Chapter 41
Despite the desire to find the grimoires, Marcella and Cosimo didn't hurry to get out of bed in the morning. She found that morning sex with Cosimo Greatdrakes was almost as good as a double espresso and was still smirking when they finally made it to the library.
As they were about to open the doors, Bridget crashed through them, her eyes and hair wild.
"Good! You're finally awake! I think I figured something out," she declared, waving a handful of printouts at them.
"Did you sleep at all?" Cosimo asked, a touch disapprovingly.
"No, she didn't." Bas stood at the end of a set of shelves, frowning at his mate. It was the first time Marcella had seen him looking remotely upset. "I tried to get her to eat something just now."
Bridget made an erratic gesture with her hands. "I didn't need to sleep or eat. I was working. Come with me. Look."
She grabbed Marcella by the arm and led her through the library to where they had been working. Around the floor were scattered more pages in an order that Marcella could only guess at.
Marcella patted Bridget on the back. "You have been very busy. You want to explain what this is about?" she asked patiently.
The young woman was in a state as she sat back on the floor and started moving pages about.
"Okay, so we are all fixating on Da Vinci, right?" Bridget began, pushing a portrait of the artist on the floor directly in front of her. "I decided to start from scratch with mapping him out, his involvement with the Sforzas and the Medicis over his career."
Cosimo opened his mouth to ask something, but Marcella subtly shook her head at him. Bridget was onto something, and getting interrupted would no doubt throw her off.
Cosimo nodded and whispered something to Bas instead, and the two men stepped out and left them to it.
Bridget didn't notice them go. She started laying out pictures of war machines, cannons, inventions, and artworks.
"These are all the things Da Vinci was commissioned to make that were in your files, but there was something missing."
Excitement flickered through Marcella. "What was it? I admit, I haven't dug as far as lists of what works he did. He was always in a long shot pile because he had sided with the Borgias to take Caterina down in Forli."
"Yeah, well, I found everything to make up for the holes in your research. Just in case. And then I had an article pop up about the castle in Milan. You know how there's always been speculation that Da Vinci designed tunnels for Ludovico Sforza?"
Marcella nodded. "Yes, I heard of them. They were meant to lead to the Santa Maria delle Grazie where his wife, Beatrice, was buried. Why?"
"Because they actually found them a few months ago!
" Bridget said excitedly, thrusting a page at her.
"Here is an article about how the university in Milan had used laser scanning and ground penetrating radars to do a study, and they found all these passageways and underground routes.
Want to know the best bit?" She was bouncing up and down, unable to contain her energy.
"Tell me," Marcella demanded, staring at the articles.
Bridget smiled. "They haven't been touched. No digging to look further and explore them. They have mapped them because they are creating a virtual reality tour, but no one's digging into them to see what's actually down there. There are small spaces that could be rooms. It could have stuff!"
"Or it could have nothing but dirt and rock," Marcella said gently, trying to temper her enthusiasm without crushing her spirit.
"Yeah, I know that, but think about it, Marcella.
If you were scared of the Church or anyone looking too deeply into your interests in magic and alchemy, you would want to keep that shit super-secret from everyone.
They didn't even think these tunnels existed at all.
They would've been the safest, most secret place ever because you wouldn't want anyone to know where your escape tunnels were in case of a siege. "
Bridget grabbed a pile of pages scribbled with Da Vinci's handwriting. "These are from the Codex Forster I and are the tunnel systems Da Vinci himself documented in his time. They are only a piece of what they found there. Who knows what's in them! We need to check them out."
"Agreed," Cosimo said and placed a tray of breakfast on a space on one of the tables. "Let's eat while we talk."
Bas joined them with more trays, and soon Marcella was looking over the sketches and trying to absorb the possibilities that Bridget had laid out.
Could there be storerooms down there with things they never wanted the Church to find out about?
Marcella hadn't heard about the tunnels being found, but then she had been focusing on the Medici connection more in the past year, which was why she kept competing with Cosimo for books and other research.
"What do you think, Marcella?" Cosimo asked.
Marcella startled. "Cosa? Oh, sorry, what was the question?" Too lost in her own head, she had been eating automatically and not listening to what they were saying.
"Do you want to go and look in these tunnels?" Cosimo said.
"I want to weigh it up in my mind, because the castle houses so many museums, and the security alone would be insane." Marcella rubbed at her temple, needing a few moments to sort through it all. "Bridget, please eat while I'm processing so that Bas will relax."
"I don't need—"
"You do," Bas growled. "You haven't eaten in twenty-four hours. I'm about to drag you out of this library and…"
Marcella shook her head at him, warning him off. "Bridget, my darling, please eat. I need you ready and rested if we have to go to Milan," she said, adding just a touch of her charisma power.
