Hearts on the Table Excerpt

htg HEARTS table onthe zARTS z

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HEARTS table onthe zARTS z

Susan Metallo

This is a work of ûction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author9s imagination or, if real, are used ûctitiously.

Copyright © 2026 by Susan Metallo

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher. Additionally, no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artiûcial intelligence technologies or systems, nor for text and data mining.

First edition 2026

Library of Congress Control Number: pending ISBN 978-1-5362-4036-8 26 27 28 29 30 31 SHD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in Chelsea, MI, USA

This book was typeset in Cochin.

Candlewick Press 99 Dover Street Somerville, Massachusetts 02144

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To anyone who has found themself in an in-between and to those who are still searching

Author’s Note

This novel depicts ableism, transphobia, and homophobia and refers to an instance of transphobic violence that occurred before the book begins. My intentions are to honor the neurodivergent and LGBTQIA+ experiences of the early twentieth century with a balance of accuracy and hope, acknowledging the challenges and discrimination while focusing on agency and joy. Still, seeing negative interactions and language can be hurtful or triggering, even in a work of ûction.

To my disabled, neurodivergent, and LGBTQIA+ readers, please prioritize your mental health and close this book if it causes you pain. Your feelings and experiences matter. You matter.

I am not what I am.

4Viola, Twelfth Night

Allies of England, France & Russia

Part of the AustroHungarian Empire, allied with Germany

Neutral countries

Mediterranean Sea

AdriaticSea

Palermo

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Dramatis Personae

Villa Dukari

Violet Farris, a card-counting English feminist (a.k.a.

Sebastijan Cesari [seh-BAS-tee-yun cheh-ZAH-ree])

Teo Dukari [TAY-oh DOO-kuh-rich], an Illyrian gentleman with a penchant for bad love poetry

Fabiano Zadra [fah-bee-AH-noh ZAH-drah], a goodnatured Sicilian laborer, friend to Teo

Villa Kos

Olivia Kos, an Illyrian gentlewoman, frequently subjected to the aforementioned bad love poetry

Faustina Kos, her younger sister, an accomplished pianist and4according to some4a fool

Mario Kos, their cousin and a scoundrel

Toma Kos, their guardian and a drunkard

Seafarers and Townsfolk

Seb Farris, Violet9s twin brother

The Zadra family, Fabiano9s parents, numerous sisters, and more numerous nieces and nephews

Olive farmers, vintners, ûshermen, doctors, and sailors

Assorted card sharps, drunkards, and other vexing persons

CHAPTER ONE Violet

Through the haze of cigarette smoke, I watched the shifty bloke across the table sweat, rubbing at his bulbous nose as he considered his cards. He9d scowled when I entered the dimly lit smoking lounge, but his pocked face had broken into a greedy grin when I dragged up a chair and told him to deal me in. Guess he liked his odds of winning a few hands of Brag against an English lady, even one in a pair of trousers. Unfortunatelyforhim,playingtheoddswasmyspeciality.

A half dozen more of the ocean liner9s less reputable male passengers lurked behind my opponent, staring hungrily at the pile of scratch in the center of the table. The dealer, a wiry man with a ûery shock of hair, leaned over to whisper something in my opponent9s ear. My opponent grunted, then adjusted his crotch.

Bloody men.

<Buy you a drink, doll?= The dealer9s gaze drifted down towards my bosoms. Like most of the men I9d encountered

on this ship4and indeed everywhere else since I reached a marrying age4his libido was undeterred by my unconventional habits. I suspected my knee to his bollocks might have done the trick, but Seb had warned me not to provoke physical altercations <or else.= After living with Seb for seventeen years, I had grown to dislike his deûnition of <else,= which usually involved a toad in my bed or garden snake in my boots. (Not that I believed a passenger-cargo liner in the middle of the Adriatic Sea housed abundant reptilian or amphibious life, but my brother could be deuced resourceful when necessary.)

I considered my empty, smudged tumbler and imagined the caustic taste of whisky burning a track down my throat. Intheend,I9mnotonetospareasap,especiallyamisogynist. <I9ll take another, no promises attached,= I told the dealer. He took my glass, and Seb9s grip tightened on the back of my chair, his knuckles cracking. My drinking whisky made him anxious, one item on an ever-growing list. He9d been roundly opposed to my entering the men9s smoking lounge that afternoon, but I9d been roundly opposed to being denied entry to any room on the grounds of my sex. I must confess, though, the room itself wasn9t impressive. I expect it wouldn9t have been impressive even two years ago, before the war, when there were enough stewards to keep the glasses clean, the dangling chandeliers and wall mirrors polished, the Persian carpets and heavy curtains free of dust and the faint tang of seawater.

I slumped back in my chair, mimicking the casual pos-

ture of the men around me. Ordinarily, I9d be tingling now, the thrill of the gamble ûuttering around my lungs, whirring through my mind, as I calculated the odds of the three cards in my hand topping those of my opponents. The last four rounds we9d played, I9d forcibly schooled my features into slate as I edged up the bets, goading each of my opponents to fold while I weighed the wisdom of throwing in my own scant cash to see their cards.

But this time, there was no gamble. Luck, an unconventional lady herself, had favored me with three aces. In Brag, the only hand higher was a trio of threes. The odds of being dealt such a hand at the start of a game were 5,524 to 1, but since I9d had a pair of threes in my hand last round, and they were now discarded to the bottom of the deck, my aces were unbeatable. The scratch on the table was already mine. We merely needed to ûnish out the formalities.

The dealer slid me the whisky, and I took a pull, grimacing at its ûre before tossing in another two bob and staring down my opponent. <So, are you folding like the rest?=

He ran a hand over the shadow of a beard on his lower jaw, then reached into his pocket. His two bob chinked against the mass at the table9s center. Nearly ten pounds sterling in all. <Show 9em.=

I slapped down my cards. <Your loss.= I leaned forward to sweep the silver pile towards me, but my opponent clucked his tongue.

<Easy, girlie.=

He ûipped his cards, one after the other.

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Three. Three. Three.

I gaped, ears burning at the guffaws and backslaps of the men. My chair skidded on the carpet as Seb dragged me up by the arm. <Time to go,= he murmured, steering me towards the door.

But it wasnít possible.

Unless I9d miscounted the cards.

But I never miscounted cards. And with only four players in the game, three cards per player, a pair of threes buried in the bottom twelve cards of the deck . . .

I glanced over my shoulder to see the dealer and one of the onlookers shake hands as my opponent raked coins from the table.

The reality clobbered me like a wave against a cliff.

<No. No, no, no.= I spun round, but Seb caught me by the waist and hauled me towards the door.

<Leave it,= he warned.

<Let me go, confound you; he9s a cursed cheat!=

<We can9t afford the attention.=

<We could afford a bloody lot with all that scratch!=

Seb shoved me through the door and swung it closed behind us. He braced it with his broad back to keep me from forcing my way back in.

I made use of every muscle in my equally broad back as I pounded the wood on either side of his head. <The devil take the lot of you!=

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Mufûed laughter seeped through the cracks, and I roared my frustration. I whirled and stomped down the hallway, the faded carpets barely absorbing the rage echoing from my footfalls. If His Majesty9s shipyards were less adept in their construction, I would have thundered the whole liner to pieces.

I stormed out into the open air. Wind spun through the deserted exterior corridor that encircled the ship9s many mid-deck lounges, tugging my long curls from their chignon and billowing the excess fabric of my Turkish-style trousers. I imagined most of the passengers4those who weren9t cheating at cards4were packing their steamer trunks, anticipating our arrival on the eastern coast of Italy. But even if all the passengers had been on deck, it wouldn9t have been crowded, at least not compared to years past when Seb and I had made our summer pilgrimage to visit our grandmother.

Of course, that was before the Great War, when pleasure cruises to the Mediterranean were fashionable. Now, with England, France, and Russia at war with Germany and their Austro-Hungarian and Turkish allies, no one set foot on a ship for pleasure, for fear of attack by one of Germany9s undersea menaces, the U-boats. It had been nearly impossible to book passage at all; Seb and I had spent over a week squatting in the back room of Madame Hermine9s teahouse before we9d managed to ûnd a passenger-cargo liner actually fulûlling the passenger portion of its mission.

I gripped the rail, glaring at the blindingly blue horizon

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as Seb9s sedate footfalls drew closer. With no other men to hand, I turned my ire at the perûdy of masculine arse-rags upon him. <We needed that money,= I said as he joined me at the rail.

<They9d have denied you the cash either way. They were sore about losing to a skirt.=

I dragged my glare from the sea to his face. A placid mirror of myself stared back.

Some of the more prudish matrons on the ship might have blinked at an unchaperoned young lady traveling in the company of a young man4if that young man were not so very obviously her brother. Seb and I shared nearly every feature, from broad shoulders to olive skin to hawk noses and spice-brown eyes. The only differences were my scant advantage in height, which took me to an inch below six feet, the slightly rounder curve of my jaw, and the close crop of his chestnut curls.

And the mottle of fading bruises across the left side of his face, a recent ornamentation, compliments of our father.

The haircut had earned Seb the bruises. The haircut and the ûnely tailored suit that he9d worn countless times climbing out our bedroom window to visit his clubs after dark, aided and abetted by Father9s driver. But he9d never worn the suit in front of Father. Though I9d been calling him Seb for years4our whole lives, almost4Father had never paid much mind to that or anything to do with the two of us, both of whom he considered little more than

Advantageous to Father, of course.

He9d despaired of marrying me off ages ago. I9d never been shy about telling my suitors precisely what I thought of their dogged pursuit and unwelcome physical contact with my person. When one of them had the gall to propose that I needed him to care for my tender feminine self through the bondage of matrimony, I spat on his boots.

But Seb had always been less brazen than I, the dresses hewasforcedtowearmoreshacklesthanclothing,thename that hadn9t suited him since birth a bludgeon every time it left Father9s mouth. It came as quite a shock to the old man when his breakfast announcement of Seb9s betrothal to an odious business partner was met with a quiet No. Father hadn9t even raged. His jaw had simply fallen like its latch had come loose. And when Seb rose from the table and made his way upstairs, Father didn9t follow.

A few minutes later, my brother had returned, hair shorn and wearing his suit, the trappings of his old life passed off, fully and truly Seb.

He was still wearing the same suit on the ship. We were both wearing the clothes we9d ûed in, and the promise Father had shouted after us4what he would see done to us when he found us4still chilled me. I tugged at the cuff of Seb9s shirt, stained by drips of blood from Father9s farewell. <You were right. I shouldn9t have called attention to us.=

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His lips twitched. <Isn9t calling attention to us your speciality?=

The wind gusted, catching in the folds of my trousers and pushing me momentarily off-balance. I silently cursed Mrs. Bloomer that when she invented trousers for women, she9d insisted on keeping them so blasted skirt-like. <I9m trying to apologize, curse it.=

<You needn9t.= He wasn9t looking at me, staring instead across the dancing sea.

