The train hissed like a dying animal as it slid into Venezia Santa Lucia. Chiara stepped down into the mist with her satchel clutched in both hands, the strap damp with nervous sweat. Behind her, the great steel serpent groaned, then exhaled a final breath of smoke, swallowing the Florence she'd just left behind.
She didn't look back.
Venice welcomed her like a drowned cathedral. Fog rolled in thick from the water, wrapping itself around her legs, waist, neck—clinging like hands. The world was nothing but silhouettes: statues, gas lamps, bridges that arched like the backs of cats. Even the people seemed hollowed out, half-made.
Chiara adjusted the scarf at her throat and pulled her coat tighter. The silver thimble around her neck tapped once against her sternum—a sound she felt more than heard. Her mother's. The last clean thing she owned.
She crossed the stone platform without speaking. She didn't need to. Her instructions had been clear:
> Arrive alone.
No questions.
The Count will receive you.
There'd been no signature. Just a wax seal in the shape of a swallow's wing, and a Venetian gold ring tucked inside the envelope—heavy, masculine, engraved with the Volterra crest.
It was a name Chiara knew. Everyone in Florence did. Matteo Volterra. The vanished heir. The monster in velvet gloves. Some said he was dead. Others said he was worse.
Chiara slid the ring from her coat pocket and turned it once in her palm before boarding the vaporetto.
The boat was nearly empty. Just her, a hunched gondolier with a dead eye, and the fog swallowing everything but the dull slap of water against wood. Chiara stood at the back, her satchel at her feet, one hand gripping the rail.
Venice unfolded slowly around her, as if it resented being seen. Crumbling palazzos leaned over canals like they might fall in. Lanterns swayed overhead, their reflections rippling like serpents in the water. Somewhere in the distance, a bell tolled the hour—but the sound was muffled, as if the city itself had gone deaf with age.
They passed a funeral barge draped in black velvet. A single candle burned beside the coffin.
Chiara looked away.
The boat turned down a narrower canal, and then narrower still. She could feel the space tightening around them—the walls closer, the water darker. She'd memorized the route. Palazzo Volterra wasn't on any map. Not anymore. But the name still opened certain doors. Still made men look away.
As they passed beneath a low stone bridge, the gondolier finally spoke.
"You know where you're going, ragazza?" His voice was like dry rope.
Chiara didn't answer.
He clicked his tongue, then turned back to the water. "Too late now."
The palazzo emerged slowly, like a wound surfacing in water. Faded white marble veined with mildew. Shuttered windows. A crumbling balcony smothered in black ivy. Above the archway, the Volterra crest—two lions and a bleeding eye—had been carved so deeply, the stone around it looked bruised.
The boat scraped against the stone steps.
Chiara stepped off.
The gondolier didn't wait.
The fog swallowed him whole as he drifted away.
---
The door did not open for a long time.
Chiara stood at the foot of the steps, her fingers numb around the handle of her satchel, her breath clouding in the cold. Somewhere inside the palazzo, a candle flickered in an upper window. Then it went out.
At last, the door creaked open.
A woman stood in the frame, tall and thin as a blade. Her hair was pulled into a tight bun. Her black dress had no ornament, no softness. Only the crucifix at her throat shimmered in the dim light behind her.
"You are the painter," the woman said. Not a question.
Chiara nodded.
"I am Signora Loredana. The Count's housekeeper. You are late."
"The train—"
"Irrelevant."
She stepped back, and Chiara crossed the threshold.
The air inside the palazzo was colder than outside. The walls were high and lined with old frescoes—many covered by curtains. The scent of wax, mildew, and rose oil lingered, strange and intoxicating.
Chiara turned her head to a whisper of movement. A shadow slipped past an open doorway above, but when she looked again, nothing remained.
"Follow me," Loredana said.
They ascended a grand staircase of black marble, every step echoing like a hammer strike. The house groaned with age. Candles guttered in iron sconces. The Volterra family watched from cracked portraits along the walls—eyes painted with too much intensity, mouths thin with secrets.
