided how much and what to say about her.
We all know what you’re about to do, you fucking traitor. Just hurry up and get it over with already.
“Who else?” their mother demanded, resting her arms on the table in front of her as she slowly scraped one deep red lacquered nail along the arm folded beneath it, like a cat twitching its tail while stalking its prey.
“I think Filomena must have somehow spooked her-”
“I will speak with her. Who else?”
She watched Ezio’s teeth briefly clench as he flicked his eyes towards her and then away again. Oh come on, you fucking coward. Everyone in this room knows you wanted to rat me out but have gotten cold feet. Just rip the bandage off and get it over with already.
“Stop being such a coward, E-zo, and say what you really mean already,” she blurted out and her brother recoiled at her words like a slap across the face.
Oh shit! Why did I say that?
“The hell, Mari? Don’t you ever get tired of being such a bi-” he caught himself at the last moment and flashed a quick apologetic wince at their mother. “What’s your problem with Taline? What could she have possibly done to make you hate her so much?”
“Oh, so now not falling all over myself to fawn over your latest foundling somehow means I hate her?” she retorted. “Most people have more settings than abject adoration or hate, you know.”
“But you aren’t most people, are you, Mari,” he snapped, rising slightly from his seat to lean across the table towards her. “You’re my fucking sister, and you couldn’t wait to welcome Cristina with open arms, but have been nothing but awful to Taline – my wife – from the moment you met her!”
“You didn’t just spring Cristina on me! I’d heard all about her, from you, multiple times, before we met – not from some gossip I wasn’t meant to overhear and never thought for a moment could possibly be true until Kadija – Kadija, of all people – confirmed it to me,” she screeched, immediately hating the volume and shrillness of her voice, but too caught in the rush of whatever it was that she was feeling to really be able to do much about it but go on and get it over with. “You’ve never had to hear family news from Kadija; it’s like being blindsided by an iceberg! She just told me you’d married some dancer from the cabaret that you’d only met, like, twelve hours ago like she was reciting a, a weather report, or something, and then she made me run a kilometer because my response to that information was too emotional. What do you fucking expect from me? Elation that you married some stranger that only marginally speaks a language in common with us, barely after you learned her name? Jesus Christ, Ezio, you didn’t even know how old she was! We still hardly know anything about her, except that apparently she knows how to play you like a piano at some cheap-”
Whatever the rest of that sentence was going to be was cut short by the Silence their mother cast, lodging in her throat like shrapnel under the immense and excessive weight of the spell. She noticed Ezio silently coughing and clutching at his own throat and realized that the strength of their mother’s casting had been calibrated to his ability rather than hers. For some stupid reason that hurt – that even when casting Silences their mother expended more effort on Ezio than on her. She felt the magic silencing her shudder when Ezio broke through the spell, and shot a glance over at their mother just in time to glimpse the faintest flash of surprise before it was obscured by the empty madonna mask she and Ezio had learned years ago to dread.
“Stop dredging up some warped version of events that you don’t actually know the first thing about to justify yourself, Mari,” he croaked, the fingers of his right hand curling into a fist against the table as he slowly rose from his seat and leaned towards her. “You weren’t there. You don’t know shit. Not about Taline, not about our relationship-”
“Ezio-” their mother murmured, voice pitched low and warning.
Her throat ached from the increasing pressure of their mother’s Silence and it was starting to get difficult to breathe. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph too, Mother’s going to choke me to death before either of them even notices anything is wrong. She slapped her hand against the table like she was tapping out of a round in the training ring, trying to signal her distress.
“The contract has been signed, sealed, and consummated,” he barreled on, louder, ignoring their mother’s attempt to rein him in and her nonverbal plea for help. “The things I’ve had to do can’t be undone, can never be washed clean. Stop pretending like there’s still a choice. Taline is my wife, and we’re all just going to have to live with that fact, like it or-”
There was a sound from the doorway, a sharply indrawn breath and half-swallowed sob, and she caught a glimpse of an utterly devastated something painted baldly across Taline’s face before she turned and fled the room with a swirl of her skirts. She hated the jealous twinge in her gut at the Hollywood-perfect fanned arc of Taline’s hair as she’d turned. Her mother abruptly released her Silence and she couldn’t help coughing a little as she gulped lungful after lungful of air. Jesus-fucking-christ Mother, took you long enough to remember that you might be literally suffocating your only daughter.
“Mogliettina!” Ezio hoarsely called after Taline, expression vacillating between emotions so quickly she couldn’t get a proper read on any. “Come back to the table. You’ve hardly touched your meal!”
