The Phoenix

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Today’s subject: Clemenza has an unexpected visitor, and then makes a dangerous bargain.

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Agatha breezed by Clemenza’s table, apron swishing, and dropped another strawberry jam pastry in front of her.1 Clemenza stared at it.

“You could say ‘thank you’.” Agatha glanced at her, adjusting a pin in her graying hair as she continued on. “You look like you need an extra this morning.”

“Thanks,” Clemenza muttered, biting into it. She wasn’t sure why her mood was so sour, other than she was still brooding about the mission. At least it was the weekend, two days where she didn’t have to go in to the clock shop. She glanced around; the bakery was crowded this morning. All the tables were filled, and there was a line snaking almost to the door while people came to collect fresh bread.

The bell above the door chimed, cutting through the chatter. Clemenza glanced up, then did a double-take. Her heart tripped in her chest.

It couldn’t be.

No.

It had been too long. Too many years.

How had she found her?

Clemenza’s chair scraped as she rose.

“Maria,” she whispered.

As if her sister heard her above the din of the bakery, her head turned Clemenza’s way, but it was a few more seconds before they locked eyes across the crowd. Clemenza remained frozen in place. Maria’s face was expressionless.

“Clemenza! Maria! Out, get out!”

Smoke everywhere, Maria screaming and crying, “Mamma! Mamma!”

Clemenza, grabbing her sister and screaming, “Stop being a child unless you want to die.”

She inwardly flinched every time she recalled that moment.

Her sister had matured in the years since Clemenza had last seen her. Her round, youthful face had become slender and sharper as she hit her mid-twenties, though probably as much from lack of food as from age. She wore a simple traveling gown of dark brown, with a square bodice and a mantello fastened at her throat by a brass pin in place of where the sword pin marking them as Guerriera nobles would’ve gone. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold. When she spotted Clemenza, she wound her way around the tables, pushing past people, her eyes never leaving her sister’s.

Maria stopped short of giving Clemenza a hug, as if they were nothing more than good acquaintances. Perhaps they were now. How long had it been since they’d seen each other? Four years? Five? She was taller now too. She had the same black, wavy hair as Clemenza, but her eyes were a bright blue, taken from their father.

“What are you doing here?” Clemenza said.

Maria didn’t bother with any kind greetings either, didn’t even smile. “You mentioned in your last letter you stay here now. Is there a quiet place where we can talk?”

Clemenza didn’t even remember the last time she’d sent a letter to her family. She had spent the past six years carving a separation between her life here and her family. At first it had been subconscious, but at some point, as she’d engrained herself deeper in her work, done more things she knew she had to do but wasn’t proud of, the separation became conscious.

She couldn’t bear to face her family anymore.

Clemenza nodded toward the door. “Let’s take a walk. There’s a park nearby.”

They didn’t talk as they headed down the street. This part of the city had ruins around and between the nicer buildings with their arches and pediments. The park Clemenza directed them toward was tucked within such ruins, dirty white columns with their intricate capitals broken off, ivy choking once magnificent but now broken buildings.

“Have I not been sending enough money?”2 Clemenza asked once they’d ventured on a quiet path that wound through the grassy area. “Now that I have a cheaper place to live, I can afford to send more this cycle.”

Maria shook her head. “No, no, you’ve been very generous. That is…there are money problems.”

Clemenza glanced at her sister, but her face was downcast, her brow creased.

“I didn’t know what to do,” Maria said. She coughed, covering her face with a handkerchief. Clemenza blinked, but otherwise tried to keep her face placid. “Everyone is working, doing what they can. I’ve been selling my embroidery and sewing at Limbus’s weekend markets, Isabella and Giorgia work at the inn there, as does Mother when she’s able to. Marcos has taken a well-paying job as a clerk in the city, and all the others help around the house and garden and earn some money doing chores for the neighbors. Then there’s your money. Yet it’s still not enough…”

How could it not be enough? They had managed to get by for years, even after what remained of the family wealth—various assets and accounts not tied to their palazzo—ran out seven or eight years ago. Shortly before Clemenza decided to move back to the city.

“I even thought of moving here, of also taking up a job in the clock shop,” Maria added.

“Absolutely not,” Clemenza snapped. She softened her tone, “You know you aren’t well enough, Maria.”

Maria coughed again, as if to punctuate Clemenza’s point, but didn’t say anything. She’d been sickly ever since the fire. Her lungs were weak. If they could afford it, Edenico was famous for having produced a kind of medicine from aether used to treat many ailments. The only time Clemenza’s family had been able to scrape together enough money for it was when her younger brother Fabrizio had become ill when a bout of plague ran through the village many years ago. Medicinal aether was costly because it was so complex to make.