I nudged him. <Either tell me what9s troubling you or buck up. I can9t take much more of this maudlin contemplation.=

He smiled. Brieûy. <I9m ûne.=

<You9re never ûne.=

He sighed. <No.=

I picked at the peeling paint on the rail. <It9s not . . . I mean, it feels good, doesn9t it? The hair? The clothes? Introducing yourself as you?=

His frown deepened, surprised this time. <Yes. It9s . . .= His face relaxed, and I knew the word he was looking for: <joy.= Living as himself was joy.

My chest unclenched. His mounting anxiety had been contagious. <Good. Then I haven9t ruined your life by rescuing you.=

<You mean by stufûng me into a stolen motorcar, dragging me into an entirely disreputable neighborhood and bastion of suffragist terrorists, making me sleep among six or seven varieties of roaches4=

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<Precisely. Rescuing you.=

<Hmm. Well, forgive me if my thanks are less than effusive.=

<We9re twins. I can see the truth of your heart and know you are profoundly and eternally grateful.= I offered him my most dazzling smile, and he gratiûed me with a ûerce roll of his eyes.

<Then you know that it feels good to be at last introducing myself as me. And that I could have managed Father without your interference.=

I grunted. On this point we would continue to disagree. Because his view of managing Father seemed to involve submitting to a thrashing4further conûrming my suspicions that all men, no matter how unconventionally born or raised, are pugilists at heart. <I9m sorry I cost you a good thrashing.= Another gratifying eye roll. <Am I to assume that your chagrin at my rescuing you from a much-desired bout of ûsticuffs is the cause of all your moping?=

His jaw tensed. <We9re too close to Austria for my liking.=

Ifollowedhisgazeacrosstheopenwater.IknewwhySeb felt tense. On our ûrst day at sea, a telegram had informed thecaptainthatItaly,ourdestination,hadenteredthewaron England9s side, even though before the war, they9d pledged an alliance to their Austrian neighbors. Now, with Italy on the western shore and the Austro-Hungarian Empire controlling the Kingdom of Dalmatia on the eastern shore, the Adriatic Sea felt particularly perilous. Still, our ship was hardly close to the empire. On the

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port side, we might have been able to see a smudge of Italian coastline, but to starboard, all that dotted the ocean was a pair of sailing ships, rocking gently at rest in the distance. It would be half a day9s sailing journey to the nearest island of the Kingdom of Dalmatia. <You worry too much.=

<Maybe. But I do wonder what was in all that cargo we took on in Lisbon.=

I huffed. <It9s a passenger-cargo liner, Seb. There was always going to be cargo.=

He shook his head.

<I think the more important question is not what happened at the last port, but what will happen at the next one.= I poked his arm. <Since you didn9t let me claim my rightfully earned winnings, when we land at Brindisi, we won9t be able to afford the train to Milan. We9ll have to walk to Zia Antonina9s house, and Lord knows what we9ll eat.=

He scrutinized me. <It9s not like you to worry about something like that.=

It was my turn to stare into the waves. It wasnít like me snít to worry. Or at least it didn9t used to be like me. Ever since we9d ûed Father9s house, I9d felt unbalanced, like there was something wrong in the ground beneath my feet. Seb9s gaze bored holes through my skin, so I offered, <These days, you seem to have a better handle on who I am than I do.=

<What do you mean?=

I was chewing my lip in search of a response when the white froth appeared, streaking towards us just below the waves.

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I drew an incredulous breath, grasping Seb9s arm as a thud sounded somewhere below.

Seb and I gaped at one another, his numb confusion no doubt mirroring my own. The thud had been faint, almost inconsequential. The ship hadn9t even shuddered. Could we have imagined it?

Then, the world exploded.

A geyser of seawater propelled a storm of debris higher than the upper deck, and Seb crushed me against the wall, blocking my body with his as it rained down. We remained frozen, pressed against the wall for what could have been an hour before the screams of our fellow passengers and an insistent tilting of the deck roused us.

<What4?= The ship abruptly listed starboard, sending me staggering towards the rail. Seb9s grip bruised my arm as he dragged me back towards the doors.

Inside the ship, the electricity had failed. In the scant sunlight that ûltered through the curtained windows, Seb and I jostled through the corridors, so recently empty, now swirling with confused, blinking passengers. We paused in the lobby. The lights above the lifts had gone dark, and a horrible, erratic clanging came from inside4the knocking of human ûsts4which made my stomach drop.

<Violet?= Seb took my chin, turning me to face him. I suddenly realized my body was shaking, my knees barely holding me upright. I tried to say, I9m ûne, but the words wouldn9t come. Like the sinking ship, my body was suddenly out of my control.

Seb9s jaw jutted, a decision made, and he steered me towards an upholstered chair across from the lifts. <I9m going to get our life belts from the cabin. Will you stay here? Stay right here, and don9t move, yeah?=

I don9t know if I nodded as he lowered me to the cushions. I barely saw him jogging to the stairs and down towards the cabins. The lobby ûlled and emptied, a steady stream of panicked, hurrying people, some up the stairs to the deck, some down to the cabins. I couldn9t hear my own accelerated breaths over their clatter. I fought to calm my trembling limbs, to squash the sudden uselessness that had overwhelmed me. Two men pried unsuccessfully at the closed doors of the lifts, spurred by the frantic pounding of those trapped inside. Once a symbol of luxury, the lifts were now ornate metal cofûns.

This ship would be our cofûn.

The ûoor shuddered, and I jumped at a hand on my arm. But it was Seb, panting, life belts slung over his shoulder.

<The torpedo looked so small in the water,= I said as he coaxed me up the narrow stairs to the upper deck.

<That torpedo didn9t do this.= Seb9s lips pressed into a grim line. <It took a lot of explosives to make that blast. Looks like someone in the War Ofûce thought up a sly way to get weapons to Italy, and we9re the ones paying for it.=

<What . . . ?= I recalled his earlier words about the cargo in Lisbon. <They loaded explosives onto our ship? But . . . our stops were scheduled before we left. Italy wasn9t even in the war.=

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He looked almost pitying at my naivete. <Someone knew they would be.=

We broke into what should have been sunlight but was insteadadarkfogofsmoke,mist,andscreams.Theship continued to list, some of the lifeboats strapped to the shredded starboard side already underwater. Seb prodded me up the steep slope towards the port rail. My head seemed to have absorbed the smoke, my brain as foggy as the air around me. I stumbled. Seb9s grip tightened on my elbow, and another handsteadiedmyback.Ilookedupintotheeyesofthedealer from the smoking lounge. Ash had turned his orange hair a sickly gray, and his once-leering facewas now as grave as my brother9s. The arm that wasn9t steadying me held the waist of a young boy of ûve or six years with the same ûery hair.

The engines screeched.

<The captain9s trying to steer us to shore,= Seb said. He didn9t ask me to estimate the odds of that tack succeeding; he must have known they were nil. <Take off your trousers.=

<What?=

<There9s yards of fabric in those. They9ll drag you down if you have to swim.= Seb shrugged out of his jacket as my hands shook violently on the buttons of my trousers. They pooled at my feet, and although I9d never been one for feminine modesty, standing amid the chaos on the slanting deck with nothing on my lower limbs but frilled, knee-length undergarments, I felt suddenly shy, naked. Seb buckled a life belt around my waist while sounds and sights blurred like I was already underwater.

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The deck listed another degree towards vertical. Someone screamed. The dealer was standing on the rail, his young charge nowhere to be seen. The man dived into the water, and someone gasped. Maybe I did.

<Come on, now.= Seb supported my trembling frame, helping me walk to the rail. If it had been anyone else, I9d have walloped him for implying I couldn9t stand on my own two feet. In fact, I9d have walloped Seb . . . except that my own two feet were indeed incapable of supporting me.

A giggle spun from my throat. <I9m the one who takes care of you.=

<I know you believe that, but you9re wrong,= he said with a soft smile. <We take care of each other.=

He took advantage of my stupor to lift me down into a waiting lifeboat, but the creak of the pulleys as the ropes began to lower us awakened me to the fact that Seb was still on the deck.

<Seb!= The world snapped into sharp, violent clarity: screams and splintering wood and creaking metal and the rushofdesperatebodiesonthetilteddeck.<Get downhere!=

He met my panic with resolve. <Women and children ûrst.=

<But you could4=

<No. I couldn9t.=

And I was back in the front hall of my father9s house, Father drawing back his ûst for another blow, me desperate for a way to save my brother, even as Seb said, I can take it, his gaze shifting from mine to Father9s. Like a man.

Bloody men!

<Confound it, Seb.= The boat had lowered several feet from the deck. I rose shakily, eyeing the ropes. They would shred my palms as I climbed, but there was nothing for it.

ìThat is so like a man!=

<Violet, don9t.= Alarm widened his eyes as I shufûed towards the ropes.

<Endangering one9s own life to feel powerful4pugilistic nonsense! And if you think I9m going to let you drown without4=

The listing ship9s groan rent the air, but I barely heard it as the sudden shift tipped me off-balance and over the side of the dangling lifeboat.

My ûsts closed on empty air, my eyes searching for Seb but ûnding only clouds.

Then I hit the sea, and it clubbed me into oblivion.

j j

CHAPTER TWO Violet

There was a rumor in my grandmother9s Sicilian village that men had killed for the last bowl of her ûsh stew. Nanna dismissed it, of course, but Seb and I believed the legends. She was a bloody miracle, our nanna, and when she stood in the gray stone kitchen wielding a ûllet knife, I well believed she could do anything.

I was less miraculous in a kitchen. One of my last memories of Nanna9s house was of a brackish odor steaming from the bubbling pot I was stirring, and Nanna beside me, her nose as wrinkled as mine. Madonna Santa, she9d cursed. With cooking like that, you9ll never ûnd a husband.

Good! I9d replied. All the men I know are testi di minchia. We9d both laughed, cooking with one hand and plugging our noses with the other.

The memory beat against the interior of my skull as I woke to a noxious aroma of vomit and seawater. Foreign babble inûltrated my ears, and the hard, damp surface upon which I lay made me long for the quilt on the roach-covered

ûoor of Mme Hermine9s teahouse. Here4wherever here was4splinters dug into my lower limbs, which I suddenly realized were somewhat less clad than normal. I shifted, and rough rope ûbers chafed at my ankles.

<Curse it!= My eyelids sprang open, and I thrashed against the ropes. They slid off me. Not bonds, then4just a tangle of ûshing nets. Blinking against the fog in my brain, I took in the deck of a ship, teeming with shipwreck survivors below huge, billowing sails. The rescued loitered around the bridge like disoriented urchins: men in soaked travel attire; another skirtless woman, shirtwaist clinging to the top of her cotton chemise, hands folded across it as though modesty still mattered in this nightmare world; a child, dazed, arms wrapped around himself in a corner.

No Seb.

I sprang to my feet, or tried to, before my jelly legs gave way, sending me reeling. <Jupiter9s balls!=

Someone grabbed my arm, steadying me. It was the ûre-haired dealer whom I9d last seen diving off the rail.

<My brother,= I rasped, lingering salt water burning in my throat.

He shook his head. <I don9t know. My nephew fell, and I dived in after him. Had barely gotten him into a lifeboat when you splashed down. Lucky you had that life belt, or I9d never have been able to haul you up.=

Not luck. Seb.

