Chapter Forty-Two
The Medici’s private dining hall is overwhelming.
The floor is covered with dark, tasseled rugs.
Gigantic tapestries of an Olympian symposium hang from the walls.
A gold candle-branch hangs from the ceiling, all its lit candles glittering and reflecting off the crystals dangling from its arms. The table is stacked with delicacies, enough food to feed all the artists in Verrocchio’s workshop for an entire week.
But there’s only one person sitting at the table.
Piero de’ Medici flashes a dazzling smile. “Thank you for joining me.”
I hesitate when I see the two extra places set across the table on either side of Piero.
When I don’t move, a guard shoves my back.
I hold my breath and perch on the very edge of my seat.
I don’t like being split up from Leonardo.
Even this short distance from him feels like a trap, just big enough for something awful to slip between us like a knife betwixt the ribs.
There’s a soft pressure against my booted foot.
Leonardo’s eyes snag mine from across a platter of roasted meat. They gleam with a promise. I’m still right here.
I expect someone to set out a place for Lorenzo—mustn’t they have miscounted, when there’s four of us?—but instead he stands behind his father’s chair like a sentinel. Or a servant.
Piero sips his wine. “So, you discovered our little secret.”
“Which one? The fact that angels are demons or that you kill people so they can be possessed?” I hate how he talks about whatever we saw like it’s an inside joke, when a girl died in my arms with no memory of what happened to her. I hate him, and I don’t think I’ve ever truly hated before.
I lean forward, smiling viciously. I shouldn’t say it like this—keeping it a secret might be more useful—but I want to anger Piero de’ Medici the way he’s angered me. “Or your own bargain with the devil?”
The old man’s eyes flash red.
And then I start to choke.
I scramble to unclench the force around my windpipe. There’s nothing there—no hand, no garrote—but the awful pressure builds, squeezing tighter until my vision tunnels, until all I can see is Leonardo’s freckled face widening with a scream—
The strangling feeling vanishes as quick as it came.
I thud against my chairback, chest heaving. Lorenzo looks away from me, his jaw squared.
Madonna santa, Clarice de’ Medici was right.
Piero flexes his hand. “My family owes much to the devil.” His red-limned eyes go to the bargain marks on my arms. I fight the urge to yank my too-short sleeves lower. “I see you’ve taken much of the devil’s magic for yourself, boy. You have no right to judge us.”
Except I’ve only damned myself, not innocent people who believed a lie.
“Your bargain with the devil is different. You can wield magic.” Leonardo is curiously calm. As if everything we’re discussing is entirely plausible. “What did the devil want for it?”
Piero takes a sip of wine and slams the glass on the table. “You think us foolish enough to tell you?”
Leonardo shrugs. “Perhaps. Your ancestor was foolish enough to make a deal with the devil. It’s not as if one of those has ever gone wrong.”
The red in Piero’s eyes pulses. The candles gutter, and a familiar incoming-storm feeling prickles my skin. It’s like Lupa’s magic but wrong, all wrong. No crackle of latent lightning—something more jagged, rotten.
Lorenzo grips his father’s shoulder. Piero’s hand twitches, like he’d love nothing more than to slap his son away, but instead he releases a long, low breath, and the candlelight steadies.
“You already know. What all demons want.” Piero’s voice has a sulky edge to it now. “Souls.”
Leonardo flings an arm over his chairback, head tipping to the side. “Don’t you care what the devil’s doing with them? He must need souls for a reason.”
Piero steeples his fingers, danger flashing in his eyes. “You are an annoying worm, aren’t you?” A muscle strains in his jaw. The movement pulses through the room like a water ripple. “Do not mistake being here with being my equal. I will crush you the moment you stop being useful.”
A blistering heat boils me from the inside. “Don’t fucking touch him.”
They took Lupa. They took my brother. They will not take him.
Piero recoils with surprise, but I barely see it. The edges of the room have gone hazy. I can feel Leonardo’s gaze on me, but I can’t look. I might vibrate out of my skin.
You have less than a year to live rattles around my brain like the last coin in a purse.
Perhaps it’ll be too late for me, but it won’t be for Leonardo.
I won’t let anything happen to him.
Lorenzo lifts his hands for peace, speaking for the first time. His voice seems small compared to his father’s. “Our ancestor tricked the devil and found a way to limit his power just as we limit the power of the demons here.”
“It didn’t work with Lupa, though. You couldn’t control her.” The understanding comes to me in a sudden rush. “That’s why you attacked her at Verrocchio’s.”
Piero laughs, the sound harsh and grating. “We took care of her in the end, didn’t we?”
I’m not so sure they did. Lupa’s hidden vial presses into my thigh, hot as an ember. I kept it hidden in my smallclothes as I bathed, returning it to my pocket when no one was watching. She gave it to me before she left. She knew what would happen to her and went willingly to her fate.
There must be a reason for it.
Piero throws down his napkin. “Come. We’ll show you how we do it.”
Neither Leonardo nor I move.
Piero smiles. Then he says the words I can’t resist. The ones that would get me to follow them anywhere.
“Don’t you want to know what happened to your brother’s soul?”