Page 62 of A Dangerous Bargain

After lifting the curtain to be certain no one’s right outside the door, we sneak out and wend our way through the crowd. I can’t stop staring at Leonardo, the riot of his red-gold waves, his kiss-swollen lips. When he catches me looking, his shy smile lights me up like a torch.

I’m so distracted, I don’t notice the hooded figure waiting with crossed arms at the mouth of Via dell’Oriuolo until an arm blocks our path.

Verrocchio throws back his cloak hood, his face grave as sin. “Enough.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

I won’t stand for it any longer.”

For a breath-stealing moment, I fear Verrocchio is on the verge of an aneurysm. He’s almost wheezing, his face drenched and dripping into his collar. His red cap is crumpled in his hands.

Leonardo edges closer. “Master, are you—”

“Go home, Leonardo!”

He flinches like a startled dog. Verrocchio is hard on us, but he’s not one for yelling, especially out in public. Nothing comes before his workshop’s sterling reputation. Leonardo throws me a beseeching sideways look, as if I might know something he doesn’t.

“Go home alone.” Verrocchio’s nostrils quiver.

His teeth sinking into his bottom lip, Leonardo reluctantly disappears into the crowd. His absence makes me feel cold even though the air is thick with moisture. I chafe my arms, trying and failing to banish the panic gathering around me like clouds. Is it my imagination, or are the people giving Verrocchio and me a wide berth?

Verrocchio wipes his brow with his cap, almost yanks it back on with a trembling hand, then crumples it again. “You’re no longer part of the workshop.”

My body goes rigid. “I’m… not?”

Verrocchio grimaces, like he hates having to do this. “You’re fired. You’ve given me no choice. You were one of my most dependable apprentices, but now all you do is cause trouble.” He scrapes a hand down his chin. A week-old beard clings to it. Marble dust packs the crescents of his nails like grave dirt. It’s been hell on him recreating the statues we lost when Lupa was attacked. And I haven’t made things easier. I run my tongue along the back of my teeth, feeling the tiniest pinch of guilt. My master has been good to me, and I’ve repaid his trust with lies, secrets, and a pile of art so terrible, I wouldn’t even use it as privy paper.

A tremor shakes Verrocchio’s body. A sickening jolt goes through me as I realize it’s a sob. “We lost Lupa because of you,” he says.

The bottom of my stomach drops away. “What?”

Verrocchio twists his red cap so hard, part of the brim rips off. “The church took her after mass. They said if I couldn’t control her, the workshop didn’t deserve to have her.”

Panic crackles along my nerves, engulfing me entirely. I grab fistfuls of Verrocchio’s cloak, yanking him closer. “Where did they take her?”

His eyes bulge with astonishment. “Virgil—”

“What are they doing with her?”

Nothing can happen to Lupa. She’s the only one who can help me find my brother’s soul.

Verrocchio yanks his cloak from my clenched fingers. A vein throbs on his brow, the tick tick tick of it like a warning. “You dare to make demands right now? What the church does is none of your business. Do you care nothing for what this does to the workshop? To your fellow apprentices? This will ruin my life’s work!” His anger rises like a whale from the depths of the sea. “Do you care about a single person who isn’t yourself? Are you suggesting the church is not a safe space for a holy being?”

A cold, sinking dread races along my bones.

Verrocchio can’t help me. No one can except Lupa. I’m running out of time to save Niccolo, and she’s not in the workshop anymore.

Words I never thought I’d say fill my mouth, glass-sharp and sour. “Fine. I’ll get my things.”

Verrocchio plants a hand against the wall, blocking my exit. “Giorgio will bring them to your family’s house. It shouldn’t take him more than an hour.”

I think of all my blank paper in careful stacks, the nubs of charcoal and well-used brushes. It all belongs to Verrocchio, doesn’t it? As an apprentice I was never able to put my name on a single painting. Six minutes will be the trek up and down the stairs; it’ll only take Giorgio one to shove what’s mine into a satchel.

Five years of my life, erased in ten minutes.

Everything’s gone airless. I gave the place everything: my time, my eyesight, the rest of my very life.

And for what?