The Mosaic

Chapter 53 | Way Down We Go

AN: This is a special chapter, featuring some side characters we barely saw -- but that largely influence the story! This is for you all for your continuous support and love, which I can't thank you enough for. There is a ton of hints in here, so keep your eyes sharp! An ancient order of stars, one prisoner of his future, one slave of his past. Who will prevail in their mad chess game? Two devils will rise and a city will burn. Way down we go ~

Special thanks to Bookoholic777 for helping with Persian! You're too awesome.

The Devil was running late.

He should have arrived at the Morosini palace an hour ago, but the sleek black gondolas had kept sliding past the golden gate, until the sky had bled out and Maia felt like she had swallowed a bee hive.

She had dubbed the stranger 'the devil'. Who else would make deals with Antonio Morosini?

Maybe it was the strange Greek? No, still in Florence. He and Antonio must already have a deal -- the Greek visited often. And Antonio did not have friends.

Antonio resided behind his giant desk like a bespectacled falcon, surrounded by a forest of book stacks covering every inch not occupied by inkwells and loose parchment. She tried getting her brothers and sisters attention, letting shadow animals crawl across the wall and gnaw at Antonio's head. Maybe she could innocently walk past and drop some itching powder down his shirt --

He shot her a stern glare, then returned to his writings, the scratch of his quill the only sound. How did he always know when she wanted to do that? Maia tugged at her hijab, pretending to right a wrinkle in the silk. She needed to keep her hands busy, unless she wanted to jump through the study like a bouncy ball.

The night sang of trouble, some nervous note lingering between the slow crackle of the fireplace and the rustle of turning pages.

She was a gremlin of trouble, Izar always said. She knew exactly what brooding chaos felt like.

Who were they waiting for? What was Antonio's plan? Why had only a fraction of them been ordered to wait with him?

Antonio hadn't told them anything. He will sway the tide in our favor, was all he had said after Maia had bugged him for days. His admission had startled her. There were whispers back in Arabia of the wayward prince's strange plans, working like clockwork, unfolding in either seconds or years. There was nothing he didn't know, didn't see.

Sway the tide... it meant they weren't winning. Maia wanted to strangle him, to rally her brothers and sisters -- not sit around and grow roots while Antonio read and wrote and brooded. As if nothing was wrong.

But they had their orders.

But things were wrong. They didn't even know how bad. Alkione had been on a simple mission to Florence, just delivering a letter -- never to return. There was too much Antonio didn't tell them.

He didn't trust them. Maia had asked why he needed this new ally -- he had them. "I have your blades," he had answered, without looking up from his scribbles. I do not have your loyalty. He hadn't needed to say it.

Her cheeks had turned hot -- it was true. They were here on direct orders from Altair herself. Whispers had sickered through, of the Sultana fearing for her son's life. Too many forces were gambling with the kingdom's future.

Antonio may be just half Arab, born of a rich Italian merchant and his beautiful Spanish wife, the youngest princess of the Nasrid Emirs of Granada. She had had four sisters, three brothers. Her claim to the throne had been nonexistent. Until death had swept through the Palace. The Emirate of Granada had been handed to a distant cousin -- but the princess had to remarry, secure the aid of the Mamluk. The largest Sultanate spanned Egypt and all lands from Mekka in the south of Arabia to the northern borders of Syria.