Chapter 13
Cosimo escorted Marcella back down the stairs and toward the library. His hand kept trying to hover near her lower back in case she had another dizzy spell. He shouldn't have let her touch the damn statue.
You say that like you could have stopped her.
The moment Marcella had begun to fall, panic had iced over him. His dragon had been nearly as frantic at the thought she might be hurt.
Marcella wasn't concerned that the memories contained in the statue had overwhelmed her, but Cosimo's heart rate still wasn't back to its normal pace.
Despite the horrible moment, Cosimo couldn't help but notice how soft and solid she had felt in his arms. His treacherous body was burning up with a need he didn't know how to handle. He had forgotten what it was like to desire someone to distraction.
I am too old for this nonsense, he tried to tell himself unsuccessfully.
A few years after Lisa's death, during his dating attempts, he had tried to do one-night stands. It had just left him feeling hollow and unfulfilled. There had been guilt, too, for a time, as if he were betraying his wife's memory.
Cosimo had known even then that it was ridiculous to feel guilty. Lisa wouldn't have wanted him to be alone. She had said as much over the years, always in a gentle kind of jest, when they were talking about 'if anything happened to me' scenarios.
Lisa had foresight magic, but she had never mentioned seeing her own death. After Valentine's recent confession that he had a premonition of her accident, Cosimo had begun to wonder if she had maybe seen it too. It wasn't a good thought to focus on, so he had done his best to push it aside.
"Are you going to be this moody for the rest of the day?" Marcella asked, pulling him out of his own spiraling thoughts.
"I shouldn't have let you touch that damned thing," he replied.
Marcella patted the tote bag that hung over her shoulder. "I was the best person to touch it. Minerva here has come from my lands."
"I promised I wouldn't let you get hurt," Cosimo argued.
Marcella stopped in the hall and put her hands on her hips, drawing attention to the delicious flare of them.
"Cosimo, look at me. I am fine. Thank you for making sure I didn't hit my head when I fell. I will be more careful next time I touch it." She went up on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. "You are too pretty to worry this much about ridiculous things, amico."
She turned around and walked into the library, leaving him touching his burning cheek, all his thoughts scrambled. Feminine laughter echoed through the stacks, jolting him out of his daze, and he hurried after her.
Bridget had caught Marcella before she had found what they had spent the previous day putting together.
"Why can't I look at it yet?" she asked.
"Because I want Cosimo here to see your face," Bridget argued.
"Cosimo has had enough of my face today," Marcella argued.
"I highly doubt that."
"What's going on here?" Cosimo asked, trying to pretend that the kiss hadn't happened.
"I wanted to wait for you," Bridget said, grinning. "What's that on your cheek?"
"Nothing? What?" he said and scrubbed at it.
"That's my lipstick," Marcella replied without any embarrassment.
Bridget's eyes narrowed playfully. "And what are you doing kissing my dad?"
"I caught her when she went into a swoon," Cosimo began.
"I didn't swoon! Swooning is for sappy girls, which I am not," Marcella said primly, but her eyes were also shining with a teasing light.
"If you must know, Bridget, I touched a statue and had visions.
I began to faint, and Cosimo was kind enough to ensure I didn't hurt myself. I kissed his cheek to say thank you."
Bridget's grin was impish. "I suppose that is a good excuse to kiss him, if you needed one."
"Can we get on with it?" Cosimo asked, his neck heating to the same color as Marcella's lipstick.
"Sure thing," Bridget said, her grin getting wider. "This way, Marcella."
Marcella put her hands in the pockets of her dress as she wound through the labyrinth of the library. She paused every now and again, and then quickly hurried to catch up to Bridget.
Cosimo's amused laugh was a little smug, even to his ears. Marcella shot him a glare over her shoulder.
"I told you that you are welcome to explore the library when time allows," he said, enjoying the wistful looks she kept directing at the stacks.
"I know, but this is exquisite torture," she complained.
Cosimo wanted to say now she knew how he felt whenever she was around, but he wisely bit his tongue.
Bridget grinned at Cosimo and gently brushed against his mind. You see why I wanted to wait for you? You're loving that this is impressing her.
She frustrated my research efforts all year, and I'm enjoying frustrating her right back, Cosimo replied.
Yeah, I can tell just how frustrated you both are.
Cosimo's neck turned hotter. Focus Bridget. We have grimoires to find. No time for matchmaking with two people who have already said they are just friends.
Ah, huh, she replied unconvincingly before breaking off the connection.
They went up a set of stairs to a study nook that they had repurposed for the grimoire search.
"So, Dad thought it would be a good idea if we combined what you have done research-wise with his own," Bridget explained as they entered the nook. "I printed out the stuff you sent me, and we dragged his lot out of his tower yesterday, and voilà."
