Chapter Twenty-Two
The red leather cover of Dante’s Inferno has an oily shine in the candlelight. “Your favorite book is horrifying. Drowning in rivers of boiling blood?” Leonardo flips through the pages. “No wonder you have such a melancholic disposition.”
I make a noncommittal noise—not because I disagree—but because I can’t get over the fact that he’s next to my bed. Leaning alongside it, actually. He’s practically under the covers!
Leonardo holds up Niccolo’s warning note, one dark brow lifting. “You’ve had your brother’s warning for two years and never thought to say anything about it until now?”
He doesn’t need to know our thorny history. “I’ve only had it for a few weeks.”
Leonardo closes the Inferno, marking his place with Niccolo’s note. “Well, it doesn’t get much more obvious than an ominous warning hidden in a book about voyaging to hell, does it? Your brother knew something.”
Before I can stop him, Leonardo helps himself to my paper and half-filled pen. Then he rolls onto my bed, feet dangling off one end. I take a deep, long breath at the sight of his body dimpling my mattress.
“This is what we have so far.” He sketches a familiar, grumpy face.
“Lorenzo de’ Medici is getting married, and the family is having a hard time keeping their supporters’ loyalty…
” Lupa appears next, her hands replaced with cloven hooves, the effect softening and not sinister.
“Angels are demons, and no one knows but the Medici…” A startlingly fair likeness of me takes shape.
“Last, we have your brother, who worked or is working for the Medici and sent you a warning.” His hand moves faster, conjuring swooping elegant arrows connecting the three drawings over them, lines that transform the drawing into a tangled ball of rope.
“The question is how are these three tied together?”
He glances up breathlessly as if I might know the answer.
I scoff. Trying to untie this Gordian knot is beyond me. Didn’t Alexander the Great hack it apart with a sword in the end? “How should I know? We lost our only lead. I didn’t catch my brother’s work address because someone dragged me under a table.”
Leonardo’s bright expression dims. “What a pity someone saved your life, then.”
I sigh guiltily. What’s wrong with me? Even when I try to be nice, I fail at it. “I’m grateful for that. And I’m not trying to be a stronzo. There’s a lot to take in, and we’re running out of time.”
It’s not I’m terrified I’ll fail the people who depend on me before I die, and I worry you might be becoming one of them, but it’s still honest, which is big for me.
He takes in a deep, long breath and lets it go with a soft sigh. “I’m not just trying to help you. I don’t want what happened to my stepmother to happen to anyone else. This is bigger than either of us.”
“What do you mean?” That us of his puts me on edge.
He gestures to my window, the city skyline sweeping beyond it lorded over by the distant duomo. “When we reveal the truth—when people learn about the lies—it could be the end of angels in Florence.”
My skin erupts into gooseflesh.
A city without angels.
A city without magic.
“I don’t think the Medici would like that very much,” I whisper.
“I’d say the Medici can kiss my culo, but that’s a pleasure, not a punishment, isn’t it?” Leonardo winks.
I start choking. Leonardo slaps my back, but I’m not expecting it and accidentally kick the candle over.
His sketch catches fire immediately.
We bolt upright, stomping the flame until the room is left in darkness.
Wait, complete darkness? No, ’tis too early. Dinner hasn’t even been served yet.
Leonardo screams and points at a shadow crawling through the window. He snatches a paintbrush from the floor and brandishes the wooden end at the writhing blackness. “Out, foul monster!”
The shadow thumps to the floor, letting in the orange-red twilight behind it. Lupa, her face scrunched in a determined grimace. “I want to help still, if you’ll let me.”
Leonardo’s brush clatters to the floor. “You, a demon, want to help expose the truth about demons in Florence?”
It does seem odd for a creature who’s said—more than once—how much she loves committing crimes.
Lupa hugs her knees to her chest, not quite looking at us. “If I am not supposed to be here, then there’s somewhere else I’m supposed to be.”
