Never Expect a Vampire Like You

Chapter 3: Moonlit Leaps

As night fell, a breeze carrying the scent of moisture finally graced Rome. It wound through city alleys, vaulted over brick rooftops, brushed past the olive leaves outside Chiara’s window, and danced across her sill, making the lantern flame flicker in response.

“Gioffre rushed to me this morning, chattering about seeing Chiara fly over the rooftops,” Lucrezia murmured while helping Chiara tidy the books on her desk. “He’s not a baby anymore. How does he still confuse dreams with reality?”

Like Chiara, she possessed cascading waves of pale gold hair. But unlike Chiara, who often bound hers up, Lucrezia adored her long locks, letting them spill down her back like a golden waterfall, shimmering with extraordinary beauty in the twilight and lamplight.

Adriana’s daughter-in-law, Giulia Farnese, reclined on the opposite end of the cassapanca bench from Chiara. While Chiara buried herself in a book, Giulia idly twisted a strand of hair by her temple, her voice a melodic murmur always tinged with faint amusement. “Isn’t it fascinating? A flying woman in the Vatican? Perhaps an angel.” Barely a year or two older than Chiara, Giulia radiated a mature woman’s allure in both figure and demeanor. As Juan put it, “Marriage matures a woman.”

Born into a mercenary noble family, Giulia had been betrothed to Adriana’s son, Orso, at thirteen, arriving at Palazzo Orsini with a dowry of three hundred gold florins. Since Orso was younger, their wedding only took place that spring, officiated by Rodrigo himself. Chiara had attended with her siblings. Sixteen-year-old Giulia, radiant in white silk, her gaze sweet and liquid—not directed at her young husband Orso, but fixed upon the sixty-year-old Cardinal Rodrigo. Amid Juan’s noisy commentary (“Chiara, see how pretty the bride is! You’ll be even prettier when you marry!”), Chiara discerned the spark of another quintessentially Italian romantic saga in their exchanged glances.

After the wedding, Orso was dispatched by Rodrigo to a Borgia estate in Bassanello to learn warfare. His beautiful wife, Giulia, left behind in Rome, became Rodrigo’s latest mistress. Upon learning this, Chiara’s reaction, besides her customary mental note—“Only in Italy”—included studying Rodrigo’s still-compelling, though silver-templed, features during subsequent visits and finding an old phrase surfacing in her mind:

*Still got it.*

Giulia was beautiful, gentle, and vivacious, sharing a close bond with Lucrezia. Knowing Chiara preferred quiet and books, she often smuggled in volumes Adriana had banned. That copy of *The Decameron*? Giulia had procured it through her brother in another city.

Chiara closed her book, glanced at Lucrezia’s back as she organized the desk, then turned to Giulia with a small smile. “I suspect the Papal Court would call me a witch.”

Pope Innocent VIII had issued a bull years prior condemning witchcraft, igniting witch hunts across Europe and sowing fear among women.

Giulia sat bolt upright, her expression grave. “Chiara, you mustn’t say such things!”

Chiara waved a dismissive hand. “Only joking. Though hearing about that foreign woman burned at Subiaco last month… it gives one pause.” In this era, women who were long unmarried, widowed, or simply foreign and alone were often branded witches and burned.

Chiara had often reflected that if she’d arrived here bodily—with her dreadlocks, hoodie, denim shorts, black cat tattoo, red Jordans, and skateboard—she’d likely have been tied to a stake before figuring out where she was.

Rising from the bench, she returned her book to the shelf. Lucrezia, having finished tidying the perpetually cluttered desk, stood hands on hips, her fair, delicate face beaming with pride. “Don’t worry, Chiara! While you’re in Florence, I’ll guard your desk and bookshelf! Adriana won’t discover your little secrets!”

Chiara’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “I leave it in your capable hands, Lucrezia.”

As silence settled, Giulia led Lucrezia off to rest. Chiara dismissed the maids readying her for bed and sat alone by the window. The bright day had yielded to a luminous moonlit night. Sitting there, she could enjoy the rare summer breeze and the moon. Yawning repeatedly, she considered fetching another book but remembered Lucrezia’s recent efforts. Rearranging everything within the hour would surely invite a lecture from the little girl, complete with furrowed brow and earnest tone. She resisted the urge.

Only when the courtyard cloister beneath the Corinthian columns lay utterly still and deserted did she rise. She shut the window and drew the heavy velvet drapes usually reserved for winter.

With the moonlight blocked, the room was lit solely by candlelight. Flames danced behind quartz pendants, casting shifting patterns of gold and silver on the floor.

Drawing the drapes seemed a signal. Chiara’s drowsy expression vanished, replaced by sharp focus. Gathering her lustrous skirt, she darted to the dais of her four-poster bed, crouched, and pulled a set of plain, sturdy clothing from beneath it.

She removed her beaded headband, braided her hair into two plaits, and secured them carefully with a black-and-white headscarf. Shedding her ornate, richly patterned gown, she pulled on the simple male attire.

In ten minutes, the Borgia daughter transformed into a common Roman youth.

