Chapter Twenty-Five
What a stronzo!” Leonardo shouts so loud, several people give him scandalized looks. “Verrocchio didn’t threaten to evict me from the workshop, and I was there with you!”
“That’s because you’re too valuable for him to lose,” I say miserably. The day matches my mood. Sullen rain has pummeled the streets all day, turning Florence into a drab smear of gray brown.
“Where did you go last night?” I looked for Leonardo after Verrocchio snarled at me, but he wasn’t around.
I waited up for him in the workshop, scraping off the bits of marble and dust that had stuck to the Medici wedding portrait.
I would’ve stayed up even longer except Verrocchio kicked me out after dinner.
I tried not to sulk when I saw him lock the door with my old key.
Leonardo’s hand twitches guiltily, making it halfway to his neck before dropping. “Visiting a friend. Why does it matter?”
My temper flares. A friend? He was out with a friend last night?
I know exactly what kind of friend this is because I’ve heard him give the same excuse a dozen times before.
My teeth grit at the thought of Leonardo sharing a flagon of wine with this so-called friend.
My insides seethe imagining him leaning in close and laughing when Leonardo whispered a joke.
I don’t want to meet this friend. He’s not allowed to come to our home and be confused by Lupa or pet one of the sodding cats.
Cristo santo, perhaps I should be grateful.
If Leonardo hadn’t crawled into someone else’s bed so soon after I realized I have feelings for him, I might’ve acted on them in a fit of mortifying weakness.
I kick a loose cobblestone more savagely than it deserves.
“It matters because what we’re doing is secret! And you have a habit of…”
A sideways look from him. “Talking too much?”
“Being too much.” He recoils a bit, and I hurry to clarify. “Being too much the sort of person people want to talk to. Know more about.” Where is this coming from? I need to be stopped. “It’d be easy to let something slip.”
“I wouldn’t,” he says. “Even if I did, my friend’s a chambermaid where I’m taking us. She’s discreet.”
His friend is a girl? I swallow, cheeks flaring hot. I pray that he doesn’t notice so I don’t have to explain myself. “Where are you taking us?”
Leonardo goes guilty-still. I shoot him a sideways glance, and he bites his lip. “Remember how you wished you’d caught the address your brother worked at? I have a very keen memory. I see something once and remember it for years.”
I glare to hide my jealousy. Bargaining for a power like that would take at least a decade, and of course he gets to have it without sacrificing anything. “You’ve known where my brother works for days and you didn’t tell me?”
He lifts placating hands. “It was written in a shorthand that I couldn’t figure out. That’s why I met my friend. I wanted to be sure before I promised you anything.”
I know he’s trying to be helpful, but all it does is add thunderclouds to my dark mood. “I said I wanted to investigate my brother alone.”
Leonardo runs his hands down his thighs. There’s a nervous edge to his disarming smile. “I know you did. But—well, the thing is, we’re already there.”
I tilt back my head—up and up—to take in the massive building dominating the entire block ahead. I’m confused, until my eyes snag on a stone shield adorning the building’s corner and its five red balls. “Oh merda.”
It’s the Medici’s private home and the headquarters of their bank.
Niccolo works here? For them? After they hoodwinked our father, threatened to take our home?
How could he? A grief that’s as much anger as sadness washes over me.
I knew he was in their employ, but it’s one thing to be tangentially employed by the Medici and another to be working at their goddamn house.
“There’s a party.” Leonardo nods toward the snaking queue of coaches.
Guards dressed in Medici livery attend a side door, helping elegant patrons inside and checking their names on a list. Each time the door opens, a slice of gold spills across the street, a release of spice and laughter that chases the shadows away.
On principle, I hate every person inside already.
“We could get in.” Leonardo suggests this like it’s perfectly reasonable.
“Absolutely not!”
“Why not? There’s dozens of people here. I doubt they’d notice two more.”
Before I can stop him, he’s striding across the street. A guard notices him with a scowl. “Begone!” He shoos us, like we’re two sad-eyed dogs hoping for a biscotti crumb. “This isn’t for the likes of you.”
