Where was she? There was sunlight on her face. She’d had terrible dreams that seemed to grasp at her and try to suck her back under – dreams of drowning, in a dark passage surrounded by nothing but bones … ‘Bianca! You’re awake!’ She blinked, and everything swam into focus. She was in her own bed, in the palace, in La Luminosa, and Marco was sitting up in a chair beside the bed. ‘What happened?’ she asked him. She remembered Dante helping her into the passages and she remembered telling him that she would be able to make it back to La Luminosa by herself. She didn’t remember how she’d found her way back to the painting in Mistress Frazetti’s house. ‘You came out of the painting at a run, and fainted,’ Marco said. ‘You were out for a couple of hours. Did you find the Duchess?’ She remembered the crossbow sticking out of her mother’s chest. ‘No, I … ’ Her mother was wounded, maybe … dead. She leapt out of bed. Marco cried ‘Hey, careful!’ and jumped up, just in time to steady her shoulders as the world swam around her head.