It was a marvel Maria had even managed the long trip here. From Edenico, it would take about a week with the rough terrain, and even so…

“Wait.” It hit Clemenza. She had been so shocked to see her sister. “Did you travel all this way alone?”

Maria’s already flushed face became pinker. “Marcos accompanied me. And I just…I really wanted to see you. After all this time.”

Clemenza looked at the ground, unable to meet her sister’s gaze. She frowned, but chose not to ask the next question that came to mind: And how did he manage? Her brother, with a bad arm, who couldn’t handle a horse well. A stab of remorse shot through her.

“And why…” Clemenza started to ask why the eldest brother hadn’t come to see her as well, but she couldn’t finish the question. She knew why. Marcos had been angry with her for moving here alone. He’d first tried to talk her out of it, said there was plenty of work in the prosperous Duchy of Edenico. Then he’d suggested moving with her, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Someone had to keep Father in check, be the man he couldn’t be for their family.

Besides, it wasn’t the quality of the work that had brought her here. It had been about searching for any and every opportunity to reclaim their status in the city where it had smoldered, sleeping blocks away from the man who had lit the match.

Despite her explaining this, Marcos had seen her move as abandoning the family. At this point, Clemenza wasn’t sure he wasn’t right.

They approached a bench, and Maria sat down. Overhead, a bird cawed, its black form striking against the gray sky. Clemenza shivered and pulled Gianpaolo’s mantello tighter around herself. Maria frowned.

“Isn’t that a bit big on you?”

Clemenza shook her head and waved the question away.

Not far away was a fountain, a silent and dry sentinel, awaiting spring when its water would return.3 A young man and woman sat at its base, smiling and chatting together. Clemenza frowned, recalling a similar situation she’d been in five years ago: sitting by a dead fountain like this one, only she hadn’t seen the man she’d briefly talked to. He’d mentioned something about compromising Values. Clemenza had wondered often since if she too was getting more and more off track. Her hand went to her pocket now, feeling for the medal she’d nearly lost that day.

“You know what would be nice?” Maria’s laughter brought her out of the reverie. “If we could throw a charity ball for ourselves.”

Clemenza snorted. Before the Raids, charity events had been the most popular and successful way to raise money for the city-states. She recalled how the streets would become packed in the days leading up to them. Such events had been organized by the signoria or doge as a way to raise money for schools, hospitals, orphanages, safe houses, and other institutions. Open to the public, they’d been exciting affairs that drew whole cities together. Everyone contributed what they could.4

“Remember the last one our parents went to?” Clemenza asked. “I think a year or two before the Raids…”

“We had to wait for the nurse to fall asleep before sneaking out!” Maria recalled, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees.

“Which we knew would happen after she’d had two cups of chamomile tea.” Clemenza laughed, nudging a pebble with the toe of her boot.

“Then we put on our nicest dresses, you tried to put Mother’s lipstick on me but it got all over my teeth, and we went to Palazzo Comunale.”

Clemenza grinned, lost in memory. “There was an ice sculpture there. They were handing out cups of cider to the children, and we thought it was so unfair that we had to stay home just because Giorgia and Isabella were babies.”

“And Mother almost spotted us, but you pulled a man’s mantello off and let it fall on us!”

They laughed, but the happy memory faded with the sobering recollection that those charity events were part of the past. No one had organized them since the Raids, probably because too many things had fallen apart to have time for such frivolity anymore.

Maria sighed and looked down at her hands. “It’s Father,” she said finally. “His…problem got worse.”

Clemenza’s breath caught, a freezing whisper of air stuck in her chest. “How much worse?”

“We have nothing,” Maria whispered. She choked out a sob, a tear running down her cheek. “Clem, everything is gone. We’ll lose the house if we can’t make the next payment.”

Clemenza stared at the ground, not reaching for her sister even though she was crying now. Tears made Clemenza uncomfortable. Tears didn’t solve problems; they made them worse.

“I’ll receive this cycle’s payment in a couple days. I can give you all of it.”

“No, Clem; what will you live off of?”

“I have some saved up for emergencies. I can scrape by until the next cycle.”

Maria was silent for a moment, other than her sobs. She shook her head. “It’s generous, Clem, but it’s still not enough.”

Clemenza swore and stood up. She kicked at the bench with the side of one pointed shoe. “Can no one stop Father? Out of my twelve siblings, plus Mother, can no one, I don’t know, tie him up and prevent him from going to those blasted gambling halls?”