Chiara felt them watching her.
"You will not enter the west wing," Loredana said. "You will not speak to the staff. You will not leave the grounds without permission. If the Count calls, you will come."
"I understand," Chiara said.
"Do you?" The woman's eyes were hard. "He is not like others."
"I'm not here for him. I'm here to paint."
"No one is ever just here to paint."
They reached a landing. A single door waited at the end of the hall—taller than the others, carved with a lion's head.
"This is your room," said Loredana. "You'll find fresh linen, brushes, and anything else you require. Meals are brought at sundown. You will be summoned when he is ready."
"May I ask—"
"No."
The door shut behind her.
---
Chiara stood in silence.
The room was too fine. That was the first thing she noticed. The bed was velvet-draped. The floor was inlaid with patterns of dark wood, the windows shuttered from the outside. A glass pitcher of water sat beside a cracked porcelain basin. A small oil lamp burned in the corner, its flame a soft tremble.
And there—on the writing desk—was the same ring that had summoned her. Alongside it, a fresh bundle of charcoal and a single sheet of parchment.
A message:
> "Your first session begins at dusk.
You will not see my face.
But you will see everything else."
—M.V.
Chiara exhaled and touched the ring again.
It was warm.
---
The ring was warm.
Chiara turned it over in her fingers, feeling the weight settle against her skin. It shouldn't have felt alive. It was only metal—etched, slightly tarnished, heavy with legacy. But something in it pulsed, like blood left in stone.
The warmth faded just as quickly.
She laid it down on the desk and looked at the parchment again.
> You will not see my face.
But you will see everything else.
It read like a promise. Or a warning.
She paced the room once, twice. The silence was thick. No footsteps outside. No creaks from the rafters. The only sound was the soft lick of the oil lamp and the faintest groan of wind through the walls.
She tried the window. Locked. Not just with a latch, but sealed from the outside with what looked like rusted nails and black wax.
She stepped back.
If there were other guests in the palazzo, they made no sound. And if there was staff, they moved like ghosts.
Chiara dropped onto the edge of the bed and took a deep breath. Her hands were trembling. She hadn't touched a canvas since Florence—not properly. And now she was expected to paint him.
Him.
A man she had never seen. A man who had built a reputation like a myth. Matteo Volterra. The Count who never showed his face. The one who had left Florence bleeding in whispers a decade ago.
She remembered the stories.
The Volterra heir who vanished after the fire at Palazzo degli Spiriti. The massacre on Riva del Gallo. The duel with the Caruso family heir—who was later found with his tongue sewn shut and his pockets filled with sea salt. Matteo had been spotted in Rome once. Then Palermo. Then nowhere.
And now—he wanted a painting.
Of himself.
By her.
Why?
---
She unpacked her satchel slowly, laying out her brushes with the reverence of a priest unsheathing relics. Each one was wrapped in cloth, stained with old colors she didn't dare wash out. She ran her fingers over the worn handles, the hair-thin bristles, the ends notched from years of chewing.
She touched the smallest brush, the one she used for eyes.
Then she took a clean canvas from the corner and set it on the stand by the hearth. Just a sketch, she told herself. Just to still her hands.
She began to draw—not him, not yet. Just the curve of a chin, the shadow of a mouth, the vague impression of a silhouette standing half in fog. Her fingers found their rhythm. Her mind followed.
It had always been like that. The world vanished when she painted.
---
She didn't hear the knock until it came a second time.
Hard. Sharp. Final.
She stood, heart kicking.
The door opened on its own.
Signora Loredana stood in the hall. Her dress was still black, still stiff, still perfectly smooth. Her face was unreadable.
"The Count will receive you now."
---
They walked in silence.
The halls of Palazzo Volterra were colder now. Or perhaps the heat had never been real to begin with. The candles flickered but gave off no warmth. The portraits on the walls were different, too—more than before. Dozens. Hundreds. All facing the walls. Every painting turned backward, as if ashamed. Or accused.
