City of Wind Read online

  CENTURY QUARTET

  Ring of Fire

  Star of Stone

  City of Wind

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Translation copyright © 2011 by Leah D. Janeczko

  Jacket art copyright © 2011 by John Rocco

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Originally published as La città del vento by Edizioni Piemme S.p.A., Casale Monferrato, Italy, in 2007. Copyright © 2007 by Edizioni Piemme S.p.A.

  All other international rights © Atlantyca S.p.A., [email protected]

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Visit us on the Web! www.randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  CenturyQuartet.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Baccalario, Pierdomenico.

  [Città del vento. English.]

  City of wind / by Pierdomenico Baccalario; translated by Leah D. Janeczko.—

  1st American ed.

  p. cm. — (Century quartet; bk. 3)

  Summary: In their continuing quest to save the world from evil forces, Mistral, Elettra, Harvey, and Sheng meet again in Paris, where they must search for the mysterious veil of Isis reportedly hidden in the heart of the city.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89228-8

  [1. Good and evil—Fiction. 2. Adventures and adventurers—Fiction.

  3. Paris (France)—Fiction. 4. France—Fiction. 5. Mystery and detective stories.]

  I. Janeczko, Leah. II. Title.

  PZ7.B131358Ci 2011 [Fic]—dc22 2010029137

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  This book is for my grandmother,

  who sees the stars from very close up.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  THE SECRET

  1. The Bees

  2. The Omens

  3. The Spy

  4. The Return

  FIRST STASIMON

  5. The Luggage

  6. The Train

  7. The Poison

  8. The Plot

  9. The Door

  10. The Tower

  11. The Café

  12. The Perfume

  SECOND STASIMON

  13. The Clock

  14. The Music

  15. The Breakfast

  Photo Insert

  16. The Flowers

  17. The Alchemist

  18. The Guardian

  19. The Zodiac

  20. The Message

  21. Zoe

  22. The Balloon

  23. The King

  24. The Square

  25. The Coin

  26. The Observatory

  27. The Bookshop

  28. The Crash

  THIRD STASIMON

  29. The Meeting

  30. The Music Box

  31. The Fall

  32. The Reawakening

  33. The Traitor

  34. The Veil

  35. The Ship

  36. The Goodbyes

  37. The Observer

  Credits

  About the Author

  They will discover the secrets of my writings and will interpret them.

  Whilst some they may keep hidden, those that are of benefit to mortals they will inscribe on stelae and obelisks.

  fr. 23,66

  “Mother,” said Horus, “grant me the understanding

  of this sacred text so that I be not unenlightened.”

  And Isis replied, “Hearken, my son.”

  fr. 23,70

  Hermes Trismegistus, The Maiden of the Cosmos

  THE SECRET

  ON THAT NIGHT FIVE YEARS AGO, THERE ISN’T A SINGLE STAR IN the sky. Shanghai is covered with clouds, thick drizzle falling from them, a damp veil concealing the city’s lights and reflections.

  A black car moves slowly through the city traffic. At each stoplight, tiny beads of rain form on its tinted windows. Sitting in the backseat beside the gray-haired man, the woman stares out the window. Not even the faintest noise makes its way into the car.

  “I’m pleased you had a good trip,” says the gray-haired man. His name is Mahler. Jacob Mahler.

  “It wasn’t a pleasure trip,” the woman replies. “It’s my job.”

  The man smiles. “And spending three months aboard a Siberian icebreaker isn’t exactly the most enjoyable way to travel to Shanghai.”

  “Exactly,” she says, cutting the conversation short.

  The man stares out the window in the opposite direction. The two remain in silence for almost a quarter of an hour.

  Finally, Jacob Mahler says, “We’re there.”

  They’ve pulled up to the main door of a tall building. Mahler gets out first, quickly making his way around to the other side of the car to open the door for the woman. They walk through the thick drizzle, which hides the building’s true size. It seems to be immense, like a giant obelisk of mirrors and black steel.

  They go inside.

  They reach an elevator whose door is decorated with intricate hieroglyphs. They go up to the sixty-third of the building’s sixty-four floors.

  Mahler ushers the woman into a study with a picture window overlooking Shanghai. A breathtaking view.

  There’s a man in the study. His back is turned toward them, his arms crossed behind him in an unnatural position. A night-blue Korean suit, a collarless shirt and well-polished shoes. When he hears them come in, he turns around. He’s wearing glasses with black Bakelite frames.

  He doesn’t smile.

  He doesn’t hold out his hand.

  He doesn’t say hello.

  He nods at the woman to sit down. Jacob Mahler leans back against the far wall. She sits down and stares at the floor, biding her time.

  “It’s very simple,” she finally begins. “I know a secret. For a long time, I wasn’t sure whether or not to tell anyone about it. But many years ago, I decided to keep quiet. And that was a mistake.”

  “Many years ago?” the man with the black-rimmed glasses asks. His voice is unusually hoarse. “You don’t look so old.”