“You know we can’t.” Maria’s eyes were red-rimmed. “And every time, he swears he’s going to earn back our entire fortune.”

“If I were there, I’d lock him in the cellar.” Clemenza paced. Maria’s eyes tracked her.

There was the reward from the mission, assuming it was successful, but they needed money faster.

“Okay, Maria, listen to me.” Clemenza stopped in front of her now. “I can’t tell you the details, but I might have a great turn in fortune in the coming few cycles. I can’t say when. In the meantime, tell me how much you need for the payments, and I’ll give it to you.”

Maria sniffled. “Three…three thousand Selvans.”

Even if Clemenza gave all of her wages for the past cycle, that still wouldn’t cut it by half.

She laid her hands on her sister’s shoulders, the first time they’d touched. Maria tensed initially, then relaxed. An idea took shape in Clemenza’s mind. She waited until Maria stopped sniffling and met her eyes.

“How long are you here?”

“A few days.”

“Okay, good. I will get the money. Within a few cycles, everything will change.”

There must’ve been something in her expression that gave her away, for Maria sighed and said, “Are you truly still on that scheme of trying to gain back our status? It’s been six years, Clem.”

“It will happen. I can’t tell you how, only that I have a way now.” Though it was amusing to imagine Maria’s expression if she explained the mission and said she was going to hold the experimental aether weapon as leverage over Ludovico.

Maria looked down at the ground, doubtful.

“Don’t you remember our neighbors, the Valentis?” Clemenza asked now. A dispossessed Carità family. “They regained their nobility and are back in Selvascura now. See?”

“I heard they had to sell their daughter.”

“That’s a rumor,” Clemenza snapped. Though it was true that new nobles generally had to pay for their status—and the price was quite steep. Her tone softened, and she tried to end on a more positive note. “Regardless, I’ll get you the money.”

Maria forced a smile. Her sister believed in her. Or she wanted to, because it was otherwise absurd Clemenza could come up with that amount in a couple days. It brought some amount of warmth to her heart. Clemenza had cheated and let down many people. She played by no rules.

But she always did whatever it took to help her family.

Maria left later to rejoin Marcos. Clemenza asked for the inn they were staying at, but knew she wouldn’t go to them. If her brother didn’t want to see her, she didn’t care to see him.

She pulled up a mental map of the city. Gaspare did business with the dispossessed noble-turned-smuggler assigned to the mission. Benigna had once too, in an attempt to make investments—though Helori had cheated her. Clemenza knew only vaguely where the old palazzo was, but she had spent enough time on the streets herself, and heard enough gossip, to be confident she could find it. Clemenza headed toward the river, but away from the direction of the clock shop.

The sky was blood-red with the sunset. Clemenza picked up her pace. She didn’t want to remain in this area when it got dark. There were more alleys here, with low arches, and the glowing eyes of street cats watched her from cracked holes in the buildings. Ivy crawled over dirty stone. Children dressed in tattered clothing ran around, their callused feet light and quick.

She stopped at a tall, arched wooden door, studded with iron pegs, farther down the street. She glanced up at what had once been a crest for one of the Stelnove set above the door, but was now so cracked and broken as to be unrecognizable. This was the only such palazzo in this part, so she knew she’d come to the right place. She hit the oak leaf-shaped knocker to the door.

A resounding clang sounded within. The hairs on her skin stood on edge. The door creaked open a few moments later, and a tall, lanky young man a few years younger than her stood there.

“Who’re you?” His black hair obscured hooded eyes, which narrowed further now.

Clemenza placed a hand on her hip. “I’m here to see messer Helori Compostezza.”

“What’s your business?” His voice had the flatter tones of the Casellan accent, though he spoke common Almi well for someone who looked like he lived on the streets.

Clemenza sighed. “Just let me in, pischello. It’s important.”

He shook his head, long dark hair flying around his eyes. “I have orders not to let anyone in without an appointment.”

Clemenza was about to attempt to barge her way in—he was taller than her, but much skinnier—when a voice called, “Is there a problem, Gryphus?”

Clemenza recognized the name as another person assigned to the mission. Of course this smuggler wanted to keep one of his lackeys close.

“You got an unscheduled visitor,” Gryphus called back, all the while not taking his dark gaze off Clemenza.

The former noble’s head full of curly blond hair appeared around Gryphus. Helori Compostezza was shorter than his lackey, but he held his chin high as if he still maintained his noble status. He looked to be a few years older than her, perhaps early thirties. He wore a fur-trimmed mantello over a velvet giornea. Loose bits of thread dotted the cloak, as if appliqués had been there and later torn off. Calze and velvet, jeweled shoes completed the look.