Bridget pulled a face, grabbed a croissant, and stuffed the whole thing in her mouth. She glared at Bas. "Ha'ee?"
Bas's eyes glowed, his dragon rearing up. "Keep pushing me and see what happens, little hawk."
Cosimo rested his hand on the back of Marcella's neck. "Penny for your thoughts?"
"I don't know if anyone would risk doing alchemy in tunnels or underground. There would be no way for fumes or smoke to escape, and if they blew something up, it would jeopardize the entire foundation of the castle on top of it," Marcella said and took a sip of her coffee.
"You're assuming that they were doing that kind of alchemy in there," Valentine commented as he joined them. "Bas sent me a telepathic message that I might be needed to plan a heist."
"Only if Marcella decides that's what she wants to do," Cosimo replied, with a warning note in his voice.
"The castle has nine museums. They all have top-of-the-line security. It seems like we would be risking a lot without any proof of what we will find," Marcella said, getting up to pace because she needed to move.
Valentine cocked his head to one side as he studied the tunnel systems that Bridget had printed out. How she'd gotten hold of the university's newly finished mapping was a mystery Marcella had no desire to question.
"We don't need to go anywhere near the castle, their museums, or their security," Valentine commented. "At least not above ground. All of these tunnels have exits."
"They would be caved in by now, or they would have been found decades ago," Marcella pointed out.
"We know one tunnel's exit has a high probability of existing," Cosimo said with a thoughtful expression. "Ludovico had a passage built to the Santa Maria delle Grazie, and it still stands."
"It was bombed, so the tunnel exit could have been destroyed, and it's a UNESCO site.
It will have its own security just for Da Vinci's Last Supper.
Beatrice's body might still be located there, but her actual tomb monument, which originally marked its location, was moved to Pavia," Marcella argued.
Valentine hadn't looked up from the plans. "The church security is a lot less to deal with than within the castle."
"If there were an opening to the tunnels in the church or its crypts, it would have been found by now.
There are thousands of visitors there every year too.
Huge efforts would have been made to protect such an opening from anyone too eager to explore," Marcella replied logically.
She had been there many times and never saw any doorways that weren't meant to be there.
Bas pulled himself away from his staring competition with Bridget to say, "You are all forgetting about Hermes."
Marcella halted and stared at him. "What about Hermes?"
"He is your family's patron god, right? Because of that, you probably have magicians in your bloodline that you don't know about because they were hiding from the Church," Bas explained, leaning back in his chair. "What is Hermes the god of, apart from magic?"
"Lots of things…" Marcella began
"Doorways," he stressed.
"Of course. Bas, you brilliant boy." Cosimo's face lit up, and he looked at Marcella.
"You clearly got your charisma and some of your necromancy gifts from Hermes, but what if there were other gifts that your ancestors had.
Ludovico got Da Vinci to design the tunnel to the church, and if they were studying magic and not just alchemy, like we suspect, then they could have used some kind of doorway magic to hide exits and entryways. "
Marcella's eyes went wide. "Magic to hide a doorway? So that could mean…."
"It's still there, hidden to everyone but magicians," Cosimo replied.
"Or specifically Sforza magicians," Valentine added. "They could have created it with blood magic. It could be keyed to only reveal itself to a family member because it was their escape if they were under siege. They wouldn't have left it for just any magician to find."
Marcella sat before she fell down. "How do you know that?"
"It's an educated guess. It's what I would do if my family were constantly under attack like the Sforzas were.
In fact, the wards around this mansion are programmed like that.
Only a person of Greatdrakes blood, our mates, or someone with our specific permissions can enter," Valentine explained.
"Yelena got through our wards just by flicking some of her blood at them. "
"I can't just go into Sagrestia Vecchia and start flinging blood everywhere!" Marcella said, throwing her hands up.
"Not with that attitude, tesoro," Cosimo replied, a wicked glint in his eyes. "But you are right that the Old Sacristy would be a good spot to start."
Marcella stared at him. "This is insane, right? We can't do this…can we?"
"We are Greatdrakes," he said, his smile widening. "We can do whatever we want. The only thing that could stop us from digging deeper is you, cara mia."
Marcella looked around at them, expecting them to laugh and say it was a joke, but they were all deadly serious about it. A dark, unexpected thrill ran through Marcella as the reality of the proposition sank in.
She wouldn't have to try and wait for permissions or permits.
There would be no damage, because there would be no digging.
They really could do this without any authorities being the wiser.
Magic tingled in her fingertips as she gazed at the image of the church before her, her intuition sparking and her third eye burning.
After a lifetime of searching, could this be the answer?
Marcella stared at Cosimo. It was his research as well as hers, and now Bridget's, that brought them to this point. She could see in his eyes that he wanted to investigate Bridget's lead.
Marcella took his hand and kissed it. "Let's do it."