Chapter 15
My brain has been doing laps all night. Can Jacopo really be Rebel? I mean, Jacopo is … Jacopo. He wouldn’t be shy about his art; he’d shout about it from Venice’s terracotta rooftops … wouldn’t he? Could he really keep a secret this big? Leo doesn’t seem to think so.
Then there’s the other thing that kept me up.
My feelings. Or more accurately … the way they don’t match.
I’ve spent a whole year daydreaming about Rebel – about experiencing the spark, the flutter, face to face – and now, if I’ve found him …
if Rebel really is Jacopo … why isn’t that spark there?
Why does it feel more like losing something than finding it?
I rub my eyes and check the clothes I draped over the radiator last night.
I washed a couple of T-shirts and some underwear in the sink yesterday, but they’re still damp.
I’m too embarrassed to ask Jacopo’s mum where the washing machine is in case she insists on doing it for me.
I’m running low on clean stuff, so I pull on the same cardigan over a clean-enough tee and try not to imagine Fulvio giving me the once-over.
Then I head downstairs to catch Jacopo before anyone else is up and about.
I can’t imagine having the ‘are you my online soulmate?’ conversation in front of an audience.
The kitchen is bluish with early light. I sit at the island and fire off a couple of texts to Mum and Griselda, just to keep up appearances, when a new notification slides in.
@RenaissanceRebel: Check my feed.
My stomach does a full somersault. Has Rebel posted something new? … No, wait, has Jacopo … Agh! This is too confusing.
I tap on to Rebel’s page, and there, under his Renaissance-boy-meets-street-artist avatar, is a brand-new upload. The first he’s shared in ages. A mural of a man in a dark robe with an iPad clutched in one hand. Giant wings stretch out behind him, and a ring light glows above his head like a halo.
The picture’s been taken at night, like his other posts. I zoom in straight away, hunting for anything to back up my Jacopo theory – water, crumbling bricks, a stripy pole.
But the frame is tight, cropped around the figure, giving nothing away.
A second message arrives:
@RenaissanceRebel: Do this in your style.
It’s a challenge – something we’ve done before, a creative jump-start when one of us is stuck. Only now it feels familiar and strange at the same time. Like Rebel, but not like Jacopo.
I’m still staring at the artwork, zooming in one last time, when the kitchen door creaks open. My phone almost slips out of my hand.
Leo pauses in the doorway. ‘You’re up early.’
‘So are you,’ I shoot back, then add in a more casual nothing-to-see-here tone, ‘I’m waiting for Jacopo—’ I catch myself and backtrack fast. ‘I mean, for his mum. Waiting for Jacopo to drop his mum off.’
Leo twists the moka pot apart and turns on the tap, filling the bottom half with water. ‘She doesn’t work on Wednesdays. But if you were waiting for Jacopo, he leaves his boat closer to his school when his mum’s off.’
‘Oh. Right.’
‘Problem?’
‘Nope. I can survive a whole day without someone cooking and cleaning for me. Not sure about you, though. Does she have to leave ironed underwear out for you?’
Leo flushes and looks away.
I grin. ‘Oh wow. She does, doesn’t she?’
‘That’s classified information, Nessie,’ he says, reaching for a box of individually wrapped pastries from the cupboard. He sets one on a napkin beside me, then pours me a glass of orange juice before lighting the hob to finish making his coffee.
I stare at the breakfast in front of me. It’s exactly what I ate yesterday. Like he noticed. And there it is again. That tiny, ridiculous flutter. I hate that I feel like this around Leo. Leo – the boy who was perfectly happy to freeze me out when he thought my art might rival his.
He studies me for a second. ‘You look exhausted. Late night?’
‘Not as late as yours.’
He stills. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Oops. Shut up, Evie. No point letting him know I saw him sneaking out – not until I’ve worked out what he was doing.
He might be more careful. Or worse, more curious about my own secrets.
Maybe he was meeting some girl from the wrong side of the tracks …
erm, canal. A whole Romeo-and-Juliet thing.
Jacopo mentioned something about a girlfriend, too.
Honestly, Leo’s parents would freak if he brought home someone who couldn’t trace their family tree back to the Doge of Venice, or whatever.
Someone like me, basically. Not that I want to cast myself as Leo’s girlfriend.
Obviously.
So why is my face going red? I don’t even like him.
Veronica walks in as I finish my pastry, flawless in tailored black trousers and a snow-white blouse, like she’s not about to spend the day around paint and charcoal.
Then again, she probably doesn’t wash her stuff in the bathroom sink.
And maybe I can’t find a washing machine because everything they wear is dry-clean only.
‘Excellent. You’re up. I’ve had two missed calls from the building concierge at the Institute, and now she’s not answering. I’m going to see what the issue is. Coming?’
She clearly means Leo, but I tag along anyway, wondering if the school’s been flooded or something. It’s been raining a bit, but I’m sure I read about some massive underwater gates that are meant to stop that happening.
I run through a few different disaster scenarios on the way, until a burst of colour pulls me from my thoughts. I stop so suddenly, someone crashes into me from behind.
‘Whoa.’ Leo steadies me with a hand at my elbow. ‘You OK?’
But I’m not listening.
It’s there. Right there, on the temporary hoarding outside the studio.
The mural. His mural. The one Rebel posted this morning.
The robed man, wings unfurling behind him. A glowing ring light hovering like a halo above his head. The iPad clutched in one hand.
My limbs go strange and weightless, only the solid warmth of Leo’s hand keeping me upright.
Veronica rubs at the painted surface, testing how easily it might come off, then lets out a long sigh. ‘What can we do? The moment we cover it, something new appears.’
Jacopo’s voice echoes in my head from yesterday.
A beautiful blank canvas. A shame to waste.
Oh God. It’s him.
It’s really him.