Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The night before Alfonso was caught, Stella had dreamed of being hung three times in three different circumstances.

It was an omen too dangerous to ignore, so she had been especially careful while trying to unravel its meaning. She hadn’t realized she would be watching Alfonso swing by the end of the week, strangely relieved the seawater-soaked hemp wasn’t around her own throat.

Despite that, the feeling of dread still hadn’t left her. What happened to Alfonso was also what would happen to her if anyone ever found out about her magic.

Maybe her dream had been trying to warn her that the noose was tightening around her. That her fate would be the same if she slipped up for a moment. Stella rubbed at her throat.

You are burned out, that’s all. She had been working on fulfilling a large order of books and cards for her father to take on his trip to Florence and was tired down to her bones.

Exhaustion and the fact she had caught the eye of Domenico Aladoro had put her in an especially bad mood.

Not that seeing his handsome face under his black hood hadn’t sent a secret thrill through her. It was that he had smiled at her like she was a stranger, which he thought they were, but there was still a part of her that hated it.

The smile was enough to make her mind go blank and then wander down paths that it shouldn’t.

Last March, they had an unexpected encounter at Carnevale that began with laughter and ended with sweaty, mind-blowing sex in a dark room of a stranger’s palazzo. It had been the best Carnevale she’d ever had, and even though she rarely admitted it to herself, she had really enjoyed Domenico Aladoro’s company.

Masked as she was, Dom had had no idea who he’d spent the night talking and drinking with. Stella had made sure of it.

She had given the Prince of Venice her number in a moment of weakness, and then two weeks later, she had dropped her phone in a canal in a moment of strength.

Magic-fused batteries had restored phone technology but reduced them to calls only, and even then, they were so expensive, not many people used them.

Magically sent messages and letters were easier and cheaper because there was always plenty of magic to go around.

Stella had been irritated enough to toss the expensive device despite the hole a new one would put in her bank account. At least she only regretted that decision once a month now, and not the previous four times a week.

That was progress.

"Stop thinking about it," Stella muttered under her breath and swirled her brush in red paint. Stella put the final touches on the card that she was painting and stretched her neck.

The King of Swords looked back at her, and with dismay, she realized he had Dom’s eyes, his sensual mouth lifted in the same smile he had given her that morning.

"Cazzo!" she cursed and was about to throw the card into her overflowing bin of other rejected designs when her father appeared.

"Ah, excellent, you’ve finished the last one. I’ll get this to the printer’s downstairs straightaway," Pietro said and carefully plucked up the drying card before Stella could object. He hesitated at her expression, brows furrowing. "Are you okay? You look upset."

"I’m fine, Papa. Just thinking of a new design." Stella smiled, not wanting to concern him.

He was already worried about leaving her alone for a few weeks while he toured Florence, Milan, and Rome in a series of business meetings and product showings.

Stella was looking forward to having the top levels of the palazzo to herself for once and maybe painting something other than cards. She needed the break. Maybe with some decent sleep she would stop being so worried about being hanged.

"Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?" Pietro asked for the hundredth time. He had been doing his best to convince her, so Stella stood, wrapped her arm around his shoulders, and kissed his cheek.

"Positive. You know I’d die of boredom halfway through the first meeting," she said.

"You’re going to have to do them one day, my dear. You’re my heir, and they all want to meet you," he replied.

Stella joined him on his way to the door, and together they walked downstairs from their private upper floors and to the busy workshop on the ground floor.

"And they will. I like being the talented recluse, just for a little while longer," Stella added, making him smile. "Besides, you leave in two hours, and I wouldn’t have time to pack."

"I suppose it’s a good thing. As soon as they see how beautiful you are, they will all try and set you up with their sons." Pietro raised his eyes to God. "Heaven forbid you end up with a Florentine."

"Better than a Roman. See? Staying back and keeping an eye on the workshop will be good practice for me. I might even meet with clients who want commissions."

Pietro laughed. "I wouldn’t want you to strain yourself."

Stella hoped that her father’s associates would see her as being too old for marriage material.

At thirty years old, she had only technically finished her apprenticeship under her father a year ago. She had no need for marriage or a man to take care of her. She would inherit Vianello Publishing, and that was better than any rich husband. She only had to keep her head down.

No more magic. No more lusting after Domenico Aladoro.

If only either of those things were that easy.

An hour later, Stella was helping box up some merchandise with Luisa, another card artist, for the postal barge when Luca burst through the doors. He was wet from the misting rain, his eyes frantic. He waved to Stella urgently from across the workroom.

"Someone is in trouble again by the looks of things," Luisa said disapprovingly as Stella passed her the half-completed order.

"He wouldn’t be Luca if he wasn’t pissing off someone," she replied and hurried to join him. "Come on, through to the kitchen, so you don’t drip on something by accident." She cut off his objections. "Not here, Luca."

He was twenty-two and the younger brother of her friend Claudia. They had been friends forever, so whenever he got in hot water, Luca always went to Stella first before risking the wrath of his older sister.

"What is this all about, and why do I feel like I’m about to lose a pocket full of soldi to get you out of a gambling debt?" she asked as they entered the privacy of the kitchen.

Luca took Stella’s arm. "It’s not me that’s the problem! I went to Claudia’s because I hadn’t heard from her in two days, and she’s gone. She was meant to meet me this morning, and she’s never late."

"What about her newest boyfriend? You know, the owl shifter?" Stella asked, Claudia’s recent conquest’s name escaping her. She could see the fear in Luca’s eyes and was trying desperately not to think the worst.

"Claudia would have told me if she was staying with Andreas. I’m telling you she’s gone. Maybe she was grabbed like the others. I told her we shouldn’t have been looking into the disappearances!" Luca paced, dragging agitated fingers through his hair.

The disappearances were all Claudia and Luca had been talking about for a month. There had been people going missing in the Coins districts, and the inquisitors didn’t seem inclined to worry about it, dismissing them as coincidental.

Luca and Claudia knew the families of a few of them, but what they hadn’t told theinquisitorswas that they had all been unregistered magic users.

It was illegal not to be registered by the Republic if you presented with magical abilities, but it cost money to be tested, and then you would always have your name on a record.

Two reasons that many wanted to keep their powers to themselves. Like Stella.

Stella never used her secret abilities on her work. Every pack of Vianello cards was tested for magical tampering before they left production anyway, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t be in deep shit if anyone ever found out she had magic and painted cards.

No questions asked. No trial. Just the Council of Ten and the executioner. Stella rubbed at her throat again.

"How about this: you let me finish up here, and once Pietro leaves for Firenze this afternoon, we can go to Claudia’s boyfriend’s place to check it out? I don’t want you to go there by yourself if she’s in trouble. She might be having a sex marathon with Andreas and just forgot to call," she said, trying and failing to lighten the mood.

"But Stella, I feel it in my guts. Something has happened to her. I know it," Luca replied.

"Okay, then tell your gut to wait a little longer. Don’t argue with me, Luca. You’ll need my help and my blades if there really is someone after her." Stella kissed his forehead, just like she had when he was a little boy.

"You’re shit with a stiletto, and you know it. Are you hungry?"

"I could eat," he replied, with the smallest smile. Food was always a good way to distract Luca from his problems.

Stella tried to keep calm for his sake, but inside, her feeling of dread deepened. She had thought that her bad omen had been seeing Domenico Aladoro again.

She couldn’t have been more mistaken.