To the general public, Helori seemed to sell poorly-made clockwork devices. A bit overpriced, not entirely legal, but he had found enough loopholes in the regulations.

It was ingenious. By putting up a front of having a questionable reputation, but without enough red flags to be examined closely, Helori was left alone as a sad dispossessed noble just trying to get by.

Only people in-the-know knew what he sold in his crates, within and around the clockwork devices.

“Well,” he said flatly. “You do not look like my usual clientele.”

“Oozing with money and itching for debauchery?”

Helori laughed loudly, stepping around Gryphus. “I like you. Perhaps we can talk. What do you want?”

“I came to discuss business.”

“My appointments are closed for the day.”

“My name is Clemenza Giudice. I’m listed for the mission to the Caina Republic too.”

That gave him pause. Even Gryphus peered at her a bit closer. “Very well,” Helori said. “I suppose I could spare half an hour.” He swept aside, and snapped his fingers at Gryphus, who opened the door wider.

As Clemenza passed inside, Helori gave her another look. “Is that a man’s mantello?”

“Yes, I beat up a nobleman for it.”

He laughed, but he gave her a curious glance as if wondering what the chances were she was being serious. Inside, Clemenza found herself in a grand hall, lit by torches. She paused for a moment to take in the sweeping beauty of it. Had her own family’s palazzo truly been this big, this immediately impressive? Sometimes she thought she recalled it perfectly, other times not. The smoke from the crackling flames tickled her throat and shot a spark of fear through her. She kept her eyes forward, fixed on the wide stone steps at the end of the hall and trying to ignore the flames dancing at the edges of her vision, consuming everything.

“How did you get a place like this?” she asked.

Helori chuckled. “This”—he spread his arms wide, made more dramatic by the mantello—“was my family’s palazzo when we moved here from Acheron when I was young. Before the dispossession of nobles. This used to be a nice part of the city. Twenty years ago.” A bitter laugh. He had a harsh accent, with clipped sounds and hard R’s, confirming his Acheronian upbringing.

They went upstairs. Tapestries representing pastoral hunting scenes covered the walls, some of them slashed, others intact.

“Is it true everyone in Acheron lives in the caves?” Clemenza asked.

He glanced at her. “Not everyone,” was all he said. The region was protective of how much outsiders knew of its geography.

She glanced at his velvet mantello again, all those dots of loose thread.

“This was covered in pins of the sun, right?” she asked. “The Speranza symbol.” Hope.

He shot her a look over his shoulder that twisted between wry and bitter. “Aren’t you clever. Yes, the Raiders tore off and took all Stelnove signs from the dispossessed families. Ruined our tapestries and looted the place too, for good measure. But I’m sure you know that for yourself, Guerriera.”

They had reached the top of the stairs and entered a massive room. Most of the tapestries here were slashed as well, as was much of the upholstery on the chairs. Clemenza wanted to ask how Helori was still living here and why. All the palazzi from the old families were supposed to belong to the city and be repurposed, generally given to new nobles.

Helori collapsed in one of the more intact chairs and snapped his fingers. Out of the shadows scurried a skinny street kid, a girl with stringy dirty-blonde hair. Gryphus had disappeared.

“Please prepare some refreshments for my guest and me.”

Clemenza waited until the girl had hurried from the hall before she said, “So you’ve taken to making slaves out of the street children?”

Helori wagged a disapproving finger. “Not slaves. They receive their own cut of wages and have a place to stay. I am a fair man.”

“And Gryphus?”

“An on-and-off assistant. He comes and goes. He has a vast knowledge of the underground networks of the city, which is useful to me. He’s implied more than once he’d like a permanent position here, but I haven’t gotten this far by letting others get so close to my work.”

Clemenza humphed. The torchlight crackled around them, keeping her skin on edge. On the table between them was a carved wooden figure of a bird that seemed to be staring at her. “How has no one caught you yet?” she asked.

Helori leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, an amused smile tugging his mouth. A dimple on one side made him appear more boyish. “Caught doing what?”5

“You sell liquidized aether,” she said matter-of-factly. It was time to get to the point.

“And what makes you think that?”

“Because I know two of your former clients: Gaspare Mazza and Benigna Donato.”

His blue eyes shifted between hers. “You come to my palazzo without an appointment and make some bold claims.” Another flash of dimples. “My generosity has a limit; you would do well to keep it in mind.”

Clemenza studied him. Helori appeared to be all ease and confidence, as if he’d chosen to bear tragedy like a mark of honor rather than something that’d been shoved upon him. A phoenix still standing in its ashes, all the fire burned out. There had to be something to exploit here, and she intended to find it before making her intentions clear.

