Page 45 of A Dangerous Bargain

Leonardo nods determinedly, like everything’s already decided. “We’ll try to see what else we can learn about your brother, and we’ll finish the Medici wedding commission.”

“Why?” My family could very much still use the money if we won, but I hardly see how it’s going to help us expose the Medici as blasphemous scoundrels.

“Because when we drop off the portrait in the Medici’s house, we can find whatever door that horrible little key unlocks.”

“You’ll finish it, then.” My contribution to the painting will be minimal at best, ruinous at worst. “Or did you forget about the pigeon shit incident?”

“You made this, didn’t you?” Leonardo flicks the locket.

“And it’s terrible. Verrocchio might as well replace me with a dog.”

The corners of his mouth kick up. “Don’t sell yourself short, Virgil. A painting dog would be delightful, but your acerbic personality is irreplaceable. You used to paint without magic, and you’ll remember how to do it again soon.”

There’s no point correcting him. His optimism is more stubborn than stone. He tosses the key and catches it with a flourish, taking my resigned sigh as an emphatic yes. “Excellent. We’ll find your brother, avenge my mother, and along the way, perhaps Lupa will finally figure out what she’s doing on earth. I think this is the beginning of a grand quest!”

“Or a triple murder.” While I’m glad Leonardo isn’t upset with me anymore, I’m not sure I like him pledging himself to my cause, either. “Perhaps we’re rushing into this. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“And I don’t want to paint Lorenzo de’ Medici, but alas, we can’t always get what we want.”

“These things are hardly the same,” I say, voice tight. “No one is going to try to kill you in the workshop.”

He grows serious in a second. “So it’s all well and good for someone to try to kill you, but not me?”

The back of my neck prickles. Because the answer is, of course and obviously, yes, except I know saying it won’t make any difference. Maybe it’ll happen tonight, maybe it’ll happen right before the bells chime midnight on New Year’s Eve, but I already know death is coming for me; anything I do comes with some level of risk. I’d rather die knowing I did everything I could to find Niccolo than wait for death to find me. There’s still time for Leonardo to avoid my fate.

“I’ll investigate my brother alone. I don’t need your help.” I cross my arms and lift my chin.

“Of course you will.” Leonardo smiles indulgently. “And when you leave, I’ll follow you out, and you won’t be able to stop me, because I’m much faster than you. We live together. You can’t do anything without me noticing. You might as well let me help you from the beginning because I know you despise wasting work time.”

Curse him, does he have to be right all the time? “Have you ever heard of boundaries?”

His grin is like staring directly at the sun. “I can’t let you be murdered. Your glowering presence is the inspiration I need. You’re like my own grumpy little angel, always sighing whenever I lose my focus.”

“Don’t you mean demon?”

“I said what I said.”

“And you like this about me?”

He brushes the locket under his tunic. “I do. You just never believe me.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

After Easter, there’s a flood of commissions. All the wealthy families of Florence want to drape their halls with beauty, to welcome Lorenzo de’ Medici’s bride and earn the newly wedded couple’s favor.

And if an angel should choose to bless their home as well? All the better.

“ ‘Nubile Aphrodite’?” Giorgio reads the latest request, frowning. “What does ‘nubile’ mean?”

I snatch the paper from him. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

Leonardo’s mouth curves. Our eyes snag across the crowded workshop, an invisible rope pulling taut.

’Tis new, this sensation of being drawn to instead of away from him. As if I’ve stopped splashing upstream and finally allowed the current to take me where it will. I sincerely hope it’s not to a cave full of flesh-eating spiders.

He mouths, Tonight? and I nod. He winks back, and for some reason, it makes me blush and choke and want to hurl myself into the Arno simultaneously.

The feeling only gets worse later when I usher him inside the empty workshop and lock the door behind us.