Blameless(78)

“I don’t suppose this is a weapon?”

“Not unless you have suddenly taken against the Jews, madam.”

It was fortunate that they ate, for no food awaited them upon their return. After a lengthy stop at the alchemist’s, which in Italy also stocked pharmaceuticals and fishing equipment, to purchase what Madame Lefoux referred to as “necessary supplies,” they returned to the temple. There they found that, despite the early hour—it was not yet six—the Templars were already retired for the evening, undertaking some form of extended silent prayer.

While Madame Lefoux fussed with refilling the parasol and Floote went to do mysterious butler-type duties, Alexia hunted down the library. When no one stopped her, she began reading various books and records with interest. She had Ivy’s little clipping with her and paused to reread it now and again. A printed admission of guilt, imagine that? She found herself humming from time to time. You see, infant-inconvenience, it’s not so bad.

She did not find the information she was chiefly interested in: anything pertaining to the preternatural breeding program or concerning Templar use of soulless agents. However, she did find enough entertaining reading matter to keep her occupied well into the night. It was far later than she thought when she finally looked up to find the temple utterly silent around her, and not in the way of an edifice filled with prayer and soft movements. No, this was the silence of sleeping brains that only ghosts were comfortable experiencing.

Alexia padded toward her room, but then, sensing a presence she was not quite certain she could name, she shifted in her purposeful tread and veered down a small hallway. It was undecorated: there were no crosses nor any other religious effigies, and it ended in a tight stairwell that she might have thought only used by servants, except that it was arched and mossy and had the feel of immense age about it.

Alexia decided to explore.

This was, it must be admitted, probably not the most intelligent decision of her life. But how often is one given the opportunity to investigate an ancient passageway in a sacred temple in Italy?

The stairs down were indeed steep and slightly wet, as the back ends of caves will get no matter the climate. Alexia steadied herself with one hand against the damp wall, trying not to think about whether said wall had been cleaned recently. The stairs seemed to go down a very, very long way, ejecting her at the end into another undecorated hallway that in turn ended in what was possibly the most disappointing little room imaginable.

She could see that it was a room because, and this was peculiar, the door to the room was glass. She walked up and peeked through.

A small chamber lay before her, walls and floors of dingy limestone, with no paint nor other form of decoration. The only piece of furniture was a small pedestal in the center of the room, on top of which stood a jar.

The door was locked, and Alexia, resourceful as she was, had not yet learned to pick locks, though she mentally added it to her list of useful skills she needed to acquire, along with hand-to-hand combat and the recipe for pesto. If her life were to continue on its present track, which, after twenty-six years of obscurity now seemed to mainly involve people trying to kill her, it would appear that acquiring a less savory skill set might be necessary. Although, she supposed, pesto-making ought to be termed more savory.

She squinted through the door. It was paned with small squares of old leaded glass that were warping and sagging in their frames. This meant that the room within shifted and wiggled, and she squirmed around trying to see. She just couldn’t quite make out what was inside the jar, and then finally she got the correct angle and was abruptly rather queasy to her stomach.

The jar held a severed human hand. It was floating in some liquid, probably formaldehyde.

A tactful little cough sounded behind her, just soft enough not to startle.

Alexia still jumped practically out of her frilly orange dress in surprise. Upon landing, she whirled around.

“Floote!”

“Good evening, madam.”

“Come look at this, Floote. They have a human hand in a jar in the middle of an empty room. Aren’t the Italians strange?”

“Yes, madam.” Floote didn’t come over, only nodded as though every house in Italy had such a thing. Alexia supposed this might be possible. Gruesome, but possible.

“But don’t you think, madam, it may be time for bed? It would not do for anyone to find us in the Inner Sanctum.”

“Oh, is that where we are?”

Floote nodded and extended a gracious arm for Alexia to precede him back up the tiny staircase.

Alexia took his advice, as there was apparently nothing else to see besides the random human body part. “Is it very common, in Italy, to keep a jar full of hand, just lying about?”