Page 72 of A Dangerous Bargain

The weight of the scabbard tugs on my hip, reminding me he’s the entire reason I’m here.

I bow, inflecting the gesture with every ounce of poise I’ve got. “I’m the painter Signora Medici has chosen.”

Niccolo doesn’t move. “Are you, now?”

Sweat slicks my brow. I flex my fingers instead of wiping it off, afraid he’ll read into the movement. “She brought me here herself.” I nod over my shoulder to where I came from and shrug. “You can ask her, if you’d like.”

After a heart-stopping second of silence, Niccolo closes the door behind him. Its stone seams are invisible; no one would know it’s not a wall unless you saw it open.

Why would anyone need a painting studio under guard with a secret door?

And why would only one of them open from inside the room?

The second the door settles, Niccolo shoves me against the wall, jaw gritted. “You don’t look like a painter.”

I inhale sharply. Familiar fingers of shame and fear wrap around my throat. I’m sorry, Papà! I get halfway to stammering out the apology before I pull it back.

This is Niccolo. Not Father.

I should pull away—he needs to let me go—but instead my fingertips nestle in the dips between his clenched knuckles. Wrongness worms through my chest, but I can’t bear to leave yet. He’s here, his heart so near to mine, I see its furious beat in his neck.

With the sort of haughty grimace I’ve seen Bartolomeo Rucellai wear, I unpeel his grip from me finger by finger, even though my own hands shake. “Not all of us are gutter filth, you know. Our lord’s lady has taste.”

He blinks, rage rinsing away like paint from a brush, filling with a desperate, haunted look instead. He lets go so suddenly, I stumble.

“I’m sorry.” His voice is an agonized whisper. He starts spinning his ring, the silver band flashing. “Who are you again? I can’t—I don’t…” He trails off, glancing helplessly at the sealed door behind him. As if he can’t remember how he got in here.

The wrong feeling digs deeper. My brother is one of the bravest, calmest people, I know. This haunted shade of a man… there’s nothing of Niccolo here, even though the face is unmistakably his.

I should leave.

The thought is swift and sudden. I hesitate before it, as if a wild animal has appeared and there’s nowhere for me to go.

But I’m so close to him. There’s the heart-shaped scar on his face, the same sharp chin as mine, the same curly black hair. I reach a hand toward his shoulder, then stop, fingers knotting uncertainly.

He tracks the movement with sudden suspicion, a stiffened back. “Why are you here?” There’s no warmth, no recognition in his voice. Just the cold command of a powerful man used to being listened to.

I bite the inside of my cheek, finger tapping the sword scabbard at my hip. The hair along my arms rises, a warning. Leave now. Don’t show him the drawing. Even just looking into my eyes made fear cut through him like a frigid wind: What would happen if I showed him something else from his forgotten past?

But didn’t I come here to make him remember me? I don’t know when I’ll be alone with him again. This could be my only chance.

Even though some deep instinct screams at me not to, I pull out the fox drawing. “I’m here to show you this.”

Niccolo snatches it up. I flinch, a Be careful with that! on my tongue that I only barely manage to hold back. It belongs to him. He can do whatever he wants with it.

“It’s us.” The words are shaky. “I called you volpone. Do you remember?”

Do you remember, do you remember, do you remember…?

The words tangle together, echoing against the stone.

Niccolo stumbles backward. The drawing flutters to the floor, face up. He stares at it, eyes huge.

My heart leaps, a desperate, searing lurch. “Father commissioned the fox statues because foxes were your favorite animal.”

His breath comes out in short, sharp gasps. One shaking hand caresses the drawing, lingers on the smaller of the two foxes.

Then footsteps, followed by an odious voice.