"Voilà..." Marcella whispered. She started at one side of the room, which was Caterina's grimoire, and the other, which was the Medici's. "You did this all yesterday?"
"I had time," Bridget replied with a shrug. "We all chipped in because we want to help you find them."
"I didn't want you to think I'd break my end of the bargain just because I needed to prioritize finding Maria first. We really can do both with a family this size," Cosimo explained.
Marcella's hand went to the pendants on her neck. "I feel like I'm going to faint again."
Cosimo was beside her in an instant, his hand going to her lower back. "I've got you."
Marcella laughed, and he escorted her to an armchair Bridget had placed so both sides could be viewed at once.
"You have really done an excellent job, but that doesn't surprise me, considering the books you have written," Bridget said and went to Cosimo's side of the board.
"There is a lot of overlap with what you were both doing.
You can really see where you two have been chasing each other's tails.
I've done my best to minimize having the same information up here but left where they link. Like the problem of Da Vinci."
"You thought of him too?" Marcella asked, looking at Cosimo.
He sat down on the arm of her chair and pointed at the drawing of the maestro. "Of course I did. He's an obvious choice."
Bridget nodded. "Brilliant, bi-sexual, clearly undiagnosed neurodivergent. Obviously a magician. He also worked for both the Medici and Sforza families."
"Ludovico Sforza was his patron for a while.
He was Caterina's uncle," Marcella said, and frowned.
"Leonardo and Caterina could very well have known each other.
There is plenty of speculation about it, but if they ever were friends, it would have ended when he served as Cesare Borgia's military engineer and defeated her. "
Bridget nodded. "They could have started as friends and ended up as rivals in that case. He was working in Florence before he worked for Ludovico, and he did work directly for Guiliano de' Medici in Rome later in his career."
Marcella hummed. "Caterina's Medici son, Giovanni, was Guiliano's second cousin. There are definitely overlaps upon overlaps where Leonardo is concerned, but there is no real evidence of a rivalry."
"There is enough there to speculate that Leonardo had access to both men, and Giovanni did inherit Caterina's grimoire.
Leonardo was interested in esotericism and would have had access to the Medici library if he had requested it.
As well as access to the Vatican's archives when Giuliano was made pope," Cosimo said, staring at the pattern Bridget had put together.
"Are you thinking Da Vinci could have taken both of them?" Marcella asked.
"Hmm, I don't know about that, but he certainly would have been curious about both," Cosimo replied.
Bridget fidgeted from one foot to the other and then grabbed a pile of yellow sticky notes.
"I think we need to do a timeline for old Leo.
Seeing the pattern over the years would help too.
There's something here that's niggling at me, and I can't see what it is.
Just think… If we could prove Da Vinci was a real magician, the world would go nuts. "
"Now there are three of us obsessed," Marcella said with a laugh. "He has always interested me, but Giovanni was very protective of his mother's books. I don't see him giving the grimoire to the man who worked against her."
"Leonardo worked for the rest of the Medici family just fine, so maybe their attitude toward the incident was different than ours would be. Maybe he and Caterina made peace?" Cosimo replied and then sighed. "Still, all of it is speculation."
While Bridget and Marcella nailed down dates and moved items around the boards, Cosimo got up and walked over to a table that had been piled with books.
He took a volume off the top and stroked the cover.
It was a beautiful book, but he felt more than a little guilty having it. He offered it to Marcella.
"For you. I believe it should have been yours anyway," Cosimo said.
Marcella's eyes widened, and her smile did too. The smile made parting with the book easier. "Catherine Medici's copy of Zosimos. Yes, it should have been mine."
"At least now you get it at a discounted price of nothing," he replied.
Marcella took the book and threw her arms around his neck. "Thank you, Cosimo."
Bridget gestured behind her and mouthed, 'HUG HER,' before disappearing among the shelves.
Cosimo frowned at Bridget but wrapped his arms around Marcella.
"As you said, it was meant to be yours to begin with," he murmured.
"You make it very hard to stay angry with you about anything at all. And you smell good too," Marcella said, letting her arms fall. "It would be really helpful if you could just not be perfect for five minutes, okay?"
Cosimo let her go with an awkward laugh. "I will try?"
"See that you do," she said curtly. She hugged the book to her chest, her cheeks pink. "Now, tell me about what other books you have around here, like that first edition of Dante's Divine Comedy."
"I'm starting to think that I shouldn't have told you that I was susceptible to bribery," he said, tucking his hands into his pockets so he wouldn't reach for her again.
"No, you shouldn't have." Marcella's smile turned naughty. "But just think about how fun it will be to let me find ways to convince you to give me what I want."
Cosimo wasn't sure if she was being serious or not, but it didn't matter. Something told him that if they kept going the way they were, he wouldn't be able to deny Marcella Sforza one damn thing.