Page 76 of A Dangerous Bargain

My ribs are cracking, and my body shakes. “I have less than a year to live. I made too many bargains, just like your stepmother. That’s why I left. Why I pushed you away. I didn’t want you to know.”

I brace for his reaction, to watch the horrible surprise crawl across his face and settle into his bones as a gutting truth.

But there’s nothing on his face except that tender, unbearable softness. “I know, Virgil.”

I sniff, not understanding. “You know… what?”

He takes me into his arms, strokes a hand up and down my back to ease the shivers. “I know you’re dying. I’ve suspected it for a long time. When your magic stopped working but you wouldn’t make any bargains with Lupa… it wasn’t hard to put together.”

“Then you know why we can’t be together.”

A steely expression slips over his face. “I don’t know about that.”

“Do you think I never asked Lupa if she could save me?” I snap. “I’m not letting you ruin your life for me.”

“Bold of you to assume you could ruin it better than I could myself.”

He smirks, and I jerk away with a huff. How does he not understand? He has a future, and I don’t. He deserves everything, and I can give him nothing. In a city full of dealmakers, he’s the worst bargainer I’ve ever met.

“Virgil,” he says cajolingly, the backs of his fingertips racing lightly down my jaw. I reluctantly face him again, trying to keep all the ice out of my expression. “You don’t get to decide for me.”

I lean away from him. “Perhaps I should.”

He throws up his hands in frustration. “Do you know what I’ve always hated about you?”

“Quite a start to a romantic speech!”

He growls, yanking the edge of my doublet so we’re chest-to-chest. “When I joined Verrocchio’s workshop, there was no doubt who the best artist there was. But when I gave you competition for the title, when I first finished a piece that made Verrocchio look away from you to me… something in you gave up. You were still the best, but you acted like you had already lost. I saw you go to the workshop’s dark corner, blood already welling on your arms. I watched the black marks multiply across your skin, and I wondered why. Why is this boy with so much talent retreating into himself, relying on magic he doesn’t need?”

“I needed it,” I say. “I wasn’t enough on my own.”

Why is he saying this? He knows my brother was gone. I needed money, not masterpieces. I did what I had to.

His dark eyes grow furious beneath the red-gold mess of his hair. There’s no hiding from him like this, his glare pinning me like a butterfly to a book. Like I’m a rare specimen he’s studied for ages and he’s determined to tell me everything he’s learned from his yearslong apprenticeship whether I want to hear it or not.

“But you were, Virgil. You always give up on yourself first, before anyone else even has a chance to be disappointed in you. I didn’t pick Verrocchio’s workshop because it was the best place for me. I didn’t pick it because it paid better. I picked it because you were the one artist who refused to tell me I was already great, and I knew that meant only you could make me better. I had to see you again, no matter what.” His nails dig into my skin, hard enough to scratch furious white lines. “I hate how you give up on yourself. I hate how you think you’re not worth it. I hate how you insist on making yourself smaller when you’re the biggest thing in my life.”

A comet could smash me to pieces right then and I’d be less shocked. He joined because of me? All those years ago? “Having a crush is a terrible reason to pick a place of employment.” I need to joke; I need to pull the bottom out from this moment to make it light enough to bear.

Because what he’s saying… it can’t be true.

I’ve never been the best at anything in my life. I’m the second son, the second brother, the apprentice you put in when your better one is busy.

He scoffs, disgusted with me. “That stubborn mouth of yours—”

Then his mouth is on mine, lips and teeth and tongue and, God, I feel it all the way in my toes. I bury my hands in his hair and pull, my core going molten when he gasps against me.

Even though he’s cracked me open like some hard-shelled creature plucked from the sea, there’s nothing soft about this kiss. It’s hot and urgent, all roving hands and nipping teeth. He groans when I bite his bottom lip, and I sigh into his mouth when his cool hands sneak into my doublet. This kiss feels like a fight, and I’ve always loved fighting with him.

This is all we can ever be to each other. Right now—mouths and hands and bodies discovering how they fit together. He’s going to be someone great long after I’m just smudged fingerprints on a forgotten canvas.

I hope some part of me stays in his heart forever, untarnished and pristine. Will he think of me when he limns an angel’s hand with gold? Will he remember the bow of my lips when he paints them pink on a lovely face?

No longer afraid of falling, I deepen our kiss and let him push me against a column, only to gasp when wetness seeps through the back of my clothes. “It’s raining?”

Leonardo blinks, puzzled. “But we’re not getting wet.”

Lupa crouches on the arch of the colonnade above us. I don’t know how long she’s been there, but it must’ve been for a while from the way her damp hair is plastered to her neck, how water drips off her nose. Those great golden wings still unfurl from her shoulders, their glow more subdued now, their edges blurring and sizzling each time a droplet hits them.