A pair of ûshermen walked by, their speech failing to ûnd purchase in my ear. <They9re not Italian.=

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<No. Croats from the Kingdom of Dalmatia, I think. Saw us hit4both them and the Italian boat4but they got to us faster.= He pressed his lips in a tight line. <Means we9re about to be jolly prisoners of the war.=

My skin prickled into gooseûesh, and not just because the sea breeze had teeth. <Prisoners? If there were Italians, ers?

why didn9t you put us on their boat?=

<There9s thanks for you! And very lucky you are that I rescued you at all. I wasn9t about to risk Camden9s life, let alone my own, paddling about for a different rescue vessel.=

My panic must have shown, wild as it felt, because his tone softened. <Don9t worry, miss. We9re civilians. They9ll ship us back to England soon enough.=

Ice washed over me. There was no threat worse than that. Not with Father after me.

I pulled free from my rescuer with a mutter of thanks4 hardly enough but all I could muster4and made for the prowrailing.Ahead,anislandloomed.Orange-roofedvillas dotted the forested hills mounded in its center, and before them, a peninsula reached into the sea, partially encircled by low walls of white stone and buildings of the same, its harbor protected by a breakwater of graying rocks. The charming architecture and undulating landscape seemed tranquil4except for the ofûcials in deep blue uniforms with crimson cravats milling on the limestone quay.

Although once owned by the Italian city-state of Venice, the narrow coastal region of Dalmatia4along with its neighboring sister state, Croatia4now belonged to the

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Austro-Hungarian Empire. Its police would soon be my jailers and possibly4if my rescuer had been correct about their intentions to send us back to England4my executioners.

Although, if Seb was dead, would it truly matter?

Of course it would matter, Seb9s voice whispered in my head. Bloody hell, Violet, donít let them take you. You know what he swore to do if he caught us.

<I9m not about to become anyone9s jolly prisoner of war,= I said, as much to myself as to my imagined brother.

Taking advantage of the distracted passengers and hassled crew, I slipped down an open hatch, the wooden ladder creaking mournfully with each of my footfalls as I entered the bowels of the ship. They were deep and open, the dimly lit interior laden with cargo and the reek of dead ûsh and unwashed men. I9d expected to ûnd the hold unoccupied, so I nearly cried out when I saw people sleeping among the sacks of cargo. I caught my breath, afraid the slightest sound would wake the crew.

But no, they weren9t crew. Too pale, too rigid, and the stench4not unwashed men and ûsh but dead ûesh, drenched in seawater. Vomit raged up my throat like a swarm of bees, splattering my boots and the boards beneath them. I gripped the ladder until the swarm subsided and the spinning of the room slowed, drawing breaths through my mouth to avoid the stench of death, though I reckoned I could taste it. A part of me wanted to ûee back up the stairs and into the waiting arms of the Dalmatian police, but I had to stay.

I had to ûnd out if he was here.

It took nearly ten minutes and two more expulsions of vomit to examine the bodies. Some had been people I9d encountered on the ship, now crammed atop one another or tossed into corners like forgotten dolls. Others I didn9t recognize. There were thirty-seven bodies in all. None of them was Seb.

I sucked in a relieved breath, regretting it immediately as another spike of nausea pummeled me. The hull shook as the ship nudged up against the quay, and I staggered, instantly reliving the weightless sense of terror I9d felt as the passenger-cargo liner was going down.

<Curse it, Violet. You haven9t time for this.= I pinched my arm till I drew blood. I couldn9t let myself go to pieces as I had on the sinking ship. Seb wasn9t in this hold, which meant he was out there somewhere, and I needed to dodge the law enforcement chaps on the quay if I was going to ûnd him.

I tore through the wooden cubbies along the walls until I found a sailor9s bulky wool coat, boots, and trousers. The man to whom they belonged must have been several inches shorter than I, as the trouser legs stopped just above my ankles, but he must have also been more rotund, for the bulk of the fabric concealed what little feminine curvature I possessed. The boots were decidedly too large, but with my old stockings balled up in the toe, they didn9t seem likely to slip off. I peeked at my distorted reûection in a sailor9s mess dish. My wild, bedraggled hair, which had long since come

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loose from its chignon, proclaimed my gender as loudly as anything.

It didn9t take me long to ûnd a rigging knife. I pulled a ûstful of my thick curls taut and sawed until the knife cut through. I rufûed the shorn locks. There was no going back now.

Jittering with nerves, I clanked back up to the deck, keeping my head low. Though the gangway was still raised, the Dalmatian sailors had crowded close to it, no doubt wanting to be the ûrst off this ûoating tub of the dead. I shufûed up behind them, hoping I9d blend in. The nearest man shifted to make room for me, the papers in his hand crinkling.

Papers,curseit! MylackoftheCroatianlanguagealready curseit! lack stood as a formidable obstacle to evading the police; the lack of identiûcation papers made my failure a certainty. I eased back from the gangway, wending my way among my fellow survivors, my confounded pulse so ûerce, I could feel it in my ûngers. I paused at the port rail, unable to resist counting the survivors congregating near the gangway. Twenty-four4twenty-ûve adding myself. Twenty-ûve of us up here, thirty-seven dead below. Roughly a forty percent survival rate. Then, before those brutal odds could drown me, I slipped over the rail and dropped again into the sea.

Sodden though I was, the sea still shocked my body. It found its way inside my cumbersome clothing as I clung to a slimy rope dangling from a shipside cleat. Cursing

N O

It was even more so for Seb, as there he had always been allowed to be himself. Surely our grandmother knew the namemyparents gave him4my mother must havewritten her4but when I introduced him as Seb, my brother, our ûrst summer there, she greeted him by that name with kisses on each cheek. When he stuffed the dresses our nanny had packed down the back of the compost heap, new trousers and little boys9 tailored suits appeared in our trunk the next morning. I had been bitterly jealous for a time4Nanna never allowed me to wear trousers4but as I grew, I understood: Seb was not a little girl who wanted to climb trees, and Nanna needed him to know that she knew the difference.

I held the Mediterranean in my heart as I kicked deep into the icy Adriatic, skimming the slimy stones of the harbor bed, my lungs burning with stale air, eyes stinging with salt. We would make it to Italy soon, Seb and I both. It wouldn9t be the same; Nanna was gone. We9d be on the mainland rather than our island, and with few coins in our pockets, we9d be throwing ourselves on the mercy of my

N O quietly, I wriggled out of the coat and tied it round my middle. Then, taking a deep breath, I submerged. When not being hurled from a listing, torpedoed ship, I excelled at aquatic exercise4always had. Such activities were fairly mandatory for a Sicilian youth, and I9d spent every summer from my fourth year to my fourteenth on the island of my mother9s birth. Sicily was my true home, never England.

mother9s sister, who barely knew us. Still, there was freedom in being barely known, and we would grasp every ounce of it. Everything depended on my evading the watchers on the quay.

I stayed submerged, even as my lungs began to scream, until I passed the tumbled rocks of the breakwater. I broke the surface on the other side and listened, praying I hadn9t been spotted. But on the quay, chaos reigned: shouting voices, stomping boots, and the morbid slap of debarked bodies being laid out on the limestone. It did not escape me that although I had not found Seb on the ship, in my foggy andanxiousstate,Imighthavemissedhimondeck.Irefused to entertain the possibility that his was one of the rigid forms colliding wetly with the quay, but the odds niggled at me. Forty percent alive. It was only an estimate of the total death toll4perhaps the Italians had netted more survivors4but I wouldn9t be able to relax until I9d investigated.

A wave hit my back and the rocks beside me, sending a spray of salt water into my facial oriûces. Restricting my curses to my mind, I found steadier purchase against the rocks and fumbled into the sailor9s coat I9d tied round my waist. Then I turned, planning to edge along the breakwater until I found a way to access the walled city.

I froze.

Not ûve yards ahead of me, perched on a rock halfway up the breakwater, a boy was watching me.

He was about my age, slender, dark-haired, and fairskinned, with features softer than my own4except his

<An intriguing way to exit a boat,= he said, his voice deeper than I expected from his petite frame.

I swallowed, searching for an answer until it dawned on me that he9d addressed me in my native tongue. Accented, but English, nonetheless. I drew a shaky breath. If only I9d known Croatian, I could have brazened it out. Instead, I ventured, <Mi scusassi . . . nun capisciu. =

His dark brows rose. <Sicilian,= he said in that language. <Don9t look so surprised. I have friends from Palermo. But I9m afraid you gave yourself away. You were about to answer my question a moment ago, so you clearly understand English. And so, I must ask: What is a boy, ûuent in the languages of multiple countries at war with this one, doing skulking on the wrong side of the breakwater?=

The cold of the water heightened my clenching anxiety, but two hopeful facts buoyed me: First, he had not yet called the authorities and might be persuaded not to call them at all. Second, he had addressed me as boy4meaning that although he9d deduced one part of my identity, he did not know the rest.

I pitched my voice as low as I could without sounding absurd, and continued in Sicilian. <The same could be said

N O eyes, piercing sapphires that bored into me with the intensity of a meteor. His trousers were rolled to the knee and splattered with seawater, his feet were bare, and his ûngers twitched on the undoubtedly damp notebook he had perched in his lap.

of you. You have addressed me in the same languages with equal ûuency, and you, too, are skulking.=

His lips twitched. <A fair hit.=

We paused, at an impasse. Another wave battered me into the rocks, and it was deuced uncomfortable. I eyed the narrow strip of beach where the breakwater met the city wall. Then I evaluated the boy. I had several inches on him and an advantage in weight and breadth. I reckoned I could take him if I needed to.

The battalion of police ofûcers on the quay was another question.

<If you9re from here, why are you hiding on the wrong side of the breakwater?= I asked.

<I am not hiding,= he replied. He stuck out his chin, and a breeze rufûed the wisps of his rather pathetic attempt at a beard. <I have been sitting here composing a poem all afternoon. The arrival of a ship full of foreigners was an unexpected distraction.=

<Why do you write poetry here of all places? Surely, your notebook is drenched.=

<Uh-uh.= He waggled a ûnger at me. <My turn for a question. Why slip off the side of the ship? If you aren9t a spy, then you have nothing to fear from the authorities. They9ll arrange to have you sent back to your homeland.=

<No. They can9t.= In my panic, I forgot to alter my voice, so I didn9t know whether it was the higher pitch or the sheer desperation in my tone that took him aback. He scrutinized me.

Finally, he asked, <Why not?=

I could have lied, but it felt simpler to tell a small truth: <My father has sworn to have me killed.=

I9d surprised him. He did not show it in dramatic fashion, just a slight widening of the eyes and a deeper furrow between his eyebrows. For a moment, I worried it signiûed disbelief, but then he bent and shoved his feet into his boots. <Wait for me on that beach by the wall. Stay out of sight. I won9t turn you in, but if the police see you, I can9t help you.=

He9d already climbed to the top of the breakwater when I ûnally found my wits. <Wait!=

He looked back.

