Chapter 12

CHAPTERTWELVE

Across the city, in the chambers of the Council of Ten in the Doge’s palace, Dom was trying not to stare at his favourite painting of the goddess Juno showering Venice with gifts.

She had the same shining golden hair as Stella, who his mind constantly turned back to as the daily Council meeting went on and on.

The Doge was concerned about the Wolf Mage’s recent attack in Croatia, but the D’Argentos were more worried about the increase in piracy, with Nico wanting to hunt down the captain that was rumored to be stirring up the others.

Rodrigo and the Coins representatives were concerned about the strain on the treasury while Arkon and Zahir seemed to be trying to make each other laugh in a silent staring contest.

No one had mentioned missing people in their House districts.

"Domenico? You have been awfully quiet today," said Gio, pulling him out of his own head.

"Apologies, my Doge. I’ve had a concerning message cross my desk in the past week, and it’s bothering me," Dom replied.

"Oh? And what was that?"

"It was an anonymous letter about a rather large number of people going missing throughout the city in the last eighteen months—" Dom bit back a groan as Arkon’s boot came down on his foot under the table. The sorcerer gave him a warning glare. "But I’m looking into it. It’s nothing I want to bother the Council with at this stage."

"You read all your correspondence? Perhaps you can pass some tips onto Arkon," Gio said, with a small smile. "Keep looking into the missing people if it’s going to distract you this much and let me know what you discover."

"It’s a strange time in the Republic, and a war is always going to mean a transient population," Rodrigo added, without looking at Dom. "We really need to study the recent reports of new weapons coming out of the Varangian garrisons in Slovakia..."

Like that, Rodrigo took over the meeting, and Dom and the missing people were shelved.

Arkon leaned over and whispered, "Later."

Dom barely heard a word of the Council meeting afterward, his mind drifting back to his favorite daydream of talking with Stella in her kitchen. He hadn’t been able to shake the warm feeling last night’s conversation had given him. She wasn’t trying to use him for his family name or money.

Being around Stella was easy, parts of him unclenching for the first time in years. It had also highlighted just how lonely his normal life was that he had no one else, apart from perhaps Arkon, who he felt he could trust.

You should go and see her. Just to make sure she’s doing okay.

Dom didn’t want to look as desperate for her company as he felt so he needed an excuse. Maybe Luna had reached out to her? He could only hope Stella had kept her promise not to follow anything up without him.

By the time Gio called an end to the meeting, Dom had made up his mind to go home to change and grab a bottle of wine before paying Stella a visit.

A firm hand took him by the bicep before he could make his escape.

"Do you want something, Father?" Dom asked, his body going cold.

Rodrigo smiled at the passing entourage of elaborately dressed djinn before pulling Dom towards a large bay of windows.

"Where were you last night? Carmella spent months organizing her event with the D’Argentos and you embarrassed her by not bothering to show," he said, staring up at him with angry brown eyes.

Dom shook off his grip and stepped back. It was a bad habit to make the height difference between them less noticeable. Rodrigo had hated it when Dom outgrew him by half a head, and Dom had spent most of his teenage years trying to hide it.

"I was unwell like Antonio said in his message. Besides, I don’t think you care about Carmella’s feelings on the matter for an instant," Dom replied.

"Of course I care! Your mother works hard to cultivate the right friendships with people who matter," Rodrigo said. "I also care that Signora Montifiore was there as a guest of honor, and it’s important for the people of power in this city to know you and see you at such events. To maintain our power base, we must maintain these relationships. You know this."

Ah, so that’s what it was really about. Signora Montifiore was the richest woman in Venice, with a group of granddaughters of marriageable age.

"I really was unwell. I’ll be at the next one," Dom promised, hoping it would pacify his father. Rodrigo sounded sincere, but Dom could never trust that it would last. He looked like he was about to say something else when Arkon appeared.

"So sorry to interrupt this father-and-son bonding time, but I need to steal the cub, Rodrigo," Arkon said, slinging an arm around Dom’s shoulder and steering him away.

Rodrigo’s face iced over. "Is there a problem, Grand Sorcerer?"

"No, no, not at all. I owe this scamp a rematch at cards. He quite cleaned me out the other night." Arkon gave a charming laugh.

Dom contributed to the lie, adding, "Only because you have a terrible poker face." He gave his father a nod. "We can finish our chat later."

Rodrigo looked at Dom, and then back at Arkon, his eyes narrowing. Rodrigo had never disguised his general mistrust of the sorcerer and the other Council members, but something in his gaze as he stared at Dom said that he was starting to mistrust him too.

It was only a matter of time, Dom reminded himself, and tried his best not to feel hurt over the fact it had finally happened.

Their differing alpha levels meant they would have always clashed eventually, no matter Rodrigo’s desire to change.

"Longest Council meeting ever. I swear if I hear one more whine about the Wolf Mage I am going to go and assassinate her just to get some peace and quiet," Arkon complained as Dom followed him through the Doge’s palace and to the sorcerer’s apartments on the other side.

As Grand Sorcerer, Arkon had the privilege of being made to live at the palace so he could always be available to the Doge whenever necessary. Arkon had gotten around this problem of privacy by creating a complicated warding around the hallways that accessed his quarters.

If you weren’t a magical adept or paying very close attention, you ended up going past them altogether.

"Maybe you should send assassins after her. It would stop the Varangians from harassing our borders all the time," Dom said, only half joking.