  “Looks can be deceiving,” the woman replies. “How old do you think I am?”

  If there’s any teasing in her question, the man doesn’t seem to notice it. His answer is totally void of emotion. “Forty.”

  “I’m more than twice that old.”

  “Surprising. Why should I believe you?” The man’s gaze is ice-cold.

  “Because you know it’s true. Because my age is a part of the secret I know about. Those who need to protect it, like I do, have the gift of living long lives.”

  “To accomplish what?”

  “To pass the secret down to those who come after them.”

  “Are you the only one who knows about it?”

  “No. There are four of us.”

  “Who are the others?”

  Plastic, the woman thinks. This is like talking to a plastic mannequin. There’s absolutely nothing human about this man. She shifts nervously in her chair. “At this stage, their names aren’t important.”

  “Maybe not to you. To me, they’re essential.”

  “Then call us the Four Wise Men. Or better yet, the Four Magi.”


  For the first time, the man’s eyes narrow with a trace of cold interest. “I know what the Magi are. Are you telling me it’s that old? Two, three thousand years old?”

  “The secret dates back to that era, yes.”

  “Does this secret have a name?”

  “We call it Century, because it’s handed down every hundred years, more or less. The secret’s connected to something that’s destined to return.”

  “Like comets.”

  “Exactly.”

  A long silence follows, disturbed only by the faint tapping of raindrops against the windowpanes.

  “Why would you sell me such an important secret?”

  “Because you’re willing to pay for it. You’re very wealthy. And now’s the time to do it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Soon, the four of us are going to pass down the secret to the four who’ll come after us.”

  “And once you’ve passed it down?”

  “We can finally die.”

  The man tents his fingers below his nose. He shakes his head almost imperceptibly, as if to shoo away a fly. Then he takes off his glasses and rests them on the desk in front of him. “I’m listening.”

  “Can I ask you something?” says the woman.

  “It depends.”

  “Your name. Is it your real name?”

  The man shakes his head. “Is Zoe yours?”

  1

  THE BEES

  FIVE YEARS HAVE PASSED.

  Tiny insects are dancing outside the window, hovering up and down in lazy spirals, forming circles in the air. They’re handfuls of dots scattered in the sky.

  They’re bees. The bees of Montmartre, the historic artists’ district of Paris.

  On the sixth floor of a building on rue de l’Abreuvoir, surrounded by the sound of the buzzing bees, Mistral smiles. Her elbows are propped on the windowsill, her chin resting on the palms of her hands, her dreamy eyes lost in the endless whirl of activity. The beehive is just below the roof, in the shelter of the gutter. A few months ago, the bees’ home was practically invisible, just a little hexagon of wax. But when she returned from her trip to New York, it was already as big as an egg carton, nestled between the copper gutter and the overhang.

  “Almost two hundred thousand kilometers …,” Mistral whispers, watching a forager bee fly off and disappear down the street below. That’s how far a hive of bees needs to fly, sucking up nectar from flower to flower, to make one kilogram of honey. A real race against time before the start of winter.

  Do they have enough flowers? the girl wonders, lost in thought. Just in case, she always keeps little plants and fresh flowers on the windowsill.

  It’s afternoon. As she has on many other afternoons spent watching the bees, Mistral imagines with horror that someone in the building might notice them and, with a single swipe of a broom, destroy seven months of hard work done by ten thousand bees. That’s according to the calculations, drawings and notes she’s made in her sketchbook.

  A plump yellow bee hovers over a bunch of violets. Mistral watches the insect alight on a blossom and hears it buzzing as the petals stir sweetly between its feet. Fascinated by this beautiful sight, she picks up a pencil and her sketchbook and draws it. She can see the grains of yellow pollen on its tiny legs. It’s incredible how a simple bunch of flowers can contain an entire universe.…

  Beyond her window, Paris spreads out in all its glory, with sparkling rooftops, the white cupola of Sacré-Coeur and, on the other side of the Seine River, the Eiffel Tower. Gleaming in the distance like stone bellflowers are the spires of Notre Dame.

  “Mistral!” her mother calls from the living room. “It’s late!”

  Mistral’s so accustomed to being alone at home that she’s almost startled. “Oh! My lesson!” she says, putting down her sketchpad and rushing out her bedroom door. She hurries over to her mother, who is rummaging through her purse, looking for her keys.

  Her mother glances at her wrist to check the time but realizes she isn’t wearing a watch. “Darn it! Where did I put it?” she exclaims, rummaging through her purse again. “Mistral, we really need to go!”

  The woman’s perfume lingers in the air. One of the sweet kinds that even the bees would gladly follow. Cecile Blanchard is a perfume designer.

  Mistral walks into the other room.

  “Don’t you need to take anything with you?” her mother asks, still looking for her watch.

  “No.”

  “Aren’t you kids using a book? Sheet music?”

  “I’m having a private lesson today. I just need to sing.”