"Why are they all covered?" Chiara asked.
Loredana didn't answer.
The corridor widened.
They passed beneath a ribbed arch carved with Latin—too faded to read—and came to a pair of double doors painted black.
"This is the painting room," said Loredana. "You will not speak unless spoken to. You will not ask to see his face. You will not touch him."
"I never intended—"
"You would be the first," she said.
The doors opened.
---
The salon was vast.
Ceilings vaulted high above like a cathedral. Walls lined with books, canvases, statues veiled in muslin. A massive window stood at the far end—but the curtains were drawn, stitched shut with black thread. No natural light touched the room. Only candlelight, flickering in tall iron candelabras, gave the space shape.
In the center of the room: an empty velvet chair.
In front of it: a single easel.
Chiara stepped in.
She could feel it—his presence—before she heard a word.
And then:
"You're early."
The voice came from behind the veil.
A silk screen stood to her left, embroidered with golden threads in the shape of a winged lion. The voice was calm. Low. Beautiful.
"I wasn't sure what to wear," she said quietly.
A pause. Then a sound—something like amusement, but darker.
"You wore fear."
"I wore black."
"Fear fits you better."
Chiara moved toward the easel. Her fingers itched to lift a brush, but her mind reeled.
"You know my name," she said.
"Of course."
"But I never gave it."
"You gave enough."
The voice circled her like smoke. It came from nowhere and everywhere.
"I only want to paint you."
"You're already painting me. In your mind. You started the moment you read my name."
She hesitated. "Then show me."
A longer pause.
"No."
The air in the salon thickened.
"You will paint what you feel, not what you see," he said. "You'll sketch me as you imagine me. As you fear me. Desire me. Judge me."
"That's not how portraits work."
"It's how this one works."
Chiara felt the chill of the stone floor under her shoes. Her heart beat too loudly.
"Do you know what they say about me?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Say it."
"They say you're dead."
He laughed, and it was not a kind sound.
"They say you're cursed," she continued. "Disfigured. Mad. That you killed your own brother. That you burn your portraits."
"Not all of them."
Chiara stepped toward the easel.
"Why me?" she asked.
Another silence. Then:
"Because you know what it's like to lose your name."
---
The air in the salon shifted.
Chiara's breath caught on something she couldn't name—a weight, a thread pulling tight. She stared at the canvas, its blank surface stark against the warmth of the room. Her fingers twitched for the charcoal. Her instincts screamed for distance.
And yet.
She sat.
The chair creaked under her weight, old wood straining like bones. Her brushes waited beside her, freshly arranged—she hadn't done that. Someone had. A silent hand, earlier, perhaps while she was unpacking. Or while she slept.
Matteo's voice returned, lower now.
"You've never painted someone you feared before, have you?"
"I've painted men who thought I feared them."
"And did you?"
"Enough to survive."
A pause.
"Good."
Chiara picked up the charcoal. Its tip hovered over the page like a dare. Her eyes drifted to the curtain, to the faint outline behind it—she couldn't see him, not even a silhouette, only the impression of movement when he shifted. But his voice—God, his voice—was everywhere. It had roots.
She closed her eyes.
One line. Then another. Broad strokes. A suggestion of shoulders, the arch of a neck. She worked by memory, by intuition. Each movement of her hand a heartbeat, each angle a breath.
"You hold your charcoal like a dagger," Matteo said.
"It's how I was taught."
"By your mother?"
Chiara hesitated.
"No."
Silence.
The only sound was the gentle scratch of charcoal on canvas, the wax-soft whisper of flames.
Then—
"Did you love her?"
Chiara stiffened. Her hand froze in mid-stroke.
"That's not your business."
"It's all my business. You're in my house. Painting me."
"I thought I was painting what I feel."
"Aren't those the same?"
She said nothing.
The charcoal dropped from her fingers. She reached for another.
"You're avoiding the eyes," he said softly.
Chiara blinked.
"I haven't reached the face yet."
"No," he murmured. "But you're already afraid of it."
