Page 66 of A Dangerous Bargain

Lupa crashed through the stones, and then Leonardo came creeping in after her, both of them like the horrible cats I couldn’t keep from my attic. I didn’t want them there, but after they insisted on it… I didn’t want them to go.

I thought my distance kept my sisters safe, but it’s hurt them instead. I don’t want Giovannia to feel like she’s lost me before I’m gone.

My throat squeezes around the impossible truth. “What if I told you Niccolo is alive, but doesn’t remember a thing about us?”

She rears back, eyes going huge. “I’d say… it sounds impossible. A bargain?”

“Something worse, I fear.” I’m not ready to share the truth about his missing soul and the demons. I don’t want to put her in danger.

Elisabetta’s voice rings through the garden, startlingly close. “Virgil, Giovannia! Where are you?”

Merda, she can’t know the truth. I pull Giovannia closer, our brows near touching. “He’s pretending to be a man named Soderini. Do you know anything about the family?” I’ve been out of the wealthy circles of Florence for ages, but my sister hasn’t.

Giovannia drags her thumb across her bottom lip. “The family has been in power for ages and hate the Medici. The patriarch used to vote against Piero’s wishes just to spite him.”

“Vote against what?”

Giovannia frowns, her expression askance, as if I should know this already. “The priori have suggested Florence do away with elections for the Gonfaloniere of Justice. Soderini never let it pass.”

“Which means…?”

Giovannia mashes a hand over her brow and groans. “I cannot believe that you are a voting member of this city and don’t—”

“Yes, yes, we all know you’re the smart one, and it’s entirely unfair. Take pity on your helpless sot of a brother, will you?”

“The Medici don’t want a republic: They want to rule Florence outright.”

My fingernails drag along my thighs, the memory of Soderini’s blood drying on my skin a phantom itch.

The Medici murdered their most outspoken enemy and replaced him with Niccolo. I have an awful, certain feeling the new head of the Soderini family will be much more amenable to allowing the Medici to take over the city than the old one.

“The Medici are keeping Niccolo close. I need to get into their wedding next week to talk to him. Can you help me?”

Giovannia’s breathless smile takes a moment to find its feet, and when it does, the look is worth more than all the gold in the city’s cathedrals. “Depends, dear brother. How do you feel about thievery?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Every church bell rings when Lorenzo de’ Medici and his bride step out onto the cathedral’s marble steps. The packed piazza roars when he takes his new wife’s hand and kisses her knuckles. She blushes prettily, and they roar even louder.

Everyone except for me.

Mamma looks at me, her eyebrows high. “Stop scowling. We don’t want him to see it. He might be kinder than his father.”

He might let us keep the house, she means. Never mind the fact there’s no way Lorenzo de’ Medici can see my face from hundreds of feet away, much less would let us keep something his family could take from us.

Instead of arguing with her, I smile, fingers going to the skull-headed key hidden in my innermost pocket. “Perhaps.”

A carpet of cloth-of-gold, its gleam nearly buried beneath thousands of rose petals, leads from the cathedral’s steps to the Palazzo Medici. Two magicked papier-mâché unicorns, their sides woven with garlands of herbs and wildflowers, rear and charge down the golden road to the thrill of fifes to lead the couple to their new home. Lorenzo’s bride gasps, both hands flying over her mouth at the sight. She’s never seen magic before.

The crowd follows the married couple, and the scent of crushed flowers fills the air, sharp and green. When I inhale it, even I’m not immune to the great excitement sweeping through the city like a fever.

Today Lorenzo de’ Medici, heir to the family fortune and its vast power, has wed.

And tonight, I’m breaking into his house to find and share his family’s dark secrets with the world, starting with whatever they’ve done to my brother.

The Medici’s palazzo shines as bright as a bonfire. The stream of people moving to the garden doors makes nerves tighten in my belly, brings up the old fears of sitting down for an exam I didn’t study for. To steady myself, I take in my reflection in a coach window.

An arrogant stranger in black velvet and gold glares back at me.