“Ezio,” their mother repeated, more sternly this time. “Sit down.”
She reflexively sat up straighter in her chair to minimize her chances of drawing their mother’s ire. Ezio, however, remained standing, hands clenching into fists against the tabletop, and she could see the muscle in his cheek twitching from how hard he was biting down on whatever he was not saying.
“Happy now?” he finally asked in a dangerously soft whisper as he slid into his seat. She wasn’t entirely sure whom the question was directed towards. Yesterday, she would have unhesitatingly assumed herself because Ezio would never even dream of speaking that way to their mother, but then again, not even twenty minutes earlier she was certain that Ezio would never dare to break one of their mother’s Silences either.
Maria sighed, reached for her wineglass, and took a delicate sip of wine.
“Are you fucking happy now?” Ezio seethed and her skin felt impossibly tight under the intensity of his glare.
Should’ve known that standing up to Mother twice in a week would take way too much spine for him.
“And just what am I supposed to be happy about?” she tiredly retorted. “This hostile dining environment? Mother nearly suffocating me with a Silence? What, Ezio? You’ll have to help me out because I really can’t tell where all this joviality is supposedly coming from.”
“Always the victim, aren’t you, un’asina?” he sneered. “You rip the wings off of butterflies and then cry over their fate as guilelessly as a child, like the two couldn’t possibly have any relation to one another.”
“I don’t mutilate butterflies, or any-”
Ezio’s fist struck the table hard enough to rattle all the dishes and she reflexively swallowed the remainder of her response.
“It’s why you don’t have friends, why you have to be assigned training partners, because no one in their right mind wants to get close enough for your acid tongue to be turned on them,” he railed on, eyes blazing above the furious flush painted across his face, high over the crests of his cheeks and bridge of his nose.
What he was saying hurt – it hurt a lot actually – but it hurt even more that their mother was still calmly sipping her wine, watching them and just letting Ezio tear into her like that, when she knew that if she tried to say anything even half as awful back at him she’d be lucky to get more than three words out before getting Silenced. Not that knowing that was really going to stop her from trying anyway.
“Oh really? Is that so? Thank you so much for clarifying that for me,” she retorted, fingers reflexively curling around her fork. “When are you going to stop pretending that I’m the only one in our family people go out of their way to avoid? Why did you marry some stranger as fast as you possibly could, instead of spending so little as a week, hell, a few days even, properly courting your new wife? It’s not like there was any risk of her getting snapped up by a better offer, not where you found her.”
“Mari,” Maria hummed over the rim of her wineglass. “That’s enough.”
She decided to ignore her mother’s warning.
Ezio got to speak his piece, it’s my turn now.
“Hardly, Mother. I’m only just getting started-”
“Enough,” Ezio roared, standing up so suddenly that his chair toppled over backwards. He stood perfectly still for a moment, eyes lowered and breathing heavily through his nose. “Excuse me, Mother,” he finally said, in a forebodingly calm and even voice. “I need to see to my wife. Safety and peace be upon you.”
“Safety and peace,” their mother replied, calm and cold and seemingly completely unfazed by Ezio’s outbursts.
Ezio executed a shallow bow to their mother and left without a word, or even a backwards glance, directed to her. He closed the door behind himself and it felt like all the air in the room left with him. The atmosphere continued to thicken as she watched her mother slowly finish her glass of wine.
“You were very rude, Moosh,” Maria finally said, soundlessly setting her now empty glass on the table. There was still a discernable red tinge to the glass from the wine it had held.
“And Ezio wasn’t?” she responded, sounding more sullen that she would have liked.
“We’re discussing your behavior, not your brother’s.”
She gritted her teeth. “Yes, Mother.”
“Perhaps I should recall you back to Roma,” Maria mused aloud, gently chiming the edge of her blade against her glass to refill it. “In light of your recent failures, perhaps it’s time to consider another path for your service to the Order. Not everyone has what it takes to succeed as a fidā'ī, and no amount of polish can make a clod of dirt into a diamond, moosh moosh-am.”[1]
“I’m not a worthless dirt clod, Mother-” she retorted.
“Did I say that clods of dirt are worthless, my daughter?”
“And at least none of my failures have resulted in collateral damage,” she barreled on as though her mother hadn’t interrupted her. “Mal lost his arm when Altaïr botched their contract, and Ezio’s mistakes on one of his got his Master killed.”
“Both of those unfortunate events occurred when they were much younger than you are now, moosh moosh-am,” Maria countered coldly. “Altaïr was still underage and should not have been assigned out on such a contract while so young. Ezio as well; your Uncle had no business assigning him a target so far beyond what his training had prepared him for. You, however, out of all your siblings and cousins, are the only one who has failed their trial for Mercenary.”