Unburdened by the heavy gown, Chiara moved with newfound lightness. She swept back the drapes, opened the wooden shutters, and climbed onto the windowsill. Scanning the deserted courtyard below, she reached up, gripped the protruding lintel above the window, and hauled herself onto it.

But this was not her destination.

Bathed in moonlight, she pushed off powerfully with her right leg, leapt clear across the vibrant green olive tree outside her window, and landed on the lintel of an adjacent window.

Still not her destination.

Like an agile climber, she scaled and vaulted across the palazzo’s architecture. She traversed connected rooftops, passed the central fountain garden of Palazzo Orsini, and reached the southeast tower. Using the arched lintels of its windows as footholds, she ascended to the tower’s pinnacle.

From her window to the tower top: twenty minutes.

The exertion left her breathless, but she didn’t sit. Instead, she stood at the edge, gazing out.

Vatican City perched on the Vatican Hill in Rome’s northwest. Though the Palazzo Orsini tower lacked the Vatican Palace’s prime vantage, from its summit, the city’s lights sprawled below.

Rome hadn’t fully emerged from the nightmare of the medieval Black Death. Plague still claimed countless lives daily in the poor quarters. Pope Innocent, consumed by luxury and crusading against the Turks, had emptied the papal coffers. He’d even pawned his bishop’s mitre one Palm Sunday to buy fronds for distribution. Simony ran rampant; the Church openly sold indulgences at exorbitant prices. Pay enough, buy a slip of paper, and be absolved of theft, robbery, even murder.

Hence, Rodrigo forbade the young girls of Palazzo Orsini from venturing into Rome alone—fearing both the plague that had scourged Europe for centuries and the peril to any woman unaccompanied.

Late 15th-century Rome: the Empire’s glory faded, now a haven for criminals, a purgatory for the law-abiding.

Yet it remained vibrant, noisy.

Even the scattered pinpricks of light hinted at its ancient vitality.

Chiara had discovered this view only last year. Juan had eagerly dragged her to the tower door, chattering about palace maids claiming half of Rome was visible from its height. Adriana, fearing for the children’s safety, kept the tower door locked, forbidding access. The front door was useless.

“I’d *really* love to see Rome from up there,” Juan had sighed dejectedly then. Chiara had merely ruffled his soft brown curls.

That night, clad in her hidden boy’s clothes, she had run across the palazzo rooftops and climbed the tower. It was her first time parkouring in this world. This teenage body was untrained, lacking her former strength, stamina, and reflexes. Reaching the top left her gasping, slumped against a haystack until she recovered enough to approach the edge and behold the sea of lights that was Rome at night.

She thought of her past self.

Conquering heights with her hands, bridging gaps with her feet. The view from the top was truly magnificent.

That had been her original reason for parkour.

Someday, she would vault over *this* wall, reaching a place no tower could confine.

Chiara lingered on the tower a while before retracing her path. Yet, nearing her window, she sensed the drapes had been disturbed. Instead of climbing back in, she dropped silently from the lintel onto the loggia below, then slid down a column.

Pulling off her headscarf, she let her twin braids fall over her shoulders, smoothed flyaway hairs at her temples, adjusted her breathing and expression, and pushed open her chamber door.

Candlelight flooded the room, illuminating every piece of furniture, every object—and the figure seated in the Dante chair before her desk. A boy in a white *camicia* shirt and black *chausses* trousers.

His deep brown hair fell softly to his shoulders—a Borgia trait, that soft, lustrous hair passed down generations. But his face held none of that softness. His brow was set low, lending an indefinable sharpness to his features, though his pale blue eyes remained as clear and unclouded as a mountain stream.

He showed no surprise at Chiara’s male attire. His voice was calm. “The desk is immaculate. Lucrezia’s handiwork, I assume.”

“You know how she is. Never misses a chance to lecture me,” Chiara replied smoothly, walking past him to toss her headscarf onto the bed. “Cesare, what brings you here so late?”

“Heard you’re going to Florence?” Cesare turned his head to look at her. “So you know?”

Chiara was genuinely surprised. “You knew already?”

“Not long. Only this morning.” Cesare unfolded his long limbs and stood. “I knew Mother had a sister married in Florence. A messenger came recently. Mother hesitated a long time after receiving the letter before writing one to Father’s apartments. And today, Father summoned you alone.”

Chiara smiled faintly. “I didn’t know you took an interest in such… domestic affairs.”

Cesare returned the smile, thin and sharp. “Father’s teaching. Observe everything. Small things decide outcomes.”

“Well done,” Chiara began unbraiding her hair. “What do you want me to say? You win?”

“No. I came to say goodbye,” Cesare’s smile faded. “I’m leaving for the University of Pisa.”

Rodrigo had long planned university educations for Cesare and Juan. Cesare had already studied law at Perugia, so this wasn’t unexpected. Chiara worked on a braid. “Studying what? Military theory, as you wished?”

“No. Folklore, Canon Law. And Theology.” Cesare’s fingers tapped lightly on the desk.

Chiara looked up then, meeting his pale blue eyes, cold as winter ice.

“It’s a beginning. It doesn’t matter,” he said. “What I want, I take.”