Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I wake up in a strange room, with a woman sitting on a chair in the corner.
Buon giorno, you're lucky my girls found you before anyone else did. May I ask you why you were wearing such strange clothes?" She asks as she is darning my old socks.

"Where am I?" I ask, sitting up, holding my weight on my elbows.

"La Rosa Colta, Firenze in the Year of Our Lord 1475." She smiles. "I'm Paola, who are you?"

1475? Last I remembered it was 2010.

"Kat." I say, cautious.

"Well, Kat, we were wondering where you came from."

"I don't know how I got here."

"Explain to me what happened from the beginning."

I begin to explain what happened to me. I explain how I was performing in my university's musical and that we were all going off to my best friend's after party and when I went out to get some snacks, I ended up fainting and waking up here. I also tell her that I remember it being 2010.

"That is an interesting story." Paola said, staring as if she was thinking over something.

My pulse quickens slightly, as I wonder what she's going to do with me. What would Grace say? Relax, Kate, she seems trustworthy enough.

"No one could really make that up. I believe you." Paola smiles, and I exhale in relief. "I have one question."

"Go ahead."

"You're certain you aren't insane?" Paola asks, staring at me deeply. I laugh slightly.

"Not insane. Just extremely confused. I hope."

"As do I."

Paola stares at me, pondering something.

The minute yawns, making it seem longer.

"I shall teach you how to defend yourself and fit into society." Paola announces, moving to a chest of drawers nearby.

"What's the catch?" I ask, nervously smiling.

"No definite catch, but I would like you to join my order one day. No pressure though." She smiles, as she pulls out an outfit that looks like it will fit me. "It's in the english style. If anyone asks, you are my relative and are staying with me."

I put on the outfit and look at myself in the mirror. It is an elegant blue dress with gold trim around the waist and hems with a matching veil and headband.

"Sorry, it's a bit outdated, but it the only dress I have that'll fit you at the moment, I'll buy you a new wardrobe next week." Paola smiles at me.

"Don't be sorry, this is fabulous." I smile, hugging her as a thanks.

She leads me down the stairs into an enclosed garden where there are several courtesans lazing about in the heat.

"Girls, this is Katia, she will be looked after by us and we will train her in the arts- yes, both types." Paola smiles, introducing me to all the women.

The days fall into a routine; I receive a new outfit in the morning, some in the british style, some in the Italian. Then I am tutored in music, flirtation and other womanly arts until lunchtime, when I dine with Paola, her sister Anetta and some of their friends, if they come over. In the afternoons, I go out into the courtyard to practise my fighting and other assorted sneaky tricks. I daresay I was getting very good. Apart from parkour and climbing. I struggle finding footholds. But I can manage fine enough.

Paola teaches me directly how to blend into the crowd and how to steal. Now that, I can do.

One morning, Paola introduces me to her sister's employers, Giovanni and Maria Auditore.

They are both kind people and Paola trusts them, as they do appear to be a part of the order she mentioned. More accurately, Giovanni is. Maria just knows that it exists.

I do tell them about how I got here. They are shocked, but generally understanding.

Chapter Text

"Has anyone seen Kat?" I ask, shouting over everyone singing and dancing along.

No one has. She wouldn't skip, so something might have happened. Shit. I try and keep my breaths even and steady and try to calm myself, but to little avail.

I go and tell Grace that no one's seen Kat. Her face pales and she tells me that she went to get snacks before the party started.

The party music is too loud and distracting. Grace runs over to the mic and yells.

"KAT'S GONE MISSING! PARTY IS OVER!" The DJ turns off the music and everyone files out. We trace her route to the Londis. We can't find any trace of her.

I see Grace getting panicked that we can't find her. She is launching into her panic word vomit. "What if we can't find her? What if we go missing next? Did someone kidnap her? What do we tell her parents? Why would this happen? Do we call the parents and the police?"

"Look at me. Eyes on me, Grace."

She does.

"Don't panic. We'll ask the shop for camera footage and see if she made it. Then we'll go from there. Deep breaths. We won't find her if we're freaking out, okay?"

Grace breathes and nods.

We go into the shop and ask for camera footage from outside of the shop to see if Kat had made it to the shop.

We are admitted into the back of the shop, after proving that our friend is really missing.

We watch the footage. We do see her come just into view of the camera before it goes static and then she's gone.

Someone must have tampered with the cameras. We also get a copy of the footage and then proceed to ring the police. My hands feel fuzzy and numb as I dial 999.  The operator's insistence to remain calm and to breathe went unheeded.

The sirens snap me out of my panic. We both give statements and everything else from that point on is a blur. I know we must have made posters or something.

The hardest part is telling Kat's parents. Grace called them, as I didn't have the nerve to. When we said that she had gone missing, the line went silent for a few moments, then Kat's mum muttered "nononononononono." We were all worried, all scared.

We got a text from an unknown number a few days later. It read "We may know what happened to your friend. We are not sure, but if we're right, she'll be alright. RC."

"Grace? Look at this text." I said, shoving my phone into her face.  "Could this be legit?"

"Hm, I don't know." She sighed, staring intently at the message. "Let me text them back and we'll see."

Grace texted back. "How do you know? She disappeared without a trace?"

The mysterious number responded with "I can't exactly tell you, at least not over the phone. Yeah, I know this seems fishy as hell, but you need to trust me."

"You haven't given us a reason to."

"Call, and we'll see."

Grace dialled the number and the other person answered.

"Hi." A suprisingly non threatening voice answered.

"Who are you? What do you know about Kat?"

"First off, I'm Rebecca. And two, I think I've seen her, thick curly brown hair and bright green eyes, right?"

"Where did you see her?"

"That's gonna be a tough one. You'll have to put a lot of trust in me and my friends." The mystery woman, Rebecca, had a short conversation with someone else over the phone. "We found a written message for you. It says 'there is no chaos'."

Grace and Jason looked at one another, realising what it meant. "There is harmony." Jason eventually said hesitantly.

"Excuse me?"

"Silly code phrase."

"Okay." Rebecca had another conversation off the phone. "I'm passing you over to someone else now."

"Hello. Sorry to hear about your friend."

"Where are you based?"

"Classified. We can't exactly come to you right now, but we can get you to us."

"What's going to happen next?"

"Give this number a time and a place and we'll be able to pick you up. It will take a while, you sure you want to?"

"We need to find Kat, no matter what."

"Great. So, when and where?"

"Outside 5 Greenland Road in an hour and a half, if you can get someone to come to us in that time."

"We should be able to. So you all know to be trusted, our people will say 'nothing is true'. You need to respond 'Everything is permitted'."

"Why those words?"

"We'll explain when we meet you."

“Okay. Hopefully see you soon.”

“Gotta run.”

“Bye.”

Grace and I looked at one another, wondering what the hell we were getting ourselves into. But we need to find Kat.