Technically, Federico had only been a Servant when he died, a rank below hers, but reminding her mother of that fact wasn’t going to help the current situation any.
“What does Altaïr think? Have you discussed this with him?”
“Perhaps I already have. What do you think he would have said”
She clenched her teeth, recognizing the test. “I wouldn’t know, and it’s not my place to speculate as to his thoughts, Mother.”
“There may be hope for you as a fidā'ī yet.” The backhanded approval stung, moreso than if her mother had actually just slapped her. “You’d be abysmal as a Shadowbroker – no touch for subtlety, and an active hostility towards glamour.”
She watched her mother drain about half of her wineglass in a single deep drink. Ah yes, alcoholism. Very glamorous.
“You should make more of an effort, with Ezio’s wife,” Maria abruptly lectured her. “As time passes she will only grow more influential with your brother, with this family. It would behoove you to recognize that now, and modify your behavior accordingly, rather than continuing to alienate both her and your brother.”
She rolled her eyes before she thought to check herself and her mother’s lips thinned with disapproval, the expression remarkably similar to the one she saw on Altaïr’s face far too often during training. It’s really weird that my cousins look more like Mother than either me or Ezio do. Malik and Altaïr could look uncannily like her mother, and it wasn’t just their similar coloring and bone structure. It was in their expressions, their body language, the deliberate spacing of their words when they were annoyed and the way they weaponized silence. Cousin, she immediately corrected herself with a sharp and uncomfortable twinge, Mal’s not looking like Mother, now. But Kadija’s eerily like Mother too – or Aunt Aaliyah, more likely – you just really have to know them to see it. So I guess it’s still cousins, even if just barely. It was a rather grim thought, and one she’d be happier not revisiting.
“If Ezio doesn’t manage to drive her away first, you mean,” she snapped, and immediately regretted her retort from the way her mother’s eyes narrowed and attention seemed to focus.
“Whatever do you mean by that, my daughter?” she asked, voice silky soft and dangerous. “Tell me.”
She tried not to squirm and felt maybe a little bad that she hadn’t been more sympathetic and helpful earlier when Ezio had stuck his foot in his mouth and landed himself in the same hole she’d just stumbled down. Getting grilled by their mother was never a pleasant experience, and one only emerged unscathed if they were lucky. She didn’t feel especially lucky.
“He doesn’t really treat her all that well,” she gingerly ventured.
“Go on.”
She really didn’t want to. Unfortunately, with just her and her mother in the room, there was no one else around to help her out. At least Ezio had the possibility of assistance. She tried not to dwell on how unfair that felt.
“You’ve seen the way she constantly flinches around him,” she bit out, resentful of being forced to answer questions that really should have been directed at Ezio instead of her. “I know you’ve noticed, and seen the bruises, so why don’t you just ask what you really want to know? Or better still, why aren’t you asking Ezio? Maybe having to admit to you that he regularly brutalizes his wife might shame him into exercising restraint.”
“Your situation would undoubtedly improve if you learned when to apply a little subtlety and tact, my daughter,” Maria replied with glacial disapproval.
“We’re talking about howyour son regularly brutalizes his significantly smaller and now pregnant wife, and your response is to chastise me for not using enough subtlety and tact while doing so?” she demanded incredulously. “Really, Mother? Is that’s what’s most important here? That my equivocation is inadequate when privately expressing my concerns to our mother about my brother’s marriage? Unbelievable!” she exclaimed, barely catching her chair before it toppled over backwards, as Ezio’s had done, from how quickly she’d gotten to her feet.
“Sit down, Moosh. You haven’t been excused from my table.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a child anymore, Mother,” she shot back, shoving her chair in hard against the table. “I don’t have to wait on your say so to get up and go. I’m excusing myself.”
She stormed out of the dining room and down the hallway, sending the few house elves she came across scuttling out of her path. He was waiting in her room when she blew through the door, and she was tempted to just turn on her heel and leave, but she could hear Ezio fighting with Taline through their shared wall – well, maybe not fighting, but certainly raising his voice at her – and she didn’t feel like offering her brother a more convenient target for venting his bad temper.
“Get out.”
“I was actually here first, my bitterness,” Cesare hummed, stretching like a cat across her bed.
“Get Out Of My Room,” she gritted out, enunciating each word with exaggerated care.
The noise he made in response might have passed for a chuckle, if he’d been human, rich and oily with ominous satisfaction. Waves of gooseflesh rippled across her skin at the sound.
