The games went on for another couple of hours, but Evangelias clear and dramatic victory was really the Big Deal. As things wrapped up with a pretty speech from Fortino, again honoring me and my sister, I tried to beg off, eager to return to my room to try and sleep. Perhaps with sleep this gut ache will go away…

But the people wouldn’t hear of it. I was carried on my lounge into the Great Hall and deposited in the center of the dais. A goblet of wine was thrust into my hand, and a plate of grapes set beside me. Evangelia hovered nearby but was constantly drawn into conversations and introductions. Romana, to her credit, ventured near and gave me a pretty curtsy.

“No doubt you would’ve given the swordsmen an apt challenger, just as your sister has done, were you not ailing.”

I dismissed her praise. “Evangelia has always been a far better archer than I have ever been at swordplay.” I gestured down at my side. “Witness the results of my last challenge.”

The doctor was there then, with us. “How is your pain, m’lady?” He bent and took my wrist in his small hand, feeling for my pulse.

“The medicine seems to be keeping the pain at bay,” I said. I noticed then, the beginning tinge of its return. I gestured for him to lean closer. “It is my belly, Doctor. I think the medicine is upsetting my stomach.”

He frowned and rose, sniffing as if perturbed by my secondguessing. “Impossible. I’ve never had a patient who had such a reaction. Have you been eating?”

“Some.”

“Clearly, not enough. Do you have pain now?”

“Just a bit,” I said, trying to process his reaction. Why was he so defensive? Because I was younger? A woman? Questioning him?

“Take another dose now,” he said, handing me the clay flask. “Another at bedtime, and so on.” He reached into his bag and pulled out the small packet of powder he’d sprinkled on my wound earlier. “Tonight, before bed, have your sister administer some of this, and sleep with it open, to the air.”

I nodded, puzzled. It sounded as if he was leaving. Had he not intended to remain nearby? Promised to be available?

“I must be off. I’m to visit another family not far from here, by nightfall.” He gave me a stern look. “You will take your medications as instructed?”

“Yes, Doctor,” I said. A part of me was glad. He was weird. He made me nervous. I could take my medicine, with or without him there.

He waited, and I realized he wanted to see me take my next dose in front of him. Obediently, I took a swig, making it look like a bigger mouthful than it was.

Satisfied, he nodded once and moved out through the crowd. By the door, I saw him stop to speak with Lord Foraboschi, receive something and pocket it, then exit through the tall doors. Had it been the Rossis’ pull, their demand that set him on to a new patient, leaving me behind?

I shoved the idea out of my mind and lifted my gaze to the room.

My attention was drawn by a woman in a fine tapestry gown, her hair in an elaborate headdress, as she stopped in the center of the room. The crowd took their seats, and wine was passed around. The woman folded her hands, held them slightly away from her body, and began to sing without accompaniment, perfectly on pitch.

Her words were in Latin, but her voice and expression could be understood in any language. She sang of love, loss, victory. She captured the attention of everyone in the room. When her last note rose and rose and rose, a shiver ran down my neck. If only I could sing like that…

I wished I could turn and see Marcello, see how this singer affected him, but I could not. Marcello, Fortino, and most of the others were behind me, at the table with the Rossis and the other nobles. To turn and catch his eye then would’ve been seen by all.

And I was with Lia now. We had to be off, gone from here. Every hour we tarried only brought more angst.

I shifted, glad the small dose of medicine was dulling my pain, but again feeling a rolling wave of nausea come over me. My stomach twisted in a cramp, and I gasped, bringing my hand to my belly. Luckily, everyone at that moment was rising and cheering the singer, unaware of me for but a few seconds. I pulled my legs around and off the lounge, looking madly for Lia. I had to escape the hall-get to my room.

I bent over at the next pang that pulled my stomach in a knot. My heart was racing, faster and harder than I’d ever felt before. My lips parted. Had I not been robbed of breath, I might’ve screamed.

Cook was beside me in seconds, as was Lia. “M’lady?”

“I am ill,” I ground out. “More than just my wound. I must return to my quarters-“

Another pang of pain strangled me.

“M’lady,” Marcello said lowly, on my other side.

I looked up at him, desperate, frightened.

“She is ill,” Cook said. “We must return her to her quarters.”

“On her lounge,” he said, waving several servants forward.

“Nay, now,” I said, trying to come to my feet again. I was so afraid I was about to vomit, right there, in front of everyone. But then another stomach pain came, rolling through me, making me shudder.

Marcello frowned, bent, and swept me into his arms, careful to keep his hand from the wound at my side. Then he carried me out, the crowd dissolving into whispers behind hands. I couldn’t help it. At the next wave of pain, I cried out, wincing and shutting my eyes, hoping it would soon be over.

Luca appeared before us, holding one door, Lia the other. I knew they followed us across the courtyard.

“Where is the physician?” Marcello ground out.

“He left,” I said.

“Left? Departed?” He was incredulous.

I nodded.

