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colonnades looked like a Moorish sugar cake. “I’m going to light a candle for my mother.”
    “Do you want me to wait for you?”
    “You go home . . .”
    She saw him smile. Her home, maybe, although even that was new. She could remember when she called Ca’ Ducale a prison. She watched Tycho turn to find a guard to escort her, but one had already peeled off in anticipation. Of course he had. She was a Millioni princess. “See you later,” Tycho said.
    Giulietta nodded.
    The basilica was empty and her footsteps echoed as she walked under the stern-faced apostles ringing the dome above. The frescos were new and their colours still fresh, and saints watched her as she stopped to ask the Virgin’s blessing. Mary’s cloak was paler than it had been the first time she knelt there, the night she arrived in Venice as a child, her mother dead, her father still hunting her.
    The bright circle of glass stars on a wire that ringed the Madonna’s head was now dusty. But she had the same smile, the same kind eyes. Lady Giulietta felt a wave of happiness wash over her. It was here she had met Tycho on the worst night of her life, when the palace felt like a prison and all she wanted was to kill herself – and even that had turned out for the best. The thought of him dropping from the ceiling, strange-eyed and wild-faced, made her smile. Back then she’d been terrified into not taking her life. Now it felt like a warm memory. She glanced apologetically at the Virgin as other warm memories made her blush. “Thank you,” Giulietta said.
    The stone mother smiled.

7
    Alexa’s party had won and Alonzo was going into exile. Duke Marco appeared less of an idiot every day, the Byzantine navy that blocked the lagoon, and the German army that had camped on its edge, had left . . . Tycho doubted Frederick’s army would have a good time of it in the snows. He didn’t envy the Byzantine fleet the storms that would buffet the last of their journey. But those were not his problems.
    I have the girl, I have the title, I have the gold . . . Half the nobles in the city envy me. The others want me dead so they can take my place.
Why had tightness gripped his chest the moment he entered the palace? Why this dread as he climbed the marble stairs to the Millioni chambers, passing sour-faced dukes staring from paintings, and tapestries exaggerating how great their victories had been? Tycho knew something was wrong the moment he reached the landing.
    His jaw ached so fiercely the pain stopped him dead.
    As walls and windows, tapestries and a guard outside Leo’s nursery fell into sharp focus, his dog teeth threatened to descend and Tycho recognised the smell of Millioni blood tainted with shit and the smell of fear. The guard stepped back as Tycho hurtled towards him.
    “My lord . . .”
    Leo’s nursery was locked.
    “There’s a new woman tonight, my lord. I heard her lock the door behind her. Perhaps she’s embarrassed about feeding?”
    “Leo’s weaned.” Anyway, it wasn’t a wet nurse’s job to be embarrassed about breastfeeding a baby; it was what she did, fed a child and kept it safe. “Stand back,” Tycho ordered. Twisting, he side-kicked the lock.
    By the time a second guard came running the door hung on one hinge, Tycho having aimed for a point behind it. The stink of Millioni blood was overwhelming. At least, it was to him. “Get Duchess Alexa . . .”
    The new guard froze. Tycho might be noble, Lady Giulietta’s lover and rumoured to have powers, but Alexa was sole Regent now Alonzo had sailed. She couldn’t simply be sent for.
    “She’ll have your head if you don’t.”
Yes, thought that would convince you.
The man ran and the other guard tried to look past Tycho into the blood-splattered room beyond. “Stay back and stay out.”
    “My lord . . .”
    “This is blackest magic.”
    The guard instantly averted his eyes.
    Taking a deep breath, Tycho forced himself inside. Spilt blood, a discarded knife, open shutters