<My brother. My twin, nearly identical. Can you see if he9s among the arrested? Or the . . .= I couldn9t force out the last word, but he understood. His face hollowed, muscles slackened, in an expression less of pity than of empathetic grief. He nodded once and hopped down from the rocks. I edged along the breakwater towards the narrow beach. Before taking refuge behind the city wall, I couldn9t resist a peek over the rocks. I couldn9t see the boy through the closepressed crowds of police and spectators and the trunks of the leafy oaks and entwining pink- and white-ûowered oleanders. I ducked behind the wall, pressing my back against it and staring out at the empty sea. My legs were still wobbly, my head throbbing in pain, nausea buzzing in my gut, but my mind was clear. My wits had given out on the ocean liner, but the devil take me if I gave way again.

No, here I stood on solid ground4island ground, too, and from the scent of ûsh on the wind and the stone village at my back, not so different from my Sicilian childhood home4and whether the stranger on the breakwater turned out to be my savior or my betrayer, I would ûnd a way to keep my freedom.

And then I would ûnish what I9d set out to do the day we9d ûed our father9s house and see that Seb got his.

N O

CHAPTER THREE Violet

j j

I waited for ages on the sliver of pebble beach. It was so narrow that seawater lapped at my drenched boots. I shivered, trying not to go blind as I stared out at the crystalline sea, clear by my toes, deepening to aquamarine, then sapphire towards the horizon.

I was so mesmerized by its sunlit sparkling that the sack of clothing falling from above took me completely by surprise, clobbering me over the head. I snatched up the trousers that had tumbled free before they were completely soaked by the sea. Then, I twisted round and glared up to the window high in the wall where the boy from the breakwater peered down at me.

<There9s a staircase around that bend to your right. Meet me at the top when you9ve changed into the dry clothes.= He pulled his head back inside the city.

Grumbling about his method of clothing delivery distracted me from the anxiety of peeling off my wet layers in

full view of half a dozen cackling seabirds and any humans who might happen to peek down from the window above me. My ûngers were stiff from the cold water, but I forced them to work quickly until even my undergarments lay in a heap on the pebbles. I tugged the pale linen shirt over my head before pulling on the men9s drawers and heavy brown trousers. I fumbled with the braces, cursing my lack of foresight in never making Seb teach me how to attach the confounded things. Eventually I managed to clip them to the front and back of my trousers and pull the elastic straps over my shoulders.

Lastly, I buttoned the deep blue waistcoat and jacket over my chest. It seemed a bit formal for my bedraggled shipwreck escape. Still, I was grateful that the bulky layers of linen would mask the shape of my bosoms, which would otherwise alert my savior to one of the secrets I still held close. More eager to keep my secrets than my old clothing, I bundled my shirtwaist and my undergarments into the sack along with a few modest-size rocks and tossed it out to sea.

I crunched my way around the pebble beach, wincing whenthenarrowstripofdrylandgavewaytofrigidshallow water. Wavelets poured over the ankles of my boots4not that they could get any wetter. The breakwater poet hadn9t provided me with a change of boots, perhaps because he knew I9d be taking on several additional gallons of seawater on my journey.

Around the next bend, a narrow ûight of steps followed

the curve of the city wall towards an arched doorway. I slogged my way up, the climb made arduous by the continuous swimming ache in my head and churning of nausea in my gut.

Atthetop,theboyleanedagainstthethickarchwaythat led to the city, his ûngers drumming impatiently against the stones. <Took you long enough.=

I believe I exhibited great self-control in refraining from vomiting on his head. <My brother?=

His annoyance drooped into a frown. <No sign. I9m sorry.=

My eyes prickled, though I wasn9t sure whether it was relief or devastation. As long as he wasn9t on that quay, there was still a chance he was safe in Brindisi.

And a chance he was trapped in an iron cofûn beneath the waves.

<They hadn9t unloaded all the . . . everyone yet, so I will check again this evening. Are you well enough for a hike? My house is two kilometers outside of town.=

Truthfully, I wasn9t certain whether I was well enough to walk half so far. My limbs still felt as though they9d been infused with jelly, and my head drummed like a blasted military band. But I was equally certain that I couldn9t stay perched on the staircase until I recovered4not without being discovered. <Lead on.=

We passed through the doorway, following a walkway paved of the same limestone that made the quay and buildings. Like my Sicilian hometown of Monte San

Giuliano, this village seemed entirely carved of stone, but unlike Monte San Giuliano, this city was no longer a fortress. The walls had been broken down to waist height to afford a charming view for the people who sat at the café tables beneath the laurel trees that lined the sea walk. The café-goers leaned back casually, cigarettes dangling from work-worn ûngers, gossiping in a language I assumed was Croatian.

But then a familiar torrent of Sicilian ûoated down from above a restaurant with the sign CAF… PALERMITANU. A darkhaired, bronze-skinned woman leaned from the greenshuttered window, hanging laundry while shouting at someone in the window opposite. My rescuer raised his voice to call over the ruckus. <Rosaria! Thank you again. I will return your brother9s clothes tomorrow.=

<If you see him, warn him away. My sister is in one of her moods.=

<Azzittiti,= snapped the woman in the other window. ìI would not be in a mood if she would mind her business4=

The two women talked over each other, the ûrst ûapping her laundry while the other gestured derisively, a babbling toddler balanced on her hip adding to the conversational cacophony. The exchange, like the town9s architecture, felt nostalgically familiar. That they ignored me (<nu stranieru,= a person unknown to the family) also fell comfortably within Sicilian social norms.

<You are both in a mood!= bellowed a new voice, an older woman poking her head out past one of the sisters.

N O

<And Teo Dukari, you tell my son that he is not welcome in my house because no son of my body would leave those schiûusi chemicals on the table where his father eats.=

<I will tell him, signura!= my rescuer, presumably Teo, called.

The street continued upward as deep stairs, each lined by potted plants4purple and green succulents and greenleaved creepers that climbed to the tops of doorjambs and around the wrought-iron bars of windows and balconies. Doors to shops and ûats alike hung open, as did the windows above, laundry zigzagging between them. At the peak of the village, the stairs leveled onto a small ciazza.

Here, more city dwellers sat at café tables, women and two older men with cigars, their volume, ardor, and wild gesticulations matching those of the three Sicilian women down below, although these spoke Croatian. One of the men called out something to Teo, who shouted something back that had all of the city dwellers laughing.

Distracted, I collided with someone. I staggered backwards, still unsteady on my feet, and the woman with whom I9d collided grabbed my elbow. She stopped me from toppling over with her ûrm grip, though her head barely approached my shoulder.

<Olivia!= Teo took the young woman9s hand from my arm and lifted it to his lips.

I admit that my mental fog might have tampered with my vision, but if I had to describe Teo9s face as he looked upon the diminutive golden-haired woman, I would have

to use adjectives like <enraptured= and <besotted.= If I were to describe the look on her face, I would have to use the adjective <unimpressed.= I fought a laugh, wondering if my own sentiments were so obvious when suitors came calling.

The woman glanced at me with keen brown eyes as she smoothly pulled her hand away from Teo, saying something in Croatian. He responded, but she waved him off, turning to me. My stomach plummeted as she began to address me in a language in which I could not respond.

<Er . . .=

Teo responded, and this time he spoke slowly. While most of the words were dreadfully foreign, when he put space between each of them, I found some cognates with Sicilian. Teo9s stilted speech must have been too unsubtle because the woman4Olivia4darted an odd look between the two of us. Then, she shot off a barb that must have landed deep since Teo colored the approximate shade of a sumacberry.AsmiletweakedthecornersofOlivia9smouth, and her curious gaze lingered on me a moment before she made her way into the shop beside us.

Teo stared at the space she9d left behind, and given his glazed expression, I wondered that he didn9t have drool dripping from his tongue. I began to feel a prickling suspicion that he was precisely the sort of man I9d have given a good, sound wallop for trying to kiss my hand in Hyde Park. As we walked on, my concerns mounted. It seemed every other window opened for another person4usually a woman of one age or another4to call down to Teo. I massaged my

head. Had I found myself tied to Dalmatia9s Don Juan? At least there was one sane woman in the village, the one called Olivia, who9d been only too eager to pull her hand away from his fawning. A woman after my own heart.

We passed through an archway in what remained of the medieval wall and continued down a wide stone staircase towards more city sprawl. Teo checked for eavesdroppers before addressing me in Sicilian. <This is technically the end of the Old City of Illyria. My house is in a village in the hills.=

<Perhaps . . . is there not somewhere closer?= The persistent pounding in my head unsettled my thoughts, and I wasn9t at all conûdent in my ability to surmount the aforementioned hills.

He shot me a sideways look. <If you mean do I have multiple residences, then no. Or were you hoping to stay with someone else?=

My mind leaped to the three Sicilian women in the windows above the café. With them, at least, I could speak my own language and be safe from any unwelcome advances. But then, I supposed, inviting more people into my deception only meant more risk. I shook my head.

The road curved steeply upward into a seaside path. Oleanders wafted their vanilla scent from home gardens, the houses detached here, outside the walled city. Doors and windows still hung open, though, and I wished Teo would keep his voice lower as he lectured me on the island9s history in Sicilian. Anyone hearing him would know that I

was on the opposite side of the war, for although we Sicilians continued to resent Italy9s uniûcation, we had been legally part of that country for a generation.

I had recognized the name of Teo9s island: Illyria, the southernmost island in the Kingdom of Dalmatia. He informed me that the streets of the medieval town deliberately mimicked the shape of a ûsh skeleton4a main road through the center, then straight streets to the northeast side to coax favorable cool winds off the water and curving streets to the southwest to stymie the hot Mediterranean wind that brought with it foul moods and bad luck. I didn9t bother asking whether Teo actually believed in lucky winds. A boy who spent his afternoons writing seadrenched poetry perched on a breakwater surely lacked the ability to distinguish superstitious rot from reality.

When my aching head could no longer tolerate his lecture, I focused on my boots trudging their way up the increasingly steep path. It had turned from stone to packed earth, with a healthy smattering of rocks to stumble over. The stone houses had given way to vineyards as far as I could see, parcels of land divided by low stone walls.

<I never got your name,= Teo said.

I swallowed back another wave of bile. I hadn9t considered a name for myself. I certainly couldn9t be Miss Violet Farris here. Although it was unlikely that my father could ûnd me so far aûeld, Teo Dukari might be reluctant to adopt anunaccompaniedyoungwoman into hishome.He9d probably have me sent back to my father for my own good,

because male persons had a deuced inconvenient tendency to assume that they were better at determining a girl9s best interests than the girl herself. Or worse, when I revealed my true gender, he might form lascivious designs on my person, in which case I9d have to knee him in the bollocks, and he would turn me in to the authorities for assault. No, I9d have to give a boy9s name.

After too long a pause, I gave the one that had been at the front of my mind since waking on the rescue vessel. <Seb. Er . . . Sebastiano.=

Teo shot me a wry look. <Best stick with Sebastijan here,= he said, giving an extra push to the <y= sound in the ûnal syllable. <With recent political developments, a Croatian name might protect you more effectively than an Italian one.=

<But I don9t speak Croatian.= That fact had been painfully clear in my interaction with Olivia.