Leonardo’s smile is big and bright and utterly mesmerizing. He sidles closer, hands clasped penitently. “We were hired to help serve.”
The guard takes in the charcoal under Leonardo’s nails and crosses his arms suspiciously, weighing whether or not we’re lying against how upset the Medici will be if they have to wait to have their wine cups refilled.
The movement draws my attention to the sword at his hip.
It’s shockingly nice for a guard’s blade, the crosspiece a wonder of twisted silver.
It has an unnatural shine in the dull twilight.
Is the blade magicked? I can’t recall if I’ve heard of an angel being pledged to a silversmith before, but an artist’s workshop could’ve done it just as well.
The design on the pommel is oddly familiar, a stylized skull with two red gems in the eye sockets—
I gasp. ’Tis the same design on the key I stole from—
“… Lorenzo de’ Medici. He’s the one who put this together to welcome Signore Soderini to Florence,” the guard says.
Leonardo and the guard are nearly brow to brow now, the man sucked in by Leonardo’s easy charm. I grab his arm and tug.
“We’ve gotten this all wrong,” I say.
Leonardo’s brows shoot upward. “We have?”
I tug him again, harder. He’s more solid than marble and apparently, in this moment, just as dense. “Yes, wrong house. Let’s go.”
I yank again, and Leonardo finally stumbles after me. I don’t let go until we round the corner, well out of the guard’s sight line. He crosses his arms and scowls. “Oh, come now, I almost had us in!”
“The guard’s sword pommel has the same design as the stolen key.”
“So?”
“I had a bad feeling about it!” I flap my hands, unable to explain more than that. “And Lorenzo has seen us before. If he recognized us there…”
Leonardo sighs and massages his temples. “He probably wouldn’t have.” But he doesn’t argue with me further.
I fist my hand and lay it against a slick wooden door, feeling like a failure.
Even though I’ve wanted to find Niccolo, even though unraveling the mystery of his disappearance is all I want, the prospect of having answers—or even coming face-to-face with him—terrifies me.
Leonardo created a chance for me to learn, and I couldn’t take it.
My old fears spilled out, coins from an unfastened purse.
All I could do was collect them and run.
I squeeze my eyes shut and force myself to say the words I can barely think. “What if Niccolo got in trouble?” I can’t stop hearing the thud of the prior’s body as it hit the floor, his blood soaking my clothes. “What if the Medici hurt him?”
I already thought he was dead once.
What if I find him only to lose him again?
You’re going to lose him no matter what. You’re going to lose everyone.
Leonardo drapes his hand over mine, grounding me. I don’t realize until then that I’m panting, short hard bursts like I’m running for my life.
“Piero de’ Medici wouldn’t keep a portrait of a troublemaker in the Palazzo della Signoria, much less care enough to move it.
” He doesn’t gentle his voice. It comes out the way he’d say anything else, like it’s a fact, and it’s unreasonable for me to argue with his facts, because he knows about a million more of them than I do.
I suck in a big breath, my fingers shifting under his.
I ought to pull away, but I can’t bring myself to.
“Niccolo’s older than me. Big fox and little fox…
they’re our childhood nicknames. I used to hate it, because what kid wants to constantly be reminded that he’s younger and smaller than his brother?
But when he called me little fox, I didn’t mind. ”
Why am I telling him this? There are reasons I chose not to, but I can’t remember them anymore.
I feel Leonardo’s heartbeat in the center of his palm, star-warm and steady. “You looked up to him. He was your world.” His other hand lifts to my cheekbone, brushing away a rogue tear. When did I start sodding crying? He tilts my chin up, so I have no choice but to look at him.
“What happened between you two?” His hand is soft against my icy cheek. “I promise, I’m not trying to pry. I just want to understand.” His throat hitches when I say nothing. “You don’t have to tell me if you—”
My heart roars, even as my body freezes. “No, I do.”
He’s touching me. He’s cradling my face.
And I finally feel brave enough to spill the shameful story I’ve shared only once before, in the darkness of the confessional.
“My brother said he was leaving for a job that would buy Casa delle Volpi twice over. I didn’t trust the sound of that, so I begged him to take me with him.