His handsome face became stormy with anger. “He did not beg my leave.”

“He spoke with Lord Foraboschi. Perhaps he dismissed him. Oh!” I cried.

Marcello was practically running with me now. In short order, I was back in my quarters, in my bed. But I could not stay still. I was writhing in pain.

“It is the medicine,” I said, shaking my head, tears streaming down my cheeks. “I tried to tell the doctor it was helping the pain but making me nauseous….”

Marcello eyed Cook, and she turned to wave a servant over. When he bent to speak with her, she whispered in his ear, and he was off.

Lia came to my side and took my hand in both of hers. “What can I do?”

“I don’t know,” I said, writhing, embarrassed, but helpless against the pain inside me.

“You have to remain still, Gabi. Your wound-“

“I know,” I said, writhing again, growing rigid, then lax. She was worried I’d rip my tender wound open. I was worried about it too.

But my bigger concern was that something much worse was transpiring inside. Infection? A reaction to the medicine?

Cook and Lia were apparently thinking the same thing. They pushed the men out the door, helped me out of my gown and into my short sleeping gown, then eased me to my side so they could look upon the scar. I glanced down, expecting the wound to be completely opened, oozing with infection. But it looked much as it had this morning, except for a tiny tear in the center, where my movements had pulled it open.

“Maybe it’s inside,” I said to Lia, then grunted through another wave of pain. They were getting stronger. “An infection. Deep down.” But the frantic pace of my heart was scaring me more now. I couldn’t get it to calm down. It was pounding so hard I thought that it might look like those old cartoons, with a heart-shaped pillar bouncing in and out of my chest.

The men burst through the door, my medicine flask in hand. Marcello’s face was white. “She’s been poisoned,” Luca said lowly to Lia.

Marcello stared at me for a long moment, and for the first time, other than when he had confessed love for me, I saw a helpless expression upon his face.

“What? Poison? What is it?” I asked.

“Arsenic. Cloaked inside something else, we think,” Marcello said. He came and knelt beside my bed, stroking my face. “I shall hunt him down, Gabriella. He shall pay for these crimes-after he tells me who paid him to do such a horrific thing.”

He was making me a deathbed promise. Giving me something to cling to as I departed.

“There-” I coughed, winced, and then forced my eyes open again. “There is no antidote?”

His eyes, so wide and brown, grew even more forlorn. He shook his head, looking down in sorrow.

I looked over my shoulder to Lia. There had to be an antidote. I’d taken it too long ago to throw it up. There had to be another option. If only we could Google it…

We had to get out of here. Back to our own time. Immediately. It was the only thing that could save me.

“Lord Marcello, I must speak to you in private,” Lia said, reading my mind.

“I am not leaving her,” he said, staring at me.

“Then have them leave,” I managed to say, my voice ragged.

He studied me, then raised his hand, clearing the room of servants. Cook was last to go, reluctantly closing the door behind her. Luca remained. “He is as close to me as Fortino. Say what you must before us both,” Marcello said, pulling his eyes from me for but a second to look Lia in the eye.

She came around the bed and knelt beside me and Marcello. Luca hovered over his shoulder. “What I am about to tell you will be difficult to understand. We do not yet understand it ourselves.”

I cried out, wondering if this was what it felt like to have a baby. Labor pains. My insides tearing. Was I already bleeding within? And added to that, was I about to have a full-on heart attack at seventeen?

“Three weeks past we came to you, through the tomb.”

“Yes, Yes, I know,” Marcello said. “We remember it well.”

“Nay,” she said, reaching out to touch his arm, forcing him to look her in the eye. “We came from another time. The same place, but hundreds of years into the future. We came from that time, to you, here, through the tomb. It is some sort of portal.”

His eyes grew large and his brow furrowed as he stared at her. “You are witches?” he asked, his tone incredulous. “Practitioners of some dark magic?”

“Nay,” she said calmly. “Nothing but two girls who were transported through time-as if we walked through a doorway in error.”

He rose, looking frightened and confused. “You speak of madness.”

Luca stood beside him, arms folded, no trace of humor in his face.

Lia rose too as I cried out with another pang.

“I must get her home, Marcello. To our own time. She is dying here. You said yourself there is no antidote. But there, in the future, we have antidotes to nearly everything. If I can get her to Radda in Chianti in time…”

I winced, thinking of how far the Etruscan site was from any real sort of medical care, even in our own time. I cried out again, sounding pitiful, even to my own ears. When it was over, I gasped for breath as more tears rolled down my face.

Lia stepped forward and grabbed Marcello’s tunic with both hands. “Do you love her? Do you love her as you have professed?” she demanded, all tough, trying to snap him out of his shock.

He stared down at me. I could feel his hot gaze but could not meet it. I was writhing again, shuddering as a wave of pain shook me from the center of my gut outward. The pace was increasing, the time between the pangs diminishing.

“Yes. God help me, I love her,” he said angrily.

“Then save her,” she said. “Save her. Help me get her to the tomb.”