<We9ll say you9re from the north4from Istria. Many Italians stayed in that area when Austria took over.=

<But wouldn9t those Italians speak Venetian rather than Sicilian? There9s a big difference.=

He turned on me, scowling. <Are you trying to ûnd problems with my ideas? You don9t think it will work? Fine. It9d be easier for me to just leave you here and let you fend for yourself.=

<Right.= I bristled, no longer ignoring the question that had been needling me since this boy ûrst sauntered over the breakwater. <So why are you helping me, then?=

He turned away. Lucky winds from the sea at our back rufûed the thick waves of his hair. <Because too many young men have already died in this war.=

He looked dark in the twilight, from the shadows across his ûgure to the storm on his visage, and it occurred to me for the ûrst time how much he was risking, just talking to me like this, let alone sheltering me in his home. In England, helping an enemy prisoner escape was considered treason, punishable by imprisonment or even death.

As lightly as I could, I said, <I reckon I9ll have to try to be worthy of committing treason for, then.=

He emitted a sound somewhere between a grunt and a laugh and started up the hill.

My nausea had returned with full force, my vision swimming. I was barely aware of the changing landscape as we trudged from farmland to dense forest. In my hazy state, the trees seemed to crowd us, a dimly lit haven for all manner of insidious creatures. Wolves, perhaps. My toe caught on a rock, and I stumbled forward, barely keeping my balance. ìCurse it!î

Teo waited for me to catch him up. <Nearly there.=

We rounded a bend, and the path veered off, depositing us in front of a tall wrought-iron gate.

<Villa Dukari,= Teo announced. <Home.=

I tilted my head back, my unfocused eyes taking in smudges of green terraced landscaping on either side of a steep staircase that led to the villa.

Jupiterís balls.

The house and its grounds were immense. No wonder the townsfolk had practically slobbered over his boots; Teo must9ve been up to his ears in scratch. Each step made the house swell larger and the pounding in my head and buzzing in my stomach grow more frantic. When we ûnally reached the top level4a limestone patio adorned with potted gardens and a large walled-in pond4the villa still towered above us. I paused to catch my breath, leaning against the pond wall.

A sizable male body broke the surface of the water in a rush, and I somehow managed not to scream.

<Teo!= The drenched male person heaved himself over the low wall. I tried not to gape at the bare olive skin and dark curls on his broad chest, glistening in the torchlight, even though it was the ûrst male chest I9d ever had the privilege of perusing, and I was cursed curious. I certainly didn9t allow my gaze to dip below his bare navel, even for scientiûc curiosity.

Well, not for more than a few seconds anyway.

<Fabiano!= Teo embraced his friend and grimaced at the wet imprint left on his shirt. <Allow me to introduce Sebastijan . . .=

<Cesari,= I said, supplying my grandmother9s surname and hoping that Fabiano would be content to continue speaking Sicilian.

As it turned out, I needn9t have worried. <Nu Sicilianu! Chi piaciri!= He grasped my arms and pressed a light kiss to each of my cheeks, a familiar Sicilian greeting.

<The pleasure is mine.=

<Fabiano and his family are some of Illyria9s only true Sicilians. They immigrated when he was a child.= Teo lowered his voice. <His parents were involved in the strikes.=

<Oh.= I looked on Teo9s well-built friend with new sympathy. The agrarian strikes were part of a lingering socialist movement that I9d never paid much attention to as a child, but the old men in my nanna9s village frequently discussed the violence that accompanied them.

<I am sure Sebastijan remembers the strikes, having left our homeland so recently,= Fabiano said, his smile waning somewhat.

<Actually,= Teo said, <Sebastijan is from Istria.=

Fabiano9s smile dissipated entirely. <Oh, friend, I9m so sorry. Does the rest of your family remain?=

<I4=

<Yes, he arrived here alone.=

I shot Teo a glare. Apparently even when I dressed as one of them, boys still deigned to speak for me.

<Has the war reached his village?= Fabiano asked.

<Not yet,= I said loudly enough to make both Fabiano and Teo snap to attention. <But we feared its approach.= I speared Teo with a look that said I was perfectly capable of spinning my own lies. He stuck out his chin slightly, and I was more tempted than ever to tear out the wispy hairs that covered its point4an absurd statement of pride that he9d been able to produce this pitiful proof of manhood.

Fabiano nodded somberly. <You are lucky to have made

it here, my friend. There are U-boats in the sea.=

Another gust of lucky wind struck us, and I couldn9t suppress a shiver.

<Yes, Sebastijan arrived this morning, by catamaran,= Teo lied smoothly. <Speaking of seafarers . . . the Dragana Dra just got in.=

Fabiano gave a noncommittal grunt. <Good wine from the mainland?=

<Unfortunately,= Teo said slowly, <they weren9t able to unload the ship.=

The Sicilian9s smile slipped, his gaze suddenly sharper. <Why not?=

<Apparently a U-boat took out a British passenger liner. The Dragana picked up some survivors who are being detained by the police.=

Fabiano9s eyebrows hunched low, his mouth a grim line. <And the Dragana and her crew? And cargo?=

<You know what I know.=

My eyelids drooped as I struggled to interpret the exchange. I believe more words were said, but I couldn9t focus. I must have sagged because the naked Sicilian stepped towards me, grasping my shoulder. <Are you well?= he asked. Then, <Is this my suit?=

<I9m just tired,= I mumbled. <From the journey.=

<Yes, it9s your suit,= Teo said, clasping my arm and steering me towards the door to the villa. <You can thank Rosaria. Oh, and your mother9s disowning you because you left your photography chemicals on the kitchen table again.=

<Ah, that9s where I left them. But I think ûrst, I9ll go check on . . .=

<Yes,= Teo said curtly. <Let me know.=

Beckoning me to follow, Teo strode through the open doors to the villa. I tottered after him, wishing I were steadier on my feet.

<You may rest in my father9s room. Upstairs on the left.=

Vaguely, I thought to inquire further as to the whereabouts of this father and what he would think if he returned and found a stranger in his bedchamber. But the thunder in my skull had grown into a tempest. I felt as though I were still plunged deep in the Adriatic, water sloshing round my eyes and ears.

<You are not well.= Teo reached for my arm. I pulled back, reeling slightly and bracing my shoulder against the wall as I set my foot to the ûrst stair.

<I9m ûne.= I didn9t need help to climb a bloody staircase. I made it halfway before my legs pegged out, and I fell heavily against the stone. ìCurse it.î

I was only vaguely aware of Teo9s scrawny frame staggering to support me, his occasional mutters on the theme of <stubborn ass,= the musty smell of the bed I collapsed upon. None of it mattered because the axe in my head and windmill in my gut assured me of my imminent death.

CHAPTER FOUR Violet

j j

I did not die.

I cannot say with certainty how long I remained unconscious4hours, weeks possibly4but I awoke to darkness. My eyes adjusted slowly to the faint moonlight from the open window, only enough to make out blocky shapes, the room too unfamiliar for me to identify them. I rose slowly, giving my head ample time to adjust to the change in altitude, and felt my way around the walls, stubbing my toes on several articles of furniture before mercifully ûnding a chain dangling from the ceiling. I pulled, and an electric bulb ûared above me.

The room4presumably that of Teo9s father4languished beneath a thick coating of dust, from the ornately carved furniture to the embroidered coverlet to the air I struggled to breathe. Floorboards creaked as I crossed to the wardrobe, but I stopped, my eye catching on a scrap of paper on the ûoor.

It had been shoved under the door: a note from Teo scrawled in Sicilian.

Checked again at the quay. No sign of your twin.

Iím sorry.

It wasn9t the announcement of Seb9s absence that skeweredme4I9dexpectedthat4butrathertheûnaltwowords.

Iím sorry.

As though Seb9s absence on the quay was akin to an absence from the world.

As though there were truly no hope.

A part of me believed it4the part of me that had counted the bodies in the hold and the survivors on the deck. There had been so many more dead than alive. And that was just an estimate. How many bodies had sunk beneath the waves? Would they balance the survivors on the Italian ship?

But I couldn9t dwell on that; it was like a caustic lye in my core, devouring me from the inside out. Instead, I turned my attention to my agonizing thirst.

At some point after leaving me to die in his father9s bed, Teo had ûlled an ewer with water and left it beside a basin, cloth, and block of soap on a dresser. Although my skin felt miserably stiff and I longed to soak in a hot bath, I found myself too weary and too thirsty for even the most rudimentary ablutions. Instead, I lifted the ewer to my lips and drank deeply until an ominous sloshing in my belly warned me to stop.

I staggered to the window, desperate for fresh air. The

N O

night was cool and moonlit, and I stuck my head out into it, inhaling. A conversation ûoated up from the patio below, carried clearly in the crisp air. My host and his Sicilian friend sat across from each other among the fruit trees, trading cards over a wrought-iron table.

Icouldhavecalleddowntothem4surelymyhostwould be wondering what happened to his comatose guest4but I wanted to hear what they said.

After all, they were talking about me.

ìI like him, but I can tell you don9t,= Fabiano said.

<Not especially.=

<And if he9s a spy4=

<He9s not. And even if he were . . . he9s just a boy. I can9t send a boy to his death4not for following orders in a meaningless war foisted on the poor by royal4=

<Teo, that9s my point. Everyone knows your views on the war. What makes you think the boy will be safe with you?=

<Would he be safer elsewhere? Not with you lot, certainly.=

<No.= A silence fell and a prickle settled on my shoulders, not just from the whispery touch of the breeze. Surely an Italian who had lived on the island most of his life would be beyond suspicion of espionage.

I remembered Seb9s pitying smile from the ship, the one that said, Come on, Vi. You canít be that naive.

<How are you getting on?= Teo asked. <Have there been any more threats?=

<Several notes. One rock where a window would have been if they hadn9t already broken them all already. They don9t upset me, and Mamma curses them all to oblivion, but Mariangela . . .=

<Is she still talking about moving to the North City?=

<My sister has lost her mind if she thinks it will be better on the other side of the island.= Frustration lent an edge to Fabiano9s voice. <We9d have the same accent, the same surname. People will have suffered the same losses. She says in a bigger city, we could disappear. But we couldn9t really. We9re stamped with who we are.=

There was a long silence, the rustle of leaves and ûicker of torch ûame adding a tsking commentary on the war, xenophobia, humanity in general.

At last, Teo cleared his throat. <Have any of your sisters mentioned Olivia? I saw her in the ciazza, and she didn9t seem entirely hostile.=

<Only moderately hostile?= Fabiano9s voice held a different kind of weariness. <My sisters9 message remains the same. And I would like to echo it: Give it up. She9s not interested. Why do you continue torturing yourself? Find another girl. We9ll go to the North City on the weekend. You9re bound to ûnd someone to pass the time with.=

<I don9t want to pass time. I want to live it. Savor it. To love to the deepest extent of my heart.=

I turned my eyes skyward. So that woman in the ciazza had already rejected his suit. I9d sailed a thousand miles, and still I9d never be rid of lovesick swains.

N O

<In other words, you want to be a miserable bastard chasing after a girl who wants nothing to do with you.=

<It9s called constancy, and just because it doesn9t appeal to you and your scores of lovers in the North City, doesn9t mean it lacks value. As long as I have breath to speak my love, I will never give up hope.=

Ibarelyheldbackanenragedsnort.I9dbeenrightabout this boy4yet another conceited male person who mistook harassment for constancy.