She felt a rush of anger—unexpected, sharp.
"I'm not afraid of faces," she said, too quickly.
"Then come see mine."
Her breath hitched.
The curtain didn't move. He didn't approach. He only let the offer hang in the room like incense, dark and sweet and poisonous.
Chiara gripped the brush.
"You said I wouldn't see your face."
"I said you wouldn't see it and live with it unchanged."
"Is that the curse?"
"No."
"Then what is?"
Another silence.
Then:
"Loneliness," he said. "So old it grows teeth."
---
Chiara swallowed.
She focused on the canvas, dragging the lines downward, forming the rough collar of his coat, the dip of his clavicle. She imagined him tall, slender but strong, with hands that did not tremble. She had to imagine him, because every time she tried to picture his face, her mind blurred it.
"Do you think I'm a monster?" he asked.
"I think monsters don't ask."
He laughed again. This time, not unkindly.
"You're cleverer than I expected."
"I'm not clever. I'm just not as naive as I look."
"No," he said. "You're not naive. You're desperate."
That landed like a slap. She set the charcoal down too hard. A tiny splinter cracked from the end.
She didn't speak. Didn't argue.
He was right.
And that was worse than insult.
---
The candelabras flickered. Shadows danced over the silk walls. From somewhere beyond the curtain, there was the faint click of glass on glass. Matteo was drinking something. She imagined red wine. Or something darker.
"You knew my real name," she said. "When I arrived."
"I did."
"But I never gave it."
"You signed a sketch. Once. In Florence. You left it behind."
Her mouth went dry.
"I burned that sketch."
"You missed one."
She turned her face toward the curtain. Still no silhouette. Still no figure.
"You've been watching me?"
"No," he said. "I've been waiting for you."
A thrill moved down her spine—equal parts dread and something more dangerous. Something curious. Seductive.
"And if I leave?"
"You won't."
"Why not?"
"Because there is nowhere in Venice safer than this room. And nowhere more dangerous."
---
Chiara sat back, exhaling. Her sketch was incomplete. Raw. But he was right—she'd avoided the eyes. There was something about the portrait that felt too still. Like it was waiting for something.
"Do you ever plan to sit for me?" she asked.
"I am sitting."
"You know what I mean."
"I do."
Another pause. Then:
"I'll allow it. One moment. One breath."
She turned.
The curtain twitched.
And then—a figure moved behind it.
He stepped into the light.
Only a glimpse.
Only half a body, still shrouded in shadows. A tall man, clothed in black. His hands gloved. His throat visible—pale, with a faint scar running just beneath the jawline. His head tilted downward. His face hidden beneath a black veil that fell from the bridge of his nose.
But his eyes—oh, his eyes.
They burned behind the veil. Pale. Silver. Cold like moonlight caught in a glass of wine.
Chiara didn't breathe.
Then—he stepped back into the curtain. Gone.
---
"I'll see what you make of that," he said.
Chiara's fingers itched. Her mind raced. She turned back to the canvas, lifted her brush, and began to paint.
Not from memory.
From obsession.
---
The first eye went wrong.
Chiara didn't notice until it was too late—the brushstroke too sharp, the white too bright. It stared out from the canvas like a question, unblinking, and somehow wrong.
She stepped back.
Matteo's voice drifted from behind the silk curtain.
"Too human."
She startled. "What?"
"The eye. It's too… soft. That's not what you saw."
"You were veiled."
"Yes. But you still saw something. Didn't you?"
Chiara swallowed.
"I don't know what I saw."
"Try again."
There was no anger in his voice. No command. Just certainty. Like a man telling the tide to come in. And her body obeyed.
She dipped her brush again. Scraped the eye away with a thin blade. Repainted the lid. Lowered the light. Drew a ring around the iris that didn't quite match nature—a strange opal gleam.
There.
Better.
Worse.
She couldn't tell.
Behind her, the curtain rustled. She didn't look. She didn't ask. The room had gone still, the candles quieting like they'd been listening too.
She painted until her wrist burned.
