Chapter 3 — Fiora’s Notebook

That evening, I climbed up to the old lighthouse. Its cast-iron steps groaned like an orchestra of metallic insects. Each step echoed in my ribcage; Hermes’s parcel thumped against my thigh, and Fiora’s notebook literally burned beneath my coat, as if it had a fever.

Up top, the lamp was no more than a skeleton of copper and glass. Yet it still emitted a faint glow, the obstinacy of a nightlight. When I set the notebook on the railing, a gust flipped its pages wide. And the words became… other. Older. I was reading, but what I read pulled me through the ink.

Florence, 1515

The smell of wet leather and harsh wine replaced that of the sea. I was no longer myself. Or rather I was still myself, but wearing another skin. The stones of the city vibrated under hurried footsteps. In a shadow-soaked loggia, Fiora degli Alfani held a quill between ink-stained fingers. She wrote at the pace of torrential rain, without once looking up.

Her black hair escaped a too-strict veil; her bodice smelled of crushed lavender. Her eyes, though, did not blink. She recorded series of symbols, triangles and interlocked circles, then transmuted them into musical staves. On a nearby harpsichord, a maid played the notes in silence, tapping the air without daring to touch the keys. Fiora murmured:

“Each letter is a shadow. Each shadow, a key.”

A door burst open. Boots struck the floor, heavy, assured. A man entered, elegant silhouette, hawk’s gaze: Giulio de’ Medici. The future Pope Clement VII. His voice rang like polished steel:

“Donna Fiora, still at your secret work?”
“It is only a journal, Excellence,” she replied without trembling.
“A journal that makes my bankers tremble.”

He approached the desk. I—or rather the Ivo observing through the notebook’s memory—felt danger closing in. Giulio ran his fingers across the abandoned quill, then across the pages. He recognized the patterns. He did not smile.

“They say you encode the future in your notes.”
“They say many things,” she answered calmly.

In the air, a musical tension. I understood: the key she was writing wasn’t a simple cryptogram, it was a score meant for a door. The notes corresponded to Vetranta’s mirrors, centuries later.

Giulio frowned.
“If your calculations reach the hermetic lodge, you will be more dangerous than Machiavelli himself.”

At that name, a movement in the shadows: Niccolò Machiavelli, exiled, observing in silence. His mischievous eyes gleamed; he scribbled a line in a notebook: The art of governing is the art of foreseeing the fractures.

Back at the lighthouse

I woke with a start. The walls of the lighthouse sweated mist. On the open page, musical notes had printed themselves. I hummed them, clumsily. The lantern glass vibrated, like a crystal goblet.

A voice emerged, feminine, clear:
“Do not let Giulio close the door.”

I looked around: empty. But I knew. Fiora had spoken to me through the notebook.

At my feet, Hermes’s parcel had opened on its own. Inside, no object, but a fine silver powder, evaporating slowly. It drew in the air a map: the streets of Florence superimposed upon those of Vetranta. Two cities, two times, one cartography.

Suddenly, a crack. The lighthouse’s tarnished mirror lit up, and I saw a familiar silhouette: my double, Ivo’, from the previous chapter. He held the same notebook, but its pages were blank. He shot me a reproachful look:

“You read too fast. The pages burn if you force them.”
“And you don’t read enough.”
“Because I know some truths don’t belong to us.”

Between us, the mirror vibrated, ready to shatter. I reached out. So did he. But just as our fingers were about to touch, another hand appeared in the reflection: fine, feminine, ink-stained. Fiora’s. She whispered:

“The code is not only a secret. It’s a promise.”

The glass exploded in silence. I fell to my knees. The notebook now bore a fresh line, hastily scrawled:
The gods pay in attention. Men pay in forgetting.

I stayed there a long time, alone with the sea wind, the shards of mirror, and the fragile glow of the lamp. I knew one thing: this notebook wasn’t just a historical artifact. It was an interface. And Fiora, five centuries earlier, had planned to speak to me.

And behind me, on the lighthouse stairs, an unfamiliar breath began to climb.

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