The Dark City by Imogen Rossi Read Free Book Online Page B

adventure.
    She felt so at home there –
Oscurita
, she remembered with a smile. It was a good name. It felt as if she’d known it all her life.
    There was still an odd, cold feeling in the fingers of her right hand. She must’ve numbed it during the night by lying on it for too long. She sat up and brought it out from under the pillow.
    Something glinted, tucked between her fingers. She froze, her heart suddenly hammering. Slowly, she raised the little silver bracelet so it caught the pink dawn rays. It was the child’s bracelet, the one she’d seen in the dark city  …  in Oscurita. It’d left an imprint of twining flowers across the inside of her fingers where she’d been clutching it.
    â€˜It wasn’t a dream,’ Bianca whispered, turning the bracelet round and round in her fingers. She could only have been sleepwalking – but then how did she get back here? Excitement fluttered in her stomach. What if it was some kind of  …  magic? Did this mean there was a real lady with a face like Bianca’s? Did it mean the Baron da Russo was with her, weaving her into his web of lies and treachery? Terror shot through her.
    I have to get back. I have to warn her!
    But how do you get back to a place that’s only half real?
    ***
    The sun rose and glowed more fiercely in the sky as Bianca painted furiously, dipping her brush again and again into her palette of black, grey and blue paint. First she sketched out the lines of an Oscurita building, with a doorway and a thunder-lamp crackling in a window. Then she laid down blocks of colour, patterns of light and shade – mostly shade. The maid knocked and walked in, intending to get Bianca’s clothes ready for the day, but Bianca waved her away. She was adding some of the details now, the lights and the blue shadows. She uncorked a tiny vial of
lux aurumque,
the glowing golden oil that added the final, magic ingredient to any paint, and quickly mixed up an
ether
. As the paint turned transparent in the copper bowl, Bianca smiled to herself, amazed at how quickly she’d mastered some of di Lombardi’s magical paints.
    The great bell of the palace chapel led a chorus of church bells from all over the city just as Bianca finished painting the
ether
onto the handle. She felt it swell and turn solid under her brush. It was ten o’clock: she’d missed breakfast, and she really ought to be getting over to Filpepi’s studio, to start her first day as Mistress Bianca.
    She held up the magical paintbrush and whispered, ‘Hidden rooms, secret passages, second city.’ The paintbrush unfolded its secret key and she slipped it into the painted lock. ‘Come on, come on. Take me back to Oscurita,’ she whispered.
    The door opened, but it wasn’t the dark city on the other side. Sighing, she pushed the door wide. She’d created another entrance into the secret passages. A few days ago she would have been cartwheeling with joy – but now, all she really felt was foolish.
    I was stupid to think it would be that easy
. Bianca closed the painted door, lifted the canvas from the easel and then threw a dustsheet over it.
    She shook herself. She had things to do today – behave like a master artist. She hadn’t asked for this duty, but the Duchess herself had given it to her. She couldn’t just abandon it for a world she’d only seen in her dreams. She tugged the strings of her bodice tight and knotted them behind her back. It was her first day as the head of both of the greatest studios in La Luminosa, and she was already late.

Chapter Six
    The other apprentices were there when she walked in, chatting and preparing their paints and canvases. Bianca plastered a friendly smile on her face.
    â€˜Hi everyone,’ she said.
    Cosimo and Lucia exchanged a look and then they both stood and bowed to her.
    Bianca looked around at the other apprentices, searching for support