Time lost its shape.
---
Eventually, Signora Loredana returned.
She didn't knock.
She didn't speak.
She simply entered the salon, carrying a silver tray. It held a bowl of broth, a crust of bread, and a wine glass filled with something blacker than wine.
Chiara turned from the easel.
"Is it always like this?" she asked.
The woman set the tray down. "Like what?"
"Working for him."
Loredana tilted her head slightly. "You're not working for him. You're working on him."
"And if I refuse?"
"You won't."
"Why not?"
"Because you're a woman who loves lost causes. And he's the most lost of all."
She left without another word.
---
Chiara ate standing up.
The broth was hot but bitter. The bread rough, almost stale. The wine—if that's what it was—left her lips tingling. It tasted like night.
When she finished, she cleaned her brushes slowly, methodically, her mind half in the painting and half in the curtain.
She wanted to ask who else had painted him. How many. What had happened to them.
But she already knew.
They weren't here.
She stepped into the hall an hour later.
The palazzo was darker now. The candles had guttered. The sconces burned low. Shadows pooled in the corners like spilled ink.
She made it halfway to the stairs when she saw the painting.
Not hers.
This one was old. Hidden behind a torn velvet drape, almost buried in the wall between two suits of armor. She hadn't noticed it before. But something called her.
Chiara pulled the drape aside.
It was a woman. Pale. Raven-haired. Her mouth parted as if whispering. Her eyes were wide, terrified—but not of the painter. Of something behind the viewer.
Chiara touched the edge of the frame.
And the painting cried.
Not metaphor.
A bead of crimson welled from the woman's eye. Slow. Thick. It ran down her cheek in a perfect line.
Chiara jerked back.
The drop fell. Hit the floor.
She staggered away. Breath coming fast. She turned, heart racing.
Behind her, in the dark, something whispered her name.
She didn't sleep that night.
The bed was too soft. The room too still. The shadows too long.
She stared at the ceiling and thought of his voice.
And the eye.
And the woman in the wall.
And the way he said You know what it's like to lose your name like he'd tasted it.
---
In the morning—if it was morning—she returned to the salon.
The candles were relit. The easel still stood. The sketch still waited.
She resumed.
And as she worked, he spoke.
Not constantly. Not loudly. Just enough to unspool her.
He asked about her brushes. Her first painting. Her worst sin.
She asked him nothing.
But she wanted to.
God, she wanted to.
---
Eventually, he said: "You came here running from something. What was it?"
She stopped mid-stroke. Turned her head.
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't pretend you care."
Another long silence.
Then:
"You're right. I don't care. I need to know."
"For what?"
"For the painting."
Chiara narrowed her eyes. "Is that what this is about?"
"Yes."
"Not power?"
"No."
"Not beauty?"
"No."
"Not legacy?"
"God, no."
"Then what?"
A pause. Then:
"Because no one has ever seen me and loved me."
---
The brush slipped.
Not far—just a flick of her wrist, a half-breath too fast—but it ruined the entire line of the cheek. The tension she'd spent hours building collapsed in one stroke.
Chiara stared at it.
Her hand didn't move.
Behind the silk curtain, she could hear him breathing.
"Again," Matteo said.
She bit her lip hard enough to taste iron. "It was a mistake."
"There are no mistakes. Only truths you're not ready to admit."
"Don't quote painters at me."
"I wasn't. That was my father."
Chiara blinked. "Your father was an artist?"
"A murderer. But he liked metaphors."
She scraped the line off the canvas with the edge of a palette knife. The charcoal came away in dust. Her fingers were shaking again.
The voice behind the curtain was calm.
"You're too clean."
She frowned. "What?"
"Your strokes. They're safe. Pretty. Hesitant."
"I'm drawing you, not some Florentine court fop."
"Then draw me."
"I can't see you."
"You've seen more than most."
She turned in her chair. The curtain didn't move. No silhouette. Only shadow.
"Then give me more," she said.
Silence.
Then—
A gloved hand appeared from behind the curtain.