Leonardo makes a disbelieving sound, but I don’t join in.
I think of Lupa’s rogue magic, the Medici’s reaction over what she did at the fountain.
The Medici might be the reason why demons stroll the streets of Florence, but they’re afraid of them too.
Their house has never had a demon of its own.
They know the dangerous game they’re playing.
And they don’t know Lupa’s playing on our side of it.
“We’ll need you, Lupa,” I say. Leonardo’s eyes start to roll, but I dive under my bed and pull out the key I stole from the Palazzo della Signoria. The little ruby eyes in the skull-shaped handle have a sinister gleam in the dying light.
Leonardo picks it up by the very end, like it’s a stinging scorpion. “Where did you get this tasteless little trinket?”
“It’s the key I accidentally stole. Piero was angry Lorenzo lost it.” My empty hands twist together. “The Medici are frightened. Something’s changing for them, and I don’t think… I don’t think it’s impossible for us to take them down.”
I can’t believe I’m suggesting we dethrone the oldest, richest, most powerful family in Florence, but here we are.
Leonardo nods determinedly, like everything’s already decided. “We’ll try to see what else we can learn about your brother, and we’ll finish the Medici wedding commission.”
“Why?” My family could very much still use the money if we won, but I hardly see how it’s going to help us expose the Medici as blasphemous scoundrels.
“Because when we drop off the portrait in the Medici’s house, we can find whatever door that horrible little key unlocks.”
“You’ll finish it, then.” My contribution to the painting will be minimal at best, ruinous at worst. “Or did you forget about the pigeon shit incident?”
“You made this, didn’t you?” Leonardo flicks the locket.
“And it’s terrible. Verrocchio might as well replace me with a dog.”
The corners of his mouth kick up. “Don’t sell yourself short, Virgil. A painting dog would be delightful, but your acerbic personality is irreplaceable. You used to paint without magic, and you’ll remember how to do it again soon.”
There’s no point correcting him. His optimism is more stubborn than stone.
He tosses the key and catches it with a flourish, taking my resigned sigh as an emphatic yes.
“Excellent. We’ll find your brother, avenge my mother, and along the way, perhaps Lupa will finally figure out what she’s doing on earth.
I think this is the beginning of a grand quest! ”
“Or a triple murder.” While I’m glad Leonardo isn’t upset with me anymore, I’m not sure I like him pledging himself to my cause, either. “Perhaps we’re rushing into this. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“And I don’t want to paint Lorenzo de’ Medici, but alas, we can’t always get what we want.”
“These things are hardly the same,” I say, voice tight. “No one is going to try to kill you in the workshop.”
He grows serious in a second. “So it’s all well and good for someone to try to kill you, but not me?”
The back of my neck prickles. Because the answer is, of course and obviously, yes, except I know saying it won’t make any difference.
Maybe it’ll happen tonight, maybe it’ll happen right before the bells chime midnight on New Year’s Eve, but I already know death is coming for me; anything I do comes with some level of risk.
I’d rather die knowing I did everything I could to find Niccolo than wait for death to find me.
There’s still time for Leonardo to avoid my fate.
“I’ll investigate my brother alone. I don’t need your help.” I cross my arms and lift my chin.
“Of course you will.” Leonardo smiles indulgently.
“And when you leave, I’ll follow you out, and you won’t be able to stop me, because I’m much faster than you.
We live together. You can’t do anything without me noticing.
You might as well let me help you from the beginning because I know you despise wasting work time. ”
Curse him, does he have to be right all the time? “Have you ever heard of boundaries?”
His grin is like staring directly at the sun. “I can’t let you be murdered. Your glowering presence is the inspiration I need. You’re like my own grumpy little angel, always sighing whenever I lose my focus.”
“Don’t you mean demon?”
“I said what I said.”
“And you like this about me?”
He brushes the locket under his tunic. “I do. You just never believe me.”