Chapter 3: Stay or Go

The night wind carried the bitter scent of pine resin and ash, seeping through the torn linen shirt of Andre Barbalini. He stood in the shadow of the Ponte Sant'Angelo, a blood-soaked wax tablet warming his fingertips. The morning mist had not yet lifted, and the surface of the Tiber River resembled a dust-covered black mirror, reflecting the pale silhouette of Castel Sant'Angelo.

"Hand over the fragments. Buy yourself a life, or buy a lie."

A raspy voice came from behind. Andre did not turn around; his fingernails dug into the flesh of his palms. It was one of Bianca Orsini's informants. In recent nights, this voice had haunted him, tracking the acid-etched inscriptions on the broken sword like footsteps on thin ice.

"A scholar’s duty is preservation, not sacrifice," Andrea murmured in response. "If even one copy of the truth cannot survive, then every mark of ink in this city is nothing but a lie."

The informant let out a cold laugh. "Are you defending the 'heretics' who were purged? Barbalini, the Moretti printing house just received a massive order of ducats last night. They are stamping out new seals, not confessions."

Andrea turned, his gaze sharp as a falcon’s. "An order? Or a printing job for the purge lists? Check their usage of acid for corrosion plate engraving. If it were merely for seals, they would not be purchasing fine copper plates in such volume at this moment. Copper rusts easily; only plates treated with a special acid bath can last more than twenty years. They are replicating an ancient typeface."

The informant’s eyes flickered, struck by the technical detail. "If you hand over that broken sword, I can guarantee that no one will disturb your sleep tonight."

"The broken sword is not in my hands." Andrea tucked the wax tablet into his inner pocket. "It belongs to history. And history does not bow to any greedy patron, even if that patron is Katerina Orsini herself."

He turned and walked toward the side entrance of the printing house, his pace unyielding. The cold laughter behind him dissolved into the mist, but the true hunt had only just begun. Every sheet of paper concealed a death wish; every arrangement of type was a silent gunshot. Before that black boat appeared again, he had to uncover what "Moretti" truly meant.

Dawn in Rome was a sickly, gray-white. Andrea pushed open the door to the printing house basement, where the air was thick with the pungent smell of stale ink and copper rust. This was their secret meeting place with Anna Moretti. The walls were lined with unfinished type specimens, their sharp serifs like tiny knives trying to cut through the haze.

Anna was already at work. She wore a stained apron, her hair pulled back, her eyes bright. On the large workbench in front of her lay scattered lead type, wax molds, and polished copper plates.

"You’re two hours late," Anna said without looking up, her graver carving fine white lines into the copper. "Or did you dawdle on purpose to enjoy the view on the Ponte Sant'Angelo?"

"I was considering whether to die." Andrea approached the table and gently set down the wax tablet. "Look at this. The last item left by the Prior. I’ve restored half of the inscription."

Anna set down her graver and put on her reading glasses, her movements so light it seemed the wax tablet might be as fragile as a cicada’s wing. She examined it against the faint light, then furrowed her brow after a moment.

"This is not a modern Gutenberg typeface," she said, pointing at the raised letters. "The structure is rigid, and the spacing is irregular. Look at this 'B'. The right leg curves inward. It’s a habitual error specific to the 'Old Viterbo' printing house from fifteen years ago. That house closed long ago, and its owner never reappeared after disappearing."

Andrea’s heart skipped a beat. "I know of 'Old Viterbo'. Rumor has it the owner mastered a special corrosion technique, capable of creating nearly undetectable invisible ink. But if the printing house is defunct, why is the Orsini family still hunting for this typeface?"

"Because they are looking for a tool of 'vanish'." Anna set down the wax tablet, her gaze deep. "Barbalini, you are too naive. This is not academic verification; it is a matter of life and death. If this set of type is found, it means someone can recreate the assassination documents from back then. Those documents did not record poetry. They recorded poison."

A chill crawled up Andrea’s spine. "Poison? You’re saying that the fire..."

"The monastery caught fire last night," Anna interrupted, her voice terrifyingly calm. "I heard the alarms. The flames consumed the entire archive room. But strangely, the fragment you restored remained intact. Only one corner in the fire zone survived, and that was exactly where your 'secret' was stored. Andrea, this is too convenient. It’s as if someone deliberately preserved the evidence for you, or as if someone is fooling you into thinking the evidence still exists."

Andrea sprang to his feet, knocking over the ink bottle on the table. The black liquid spread across the brick floor, resembling a pool of congealed blood.

"The arsonist was after the broken sword!" Andrea’s voice trembled. "They burned the archives to destroy the leads, but the acid-etched inscription on the sword is the key. If they knew I only kept the fragments, why would they let me get the wax tablet? Unless... they wanted to lure me out, or test my reaction."

Anna looked at him coldly. "Test? My dear archivist, in Rome, there are no tests, only selections. Katerina Orsini wants a clean list, and Rosanna Rossi likes to auction secrets in the black market of information. What you are holding is not evidence, but a cannonball ready to explode."

“So I must hide it.” Andrea took a deep breath, crouching down to wipe away the ink stains with a clean cloth. His movements were slow and deliberate. “I cannot give it to Bianca, nor to anyone else. I must keep it on my person, as my last card. I have to verify the origin of every single character mold.”

Anna pulled an iron box from the drawer and opened it, revealing a set of precise copper type. She took one out and placed it in front of Andrea.

