's hopes. He believed in his stars.

Ugolini, dressed in a white gown tied at the waist with a cord, walked
to the half-open windows and pulled the violet drapes across them,
darkening the room. A breeze made the drapes billow inward and blew out
the flame of the candle on his desk, plunging the room into a deeper
darkness. Unbidden, Sophia picked up a wax taper from Ugolini's
worktable, igniting it from the fat, hour-marked candle in the corner
away from the window, and went lighting candles in the candelabra around
the room. Talking in the dark would only drive their spirits lower.

_If only Lorenzo were here. He would have a plan by now, and be doing
something about it._

Ugolini held out his hands to Tilia. "I am doomed, and I do not want you
dragged down with me." He turned to Sophia, whiskers bristling over his
grimace. "You should have left her out of this."

_If I had left her out of it, there would be no hope at all_, Sophia
thought, sitting on the small chair facing Ugolini's worktable. She
looked with appeal at Tilia, who nodded reassuringly.

"Tilia needs just as much as any of us to know what is happening," said
Sophia. "And you need to talk to her." Ugolini's hands were trembling,
she saw. She, too, was afraid, both for herself and Daoud. Fear was a
black hollow eating away at her insides.

_Oh, Daoud, what are they doing to you?_

He might come out of the Palazzo del Podesta blind, or with arms or legs
cut off, or mad, she thought. When she saw him again, she might wish him
dead--and herself along with him.

She wiped the cold sweat from her brow with the hem of her silk cloak.
In the heavy, hot air, the scent of Tilia's rose-petal sachet filled the
room.

"Only a miracle can save us," said Ugolini, pacing and waving his hands.
"I have been praying to God that He take the soul of David of Trebizond
before he breaks under torture and dooms us all."

Sophia reeled with the pain his words brought her. She wanted to claw
Ugolini's eyes out. She sprang up from her chair, fists clenched.

"May God take _your_ soul!" she screamed at him. "And send you straight
to hell!"

Ugolini turned and stared at her as if she had struck him.

"Be still, Sophia," said Tilia quietly. "That will not help."

Panting heavily, Sophia sat down again. They needed Ugolini so badly,
and he was so _useless_. She wanted to weep with frustration.

"Of course God will damn me," Ugolini cried, throwing his arms into the
a