FOURTEEN
“If I can find out what da Fuligna is involved with,” Sophia finished relating the previous night’s strange conversation with her father to Damiana with a bang of her fist upon the barge railing, “and confirm it, unimpeachably, I can put a letter in the bocca di leone.” She narrowed her eyes against the glittering, pulsing reflections of the sun on the dancing lagoon as if she could discern the truth she sought in their sparkling depths.
“But how can you find out? How can you be sure? You know how grave the consequences for any who put a false accusation into the Lion’s Mouth,” Damiana hissed into Sophia’s ear as they stood close together amidst a milling crowd.
For years, anonymous allegations were put into the opening of the carved-stone lion’s mouth, the receptacle the power
