Page 23 of A Dangerous Bargain

“Leo!” I cry out, relieved. Whatever useless thing he wants to prattle on about next, I’ll listen without complaint. I hurl myself away from the palazzo’s dark door, toward the light, toward him.

But an iron vise clamps around my elbow, holding me back.

Lorenzo frowns at Leonardo’s charcoal-black fingers. “So you are with the painters.”

I swallow back a wave of acid. “I—”

Leonardo interrupts with an ehh sound and a shrug. “Not quite. He followed me here. New apprentice. I’m afraid he’s a little obsessed, trying to live up to me and such. Don’t worry, it won’t happen again.”

Lorenzo’s glare goes dark as pitch. He glances at me, then Leonardo, then the palazzo itself. He heaves a sigh and releases my elbow. “Keep your little pet on a leash next time.”

Little pet! Never in a million years would I follow Leonardo around like a wide-eyed little puppy! I was an apprentice first!

I clamp a hand over my aching elbow, my mouth opening to protest—

A yelp comes out instead. Leonardo’s stomped on my foot.

“Yes, of course, signore. See you tomorrow! I can’t wait to draw your big, wide shoulders! Your bride shall swoon when she sees them!”

Lorenzo and his guards laugh good-naturedly. They slip back inside the palazzo, even giving Leonardo a jaunty wave before the door slams shut.

Without talking about it, I turn and start storming back to the workshop.

Leonardo easily keeps pace beside me, his too-long legs making it look effortless and graceful. “So, I take it things went badly for you and your mysterious errand?”

My face flushes, annoyance and shame and the oily feeling of failure all sluicing through me. “I didn’t need your help.”

“Oh no? Were you and Lorenzo going on a pleasant stroll? It certainly looked that way with all the scowling and guards.”

My teeth grit. “All right, fine. I needed you. But you didn’t have to do it like that.”

I hate being compared to him. It makes me feel like a single thimble of his charm and talent counts more than anything I could offer.

Leonardo gives a smile. Not the cloying one he flashed the Medici heir, but a wide grin that feels an awful lot like staring directly into the sun. “My apologies! I’ll be sure to save your ego before your life next time.” He pats my cheek and manages to dump all his sketching materials into my arms at the same time.

I stagger under the unexpected burden. “What are you doing?”

He tucks the charcoal bag into the pocket of my doublet. “Take these for me, will you? I think I’ve earned a day off.” He turns west—the opposite direction from Verrocchio’s workshop—and leaves me with all our things.

“Where are you going? We have work to do!”

Leonardo spins on his heel and points both index fingers at me. “Not telling you! When you’re honest with me, I’ll be honest with you!”

I scowl at his retreating back, almost too contrite to be annoyed. “Have fun with your centaur man, then!” I shout.

His laughter reaches me from all the way across the piazza.

But the sound grows hollow and distant when I take out the pilfered key and get a good look at it for the first time.

’Tis shaped like a skull with glaring ruby eyes.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The next morning, I resolve to be nicer to Leonardo.

I wake up extra early to leave him a slice of castagnaccio outside his door as an apology or a thank-you—whatever he needs to forget about yesterday—but he insists on making us watch a street performer’s trained parrot on the way to the Palazzo della Signoria, and those excruciating ten minutes nearly burn up all my renewed patience for him.

So of course we’re running late, and I make us jog to the palazzo, but none of it matters.