He took off his ring and asked me to keep it safe instead.
He had to leave alone because I’d only slow him down.
” The snow was sugaring the street, his red cloak the brightest thing in the world, and for the first time in our lives, my brother told me he didn’t need me. My breath stutters even remembering it.
“My brother was nothing like our father, but all I could hear was his voice, telling me I would never be enough. I knocked the ring aside and told him to go because I couldn’t stand the sight of him.
” I’ll never forget the answering hurt on his face, how he lifted his arms helplessly and asked if I’d at least hug him goodbye, just in case something happened.
I turned away instead.
And Niccolo left, but not in anger.
He left crying. His hot tears still couldn’t thaw the ice in my chest. I didn’t go after him or take the words back.
A week later, he was missing. Only then did fear slide into my anger, chisel out a nice little hollow to fill with curdling shame.
My brother was gone, and I hadn’t hugged him goodbye when he’d begged me to. I’d turned my back on him instead. I’d made him cry. After all he’d done for me. This was how I treated the person I loved most.
I’m crying now. Big, ugly sobs that shake my bones.
I’m suddenly stumbling forward, a wall of warmth under my cheek.
Leonardo has pulled me into an embrace so tight, it almost holds me together.
He mutters a soothing stream of softness against my temple.
Tender words I don’t deserve. I’m the boy with the heart of ice, and he’s the sun itself.
I’ll freeze him out too if he gets too close.
“You were upset, Virgil,” he says. “Everyone makes mistakes when they’re frightened.”
“You wouldn’t. All you ever wanted was a sibling with your rust-gold hair.”
He squeezes me once, but doesn’t deny it. His fingers trace patterns on my back. A circle. A star. A shape that feels like the very first letter of my name. The motion makes my blood slow, my hands unclench. I can’t remember the last time anyone held me.
“What are you going to do after you find him?” Leonardo says abruptly.
“What?”
His face is sfumato through a gritty haze. “Sometimes when things feel awful, I imagine what happens next. For me, I’d like to open my own workshop. I’ve decided leaving Verrocchio’s doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”
My stomach knots strangely. Verrocchio’s won’t be the same without you.
Which yes, obviously. There are two dozen apprentices; people cycle in and out of the place all the time. Leonardo was always going to leave someday. But… I can’t imagine myself there without him.
You won’t even be there a year from now. This is a good thing. The best thing. He’ll never have to see you die. The thought is a heart-stopping kick to the chest—sobering enough to chase away the rest of my tears.
“That’s great,” I finally choke out. “You’d get the recognition you deserve, the chance to honor your stepmother’s legacy. You’d finally have everything you want.”
He smiles, the expression seeming to hide something else. “Would I?”
Is this a test? “You just told me it’s what you want.”
“Virgil.” He looks down at me, his freckles dark little stars against his moon-pale skin. My eyes get lost tracking them, searching for constellations in the chaos. “Don’t be ridiculous. I could never open a workshop alone. You’d have to be there too.”
“You want a workshop with me?”
Did we trick our way into the Medici house after all and eat mind-bending truffles?
Did unearthing my most shameful secret knock my brain sideways?
I can’t imagine why else Leonardo would say this.
I can’t paint anymore. He knows this. Even if I weren’t facing an untimely demise, I’m the worst business partner imaginable.
And yet… there’s a curl of longing cresting in me like smoke from a snuffed-out candle.
Before Niccolo disappeared, before I had to put my family’s well-being ahead of my wishes, before I bargained away all of my days, opening a workshop had been my dream too.
A sudden movement at my side: an opening door.
Leonardo tugs me from the path of a snorting horse that has no business being that big.
My shocked face is reflected in its glassy eye.
Sodding hell, it almost trampled me! Do the Medici not look before they unleash their monstrous beasts into the city?
“Gesù Cristo,” an oddly familiar voice grumbles. “Move!”
Two pages lead out the enormous bay. Astride it glowers a handsome, bored young man.
I just barely get a glimpse of the rider’s face before he gallops into the rain.
Shock kicks my mouth open. “It’s him!”
My brother.
Alive and just ahead.