Page 43 of A Dangerous Bargain

Leonardo’s mouth twitches. “You’re really not. It’s astonishing how bad you are at it.” But there’s no malice behind the words. Leonardo takes the locket from me. It looks ridiculous all of a sudden. Ugly, the edges uneven and jagged, the color somewhere between amber and gold. Because I couldn’t afford a chain, it’s strung on a leather loop that’s already fraying. I was so proud when I strung the loop through it this afternoon, but seeing all its imperfections in his hand makes me want to snatch it back. “If you don’t want it—”

“I do.” He opens the back and plucks the dark curl from his pocket.

And hesitates.

The back of my neck cools with sweat. Is there something wrong? Did Giorgio add an embellishment to the metal when I wasn’t looking? “Are you sure? Because you’re not acting like—”

He puts the hair inside the hollow and snaps it closed. “It’s marvelous. Thank you.”

Marvelous? ’Tis serviceable at best, and we both know it. “But?”

He bites his lip. Then words spill out quickly. “I’m not careless. I just try not to hold on too hard to the things I cherish.”

Wait, he wants to lose the last thing he has of his stepmother? I cross my arms and lean back on my stool. “You wouldn’t happen to be like this about your money, too, would you? Because there’s this house I’d love to buy.”

He grimaces, like he’d rather not say more about it. “It makes it easier when… things leave. I can pretend I lost them instead.”

“Instead of what?”

“Instead of them leaving me,” he confesses to the painting.

“Your stepmother didn’t mean to leave you. That’s not why she made her bargains.” I run my tongue along the back of my teeth, oddly angry. I can’t tell if it’s at him or for him. “That’s a rubbish way to think. Does anyone deserve the people they cherish?” I think of my brother’s face crinkled with laughter, the sea of kindness in him that had no horizon.

“Perhaps, but my father did leave me here and told me not to bother him until I finished my apprenticeship. And I know I can’t stay in Verrocchio’s workshop forever, but it’s the only place that’s felt like home for a long time.” He slings the leather loop over his head, adjusting the fall of it just so. “People and places get all tangled up for me. I’m not sure that makes sense.”

A strange softness fills my chest, smothers the anger. “Feelings don’t have to make sense.” I nod to his locket. “I hope this can feel a bit like home to you, then.”

Leonardo touches the locket, peering at me from underneath his eyelashes. “I think it will.”

That look of his makes my heart thud. I let out a long, shaky breath and say the thing I meant to say at the beginning. “I’m sorry for making you think I didn’t care about your stepmother. I didn’t consider how knowing it was demons who stole her life would make you feel.”

He looks away again. “This whole time I’ve been able to imagine her in heaven, but what if I’m wrong?”

“You’re not.” Someone Leonardo loved could never be a bad person. It’s simply not possible.

He gives me a small, fragile smile. “But we can’t know. And Lupa doesn’t either.” He shrugs at my obvious surprise. “I believe that Lupa can’t remember anything before she came to earth. More importantly, I don’t think she’s the problem. The Medici are playing with darkness and passing it off as holiness. They’re the reason my mother gave up her soul for a lie. And I think you’re right too.”

“Me?” He’s never admitted I’m right about anything.

“Yes, you.” He pokes my chest with a sly, self-assured expression that finally feels like him. “We can’t say Florence’s beloved angels are demons without proof. Do you think your brother’s disappearance and the Medici’s lies could be related? Because I think they could be.”

He’s talking so fast, it takes me a moment to catch up. Then I laugh, the sound closer to a moan.

Niccolo didn’t just know. He told me about it.

Leonardo grabs my shoulders, my answer clear on my bloodless face. “Show me.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The red leather cover of Dante’s Inferno has an oily shine in the candlelight. “Your favorite book is horrifying. Drowning in rivers of boiling blood?” Leonardo flips through the pages. “No wonder you have such a melancholic disposition.”

I make a noncommittal noise—not because I disagree—but because I can’t get over the fact that he’s next to my bed. Leaning alongside it, actually. He’s practically under the covers!

Leonardo holds up Niccolo’s warning note, one dark brow lifting. “You’ve had your brother’s warning for two years and never thought to say anything about it until now?”

He doesn’t need to know our thorny history. “I’ve only had it for a few weeks.”

Leonardo closes the Inferno, marking his place with Niccolo’s note. “Well, it doesn’t get much more obvious than an ominous warning hidden in a book about voyaging to hell, does it? Your brother knew something.”