Chapter 9: The Mask Isn't Mine

AMELIA

Sofia Bellini came back on Monday morning in a gray coat with the collar turned up, and she walked through the front doors of the mansion as if she were crossing a border she had sworn never to cross again.

I watched from the landing above the great hall. Two of her father's men carried her suitcases in behind her, and a third stood at the door with his hands folded, a heavy man with a flat face who clearly had orders not to leave until she was inside. Luca came down the main stairs to meet her, and she stopped on the marble, and for a moment they only looked at each other.

"You came," he said.

"My father drove me to the gate himself." Her blue eyes were red-rimmed and steady. "He said that a daughter whose face was used in a crime ought to stand in the room where the crime happened, and say plainly that it wasn't her."

"Nobody thinks it was you."

"Nobody thinks it was me now." She took off her gloves one finger at a time. "Where is it?"

"Where's what?"

"The mask, Luca. The one with my face."

He glanced up, and I realized he had seen me on the landing all along. "Amelia," he said. "Come down. I want you here."

I came down, because there was nothing else to do, and we went together into the small sunroom off the hall, where Rico stood by the window and Dr. Orlandi sat at a table with a white paper bag in front of her. Sofia took the chair across from Celeste and looked at the bag without touching it.

"It looks like mine," she said, as Celeste lifted the mask out onto a clean cloth. "Close enough that I'd have sworn at first glance."

"At first glance," Rico said.

Sofia leaned in. She didn't touch the porcelain; she hovered over it, tilting her head, her pale hair falling forward, and her mouth twisted. "There's no chip."

"No what?" Luca asked.

"Mine has a chip, a tiny one, on the edge near the left ear. I dropped it in the maker's shop when I was being fitted, and the old man was so ashamed that he offered to remake it, and I said no, because I liked it better with a flaw." She turned the mask a little with a fingertip. "This is perfect, so it isn't mine, and it was never mine."

"Then it's a copy," Rico said.

"A better one than the original." Sofia's voice was tight with fury. "Do you know what that means? Someone paid a great deal of money to put my face in your bed, Luca, and they didn't even bother to copy the flaw."

"They copied what they could see," I said, "and they couldn't see the chip from across a ballroom."

All four of them looked at me. I hadn't meant to speak, and I felt the heat climb my neck.

"That's what I'd think," Rico said slowly. "Someone took a photograph, or stood close enough in the shop and sketched it." He bent and, with a pair of tweezers from Celeste's bag, turned back the silk lining along the inside edge. "And there's this."

A small stamp was pressed into the porcelain, the size of a thumbnail, with letters so fine that I had to lean toward it. Vero e Figlia, Candle Street, and under it a tiny numeral 2.

"Two," Sofia said. "Mine says one."

"Candle Street," Rico said. "It's in the old market district, and I know the shop." He was already pulling out his phone. "I'll send men this afternoon."

"Take care of the old man," Sofia said. "He's kind. He cried when he chipped it, and I'd hate to think he knew."

"I'll be careful," Rico said, and went out, and Celeste put the mask back in its bag and followed him with a nod to Luca.

That left the three of us in the sunlit room, with a half-eaten plate of fruit that nobody had touched. Sofia rubbed her temples.

"I'm sorry," she said, to Luca. "I shouldn't have left. If I'd stayed in the room..."

"You'd have been drugged, or you'd have been in my bed, and I'd have thought it was the real you." He sounded tired and bitter. "I'm not sorry you left, Sofia. I'm glad."

"Don't be kind. It doesn't suit you." She almost smiled, and then the smile went away. "My father told me something in the car, and I'd rather you heard it from me than from him. He wants the engagement announced at the Council, in front of everyone, to wash my name clean."

"Sofia, not now."

"Then when? He'll say it whether you agree or not, and I would like to know, before I'm made to stand there, whether you plan to say yes or no." She folded her gloves in her lap. "I won't ask twice, Luca."

"I can't think about that with my head full of this."

"Then think about it later, but think about it." She said it gently, and I understood that it was the nearest she would come to begging, and that she hated herself for even that. "I'd rather be refused by you in private than rescued by you in public."

Luca opened his mouth, and shut it, and I looked at the fruit on the table and wished I were a piece of it. Then her glance slid to me, quick and cool, and she said, "Luca, would you leave me alone with Amelia for a moment? I'd like to say hello properly."

"Sofia..."

"Five minutes."

He looked from her to me, and I nodded, though my throat had closed. He went out and left the door open.

Sofia stood, crossed to the window, and stood with her back to the light, so I couldn't see her face well. Her tall figure was all gray lines against the glass.

"You were the last one I saw with him," she said.

"I know."

"At the gala, I watched him dance with you. I wasn't jealous, Amelia, I want you to understand that; I was relieved. It was the only time in three years I saw him look as if he was enjoying a party."

"It was only a dance."

"I'm not saying it was more." Her eyes were cold and blue and tired. "I'm saying you were beside him when he fell ill, you took him upstairs, and Luca told me on the phone last night that the cameras went dead minutes after you left his door. I'm not stupid, and I'm not cruel, but I notice things."

"I took him to his room because he was sick," I said. "I went to look for you, and I couldn't find you, and then I went to bed."

"Who told you I'd gone?"

"Mrs. Rosi."

"Then she's observant." Sofia tilted her head. "I told only my driver. And the gate guard, I suppose."

"She saw you on the camera, probably, or one of the maids did."

"Probably." She came a step closer. "Here's what I can't understand. Whoever wore my mask knew I wasn't coming back, and that is the whole trick of it. A woman can't step into my place unless she's sure the real one is gone, so someone told her, or she saw me leave, or she watched the room. Whoever it was, she had to know."

"Or she was lucky."

"Nobody is lucky for a whole night." Sofia reached out and, lightly, touched the sleeve of my sweater. "Look at me, Amelia, and tell me it wasn't you."

My voice came out steadier than I deserved. "It wasn't me."

"Good." She smiled, and it was a perfect, polished smile, and it frightened me more than a shout would have done. "Then why are you holding your wrist like that?"

I looked down. My right hand had closed around my left wrist, tight over the small scar, as it did whenever I was afraid, and I'd done it in front of the one woman in the house who might have noticed.

"It's a habit," I said. "An old one."

"Is it?" Sofia let go of my sleeve. "My father has asked me to stay here until the Council meets, and Luca hasn't refused, so I'll be in the guest room at the end of your corridor. I'm told I'll be comfortable." She picked up her gloves and smoothed them over her palm. "I hope it wasn't you, Amelia. I did like you, you know. I'd hate to say that in the past tense."