Page 109 of A Dangerous Bargain

My perfect paintings are not what I remember best. It’s my brother’s delight seeing two foxes on a paper scrap. Leonardo’s eyes going soft holding his misshapen locket. I dismissed those pieces as juvenilia, a beginner’s embarrassing, earnest, amateur fumbles.

But that earnestness meant something. It showed the truth in my soul when nothing else could. I forgot that art isn’t brought to life by magic: It’s alive because of the impact it has on someone else.

What will it be like when the artists of Florence create only with their hands and hearts?

What would change if we believed in creativity and not magic?

What happens next?

“Virgil?” Leonardo shifts, his voice wary. “You’re not having misgivings, are you?”

“No.” I stoop to snag a jagged stone from the floor. Feel a thrill race through me at the thought of the canvas’s give. “Not about this.”

He grins at me—soaked, exhausted, but so beautiful that my chest clenches like a fist—and laces his fingers through mine.

We hurtle upstairs together.

The Medici office’s doors with their panels of the Last Judgment grow bigger and bigger at the end of the hall.

Leonardo reaches them first. Throws the doors open.

The Medici portrait sneers down at me, the entire world narrowing to the stern face. The canvas’s paint swirls strangely. A scaled foot with wicked claws emerges from the shimmer—

“Virgil, wait!”

But I’ve already leaped, stone angled to the canvas.

The very tip catches, and I rip. A force seems to rip into me at the very same time.

I fall to the floor, staring up at the torn edge of the canvas that starts curling upward, the dark red-black line that follows the spreading tear. The reptilian foot is sucked into the rip with a frustrated yowl.

Then I glance down at the dagger in my side.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Lorenzo de’ Medici.

Deep burgundy stains his white wedding tunic. One of the sleeves is missing, torn off completely. Scarlet weeps down his thigh from a cut, and the hand that holds the slick dagger trembles.

It falls with a clatter. “You were dead.”

I spit out a mouthful of blood. “Not anymore.”

But perhaps soon again.

Crimson pours from my side in a dark rush, a thick, pulsing hurt. There’s a high keening in my head, the terrified animal instinct of wanting to save myself and fearing it’s too late.

I have to believe it’s not. I have to keep going. I need to see my brother again and have him recognize me.

Leonardo grabs my shoulders and shakes. “Why didn’t you listen?”

I cup his face with a bloodied hand, even though the movement sets all my nerves on fire. “One of us had to do it.”

Better me than him.

There’s a soft, disgusted sigh. Then Lorenzo flies across the room.

He slams into the wall, one hand clutching his throat.