Toowearytohearanythingmore,Ipulledmyheadback inside and ûopped onto the coverlet, staring at the exposed beams and plaster of the ceiling above the bed. Even here in the idyllic Adriatic, bigheaded men were determined to browbeat independent women into matrimony. If I stayed here long enough, I would have to wallop some sense into the lad.

And if anti-Italian sentiment was truly so pronounced, I might need to stay in this paciûst9s refuge awhile longer, at least until I could earn enough money to seek Seb in Italy. I could not claim to fully understand my host9s motives, but for all his eccentricities, his distaste for wartime politics seemed sincere. I doubted he would turn me in to the authorities.Ifthatwaswhatheintended,surelyhewouldn9t have bothered wrestling my soggy arse up the stairs last night. I grimaced at the memory. I disliked accepting help from any male person, but this boy . . .

I pity the man who has the gall to be kind to you, Seb had told me once after I9d bashed a gentleman with my hand-

I let my thoughts linger on the only boy who would ever hold my heart, as I did his: Seb. I wondered what he was doing tonight in Italy.

If he9d made it to Italy.

Of course, I made it to Italy, he said in my mind. Trust you, Vi, to get on the wrong boat. I suppose I9ll have to wait here, ûirting with Pugliese girls and gorging on scorpion ûsh until you ûnd a way to join me.

At least, that9s what I hoped he would do. Knowing Seb, he9d probably hole up in some hovel and mope. He could be quite mawkish at times.

Well, wherever he was and whatever he was doing, I9d ûnd him. We take care of each other, Seb had told me, some of the last words we9d shared in that hour of horror. And as I waited for sleep to claim me, I repeated a promise to my brother and to myself.

As long as I have breath, I will never give up hope.

I woke to one of Herr Beethoven9s many overemotional sonatas battering its way through the ûoorboards4one I distinctly remembered refusing to play in my younger days when our governess had decided Seb and I needed

N O bag when he attempted to hand me up into a carriage. In fairness to myself, the gentleman in question was one of the odious suitors Father had enlisted to court me, and since he did not seem to believe my words4or indeed that a female could possibly possess the capability for rational thought4I was forced to resort to physical violence.

to become <accomplished.= I wondered what poor girl was playing downstairs. I did not particularly relish meeting anyone who thought dedicating hours to Beethoven9s morose vision of moonlight was a worthy accomplishment.

I brieûy considered burrowing beneath the dusty pillow, but the hungry rumblings in my belly insisted I rise. The bedchamber faced east, and a beacon of sunlight sparkled through the heavy dust hanging in the air. Though my thrashed muscles protested, I forced myself up from the bed.

I stripped off Fabiano9s clothing, leaving it neatly folded on the coverlet, then crossed the room to the full-length mirror beside the wardrobe. I stared into it, and Seb stared back4Seb with sweat- and sea-crusted hair, sticking up wild and tinged with dust. When we9d both had long hair, people would say they couldn9t tell us apart4mamas strolling with their children when our governess paraded us through Hyde Park, teachers at the boarding school we9d attended the last three years. I9d thought them all mad. Because when I looked at Seb, I saw my features but never myself se in his subdued smiles, his stalwart, patient gaze.

I couldn9t ûnd myself in the mirror of Villa Dukari, either.

Though still hardly equal to taking a proper bath, I availed myself of the cake of soap and remaining water in the ewer on the dresser, scrubbing the worst of the salt and sweatfrommyskin.IpulledonapairofTeo9sfather9sdrawers and trousers that ût loosely enough so that they didn9t

cling to my hips. I chose two shirts4the tightest followed by the loosest4and a dark blue waistcoat, hoping the bulk of the fabric would disguise not only my small bosoms but the vaguely feminine shape of my torso. Returning to the mirror, I gave an experimental bounce, wincing at the ricochet in my skull. The outût would do.

I stepped into the hallway, ready to explore. In addition to the staircase I9d ascended yesterday with the help of my scrawny host, three doors opened off the small landing. Two were unoccupied bedchambers, but the third was by far the more interesting, revealing a second staircase, winding tightly both up and down.

I hesitated in the doorway, wondering how large this villa was and whether I could get lost in it, but in the end, curiosity prevailed. I choseto descend, my shoulders brushing the stone walls of the narrow staircase9s tight turns. It deposited me on a landing that didn9t seem as though it could be a whole ûoor lower. In one direction, through a stone wall so thick it could be a tunnel, I found a hallway with several closed doors. I peeked through the ûrst, then quickly shut it, realizing I was looking at a small bedroom, perhaps servants9 quarters. I couldn9t be sure, but if Teo Dukari had servants to help him manage this sizable villa, I didn9t want to intrude upon their privacy. Perhaps this whole wing of the house was a servant9s dwelling. The stone in the walls was older, the ûoors more worn. I retreated to the landing and opened the only other door, expecting to be led to the newer portion of the house.

Sunlight spilled in through the doorway as I blinked into the outdoors. A narrow stone staircase descended the wall towards a terrace on a different side of the house than I9d entered the day before. Muttering about the apparent madness of Dalmatian architecture, I tromped down the stairs and began to circle the villa.

My headache the previous day had prevented me from fully appreciating the beauty of Villa Dukari9s grounds. I counted eight levels, terraced down towards the wroughtiron fence, each patio crammed with a haphazard variety of vegetation, vibrant and swaying in gentle puffs of breeze.

The trees I9d seen Teo and Fabiano sitting among last night had been fruit trees4pomegranates, ûgs, and lemons, the latter with small, still-green fruit growing on its spindly branches. The trees grew throughout the terraces, surrounded by gray paving stones with green-brown moss growing between and sometimes over them. Ferns crowded the base of the low stone walls that divided the terraces, and ivy spilled up and over, making the whole garden seem a sort of artistic jungle, a mischievous fairy9s paradise.

When I reached the limestone stairs that led from the villa9s front door to the gate below, I climbed down a level for a full view of the house. It loomed like a bloody castle. In the part of the house I9d just exited, the three stories of limestone had turned gray with age. They jammed against two stories of newer construction, still creamy white. As in the Old City, dark green shutters framed the open windows and doors, and a pergola-covered patio graced the

newer half9s roof, butting against the older structure9s pitched attic. Perhaps this villa had simply grown out of the hillside as a tree might chance to grow with several intertwining trunks.

I shook off the poetic fancy. I was sounding a bit too much like my host.

<Sebastijan? Come here.=

The summons came from an open window to the left of the front door. Teo9s tone chafed4at once imperious and melancholy, a sure sign that he wallowed in the same lovesick miasma that I had observed last night. Well, if he believed I would be more biddable than his ladylove, I9d soon enlighten him.

You will be polite, though, Vi, came Seb9s silent admonition. You do need him, after all.

I shall be as civil as a saint, I promised my imagined brother. For as long as I can manage, anyway.

I entered through the front door and, to my left, found another tunnel-like archway. This one led to a salon with high, open windows, exposed stone, faded Persian carpets, and several settees positioned around a pianoforte. The pianist, a petite girl with skin a shade paler than my own and ûaxen hair drawn back in a messy braid, leaned over the keys, her ûngers dancing their way through the ûnal tempestuous movement of the sonata. The stern concentration writ on her face struck a discordant note against the light touch of her hands and the childlike smocked dress that ended at her knees. She was likely younger than I4ûfteen

Teo lay back on one of the settees, his muddy boots propped on a once-ivory throw pillow, and an arm draped over his forehead like a confounded Renoir model. He groaned like his body was being rent in two.

<Music is the food of love,= he said. In earnest.

I clamped my jaw over a mouthful of derisive commentary. Even having spent three years in a boarding school surrounded by overdramatic and undereducated brides in training, I9d never heard such nonsense.

<Olivia.= The name came out half moan, half whisper. Perhaps it would have been a mercy if I9d smothered him with one of the rufûed throw pillows. <Have you ever fallen in love, Sebastijan?=

<No, and I do not intend to.= I didn9t bother disguising the haughty edge to my voice as I settled onto the opposite settee, my stiff limbs grateful for the rest. <At its best, romance is a cursed nuisance and, more likely, a set of leg shackles.=

Rather than being suitably chastened by my words, Teo rubbed his hands over his face. <That9s so true. Love is like a prison and Olivia the warden, and . . . if only she9d love me, it9d be like . . . like balm to soothe my blistered heart.=

I believe I gagged.

Meanwhile, Teo sat up abruptly and retrieved a small notepadandpencilstubfromhispocket,scribblingfuriously.

<Please do not tell me you9re recording that saccharine rot.=

N O or sixteen years, perhaps4but she played like a virtuoso.

He glared at my assessment of his verse. <Olivia is my muse.=

<Do you send these poems to her? It9s a wonder she doesn9t burn her post upon receipt.= His cheeks darkened, and glee bubbled up inside me. <She does!=

He huffed. <She does not burn my post. My letters simply return unopened.=

I cackled. The poet4and I use that term in the loosest sense4spurned! Olivia had a sound head on her shoulders.

<She is likely not receiving any post or visitors. At least that is what her cousin said when he turned me away from her gate.=

<Oh, my boy.= I shook my head. <I think the poetry is not to the lady9s liking.=

ìNothing No is to the lady9s liking. I9ve poured out my heart, sent gifts, offered my hand4=

<Serenades below her window on moonlit nights?= The boy9s arrogance crept under my skin, sharpened by memories of the unwelcome suitors Father had thrust at me and Seb over the past year. If the devil took all unwelcome suitors, the world would be more to my liking.

But my scorn was not to my host9s liking. He glared at me with a clear intent to boot me from the house and let me hold my own against the wolves of the Illyrian forests. I turned to the pianist for support.

<You wouldn9t want this nonsense, surely. Tell him.=

The girl had ûnished her sonata, and I had assumed by her silence that she was listening to our conversation, but

she was not. Or at least, we did not hold her attention; her head had ticked to the side as though her ear had caught some silent, lingering serenade. As the silence stretched with no response to my question, I wondered whether she did not speak Sicilian. I glanced at Teo for guidance, but he remained patiently attentive to the girl. My stomach twisted. Something was off about her. Her gaze held on the stone wall to the side of her, her body gently rocking to a rhythm only she could hear.

Ah. The knots in my stomach tightened. The girl was feeble-minded. Perhaps she couldnít speak. When Penelope ldnít Shaw returned home from her French medical school, she frequently offered her services to the female patients at Hanwell Asylum and told us that many communicated through grunts alone. It was a sad existence, little better than a prison for those poor souls.

Morally deranged, whispered a memory of my father9s voice. Iíll see you taught your place.

The girl turned towards me, and I realized I9d been staring.Herswasn9tthevacantstareI9dexpected.Itwasshrewd, almost accusatory, as though she could see my thoughts.

My cheeks ûamed, and I dropped my gaze.

<Faustina knows how ardently I admire her sister,= Teo said. <And although Olivia says she doesn9t love me now, I9m sure my persistence will change her mind.=

I clamped my jaws shut. Perhaps it would be unwise to provoke my host further, but what a load of bollocks. You9d think a man would suffer a fatal apoplexy if he actu-

ally took a woman9s word for her own feelings instead of badgering her into reluctant consent.