“But it’s not actually your room, now is it? This room, every room in this entire building, in fact, belongs to … your mother. Not you.” He paused to run the tip of his tongue across his upper teeth, from left canine to right, the movement affording her the barest glimpse of the roiling mass of things beneath his tongue and she could barely suppress her shudder. There was something in his expression before amusement, but she couldn’t say for sure what.
“And,” he continued seamlessly, “going off that flush, as well as all the pheromones pouring off you, I’d say you’ve just had a spicy encounter with your mother, oh, and your brother-” she could see the tip of his tongue pressed against the back of his top teeth as he lifted his head and took a deep drink of air, almost like a viper scenting the breeze “- but not Altaïr, surprisingly.” He paused again to taste another dram of air. “Ah yes, probably because he hasn’t returned yet from whatever draconian task he’s set himself. Does absence make the heart fonder, my bitterness?” Cesare arched a brow with a lazy smirk.
“Out,” she repeated stonily, refusing to let herself rise to his bait.
“Oh, we’re feigning confidence, I see,” Cesare hummed, rolling over onto his stomach and pushing himself up enough to lazily eye-fuck her. “How precious.” He chuckled again and propped his chin on his hand as he studied her with hooded eyes.
“Get out, Cesare,” she ground out, girding herself for the very real possibility that she’d have leave her own room to get away from him, before another line of attack occurred to her.
“Does Mother know about this?”
“This?” he queried, rubbing the pads of his fingertips across the cushion of his bottom lip as he cocked his head slightly.
“You inappropriately coming into my room, uninvited, to menace me. I’ll bet she doesn’t. And I’ll also bet that you’d probably prefer that she doesn’t find out. We both know she won’t like it when I tell her what unsavory things you’ve been getting up to, behind her back and under her own roof. Goodbye gravy train for you.” She lifted her chin and smirked at the faint ripple in his expression. Bullseye.
“Do you really think that wise, my bitterness?” he inquired after a moment with a syrupy slow smile. “By all means, yes, please do tell her. Your mother and I keep nothing between us. But, even supposing that she accepts the version you tell her – which we both know she won’t – who’s to say she wouldn’t find my version equally, if not more so, compelling?” He dropped his hand from beneath his chin and coyly cocked his head to the other side. “When has telling your mother something she didn’t like to hear ever not gone poorly for you, my bitterness?”
“When has knowing that something is probably going to go poorly ever stopped me?” she shot back.
“Touché.” He rolled over onto his back and languidly stretched again. “I do so enjoy these little chats of ours. Your pithiness is rather refreshing, at times.”
She forced herself to exhale slowly and uncurled her fingers. “Get. Out.”
“I really don’t understand why you’re so resistant and resentful of our connection,” he hummed as he inspected his nails. “Your cousin is so very happy in his special relationship with Sirocco. Or at least he was, until other people started meddling with something they clearly can’t comprehend.” He dramatically sighed. “I should probably warn you that their interference won’t end well – for the Order, and everyone involved – but especially not for dear Altaïr. He really is quite an extraordinary specimen, so carefully bred. Such a pity, really,” he drawled as he sat up and smoothed his hair. A cold feeling slithered down her spine as she watched him preen.
“What are you talking about, Cesare?” she finally asked, hating herself for taking his bait.
“What happened to get thee behind me, shaytan?” he teased with a slow, slippery smile. “Has playing hard to get finally become inconvenient?”
You know what, fuck it, she decided as she watched him saunter over. I’m tired of everyone thinking they’ve got me on a string and can play with me however they like.
“Have you finally decided to stop being so disagreeable, my bitterness?” he purred in her ear, leaning in so close his breath stirred the loose curls that had escaped from her braid and fallen against her neck.
“No.” She bared her teeth and struck.
He was so close her blade should have sunk in to its hilt, but his reflexes were inhumanly fast. It was still a solidly glancing strike though, and the sound he made was somewhere between nails on a chalkboard and the screech of tearing metal, inhuman and chilling and so deeply satisfying. The door to Ezio’s room was ajar and she was pretty sure she could hear Taline crying softly inside as she passed, presumably alone, because if Ezio had also been in the room she definitely would have heard him, but she didn’t stop to check.
“If anyone actually notices I’m gone, tell them I went out,” she instructed the cringing house elf half hiding behind one of her mother’s enormous decorative alabaster urns as she descended the stairs two at a time.
Roma at night felt oppressive with its uncharacteristic darkness and silent empty streets, but at least she was finally alone.
[1] “my mousy mouse” in Persian