  The mother and daughter quickly shut the apartment door behind them. They run down the spiral staircase to the ground floor.

  The main door to the street is open wide, letting in gusts of hot air, which are drying up the puddles left behind when the doorkeeper mopped the floor. The street is steep and rippling with heat.

  The tables outside the corner café are deserted. The only sound is the distant hum of traffic from the Saint-Martin area and, for an instant, the sharp, shrill call of a bird.

  “Did you hear that?” Mistral asks, holding back a shiver.

  “What?”

  “That bird.”

  Cecile didn’t hear anything. She walks briskly down the sidewalk and over to the apple-green Citroën parked crookedly on the street.

  Mistral peers around. The coast is clear. The bees are buzzing, unseen, above her. Birds dart across the sky.

  For a moment, she thought the bird’s call sounded like the plaintive warble of a violin.

  “You realize this is all nonsense, don’t you?” Linda Melodia grumbles from her bed at Rome’s Fatebenefratelli Hospital, gesturing at the other patients in the room to emphasize her irritation. Linda is sporting a perfect hairdo, an immaculate linen nightgown and a pair of flowered wooden clogs. She looks more like she just checked out of a vacation resort than into a hospital.

  Elettra tries to calm her down. “The doctors said—”

  “Doctors! That’s just my point!” Linda booms. “What do doctors know? Nothing! I met a doctor once, and believe me, that was more than enough for me!” She looks around, furious. “I’m going home. I’m getting my things from the locker and going home.”

  “Auntie, you can’t! They still need to examine you.”

  “I’m perfectly fine.”

  “No, you aren’t perfectly fine.”

  “I’m telling you I’m perfectly fine. I’ve never been allergic to anything in my life, and I don’t see why I would be now.”

  “You fainted yesterday.”

  “Anyone would’ve fainted with all that dust around,” Linda protests, “and that mildewed furniture and that mountain of clutter.… If only one of you would give me a hand!”

  “What, clearing out the basement?”

  “I’ve been meaning to do it for years, and the time’s finally come.”

  “If only you could do it without passing out from exhaustion.…”

  Linda grumbles, gets out of bed and turns to leave the room. She can’t seem to decide whether to stop and chat with some of the other patients. Then she whirls around and walks back to her niece. “I have no intention of going through with the exams! I’m getting my things and going home.”

  “It’ll only be a few days. Besides, you need to rest.”

  “Heaven knows what’s in the refrigerator.…”

  “Dad and I are getting by just fine.”

  “Wipe the inside of the pots with a little lemon juice before putting them in the dishwasher. And don’t overload the dryer or else it’ll—” Then, as if attracted by radar, she points up at a crack in the wall. “Would you look at that! Is this what they call public hygiene?”

  “You’ll survive. Lots of people do.”

  Linda focuses on the household chores again, as if it’s a comforting mantra. “Use the half-hour cycle, nothing longer. Afterward, leave the door open and—”

  “Let it air out, I kn
ow. How could I forget? You’ve reminded me a hundred times already.”

  “Are you trying to tell me I’m a nag?”

  “No, Auntie. Just a teensy bit obsessive.”

  Linda seems to calm down. She steps over to the window and looks outside nervously. “By this time tomorrow, I’ll be radioactive,” she says with a sigh.

  “They’re just going to take a couple X-rays,” Elettra remarks patiently.

  The woman dangles her fingers over her impeccable coiffure and wriggles them around like worms. “Vrrrr … Vrrrr … Radioactive. All because I was feeling a little under the weather.”

  “You weren’t just under the weather, Auntie. You were unconscious for over an hour!”

  “If I really have to be radioactive, I’d at least like to get my radiation from a microwave. That way, I can hold an egg in my hand and it’ll end up hard-boiled.…”

  “That’s the spirit!”

  “I’m going home,” Linda starts up again, springing away from the window. “I don’t care one bit about those exams. I’m perfectly fine.”

  “Just take your mind off things, think about something other than chores and it’ll be over in no time, you’ll see.”

  “Take my mind off things, of course.…” She looks at Elettra and changes the subject. “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Is your mind still on that good-looking American boy?”

  “Auntie …”

  “Long-distance relationships are the best kind. All it takes is a quick phone call now and then to tide you over. There’s no need to have them in your hair every afternoon, loafing on the couch watching TV while you slave away in the kitchen baking a cake for them.”

  “Auntie! Harvey doesn’t watch TV!”

  “And you don’t bake cakes, for that matter. You kids have more important things to do. Like playing with those wooden tops, for example.”

  “Auntie, please …” Elettra peers around. “You swore you wouldn’t talk about that with anyone.”

  “You certainly are lucky! If that had happened to me …,” Linda says, her voice trailing off.

  Elettra smiles. She looks at her aunt from behind her long black curls. She’s tempted to make one of her customary comebacks, but this time she agrees completely. She really is lucky to be with Harvey.