“This is the ‘V.’ Look at the wear here.” Anna traced her fingertip over the metal surface. “Only prolonged use would create this kind of curvature. This mold has been used at least three times. In the records from fifteen years ago, the last document printed by ‘Old Vitre’ was a proclamation concerning ‘Judgment.’ That announcement was never made public, but it was said to list seven names.”

Andrea stared at the character, the fear in his eyes replaced by cold, rational scrutiny. He realized he had been wrong. The arson was not a mistake; it was a strategy. The perpetrator had intentionally left fragments behind to observe who would collect them and who would try to restore them. He—Andrea Barbalini—had become the greatest threat, for he was the only one who could decipher the fragmented codes.

“Who else has touched these molds?” Andrea asked.

“Only me, and Rosanna Rossi.” Anna’s voice dropped. “Last week, she came to pick up some type for a new opera at the theater. When she left, she took half of this iron box. Andrea, I need you to tell me now: will you leave the remaining half at the print shop, or take it with you?”

It was a deadly question. To stay meant entrusting his life to a female worker who could betray him at any moment, despite her being an ally. To leave meant carrying the secret into darker depths, exposing it to more dangerous eyes.

Andrea picked up the iron box; the metallic chill seeped through his skin. He looked at Anna, searching for an answer in her eyes. Her gaze was clear yet complex, holding both a warning of danger and a hunger for the truth.

“You are asking me because you want to see if I am foolish enough to walk myself into the noose,” Anna said. “Or are you asking if there is still a way out?”

“I have no way out.” Andrea tucked the iron box into his coat, his movement quick and concealed. “The fire at the monastery has not died. I must leave Rome immediately to find the whereabouts of ‘Old Vitre’s’ owner. If he is still alive, he must know where that proclamation went.”

Anna suddenly smiled, a mix of bitterness and admiration in her expression. “You are always so stubborn. Barbalini, you must understand, once you step through that door, you are no longer the bookworm who mended ancient scrolls in the archive. You have become a hound, and the hound eventually bites the master to death.”

“If I do not leave, I become a corpse.” Andrea adjusted his collar, hiding the iron box beneath the fabric. “A corpse has no voice, and cannot piece together the truth.”

He walked toward the door, pausing with his hand on the handle.

“Anna, the missing parts of the molds are with Rosanna. How are you certain she will not destroy them in her hands?”

Anna took a folded letter from her pocket; it was a letter from Rosanna Rossi. The envelope had already been opened, revealing the brief text inside.

“She does not want to destroy them. She wants to trade.” Anna handed the paper to Andrea. “Rosanna Rossi is asking for five hundred ducats, plus a complete decoding of the ‘Judgment’ list. She said she wants to know whether her next song will be sung for the living, or for the dead.”

Andrea took the letter, his fingertips trembling slightly. Rosanna Rossi, the woman who made her dramatic entrances at the opera house and manipulated information networks from the shadows of the Maritime Guild. She was not merely a contact; she was another spider in this labyrinth.

“Five hundred ducats.” Andrea repeated the words in a low voice. “For Bianca, it is just petty cash. But for us, it is the price of our lives.”

“Money can buy silence, but it cannot buy the truth.” Anna watched his back. “But silence is often more expensive than truth. Andrea, when you discover that the owner died in the dungeon fifteen years ago, and that all these ‘clues’ were merely traps set by Katerina Orsini to purge her political enemies, how will you choose?”

Andrea pushed open the door; the cold morning wind struck him in the face. He turned for one last look at the dim basement, a place filled with unknown dangers and seductive secrets.

“I choose to believe that the dead do not speak, but the traces they leave behind are more honest than the lies of the living.”

He stepped out the main gate and disappeared into the tangled streets of Rome. Behind him, Anna put her gloves back on, picked up the copper plate, and began to soak it in acid. She intended to make a copy—a copy that was more concealed and harder to destroy than the original.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the Ponte Sant’Angelo, a black sailboat glided slowly across the water. Rosanna Rossi stood at the bow; the letter in her hand had been torn apart by the wind. She looked toward the direction of the print shop, a cold arc forming at the corner of her mouth.

“Archivist, you have chosen to hide,” she said to the void. “But you forgot that hiding itself is a kind of scream. I will hear your footsteps, until I crush you into the mud.”

Andrea Barbalini moved through the narrow alley, the iron box in his arms heavy with a weight that went beyond physical mass. As he passed a bakery, the steaming aroma of fresh bread offered him a fleeting sense of tangible reality. He had to find a clue before dusk fell, for the night belonged to the shadows, and shadows concealed blades far colder than fire.

He recalled Anna Moretti’s words, that hook of "choice" that had lodged itself in his reason like a fishing line snagged deep. The typefaces belonged to a print shop that had closed fifteen years ago, its owner long vanished. If the disappearance was a facade, then every lead was a trap; if it was genuine, then the hand behind this list was far vaster than they had imagined.

Andrea stopped and looked up at the sky. The sun finally pierced the clouds, illuminating the dome of St. Peter's Basilica in the distance. Beneath that brilliant sanctity, countless eyes were watching him. He clenched his fist, his nails digging into his palm once more. Pain was the best remedy for clarity.

"Go, or stay." He whispered the thought silently.

In the end, he chose to keep moving. He knew that stopping meant death; going forward, no matter how slim the chance, might allow him to see just how many innocent souls lay buried behind that broken sword.

In a Rome saturated with conspiracy and calculation, truth was the only weapon, and the only spine that could be broken. Andrea Barbalini, archivist, hunter, and prey, now walked down a path with no way back.