Chapter Fifty-Eight
I wake up in silence.
Actually no, not quite. There are pigeons on the windowsill, their cooing noises coming in through the glass. And sunlight. I blink into the brightness, wondering if something went wrong and I’m dead after all.
A soft gasp brings me back to the present.
Leonardo da Vinci crouches on the floor, covered in blood, his eyes wide like he’s seen a ghost or a minotaur or one of those frightening baby Jesus paintings where the holy infant looks like a middle-aged man with spider hands.
“Sorry,” he whispers. “I didn’t see you there.”
My eyes burn. It’s the very first thing he said to me, all those years ago, when he was just a too-handsome, too-bright new apprentice, and I was a storm cloud of a boy who had no idea that the love of his life had just walked into the workshop to set his world ablaze.
He takes in the rest of me, breathing unsteadily. “Did you know you’re covered in blood?”
I drag a hand across my chest, feeling the edges of the rip in my shirt and the puckered new scar on my ribs beneath it. “Yes. I think I’ll be all right, though.”
He nods, the movement fast and jerky. “Good! That’s good. I, uh—”
“Didn’t need to deal with a stranger’s corpse on the strangest day of your life?” I say dryly.
The tiny divot I love appears between his brow, there and gone so fast, I barely catch it. I probably shouldn’t tease him. I have no idea how his memories have rearranged themselves, how his mind could rewrite the past day or years without me being in them. I don’t want to drive him mad.
At least not with this.
“Sorry.” He apologizes again. “My memory is a bit muddled.”
The corners of my mouth kick up. “I understand.”
I get to my feet. Golden sunlight slants into the office now, falling upon the empty ornate gold portrait frame with nothing but ripped canvas stuck to its edges. The water is already receding in the piazza below, the flood backing off as suddenly as it came.
Piero de’ Medici’s body is still lying face down in a burst of blood. Red and not gold. I touch the body with the toe of my boot, just to confirm he’s well and truly dead. I’m not taking any goddamn chances. “ ’Tis a pity he fell on his dagger, is it not?”
Leonardo startles, blinking in confusion. “What?”
I lift my eyes to his, enunciating each word clearly. “I said ’tis a pity he fell.”
His eyes widen, then narrow, finally figuring out what I’m trying to say.
If neither of us saw who killed Piero de’ Medici, then neither of us killed him.
“Yes, a shame,” Leonardo says. “He was quite the patron of the arts.”
I can’t hold back a snort this time. “He had terrible taste, though.”
In the piazza, guards wade through the water and head for the palazzo. It’ll take them a while to get up here, but I have no doubt Piero’s office will be one of the first rooms they check. We need to be gone before they arrive.
I turn back to Leonardo, wipe my bloodstained hand on my thigh, and offer it to him. “I’m Virgil.”
He stares at my hand like he’s never seen one before. There’s that divot again. “Leonardo. I’m an apprentice at Master Verrocchio’s workshop.” He glances around the blood-soaked room, shaking his head. “And I have no sodding clue how I got here.”
I bite back a laugh. I know what you do, I want to whisper. I was an apprentice with you.
He finally grasps my wrist and pulls himself up. “Sorry, but… do I know you? It feels like—” He bites off the rest of the sentence with an embarrassed laugh, dragging his other hand through his hair.
I smile, and the expression is so big, so dazzling, I can feel it lifting up my entire soul. “No, but you will.”
I hold his hand a second longer than necessary before letting go.