Page 42 of A Dangerous Bargain

“That’s a feeling.”

A spark of understanding strikes across her face. “I have tasted them in memories. All you need to do is find a way to unhurt the feelings, then! Where is the cure? The apothecary?”

If only it were that simple! Leonardo said he wasn’t ready to forgive Lupa, but he’s upset with me. I can’t imagine why, because last I knew, I was not the dastardly villain lying about demons being angels—

My insides clench with a horrid realization.

His beloved stepmother died because of bargains. What if it had been Niccolo in her place? How would I feel if I learned demons had stolen his life? Leonardo was honest with me about the worst moment of his past—something he’d never shared with anyone else at the workshop—and when the moment mattered for me to remember, to care about how what we had just discovered might bruise his deepest, oldest wound… I said nothing. Didn’t even think about it.

I groan, forehead thumping to the worktable. This is bad, even for me.

I’ve got to make it up to him.

Verrocchio’s eyebrows rise at the plink of my coin purse on his desk later that afternoon. “I’d like to commission a bronze piece.”

“Are you certain?”

It’s not unheard of for an apprentice to place a commission, but I’ve never done it before, and he knows I’m supporting my family. Mamma could always use a spare denier: for my sisters, meals, entertaining other wealthy Florentines so she can preserve our family’s reputation. She’d scream if she knew I had extra money and hadn’t given it to her.

I push the coins closer to Verrocchio. “I am.”

He sweeps my money away before I can change my mind. “All right. What do you want? I reckon I can get it done by next—”

“I was hoping to make it myself—if that’s all right?” A nervy spasm tangles the statement into a question.

Is it my imagination, or does Verrocchio hide a smile in a cough? “Trying to impress someone, ragazzo?”

My blush blazes down to my bones. “No! Of course not.”

Verrocchio waves me off, not believing me for a second. “ ’Tis none of my business anyway. Shall I go show you how to use the tools?”

“No, I’ll work it out myself.”

Verrocchio’s eyebrows rise. I raise my chin so he knows I mean it. Then one of his eyebrows rises even higher, nearly touching his red cap.

I cross my arms, going for confidence and not petulance. “I can do it. Truly.”

This time, my master doesn’t bother to hide his amusement. “Suit yourself. It’s harder than it looks.”

He’s not wrong. It takes me three days to get it right. The other apprentices ask me what I’m doing, why I’m working with metal and not paint, but I snarl at them to shut it and leave me. I don’t want the surprise ruined. When my head is down, I feel Leonardo watching me from behind the Medici wedding portrait, his gaze a hand on the back of my neck, but he always makes sure I never catch him looking. His curiosity should distract me, but instead it feels like the vanishing point—the thing which all my time and effort race toward.

When it’s finished, I return to my spot beside Leonardo and resume working on the wedding portrait. Now that we’re working with paint, it’s becoming glaringly, humiliatingly obvious that without magic, I’m useless. I glob the paint on too thickly, shade too heavily or not enough. A few days ago, I tried to blend a dab of white around Lorenzo’s eye just to realize too late it wasn’t paint at all: A sodding pigeon had shat on the painting from the rafters. Leonardo always waits until everyone leaves at the end of the workday to fix my errors so no one notices. He does it silently, neither of us talking about it, a snide comment never leaving his lips.

’Tis far nicer than I deserve, which is why my heart is pounding while I wait for the workshop to clear out for the night.

When the door closes behind the last apprentice, Leonardo breaks the taut silence first. “What’s with all the fidgeting today?” He tilts his head, smirking. “Eager to tell me what I’ve done wrong with the painting?”

For the first time, I understand that his smooth smiles and witty words are a mask. He hides behind them just the way I do my frowns. “I like what you’re doing. I haven’t had anything to say about it for days.”

“I noticed,” he says lightly, carefully, those dark eyes never leaving mine for a moment. “What have you been doing with Verrocchio’s metalworking tools? Giorgio’s saying you’re making a great, big golden phallus for Lorenzo de’ Medici.”

Giorgio would think that. “I was making you this.”

He squints at the misshapen lump on my palm, an unreadable expression dashing across his face for a blink. “What is it?”

Why has my heart crawled up into my throat? “A locket. You’re too careless with your stepmother’s hair. You might put it through the wash, or one of the cats might eat it, and then you’d be all sad and demand that everyone poke apart their hairballs for weeks—” I cut myself off. Madonna santa. Why do my mouth and brain conspire against me? I’m supposed to be begging for his forgiveness, not telling him how he’s doing everything wrong.

I swallow, chagrin and regret hot cinders shooting through my veins. “Sorry. I’m not good at saying the right thing.”