<I9m like you,= he continued. <You wanted me to look for your brother on that quay, no matter the odds.=

I stiffened.

He must not have seen my expression, because he continued. <We are both stricken, in a way. Me with love, you with grief.=

A lifetime9s worth of rage burst past the blockade of my lips. <What an arse-rag!=

Silence fell. A gaping Teo blinked at me, and only when the pianoforte9s bench squawked uncomfortably beneath Faustina9s shifting did I realize I9d spoken in English.

Faustina met my alarmed stare with one I could not read, not even to tell if she9d understood the signiûcance of my error. But if she spoke about it . . . If someone else understood . . .

I dragged an exasperated hand over my face before turning to Teo. <She won9t4 Can she speak?=

The soft voice from the pianoforte startled me. <She can speak. But she will not speak of this.= Faustina rose, wooden in her movements as she headed to the arch. She paused only long enough to say, <Good day, Sebastijan.=

Teo rose, too. <I9m going to walk Faustina home.= His gaze carried a weighty censure. <Some people speak only when they have something meaningful to say.=

He strode out, leaving me alone in the stone-walled sitting room, feeling quite the arse-rag myself.

Andante Nervosa

(adv.) tense walking tempo

Faustina k

Music feeds me, ballasts me.

Two sounds grating, spinning pitches, pulsing beats, thrumming air, sparkling dissonance.

Sounds that tickle tiptoe down my gooseûesh arms.

Music resurrects me.

I would stay, observe the gospodin (who speaks like an Englishman) (and a Sicilian), but the (Sicilian) (English) gospodin does not want me there. It does not matter (not much); I am used to being unwanted.

Teo walks me back. We tread, silent listening to the world. He hears its poetry as I hear its music, though he has not yet transposed it to paper. (In that, the Sicilian4 English4 gospodin was right; Teo9s poetry stumbles on the keys, a child at his father9s piano, afraid of waking someone, of being found and scolded.)

Mountain path widens to village lane, down the hillside towards beach and ûshermen9s houses, but ûrst, Villa Kos: rockrose and cherry laurel lining white stone paths toward white stone walls, open shutters, open doors, welcoming those who need not go inside.

Teo leaves me at the gate. I would linger, count the roses, ivy leaves, shiny green beetles that dive and hum.

But

I need to tell Olivia I am home so she does not send for me, ûnd me missing, panic.

So I draw a breath, hold it till it hurts, and enter.

If I prayed, I would pray that Cousin Mario would not be in the hall, but I have learned, prayers are futile and Cousin Mario is everywhere I want him not to be.

Electric light shadows his scowl, makes him even taller, even wider, even older than he is, which is older than Olivia, twice as old as me, but (thankfully) not as old as our oldest cousin4 all that mattered when our father died and left us (and our money) to a guardian.

He should not be here, yet he lurks, snarls, Out again, chit? And without a chaperone?

There are words I want to say, but cannot, not because the words are hard, but because they are impossible, because the air is buzzing in my brain and my tongue is stone and swelling, and he4 coming closer, hissing words I don9t understand, until Fabiano is here, no longer tending the gardens but tending me4 shielding me, a wall between me and him. Mario is leaving, Fabiano is staying, and I am wishing the noise in my head sounded more like music and less like a scream.

CHAPTER FIVE Violet

I spent an hour lolling on the bed of Teo Dukari9s father. Teo knocked after he returned from delivering Faustina home, but I wasn9t ready to end my seclusion.

My grief-stricken seclusion.

I could not say whether my malaise stemmed more from worry for Seb, guilt at my own missteps with Faustina, or the distinct feeling that I9d played a hand with Teo Dukari and wound up deep in the hole. I longed for my body to melt into the bed and disappear.

You? Quit? Not if you had a gun to your back and a fortune in your purse.

I smirked at Seb9s voice in my memories, an accusation he9d lobbed at me weeks earlier when I9d come home railing against the Women9s Coalition for Political Equality. Of course,Ihadn9ttoldhimthesubstanceofmyfalling-outwith the WCPE. It had started with Mrs. Whitacre9s comments at a meeting about the damage <those inverts= were doing

to the suffrage movement. If those words had hit me like a cricket bat to the gut, they would have battered my brother. Mrs. Whitacre would have considered him an <invert,= a category invented by doctors for anyone whose gender or romantic preferences didn9t conform to their social mores. It always set me steaming, the way people assumed that my brother needed an insulting label to talk about who he was.

Sheís right, though, my friend Florrie had argued. We9d retreated to the upper room at Mme Hermine9s teahouse, the WCPE9s usual meeting place. The inverts provide fodder for the anti-suffrage argumentóthat if they give us the vote, it will upend the order of the world.

My hands trembled on my cup as Mme Hermine poured fresh water into our teapot. We are trying to upset the order of the world, I9d said to Florrie, then to Mme Hermine, Thank you.

Itíll be a shilling, dear.

I ûshed in my handbag for the coin. Mme Hermine dropped it into her apron pocket, only then allowing a small smile to poke rarely used dimples in her tawny-brown cheeks. She was stern, Mme H.

Florrie plowed forward. Weíre trying to balance the social order, but the inverts are ûghting against the natural order. Some women are ill-suited to marriage, true, and we should be able to support ourselves economically. But to play at being men? To4she9d lowered her voice, pink blooming in her cheeks4lie with other women? Itís unnatural, Violet. And our cause is tainted by association with their . . .

She didn9t give it a word, just waved her hand to indicate a sort of general wrongness. A ball of heat expanded in my chest, outrage4and a touch of unfamiliar uncertainty4 drowning my ability to argue. I couldn9t meet Florrie9s eyes, so I found Mme Hermine9s instead. She met my gaze, stonefaced, and then she raised one eyebrow, just a tick. That one tick of skepticism released the dam on my ire.

What a load of rubbish, Florence Hooper. And if thatís what the WCPE stands for, the devil can take the lot of you. I will be ûghting for suffrage for all people, not just those who meet your approval.

I9d stormed out then and had the long cab ride back to Hanover Square to cool down and contemplate how so tiny a gesture of solidarity as a raised eyebrow could mean so much.

It would mean even more when a week later, that solidarity would lead me and Seb back to Mme Hermine for refuge.

Was Villa Dukari my refuge now? Not the dirty ûoor of a teahouse in Lambeth but a luxurious house on a picturesque island? After my behavior that morning, surely I didn9t deserve it. I couldn9t even look at the girl4 Faustina4without thinking of an asylum. As though the feeble-minded belonged there. As though anyone belonged there.

My father had described in great detail what he9d tell the institution to do to his <morally deranged daughters,= to teach me and Seb our <place.= I hadn9t heard all of it, because I9d run out the back to rev up the motorcar4thank

heavens for my foresight in having cajoled my father9s driver to teach me how!4but I9d heard enough. In fact, I9d heard similar tales from Penelope Shaw about the abuses women suffered from their male jailers, not to mention the pestilence that thrived in their ûlthy lodgings. Many of the imprisoned died before their time. Whether feeble-minded like Faustina, masculine like Seb, or non-biddable like me, many unwanted and unconventional children found themselves conûned by their fathers. I9d never thought it would be possible for a man to break my spirit, but since my father9s threats, I hadn9t been so sure.

Faustina must9ve had a better father than mine. Or perhaps it was another mistake to think of the girl as unconventional or unwanted4as feeble-minded at all. Certainly nothing about her response to my rudeness had been feeble. Groaning, I dragged myself from the bed. In the mirror beside the wardrobe, a rumpled Seb stared out at me. His shorn hair, the droop at the corners of his mouth, the furrow between his eyebrows. Feeling Seb. Cautious Seb.

<Maudlin Seb.= The words came from Seb9s lips like I was throwing my voice from the past into his mouth. <Come on, sad sack. Back to the ûght. They won9t win unless we stop.=

It was a poor trick, and I knew it. Yet something pleasant bloomed in my chest, and Seb9s lips quirked, the furrow softening. Neither Seb nor I was unwanted. We wanted each other, and that would always be enough. g

Craving fresh air after another hour breathing dust, I climbed the back stairs, hoping to ûnd Villa Dukari9s rooftop garden. To my surprise, what I found ûrst was the kitchen.

Unlike the kitchens to which I was accustomed, the kitchen of Villa Dukari sat not in the basement but in the top story of the house. It was smaller than the kitchens in my father9s house, yet somehow more dramatic. Bowls rested on a ledge carved from the exposed stone of the wall, alongside a haphazard assortment of tins and jars. Another wall housed a wide cast-iron stove with several ovens. Pans lay drying on a dish towel beside a bowl of apricots on a ûour-dusted table.

I snatched up one of the golden fruits, savoring its juice. I9d no sooner ûnished than I grabbed another. Yesterday9s adventure had nearly wrung the life from me, and my empty innards needed ûlling. A wedge of cheese from the larder ûnally satisûed my hunger, and half a pitcher of water, my thirst.

There was only one door, and I opened it to ûnd the rooftop garden. Vines cascaded from the pergola, which sheltered a wooden table and chairs. Out in the sunshine, terra-cotta pots of purple heart, golden verbena, and ivy climbing small trellises adorned the low rail at the roof9s edge. My breath caught. Our perch atop the hill provided a clear view over the treetops to an azure sea, sparkling in the near-noon sunlight, which instantly transported me to Monte San Giuliano in Sicily.

<Sebastijan!= Fabiano straightened from where he9d been eye level with a camera. The boxy, accordion-like device pointed towards the seascape. He gestured to his photographic paraphernalia. <A morning like today, I couldn9t resist capturing it.=

<You cannot capture it,= I said, my chest aching from a war between peace and melancholy. <You can only live it.=

<I told him as much.= Teo was perched on a stool turned half towards me, half towards the sea, his face relaxed, no doubt with either the peace or the melancholy I felt. <A day like today should not be viewed through glass.=

Fabiano tsked, muttering something about art and philistines as he turned back to his camera. Teo twisted his head and met my stare. I felt shy and on edge. For all his unenlightened views on women and romance, if one of us was a cad and a bounder this morning, it was I.

But when his gaze held no censure, I cautiously approached his seat at the edge of the roof. A breeze brought crisp air threaded with oleander and lavender. I drank it in, closing my eyes to savor its taste. <I could stay in this moment for a lifetime.=

<You can9t and neither can I.=

I thought it was a rhetorical statement until he pushed a bread roll into my hands.