“It must be difficult,” she tried now, “being here all alone without your family.” She had attempted to imbue as much sympathy as possible in her tone, but Helori’s face still darkened.

“I have my home, unlike many others,” he said pointedly. Clemenza blinked, but otherwise kept her face impassive. “But it isn’t bad. My sister visits when she’s able. You’ll meet her soon. She’s also on this special mission.”

The girl returned, bearing a silver platter with goblets of red wine and an assortment of Selvascuran cured meats and fresh cheese.

“I am not here to talk about the mission,” Clemenza said. “I am curious, though…how is it that you’re able to live in your family’s palazzo? You’re right, few are so lucky. It’s quite impressive what you’ve managed to accomplish.”

Flattery indeed did the trick. His face brightened. He passed one of the goblets to her, and they clinked glasses.

“After the Raids, this place was left to rot. My parents were killed.” He paused, shook his head, then went on. “My sister and I returned to Acheron for a while, though we had no family to take us in. We came back, despite the danger, and hoped to make something of ourselves. Once I learned how to smuggle liquidized aether, it all became easier. I took this place back in one glorious night, fighting off the street urchins who’d taken it over.” A dramatic sweep of his arm. He leaned forward. “Now it is mine. I rule it. I grant hospitality and fair wages to anyone who wants to work for me. If you betray me though, you die. There is no room for mercy in this world.”

He sat back with another dramatic sweep of the mantello, somehow managing not to spill his wine in the process.

If his family was of the Speranza line, they were one of the first dispossessed, though that meant a matter of a few cycles. That was the wily part of Ludovico Guerra’s ideas. While the Raids themselves had happened fast, dispossessing nobles within the span of nine cycles, a year, his poisonous philosophy had been spreading through the republic and surrounding city-states for around ten years before. Ever since the end of the war with Serpana.

She calculated. It had been twenty years now since the Raids. She had been seven when they happened; given Helori appeared to be a few years older, he probably had more memories of leading a noble life.

It was time. Clemenza took a delicate sip of wine. “That is why I’m here. I’m not interested in buying. I want to be a part of your business.”

Helori clearly hadn’t expected this. He raised his eyebrows.

“I am a fellow dispossessed noble, so you can trust me,” Clemenza went on. “I need money fast.”

Helori burst out laughing. Clemenza tightened her grip around the goblet.

“Madonna, I couldn’t get you fast money in a normal period, and right now I’m making preparations to transfer the business over while I’m away on the mission. Besides, I already mentioned: I don’t take official business partners.”

There was a moment of pause while they both sipped from their goblets. Clemenza had a narrow-eyed glare. Helori was all good humor.

“Now that’s not to say I don’t like helping my fellow former nobles in their time of need. How much money do you need?”

Clemenza subtracted from what she could add with her own wages. “Around two thousand, three hundred Selvans.”

Helori whistled. “Not a small amount.”

“It’s for my family.”

He twirled a curl of hair around one finger. “I’m not saying I don’t have that amount, to be clear. That I couldn’t spare it. But what would you give me in return?”

Clemenza kept her face blank.

“Clemenza Giudice…” He tapped his chin. “You’re the furbizia prodigy, aren’t you? Who won all those games?”

“I don’t play anymore.” Not since she’d seen the amount of cheating involved. She’d never cheated—she never had to—but the corruption in the dark underbelly of what was supposed to be a fun game, the deception, the gambling that went on.… It disgusted her after a while.

“Nothing, nothing, it was a thought.” He waved it away, took another long sip of wine. “I could loan you the money. But I would expect something.”

“I’ll pay it back. By working here, if you’d like.”

“I have enough minions.” He waved the thought away, the phoenix flicking ashes off its bright plume. “No, I must think about it. I’ll give you the money, but you will not know how or when I’ll expect repayment.” He flashed a smile, the first menacing look she’d seen.

She wanted to shout no, dump his wine in his face, set fire to his tapestries, to his beloved palazzo, and storm out. But as her feet itched to move, Maria’s face came to mind. Maria, tear-streaked, exhausted from the travel it’d taken to reach her. She could’ve sent an automa with a message, but she’d chosen to see Clemenza after all these years instead. She thought of her parents, and the rest of her siblings. Remember Isabella and Giorgia. Marcos. Daniela. Mimi. Luciano. Fabrizio and Vittorio. Noelia. Donato. Giosetta.

Whatever it takes.

“Fine.” She set her goblet down and held out her hand. “We have a deal, messer Compostezza.”

The menacing smile grew wider. The phoenix spread its wings, but ashes still clung to it.6

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