Chapter Thirty-Seven
Tell me about what?” Leonardo says. Then he gasps, darting to the terrifying edge of the tower so suddenly, I scream, certain I’ll see him dashed to his death on the greatest architectural marvel in the world, but no, he just points to the rooflines with an expression of absolute wonder. “Look at it!”
The city spreads beneath us, a softly lit maze of shadows studded with pinpricks of light. Beyond the arc of the city walls rise hills, undulating through the distance until they go black against the backdrop of the stars. Clouds blot out the sky to the southwest. A storm is coming.
Leonardo’s fingers flex, as if clutching a charcoal stick, as if when confronted with such a stunning view, he can’t help but try to capture it for later.
The sight makes me ache. No matter what else is happening, he’s always so… him.
“Florence looks good from up here. Smells quite a bit better too.”
Leonardo cackles, and I bite back a smile. When did his laugh become my favorite sound? I know I’m the one who should be answering his question, but I have one of my own. “Why were you there tonight?”
His fingers still trace soft patterns of nothing. “You’re very predictable.” He pauses, shooting me a knowing glare. “You’ve never listened to another soul in your entire life. I knew you’d find a way into the Medici wedding, and I knew whatever disaster happened, it’d be best if I was there too.”
My heart is a cracked pane of glass. One touch would shatter me. “You came for me? Even after I was awful to you?”
He stops sketching the skyline. He won’t quite look at me. “Of course, Virgil. I just wish you’d let me be there from the beginning. You promised me you wouldn’t see your brother alone.”
I cup his jaw, gently turning him toward me. He blinks, face softening even as his gaze grows darker, more intense. He places one of those long, elegant hands over mine, pressing my skin closer to his.
“I did want you there,” I confess. “But I don’t always know how to let people be there.”
He tilts his head, pressing his lips to my palm. A butterfly-soft kiss. “I know, tesoro. That’s why I found you.”
The gentleness of those words! I don’t know if I want to kiss him back or sit down and cry.
He makes a sound, a murmur not quite my name, and then both his hands go to my face, tracing tender paths of fire. “We figured it out. We’re here now, aren’t we?”
An exquisite pain spikes through me. I saw him every day for four years.
We ate meals together, painted together, sat through mass together.
I know the sound of his footsteps and the shape of his shadow.
I would hear his voice in any crowd. How could I not have known what he meant to me for so long?
I was spoiled with an abundance of him and didn’t know it.
I would do anything to live through one of those mundane moments again. It all feels different now, pastel-toned and fragile.
I didn’t know what I had until it was too late.
“Why are you crying?” He brushes the tears away, featherlight and tentative.
My ribs are cracking, and my body shakes. “I have less than a year to live. I made too many bargains, just like your stepmother. That’s why I left. Why I pushed you away. I didn’t want you to know.”
I brace for his reaction, to watch the horrible surprise crawl across his face and settle into his bones as a gutting truth.
But there’s nothing on his face except that tender, unbearable softness. “I know, Virgil.”
I sniff, not understanding. “You know… what?”
He takes me into his arms, strokes a hand up and down my back to ease the shivers. “I know you’re dying. I’ve suspected it for a long time. When your magic stopped working but you wouldn’t make any bargains with Lupa… it wasn’t hard to put together.”
“Then you know why we can’t be together.”
A steely expression slips over his face. “I don’t know about that.”
“Do you think I never asked Lupa if she could save me?” I snap. “I’m not letting you ruin your life for me.”
“Bold of you to assume you could ruin it better than I could myself.”
He smirks, and I jerk away with a huff. How does he not understand? He has a future, and I don’t. He deserves everything, and I can give him nothing. In a city full of dealmakers, he’s the worst bargainer I’ve ever met.
“Virgil,” he says cajolingly, the backs of his fingertips racing lightly down my jaw. I reluctantly face him again, trying to keep all the ice out of my expression. “You don’t get to decide for me.”
I lean away from him. “Perhaps I should.”
He throws up his hands in frustration. “Do you know what I’ve always hated about you?”
“Quite a start to a romantic speech!”
He growls, yanking the edge of my doublet so we’re chest-to-chest. “When I joined Verrocchio’s workshop, there was no doubt who the best artist there was.
But when I gave you competition for the title, when I first finished a piece that made Verrocchio look away from you to me…
something in you gave up. You were still the best, but you acted like you had already lost. I saw you go to the workshop’s dark corner, blood already welling on your arms. I watched the black marks multiply across your skin, and I wondered why.
