Page 33 of A Dangerous Bargain

“Eating fat figs in their golden halls—”

“The likes of them are not welcome here…”

The back of my neck stings. Clapping a hand over it, I whirl around, half expecting to see someone tickling it with a blade. “Hey, Lupa, remember what happened last time? If you’re going to do something, think you could hurry up and do it?”

She hisses and flutters her hands over the fountain’s filthy edge. “Give me your knife.”

I’m not thrilled to hand over our only weapon, but the sooner we leave, the sooner I won’t need it anymore. I offer Lupa my dagger.

She grabs it by the sharpened edge and squeezes.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God.” Leonardo claps a hand over his mouth, gagging.

A gush of gold drips from Lupa’s hand into the water. The crowd gasps and screams, half of them lurching away, half heaving forward for a better look. Someone pushes Leonardo from behind and nearly knocks him in. I steady him by the waist, snarling a curse over my shoulder.

“Look!” a child cries with a pointed finger.

As the gold eddies through the water, it doesn’t dilute. Instead the water shimmers clear, then gold itself, a pale, translucent shade that reminds me of delicate gold leaf on the very tip of my brush.

A woman dips her palm into the glowing water and trickles it into the mouth of her coughing toddler. The pink flush of health fills her wan cheeks. She giggles, and the crowd hushes.

Tears sparkle in the young mother’s eyes. “The angels have blessed our corner of the city at last!”

The cry zips through the crowd, catching faster than fire, swelling mightier than a flood.

Lupa’s brow is beaded with moisture, her pointed teeth are bared in a grimace. She squeezes the dagger tighter and gasps as the trickle becomes a sickening gush. “Stop, you’ll hurt yourself!” I grab her wrist, forcing her to release the knife.

It plunges into the water.

Lupa doubles over, tendons going rigid in her neck, her hands curling into fists. When they unclench, there’s not a single mark on the skin, but her teeth chatter. She sways once, twice—

Leonardo and I catch her before she falls. He’s breathing quickly, eyes bouncing from the golden fountain waters to Lupa. “I thought angels could only make bargains with the workshop or house they were bound to?”

That was the entire point of the binding ceremony, was it not? Why else would Lupa sink her teeth into our palms and the priest proclaim she belonged to us and only us?

“This was no bargain. I asked these people for nothing,” Lupa pants.

“Are you allowed to do that?” I harden my voice to hide the tremble. To hell with Verrocchio being cross with me for letting Lupa escape again. She’s using magic in a way I’ve never seen before, never heard of angels using before. It feels wrong, blasphemous. A violation I should report to someone.

But as I watch the magicked water stop coughs and cure runny eyes, I can’t deny that something about it also feels indeterminably right.

Why is she so different?

Lupa’s eyes burn green-gold, the pupils nearly swallowed by the light. “I don’t know,” she says softly.

I shiver, unsure if she’s answering the question I’ve asked aloud or the one I’ve thought.

Leonardo jerks his chin toward the duomo’s distant shape, closer to home. The only thing that causes more of a riot than murder is a miracle, and we’re in the epicenter of the biggest miracle Florence has seen since the first angel stumbled out the cathedral’s doors.

We leave, fighting against an endless stream of people hurrying to the golden fountain, the rumors of a well that cures all illness already racing to every edge of the neighborhood. People fall to their knees, crying and giving thanks to heaven.

“See?” Lupa leans heavily on both of us. “I can help people too.”

I open my mouth—but nothing comes out. What is there to say? Everything I thought I knew about angels has been upended. I don’t know how I feel about it or what to think.

“I saw. I believe you.” Leonardo tugs on his bottom lip, lost in thought.

A cicada-buzz chirrs in my ears. The longer Leonardo stays quiet, the louder it swells. He’s never kept a thought to himself, so what’s he thinking now? What did he see back there that I didn’t? I need him to tell me so I can make sense of it.