"I have sent assassins! Good ones!" Arkon took a piece of charcoal from his pocket and sketched a sigil on a set of double doors. They unlocked and swung open for him. "Watch where you step, I’ve been studying."

Dom quickly realized ’studying’ was Arkon’s word choice for ’there are books and papers literally everywhere, and if you mess them up I’ll incinerate you.’ Dom only stepped where the sorcerer stepped until Arkon pointed at a red velvet chaise lounge. "Sit, we need to talk."

Dom sat, peering around as Arkon poured drinks. On every surface there was something, from books to complicated artificer devices.

The scent of burnt paper and birch hovered in the air, the same that clung to the sorcerer wherever he went. When Arkon created more complex spells, he wrote them out on paper and burned them to release the magic. It had been a set of these very brilliant and complex spells that had made Gio pick Arkon as his Grand Sorcerer in the first place.

A large map pinned to a wall traced the ever-shifting frontline of the war using magic, and everywhere else, there were wanted posters in a variety of languages, all showing one person. The Wolf Mage.

One rather beautiful propaganda poster had her bedecked in full Varangian costume with a traditional head piece seated on silver white hair. She looked like a living saint, a Russian ikon made flesh.

It was a reminder to the people that she was of St. Olga’s bloodline and wielded her divine power and authority on earth. She also had a number of crossbow bolts and a variety of daggers stuck into her where Arkon had used the picture for target practice.

Dom knew exactly what the sorcerer had been ’studying.’

"Someone on your mind?" Dom asked, taking the glass that Arkon offered him.

“Fuck off, Dom, you know this is my life until she is dead. Gio is the one obsessed with her, and thus, is on my ass to stop her." Arkon slumped down in a chair opposite him.

"You know there was a time when I thought becoming the Grand Sorcerer would be an end to all my troubles and not the beginning of them."

Dom laughed. "Come on, I’d never believe you were that naive."

"No, seriously. I thought the higher I got, the less people would be able to bother me. I am the seventh son of the seventh son, Dom. Do you know what it’s like growing up with that many people around you all the time? Nightmare. I just wanted a place of my own to be able to work in peace."

"So you aimed for Grand Sorcerer on the chance of a quieter life? God, Arkon, you should’ve retired to the country somewhere if you wanted that."

Arkon groaned and stared up at the ceiling. "If only you knew what it’s like being a seventh son and the expectations it comes with."

"And this rant is why you asked me to come for a visit?" Dom asked.

"Not exactly." Arkon’s head tilted. Magic hissed out through the air and hit a shadow on the corner of the ceiling. Dom’s ears popped.

"What the hell was that?"

"Some cheeky fucker tried to put a listening hex in my rooms. And not a very good one. Seriously, the audacity of some people. It’s like they forget who I am," Arkon complained before fixing his attention back on Dom. "Sorry, as I was saying, I did as you asked and perused my letters and reports for anything about your missing people."

"And?"

Arkon made an elegant gesture with one hand and suddenly papers were falling onto Dom’s lap out of thin air. He put his drink on the table beside him and tried to gather them up.

"Turns out, yes, I may have missed a few letters. You can have them all seeing how you are so interested in the subject," Arkon said, draining his drink. "Tell me about the girl, Domenico."

Dom’s stomach dropped. "What girl?"

"The girl at the club who wasn’t a waitress though she passed as one admirably." Arkon’s face suddenly shifted from jaded sorcerer to something serious and far more terrifying. "Better you tell me before I get curious and send one of my Ravens after her."

Dom flinched. The Ravens were the friendly term they used for Arkon’s spies. Not even the Doge knew who the Ravens were because they all reported to the Grand Sorcerer alone.

The whole point of their anonymity was to make everybody, especially the Council members and the Doge, behave themselves because they could never be certain a Raven wasn’t watching.

It made Arkon the most dangerous man in Venice.

"That’s unnecessary, Arkon. She is an asset from the Coins district who I am working with. Save your Ravens for someone worth watching," Dom replied, trying to keep his voice steady.

"And you trust her, don’t you?"

"About this matter? Yes. She has lost people; it makes her invested. Why?"

Arkon shrugged, irreverent once more. "Because I think you’re not going to like what you find once you get your answers. These kinds of cases never have happy endings, Dom."

Dom’s mind churned over his conversation with Arkon all the way home. That Stella had come to the sorcerer’s attention filled him with a respectful amount of dread. He could only hope the Wolf Mage kept Arkon’s deadly attention focused on her so he didn’t have the opportunity to obsess over anything else.

* * *

The sky was growingdark by the time Dom pulled into his dock in San Samuele. He cast a quick glance across the canal at Stella’s window, but no lights were burning.

After Arkon’s mention of the Ravens, he wasn’t going to sleep until he had seen that she was all right.

Dom opened the front door and was surprised that Antonio wasn’t there to greet him. Usually, he had an uncanny sense of when Dom was arriving and was always waiting.

"Antonio?" he called as he pulled off his jacket. Dom stilled as female laughter echoed through the lower floors. Music was coming from the kitchen, something operatic and definitely romantic. What the hell was going on?

Dom opened the kitchen door and found Stella sitting on the kitchen bench, stirring something in a glass bowl, flour smudged on one cheek.

She gave him a devilish grin when she saw him that made his heart leap. Antonio was cutting up vegetables beside her and looked up with dark, clever eyes as Dom fully entered the room.

"Good evening, master. Would you believe I found this beautiful woman trying to break in through the back door? What are the odds!"

Dom watched as Stella slowly bit into a strawberry. "Oh, I’d say they are pretty good."