inscription. âBut look. What does it say?â
Stellan pushed past us, muttering to himself. â
La Serenissima. One step closer to unlocking the secret through a union forged in blood,
â he translated.
I grabbed Jackâs sleeve excitedly. The language was so similar to our current clues, we
had
to be on the right track.
âUnlocking. Maybe itâs about the password.â Jack snapped a picture of the inscription with his phone.
Stellan was squinting at the words. âThe Serene One. That partâs not in French, itâs in Italian.
La Serenissima,
like itâs a name.â
âA statue? A painting?â I looked around for where it might be pointing.
A slam echoed through the museum, and all three of us jumped. Heavy footsteps sounded on the wood floor, and we scrambled behind the nearest statueâs base in a jumble of arms and legs.
The footsteps continued on.
âWe should go. We canât afford to be caught in here,â Jack whispered. I was half sitting on his leg, and I could feel Stellanâs pulse pounding where his back pressed into mine. âEven if
La Serenissima
is another piece of artwork, itâs probably not in this museum.â
We waited until the footsteps had faded to nothing, and then Jack hauled me to my feet and we hurried down the steps, out the door, and back out into the soupy air of Kolkata.
CHAPTER 6
T he next morningâeven though Iâd crawled back onto my balcony after midnight and hadnât fallen asleep for hours after thatâI was up with the sun. I thought I might sleep better than usual knowing we were making progress, but Iâd been wrong. I rubbed my shoulders, tired and stiff from the dancing and the lack of sleep, and sat down cross-legged on one of the low couches on the balcony, where the morning air was a little cooler than the temperature inside.
When I pulled out my phone to look at the photo of the carving Jack had sent me, I was surprised to see a text from just a few minutes ago.
Veniceâs nickname is La Serenissima,
it said. Stellan.
Why are you awake?
I wrote back. Heâd stayed elsewhere in the city, and had been up as late as I was.
Does that mean the braceletâs in Venice?
Maybe. Lots of Napoleonic history there. Would make sense.
The Mikado family would be visiting Venice in a few days. My father had mentioned that weâd probably meet them while they were there.
Venice is already on my itinerary, but not for a few days,
I texted.
Maybe by then we can figure out what âa union forged in bloodâ means.
By the afternoon, we were on a plane to the next family visit in Germany, and I was decidedly less apprehensive than Iâd been on the way to India. Knowing that we were on the right track was a huge relief, and Iâd even asked Lydia if we could add some museums to the schedule so I wouldnât have to go behind the Saxonsâ backs quite as much. Weâd had a family meeting earlier to debrief the Rajesh visit, and sitting around with my dad and Lydiaâand even Cole, though he was playing on his phone the whole timeâwas weird, but nice. All those fantasies Iâd had about family over the years didnât involve planning my arranged marriage, but minus that part, laughing and chatting with my father and sister was kind of a dream come true. And if all the families weâd be meeting the next few days were like the Rajeshes, even that part wouldnât be too bad.
Unfortunately, they werenât all like the Rajeshes.
First was the Hersch family, in Frankfurt. We arrived ahead of schedule and took a tour. I loved the cityâit was huge and bustling and a little gritty, with surprise pockets of old-world charm. I could picture myself living there if I had to. The family themselves were another story. Their only son, Jakob, was twenty-eight years old and already married. Lydia had prepared me for itâapparently a union with me would be