Page 2 of A Dangerous Bargain

I choke back a frustrated scream. This is why apprentices should be barred from making bargains until they’re at least sixteen! Otherwise, the magic they ask for is ridiculous, and the things they give up for it absurd.

This has, unfortunately, become a teachable moment, and our master has made the grave mistake of making me a teacher. I stride to the massive in-progress painting of the Last Supper and slap the sketch just beneath Jesus’s face. He looks at the phallic fruits with a saintly, patient expression I’ve painted a hundred times over.

“Does this look like the sort of art that belongs here?”

“Sometimes.” Giorgio keeps a straight face and points to a half-finished statue that—oh no—is male, naked from the waist down, and completely undermining the point I’m trying to make.

The other boys make an oooo sound before breaking out into hysterics.

Their laughter bounces off me like hailstones. I close my eyes, the pain in my temple blooming into a proper headache.

If Niccolo were here, my brother would say not to let them bother me. He’d listen when I’d confess I’ve allowed every worry to trouble me my entire life, and I don’t know how to stop now. He’d help me find a way to deal with the hot, swirling feelings that fill my chest like smoke.

But my brother disappeared two years ago and took the best parts of me with him.

And if I hear them laughing at me any longer, I might burst into flames.

Stone-faced, I crumple up the sketch and stomp toward the workshop door.

“Wait!” Giorgio cries. “Where are you going?”

“To Master Verrocchio.”

Giorgio gasps. “You can’t! He said if I mucked around again, he’d kick me out.”

“Should’ve thought of that beforehand.”

The laughter dies, but it doesn’t make me feel better.

Giorgio sniffles, his face white now. “Please don’t tell him. I’ll do your chores for the rest of the month!”

The other apprentices glance around nervously, as if they’ll be next. Everyone knows if someone displeases Verrocchio, they’re gone the next day. There’s always another apprentice to take his place. I want to tell them that they’re fine, that I’m only bluffing with Giorgio to teach him a lesson, but the words get stuck. How can I back down now without them laughing at me again?

“If you jest like this, you’ll never amount to anything.” Oh hell, that’s not great. I clear my throat and try again. “Don’t you want to be the best artist you could be?”

“Maybe he doesn’t.” Leonardo levels me with a judgmental glare. “Not everyone wants the same things.”

I don’t think we’re talking about Giorgio anymore. My gut twists, like when the Santa Croce priest’s stare lingers on me after a particularly soul-withering sermon, but worse, because Leonardo has no sway over my stupid soul, so why do I care at all what he thinks of me? “Actions have consequences,” I say sullenly.

Leonardo throws his arms wide, exasperated. “Does it really matter if we paint apples for the third sodding time this week?”

It doesn’t. But I’d rather pour hot oil into my eyes than say so in front of everyone else. “It’s what Verrocchio asked—”

A chilling, bone-grating noise cuts me off.

The angel is wheezing again, his bony shoulders shaking. The boy closest to him shoots up from his stool so fast, it falls over.

“It’s all right!” I call, even as my skin prickles uneasily.

The angel doubles over with a vicious cough. A wet, gleaming stickiness drips from his mouth to the floor.

“Summon the physician!” Giorgio cries.

“Idiota!” another boy shouts. “Angels aren’t people!”

The angel jerks up. Suddenly alert eyes latch onto Giorgio.

I step forward, a hideous feeling bursting through me—