Just the hand.
Slow. Steady. Resting on the edge of a pedestal like a stage cue.
Long fingers. A single silver ring. A faint scar across the knuckles.
Chiara stared.
Her brush lifted.
She painted it.
Each knuckle, each tendon, each whisper of curve.
He didn't move.
Neither did she
---
Time passed.
She didn't know how much.
The room melted into candlelight and velvet hush. Her mind narrowed until there was only the brush, the canvas, and the shape of a man who refused to be fully seen.
She painted like a woman possessed.
By the time she stepped back, the canvas was breathing.
It wasn't finished. Not even close. But the figure—the presence—was there now. Not just a sketch. A soul. A wound given shape.
She wiped her hands. Her fingers were black with dust. Her blouse streaked with oil. She didn't remember standing. Or the tears.
She touched her face.
They were real.
Behind the curtain, Matteo spoke.
"Better."
She nodded, dazed.
"You're beginning to understand," he said.
"I'm beginning to regret."
"That's the same thing."
---
She turned away from the canvas. Her legs felt wrong beneath her.
"Why me?" she asked again. "Really."
Matteo was silent for so long she thought he'd left.
Then:
"Because you lost something you loved. And you've been trying to repaint it ever since."
She looked at the curtain.
"What did I lose?"
He didn't answer.
Instead, he said:
"You used to sign your paintings with a swallow's wing."
Her breath caught.
She hadn't done that since she was sixteen.
"Only someone who loved you would remember that," he said.
Her knees went weak.
She sat down hard.
The curtain rippled.
Then stilled.
---
Chiara stared at the curtain as if it might split open and swallow her.
Her pulse thundered in her throat.
"You said," she whispered, "no one has ever seen you and loved you."
Silence.
She rose from the chair. Slowly. Carefully. Her brush still in her hand, like a weapon she didn't remember picking up.
"You said you don't care," she continued. "That you just wanted a painting. But you remember Florence. You remember the swallow."
The curtain didn't move.
"You've been watching me."
"Yes."
The word landed like a stone in a still pool.
"How long?"
"Long enough to know what you'd do when I sent the ring."
"And what was that?"
"Come."
Chiara let out a short, bitter laugh.
"You're mad."
"Possibly."
"You stalked me. You found my work. You brought me here under false pretenses—"
"No."
His voice was harder now. Sharper.
"I brought you here to make you immortal."
She froze.
"What?"
"The painting isn't for me," he said. "It's for you."
---
The salon spun.
The smell of wax, paint, and rose oil pressed in close.
Chiara backed away from the easel. The canvas loomed now—taller than she remembered, darker, the figure on it somehow more solid than anything else in the room.
"You don't even know me," she said.
"I know what you are."
"Then say it."
"You're like me."
She shook her head.
"No. You're a monster. You hide in shadows and whisper pretty things behind silk curtains."
"You hide behind canvas and call it truth."
That silenced her.
The brush dropped from her hand.
A slow sound—bare feet on marble—drifted from behind the curtain. Not toward her. Parallel.
Pacing.
"I've ruined people," Matteo said. "Turned their art inside out. Left them hollow. But not you."
He stopped.
"You came here hollow. But you can still be filled."
"With what?"
"With me."
---
Chiara should have left then.
Should have run.
But the painting held her.
Her portrait of him—not complete, not yet—but something in it breathed. The eyes. The hands. The curve of the mouth she hadn't even drawn yet.
He hadn't shown her that.
And still she saw it.
"I'm not afraid of you," she said.
"Then you're either brave."
"Or stupid?"
"Or already mine."
---
The salon darkened. Candles dimmed all at once, as if a hand had passed over the flame.
A chill passed through the room.
Chiara turned toward the door—but it wasn't there.
It had vanished.
Or maybe she had.
Behind her, the canvas whispered.
She looked back.
The figure on it was smiling now.
She hadn't painted that.
---
And then, his voice again—soft, closer than before.
"You see me now."
---
END OF CHAPTER 1