Page 98 of A Dangerous Bargain

Her eyes are the same as before, the green gold of them brilliant behind dark pupils. I saw her ripped from the body she possessed, but she’s here waiting for me. I trusted her before when I shouldn’t have. Why shouldn’t I trust her in hell—when she’s all that I have?

I release a shaky breath and let her help me out of the boat. “I missed you.”

One claw grazes the back of my hand, too gentle to hurt. “Me too.”

With a soft, sibilant groan, the grabbing souls in the river fall back.

The black palazzo is the only object visible in the fog, as if it’s the only thing in this world. A gruesome feeling of being watched walks across my skin, but every window is empty. The feeling intensifies when we go inside.

I expected opulence, an overflowing abundance of gold and gems and marble statues of fantastical creatures dripping with flowers. The luxury of the Medici run amok.

Instead the corridors are cold stone. A horrible, teeth-grating chorus of squeals echoes through the emptiness. I wince at a particularly offensive high note.

“The devil insists the music is close to human.” Lupa looks embarrassed. “I can still remember what it’s supposed to sound like, but barely.”

The few portraits on the walls are ripped and fading. I linger before one that could be a Last Supper, except each person has been replaced by a monster. Wet oozes from the canvas, and the iron tang of blood fills my nose.

I shudder and pass underneath a chandelier made of bones. The candles drip thick rivulets of wax to the floor—wax that smells horribly of rendered fat. “Why does he bother? You remember enough to know this isn’t right.”

Lupa stops before a table made of polished, gleaming ice. It’s so crystalline, my own unsettled face peers back at me. But in the background, the chandelier is missing. There’s nothing but bare stone walls and barren torch brackets.

“Would you tell the devil he’s wrong when this is the alternative?” Lupa steps behind me.

And my heart thunders.

There’s a monster at my shoulder.

It’s made of writhing shadows and scales. Twice as tall as any human, too thin and skeletal to ever be mistaken for one even at a distance. Twin green-gold flames burn in its eye sockets. A pair of what could be horns curves from its skull, the tips vicious.

“This is who I am.” Lupa’s hand with its elegant, painted nails creeps over my shoulder. In the reflection, a horrible, too-many-jointed appendage with gold-green flames dripping from its claws drapes over my ripped, soiled doublet. One sudden jab, and the claw would pierce my heart.

The head lowers beside my face, more ghostly flames spilling from its jaws. “The devil insists we pretend to be something we’re not. Something mortal. Half-forgotten memories of beauty are the only thing left to us in this place.”

I want to turn away from the ice. I wish I’d never seen Lupa like this so I could picture her as what she pretended to be instead of what she truly is.

Except… Lupa never turned away from me during my ugliest moments, and I won’t do it to her now. I bend to kiss the scaled knuckles on my shoulder, slipping my hand up beneath them and braiding the fingers through mine. A pulse of gold shudders through Lupa’s true form from the point of contact.

Only then do I turn away, toward the face she’s chosen to wear tonight.

“That’s not true. You have me now too.”

She tilts her head, surprised. Then a close-mouthed smile. “Leonardo was right. You can be very sweet.”

There it is again. The telltale whisper down my neck that there’s something she’s keeping from me.

Lupa ushers me into a chamber and closes the door. Even the window doesn’t look out at anything: only a swirl of gray beyond the mullioned glass. There’s nothing inside but an old, battered chair. On the ripped cushion, a large tortoiseshell cat—Fifi?—lifts her head and glares.

’Tis the sight of Verrocchio’s cat that finally lets the truth sink in.

I’m in hell. With Lupa.

For an odd moment, it feels like I’m standing beside myself, separate from my body. I watch my back thud against the wall, see my unsteady fist in my sweaty curls.

“The girl you possessed died. Did you know what would happen to her?” I hear myself say.

Lupa slowly bends down to my level, her radiant eyes catching mine and holding. “Yes. I swallowed her soul to walk on earth. I was always a demon, even when I couldn’t remember.”

Does a wolf mean to kill? It’s the question Leonardo asked me so long ago. I run my tongue along the back of my teeth and nod. I don’t like her answer, but I understand it.