Page 3 of A Dangerous Bargain

Too late.

The angel crashes across the room, his hands already around Giorgio’s neck.

“Give me a taste of your life, ragazzo. You have so much of it!”

Giorgio screams, flopping like a rag doll. Blood wells on the skin of his neck where the angel’s sharp nails dig in. The other apprentices swarm, sobbing and yelling, pulling and tugging on the angel to no avail. The angel looks like an old man, but he isn’t one. He’s stronger than all of us.

A sour taste surges into my mouth. I need to move. I need to distract the angel with blood. I’m the one in charge this morning. It’s my job to do something.

But I can’t.

I’m paralyzed by a swirl of red against white, the last time I failed someone who needed me.

A guttural roar rips me from the memory. Leonardo has stabbed a palette knife deep into his own arm. Blood flecks his freckled cheeks.

The angel drops Giorgio with a sickening thud. His eyes—too bright, like candles at the end of their tallow—take up his entire face. “At last. A taste of you.”

Leonardo lifts his arm, teeth gritted. “I’ve been told I’m delicious.”

The angel leaps forward, pointed teeth bared.

But mid-stride, his body spasms.

Then falls.

Master Verrocchio stands behind the angel, his brown skin gleaming with wetness. A slick sword trembles in his hand.

The angel splays on his back, his fingers twitching like insect legs. I finally snap into action and skid to his side, take the head into my lap.

The angel’s rheumy, bloodshot eyes latch onto mine. He brushes the scars inked into my skin with something like tenderness. “Such a lovely life!” His jagged nails stroke me too hard, leaving behind angry pink lines. “So lovely.”

He twitches one final time. Goes still.

Noise and movement erupt. Hands surround me, one bigger and more freckled than all the rest.

But I don’t take it. I can barely see it.

All I can see is the blood on the dead angel’s chin.

His blood isn’t red, but a deep, dark gold.

CHAPTER TWO

The church bells toll for the angel’s death.

I open my window to better listen to them. Verrocchio’s attic is cold in the winter and sweltering in the summer, so no one wanted it. After Niccolo disappeared, I claimed it as mine. I relish the frigid air on my face and try my hardest to crush the twinge of dread I haven’t been able to smother since the angel attacked.

Six priests came, four for the angel’s body, two to interrogate Master Verrocchio, because it’s a capital offense to harm one of the holy beings. The priests looked unhappy with Verrocchio, even after all of us had assured them he had only done it to protect us. I was unhappy too, but I kept it to myself. It’s not my fault the angel attacked Giorgio, but the way the other apprentices refused to make eye contact with me afterward made me feel like it was.

I shiver. Not wanting to brood any longer, I latch the window shut and leave.

Verrocchio’s house sits beside his workshop. As the person who leads the morning exercises, I’m the only apprentice with a key. I patter across the courtyard and its dead gardens to the workshop door. When I move to unlock it, a shadow charges from the darkness.

“Wait! Not without me!” Leonardo pants, catching himself on a wall a second before smacking into it. He’s inexplicably shoeless, clad only in tight-fitting hose and bare-chested underneath his wool cloak. He looks like a ridiculous pagan sorcerer.

My eyebrows pop up. “Were you spying on me?”

“No, I was watching for you. It’s completely different.”