“Fell wants to call forth a demonic presence as much as I do,” Black said. “Why, I don’t know. For me, it would be the ultimate power … to have such a presence in my grasp … for that creature to know I have been faithful and true to the master we both serve … and then … what my command would be … I haven’t yet decided, but mark this … that it would shake the world, Matthew. This I can vow.”

It took Matthew a moment to regain his reeling senses. “Insanity,” he breathed, but he feared it was much more than that. “You do realize that Ciro Valeriani came to his senses and tried to destroy the thing?”

“He was unable to do so. My understanding is that at the last moment, when the presence he called forth was in the passageway, he must have lost his nerve—known he was unworthy—and shattered the glass. Some time later he was compelled to repair it.”

Compelled might be the right word, Matthew thought. What Valeriani created would not let him destroy it, Fell had said. “And then he hanged himself soon after?” Matthew asked.

“Very soon after. With his death, the mirror disappeared. His son must know what happened to it, and—if it still exists—where it is hidden. That is why Danton Idris Fell wants you to find Brazio. Find the son, find the mirror. Simple enough?”

“Italy’s a big country.”

“Oh, not so big for a grand problem-solver like yourself.” Cardinal Black stood up from his lounge chair and came across the carpet toward Matthew with a smooth, gliding gait. The man was fearsomely tall and in this firelight his weirdly angular face itself had the appearance of demonic virtues. Matthew wondered if this was the sight the little boy in the tower at Adderlane had seen: Black coming at him like a long-legged spider with a dagger in hand. When Black stopped before him, Matthew was treated to the cardinal’s blade being drawn back and forth across his chin.

“You’ll soon be leaving for Fell’s village,” Black said. “They’re harnessing the horses right now. I will tell you that if you do not return with the book I want, I will personally cut Devane’s heart out. The master demands that it’s done while the offerings are still alive. You may not care that Devane dies and you may get to that village and think you can hide from me, but you are wrong.”

“What, are you going to get Lash to sail the Volcano back and bomb the place again?”