The Mosaic

Chapter 69 | Violent Delights

These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume. ― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

They were surrounded by frozen ghosts.

The White Hall was a sweeping expanse of pale marble and mirrors. A spiderweb of silver light flooded the room, and it took Alessandro a moment to figure out where it came from – high, arched windows lined the length of the walls and alternated with a mirror shaped as its twin. Their order was reversed on the opposite wall, so that every window faced a mirror. The light streaming in through the windows was reflected in the giant mirrors and bathed the room in a silver moon sea.

A shadow already flitted through the myriad of marble statues – all of them eerily life-sized, as if a group of revellers had frozen when the light of the moon hit them. Giacinto turned to shoot Alessandro a gleaming smile. "You were in a rush two minutes ago, artista."

Alessandro glared. "I'm surveying the perimeter."

"You're looking at the art like a toddler at candy."

Opening his mouth to argue, Alessandro thought better of it and sighed instead. "Take the back half."

Giacinto visibly battled the urge to crack a bad joke, but then quickly disappeared in the sea of statues. The man would give Alessandro grey hair before the end of the year.

Wandering the paths between the statues like a loose labyrinth, he found himself slipping into the silence as if stepping into a different world, one at the bottom of a moon-sea, where even the shadows seemed spun out of silver.

The tension from before slowly ebbed as he scanned the statues, reaching out to touch the long drapes of a flowing gown, almost surprised when his fingers met cold stone. Each statue looked as if it was just suspended between two heartbeats, and he would only have to blink and find himself surrounded by a sea of bustling people. A huntress Artemis leaped up at his side, her crescent diadem a slice of mirror bright with moonlight.

The helpless fear when they had been stuck in the confessional, hiding from the reaper, the torturous wait the week before, unable to do anything before the ball, the impotent rage simmering below his skin at the ball, the lies and emotions of everyone around him tugging at him constantly – that drove him insane.

This he knew how to do. He had directions he could follow, a riddle to solve, all puzzle pieces laid out right in front of him.

A quiet whistle called him to the far end of the hall, Giacinto peering up at the statue of a woman wrapped in a plain Greek chiton, a dove on her shoulder, right hand extended to point at one of the window-shaped mirrors. Alessandro didn't recognize her as any goddess.

"Aletheia," Giacinto muttered. "I saw her at a temple ruin. The Oracle of Dreams." Longing softened his sharp features. "My father took me."

Alessandro hesitated, strangely unsettled by the Greek's gentle expression. "Why would we look for a goddess of dreams?"

Giacinto blinked, returning from wherever his mind had wandered. "Oh, no. She's the goddess of truth." Giacinto told him about the oracle without an oracle – visitors would sleep in the temple and truths would visit them in their dreams. The statue stood at the entrance and pointed to the place of truth.

Nudging the tip of his boot against the marble tiles, Giacinto continued. "Look. She was moved." Long scratches scarred the marble tiles where someone had turned the statue almost 180 degrees around its axis – now she was pointing them towards their truth. The giant mirror.