<Come on. Thanks to you, I9ve missed the morning,= he said with some asperity. <It will be hot out there.=

I glanced at Fabiano for help. But he just waved. <Have fun.=

<Where are we going?=

<Pruning olive trees,= Teo said. <If you9re going to stay, you9re going to work.=

<And if I9m not inclined to prune your olives?=

<Not my olives.= He turned a bland look on me. <We9ll be pruning olives for the women whose husbands and sons are off at war.=

Shame that Teo had once again found me callous strained in my chest, making me want to lash out. I gestured at the heavily muscled photographer behind us. <And Fabiano is what4taking photographs of an empty sea for the war orphans?=

<Fabiano,= said the Sicilian in question, <will be helping his parents and sisters run their households, helping the Kos sisters run their household, and if he has any time left over after all that, tending to the gardens Dukari to earn what Teo pays him.=

<I thought I paid you to be always hanging about my house and providing unwelcome comments on my affairs.=

<Oh no.= Fabiano grinned. <I throw in that service for free.=

<Stop lazing about, Sebastijan. You9ve wasted enough of my time already.= Teo snapped his ûngers at me like I was a dog. Though I sorely wished to thwack those ûngers so hard he9d never dare snap at me again, I followed. Teo Dukari might have earned my irritation by that gesture, but I supposed the war widows had not. g

Down among the trees and ûowers, the island air was thick and hot, alleviated only by the stiff breeze. Teo looked the part of an olive farmer in his rough-spun cotton trousers and shirt, a brown felt cap on his head4the twin of the one he9d lent me for mine. I followed his glances up to the cloudless sky and out across the seemingly endless vineyards, and it was almost enough to dissolve my vexation at how he ordered me about.

The path plateaued, and we came upon a grove of squat olive trees. At its edge stood a shed whose side walls were shorter than I. Even Teo had to duck to pass through the doorway. I worried that the stones might collapse upon him, as ragged as they looked, but he emerged unscathed, pushing a wooden wheelbarrow that held two tools the size of hand axes but with curved blades. He handed me one, and as we climbed the gentle slope towards the trees, my ûngers tightened around the wooden handle, my skin far too smooth for what we were about to undertake.

Well, just because I9d never done manual labor before didn9t mean I was incapable of it. Surely I was at least as capable as Moneybags Dukari. My hands would callus in no time.

I soon found that I was partially correct. I was capable. After Teo demonstrated how to choose branches to thin, I took to it with gusto, proud of the quick work my arms made of stripping the tender branches. Unfortunately, my hands did not callus. Within two hours, the skin on my palms was raw and peppered with splinters. Several

ìAre you?= I countered. <I wouldn9t have expected someone who lived in a veritable castle to be a paid laborer.= He ignored me, making his way to the water pump. After we9d drunk our ûll, he led me back to the ramshackle stone structure and ducked inside. I had to draw in my shoulders to follow. The space was dark, cool, and long enough for Teo to lie on his back. I was a few inches too tall to lie ûat, but with my knees bent, I could recline. We lay in silence, savoring the cool earth against our skin after two hours of exhausting labor.

<I9m not paid for my work,= he said. <I9m part of this community, and this is the best way to contribute to it right now. Both gospoa Rodak9s sons went to the Russian Front. They didn9t have a choice. Conscripted. She had a telegram last week that one is missing.=

I moistened my lips, struggling to ûnd something meaningful to say. In the end, I settled for the meaningless. <I9m sorry.=

<So am I.= He paused. <I wonder if the emperor is.=

<Emperors rarely think of their people.=

<Oh? Are you not a proud imperialist, subject of your king and emperor?=

I met his snideness with hauteur. <Sicily has no emperor,= I said, though I knew he spoke of King George. My mind snagged on Mme Hermine and her stories of the

70 N O of my knuckles bled where they9d rubbed against the bark. When Teo called a break, he gave my bleeding hands a wry look. <Not accustomed to this type of work, are you?=

English colonialists who ravaged the Caribbean island of her birth.

<Ha. Keep pretending to be Sicilian if it makes you feel better.= He propped himself up on an elbow. <As irritating as you English can be, your wealthy travelers stopping here on their grand tours was a part of the island9s income. My father gives the people who farm his land a generous share, but many4=

<Wait.= I sat up, scrutinizing him. <So this is your olive grove?=

<My father owns the land, but4=

<When you say you9re part of this community, what you really mean is you own it.=

<No,= Teo said, frowning. <My father owns the land. If it ther were up to me, I9d give it away to the sharecroppers.=

I rolled my eyes at this obvious falsehood. A boy who lounged about, writing poetry in a princely villa, was hardly a Marxist. <Do it, then,= I challenged.

<Do . . . what? Give my father9s land away? It9s not mine to give.=

<Of course it is. You9re lord of the manor while your father9s gone. If you care about it so much, stop whinging and do something.=

<And by do something you mean steal from my father?= He squeezed his temples. <I may disagree with my father about many things, but at least I respect him enough not to steal from him. Is that why your father4= Teo cut himself off, but not before I caught his drift.

I ûashed cold before the heat began building in my chest again, my hands crunching into ûsts.

<I9m sorry,= he said quietly. <I didn9t mean4=

<The devil take your sorry.= I didn9t know how this boy, who seemed on the whole to be a decent bloke to everyone but Olivia, found it so easy to get under my skin, yet every conversation resulted in a persistent itch to run away from him. Or maybe clobber him. Running away was probably the more prudent choice. <How much do your ship captains charge to ferry passengers?=

<How much . . . ?= He shook his head as if to clear it.

<You9re going to Dubrovnik?=

<To Italy.=

Teo squinted at me as though I must have been joking. <Oh, of course. Our ships are always popping over to enemy countries during the war.=

<What about that ship that picked up the survivors? It was pretty far out. Not that much farther to the port of Brindisi.=

<Jakov had just caught a bad wind. He wouldn9t be foolish enough to risk a torpedo deliberately. Why are you so eager to take that risk?=

<If my brother wasn9t brought here, he must be in Brindisi.=

A silence hung between us, our mutual recognition that <must= wasn9t strictly the most accurate word. Teo9s lips parted in anticipation of saying something4something I wasn9t bloody well interested in hearing, most likely.

<Fine. Don9t answer. I9ll ask Fabiano.= I pushed myself up and crawled from the shelter. <You should stop lazing about, by the way. You9ve wasted half the afternoon.= I snapped my ûngers at him and relished his scowl.

My back was shrieking by the time the sun fell behind the western hills. We returned the tools to the shed and took it in turns to push the wheelbarrow full of branches along the dirt road back towards the village. It kept jolting over rocks and tipping sideways in divots, and I began to wonder if I would end the day with a broken wrist.

Mercifully, our destination was one of the nearest houses. Far less grand than Teo9s villa, the houses in this hillside town were smaller, built entirely of gray and crumbling concrete. Tiny rear gardens spilled into one another in run-down chaos. Teo rapped on the blue door of one of the houses and a woman answered, her face lined with age and worry, hair pulled back beneath a kerchief. The woman4 presumably the aforementioned gospoa Rodak4smiled and addressed Teo in Croatian.

After a brief conversation, she handed Teo a carved olive-wood cruciûx. He dug a handful of coins that must have been double or triple the carving9s worth out of his pocket. The woman didn9t argue, though a brief ûick of her eyes skyward made me suspect she9d tried and failed to dissuade the young man from overpaying in the past.

So this was how Teo Dukari, king of the sad sacks, kept friends in his life: by buying them.

Or, argued a frustratingly logical voice in the back of my head, this was how Teo Dukari took care of his neighbors: by not letting them starve on a struggling island. If he9d been born on Sicily, he might have been one of the agrarian socialists like Fabiano9s parents, though considering his reluctance to disobey his father, perhaps he was too straitlaced to foment a strike.

The walk between the olive grove and Villa Dukari seemed longer than it had that afternoon, in part due to my exhaustion and in part due to the return trip being entirely uphill. By the time we reached the gate, the work boots had rubbed my heels raw and my short curls drooped damply into my eyes. We trudged to the top terrace where Fabiano had lit the torches, though the Sicilian himself was nowhere in sight.

<Where9s Fabiano?=

<He9s usually at either Villa Kos or his family9s ûats in the Old City. When he9s not here irritating me.=

<Trust me, he9s not the irritating one.=

Ignoring me, Teo peeled off his sweat-soaked shirt and dived into the walled pond. When he broke the surface, he hung his elbows on the wall, bracing his chin on his forearms. <There9s room for two to swim.=

<I do not enjoy aquatic exercise,= I lied, bitter that similar levels of nudity were not an option for me.

<Please yourself.= He ûoated on his back, arms ûung wide in enviable calm. Water glistened on his bare chest,

and I could not help but analyze his form. Even at a glance, I could tell he was less heavily muscled than Fabiano. His skin was paler than mine, his chest hairless4unsurprising given his wispy beard4but he wasn9t as physically weak as I9d taken him for the day we met. He9d carried as many pounds of olive branches as I4with, I was ashamed to admit, somewhat more aplomb. It astounded me that so slight a frame could pack such a wallop.

He sighed. <I wish I could join them. At Villa Kos, I mean. A year ago, we9d all be sitting out in the gardens4 Fabiano, me, Olivia, her brother. I don9t understand why she won9t admit me.=

<Could it be because you are trying to harass her into a marriage she doesn9t want?=

<Why wouldn9t she want me? I could be such a help to her, especially now.=

My irritation began to mount. He reminded me of too many suitors who9d been determined to care for the helpless Farris twins. <Don9t tell me she9s one of the olive farmers whose land you own.=

<My father owns.= He swam back to the wall. <And Olivia owns more land than my father. That9s the trouble4 she has so much on her own, I can9t offer her anything that would entice her to love me.=

I threw my head back, summoning heavenly quantities of patience. <Women are not dogs. They do not come when you snap at them, and you cannot use treats to train them to

salivate when you enter a room. Jupiter9s balls, you wonder why she doesn9t like you when you won9t respect her simple request to let her alone!=

Teo huffed. <If you9re just going to stand there and insult me, you may as well bring me a drink.=

I bristled. <I9m not your servant.=

<I just asked you for a drink. Have you always been this opposed to helping others?=

<I have always been this opposed to taking orders from entitled male persons.=

<You mean men?= I found his sardonic smile more irritating than his frown.

<I would hardly apply such a label to a scrawny lad like you.=

Teo scowled. <You should be nicer to me. After all, I could turn you in to the authorities.=

I stiffened.

It hung in the air between us, this reminder of his power over me. He forced his shoulders back, but his haunted expression hinted that he hadn9t meant to throw such a low blow. Still, he didn9t apologize. He probably wasn9t used to it.

Well, I was not accustomed to giving people power over me, especially not infuriating, entitled boys who think of women as dogs to snap at and as baubles to purchase.

<That9s a load of bollocks. You9ve been harboring a fugitive. You think the military chaps will take that lightly? You9re in just as much trouble as I am, my boy.=

<The islanders would stand by me.=

<Of course, because you always grease their palms with your coin.=

<You have the direct beneût of that coin, eating my food, sleeping under my roof.=

<I don9t need your coin or your roof. I can earn my own scratch, and as soon as I do, I9ll get off this bloody island and ûnd my brother. Until then, I9d rather sleep in the forest with the wolves than spend another night under your confounded roof.=

Confusion and outrage warred on Teo9s face, but confusion won out. <Illyria doesn9t have wolves.=

I whirled, forcing my exhausted legs back down the hill towards the gate.

The bloody gall. I prayed that poor Olivia Kos would have the strength to hold out against his suit. I greatly pitied the woman unfortunate enough to become Teo Dukari9s wife.

Mazurka (n.) a lively folk dance

Faustina k I

Our guardian has come to guard not us but our wine.

New day, new bottle, new drunken friend with a new bouquet for my sister who loves roses (but will never love the men our guardian, Toma, brings). He could make Olivia marry this man, our guardian could4 make her take the hand Toma shakes before slipping