Why is this boy with so much talent retreating into himself, relying on magic he doesn’t need? ”
“I needed it,” I say. “I wasn’t enough on my own.”
Why is he saying this? He knows my brother was gone. I needed money, not masterpieces. I did what I had to.
His dark eyes grow furious beneath the red-gold mess of his hair.
There’s no hiding from him like this, his glare pinning me like a butterfly to a book.
Like I’m a rare specimen he’s studied for ages and he’s determined to tell me everything he’s learned from his yearslong apprenticeship whether I want to hear it or not.
“But you were, Virgil. You always give up on yourself first, before anyone else even has a chance to be disappointed in you. I didn’t pick Verrocchio’s workshop because it was the best place for me.
I didn’t pick it because it paid better.
I picked it because you were the one artist who refused to tell me I was already great, and I knew that meant only you could make me better.
I had to see you again, no matter what.” His nails dig into my skin, hard enough to scratch furious white lines.
“I hate how you give up on yourself. I hate how you think you’re not worth it.
I hate how you insist on making yourself smaller when you’re the biggest thing in my life. ”
A comet could smash me to pieces right then and I’d be less shocked. He joined because of me? All those years ago? “Having a crush is a terrible reason to pick a place of employment.” I need to joke; I need to pull the bottom out from this moment to make it light enough to bear.
Because what he’s saying… it can’t be true.
I’ve never been the best at anything in my life. I’m the second son, the second brother, the apprentice you put in when your better one is busy.
He scoffs, disgusted with me. “That stubborn mouth of yours—”
Then his mouth is on mine, lips and teeth and tongue and, God, I feel it all the way in my toes. I bury my hands in his hair and pull, my core going molten when he gasps against me.
Even though he’s cracked me open like some hard-shelled creature plucked from the sea, there’s nothing soft about this kiss.
It’s hot and urgent, all roving hands and nipping teeth.
He groans when I bite his bottom lip, and I sigh into his mouth when his cool hands sneak into my doublet.
This kiss feels like a fight, and I’ve always loved fighting with him.
This is all we can ever be to each other. Right now—mouths and hands and bodies discovering how they fit together. He’s going to be someone great long after I’m just smudged fingerprints on a forgotten canvas.
I hope some part of me stays in his heart forever, untarnished and pristine. Will he think of me when he limns an angel’s hand with gold? Will he remember the bow of my lips when he paints them pink on a lovely face?
No longer afraid of falling, I deepen our kiss and let him push me against a column, only to gasp when wetness seeps through the back of my clothes. “It’s raining?”
Leonardo blinks, puzzled. “But we’re not getting wet.”
Lupa crouches on the arch of the colonnade above us.
I don’t know how long she’s been there, but it must’ve been for a while from the way her damp hair is plastered to her neck, how water drips off her nose.
Those great golden wings still unfurl from her shoulders, their glow more subdued now, their edges blurring and sizzling each time a droplet hits them.
They’re extended over us.
But she doesn’t look down. Her stare is intense, furious even, trained on the too-dark horizon like it’s personally wronged her in some way. Tears course down her face, mixing with the rain, but she makes no move to stop them.
It’s the wildest and the most human I’ve ever seen her look.
Leonardo cranes his head back. The hand not holding mine rises, tentatively touching the gleaming gold feathers just barely in his reach. He flinches when the entire wing ripples, like the disturbed surface of a pond.
“Lupa,” he says. “Do you mind if we stay here?”
“Why?” I demand, instantly anxious.
His stare drags back to me. He traces my jaw with the edge of his thumb, sliding his hand around the back of my neck.
“Because as soon as we leave this cathedral, we’ll have to deal with the Medici,” he murmurs, pressing his lips to mine again.
“And you keep telling me you don’t have enough time.
” One knee eases betwixt mine, slowly, tantalizingly.
“So we might as well make the most of what time we do have.”
A spark zips through me, then explodes. It’s fire down a slick of oil, to a barrel, no, to an entire warehouse filled with barrels of oil, and Madonna santa, I think I might be dead already.
“I don’t know how—”
“I do, if you’re willing.” He presses his lips to my neck and sucks.
A bitten-off sound slips from me. I tilt my head back, giving him more access to my skin.
Letting the full strength of my want course through me feels like releasing the sails of a ship in a storm.
It should frighten me, but instead I want to follow it.
“I want you,” I say breathlessly. “All of you.”
His smile unfurls against my skin like a glorious sunrise. “I was hoping you’d say that.”