Page 5 of A Dangerous Bargain

“Centaurs?”

“Yes. Half man, half horse. Surely, you’re familiar with them.”

My eyes dart again to the purple mark on his neck. “No. Please tell me—”

Leonardo flaps his hands, his brush dripping on his lap. “Get your mind out of the gutter! I was thinking if a centaur has one pair of arms and four legs, then that would mean it has six limbs total—”

“That is how counting works, yes.”

“So if there’s six limbs, this would mean that a centaur is an insect, would it not?”

I turn—fully turn—toward him. He’s near breathless, eyes huge with excitement. To my surprise, the slug-fish is almost fixed. It’s not the first time his mind has spun off in one direction while his hands went off in another. Despite my best efforts to stop it, my mouth bows, a barely there bend.

“Would this mean a man riding a horse would be a spider, then? Because of the eight limbs?”

Leonardo rubs his chin pensively, smearing it with paint. “Now that’s a very good question.”

I turn my laugh into a snort, and then, miracle of miracles, the painting transforms from good to great as blue moonlight spills through the workshop. It’s so cold, I can’t feel my toes, but the sounds of Leonardo’s breathing, the quiet shift of his body, are something like warmth. I slowly grow aware of him watching me.

The sleeves of my chemise fall to mid-forearm, revealing the black lines scoring my skin. Each one is the mark of a bargain I made with the angel. Each one represented a day, a week, or a month, of my life. There are hundreds of them.

When a workshop is blessed by an angel, the angel’s magic can be borrowed by artists, for a price. Part of the artist’s life or a memory for a taste of magic. Big bargains backfire, but small ones strike gold. There is an art to making bargains, and I’m a master.

A month of my life to never have my hands shake while painting with ultramarine, the most expensive pigment in the workshop. A day for the perfect memory of a snowy tree in mid-summer. Half a year to never have my paints go dry, even if I forget to cover them all day. The moment where the image is still caught between my head and my hands is no longer one of frustration. The magic smooths it, soothes it, and without it, everything would take me six times as long. I don’t know how many years of my life I’ve bartered away at this point, but it might be decades.

“Be careful,” Verrocchio warned me at the last Epiphany feast. His charcoal-stained finger skimmed down the latest mark on my flesh, still tender and raised. “You don’t want to forget how to make art without magic.”

I just shrugged. If I could afford to be sparing with my bargains—if my family could afford to keep the roof over their heads without the money I earned—I might’ve listened.

Niccolo wouldn’t have wanted this for you, a vile, soft part of my heart whispers before I can strangle it.

No. If my brother hadn’t wanted this for me, he wouldn’t have left me to carry the weight of supporting our mother and sisters alone.

“Are you all right?” Leonardo says.

This close, it’s impossible not to notice his arms are free of bargain marks. No magic steadies his hand or clears Leonardo’s mind. Every other artist in the workshop has bargained with the angel, but years into his apprenticeship, he still refuses. Whenever someone asks him why, he smiles mysteriously and changes the subject.

I admire and resent him for it. If he gave an angel perhaps even a year of his life, how much more could he do? If I had his talent with my magic, I’d be the most successful artist in Florence. Perhaps even in all of Europe. My family’s money troubles would be gone. I’d finally have a life free of worry and other people’s expectations.

I flick my wrists. My sleeves flutter lower, hiding the marks. “Why wouldn’t I be all right?”

Leonardo nods toward the painting. “Because that dog looks like a tasseled pillow.”

I startle and pull back just enough to get a better look at what I’ve done. And… merda, he’s right. “Looks more like a spider to me.”

“Yes, but not a horse-man spider.” Before I can tell him not to, Leonardo runs his fingers over the brushstrokes. “It’s already dry.”

I bite the inside of my cheek so hard, I taste copper.

“It’s all right,” he says hurriedly. “It’s just a mistake.”

“It’s not.” I never make mistakes. Not on almost finished paintings as important as this one. The next morning unspools itself with awful clarity. Verrocchio entering his workshop, his horrified scream when he sees the mess I made. Cristo santo, I won’t be paid this week now, will I?

Leonardo’s long fingers hover before me. “Can I have your brush to fix it? My fish turned out.”

My fingers won’t loosen. Everything in me goes against letting the other boy take over. “Dogs don’t have scales,” I snap.

“They’re not covered with a thousand little millipede legs either.”