Page 79 of A Dangerous Bargain

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Too late, too late.

The awful words echo, pounding in time with the thud of my feet down the duomo’s spiral staircase to the cathedral below. Lupa’s sailed west, toward the workshop.

Why is she going back there? Why is she doing the worst thing possible for herself?

Behind us, the shocked priest who unlocked the lantern tower’s door calls for us to stop. It only makes me faster. When I trip and nearly tumble to my death, Leonardo seizes the back of my doublet before I realize I’m falling.

“She said goodbye?”

“Something like that.” The ceramic vial digs into my side with every step.

Why would she give it to me if she knows making one more bargain would kill me?

We hit the wooden door at the end of the spiral. Leonardo wrenches it open. A black-robed priest jerks up from the altar. His look of open-mouthed shock is all I see of him before we’re careening down the nave, heading toward the triple set of double doors at the end. I can’t believe Lorenzo de’ Medici married Clarice here yesterday. It feels like a lifetime has passed between those two moments, each hour stretching out into a year.

We race down Via dell’Agnolo, toward the workshop, every window in Verrocchio’s house too brightly lit, like wide, staring eyes. We skid to a stop outside the courtyard door. Leonardo lifts the latch carefully, and then we’re standing in the space betwixt the house and the workshop.

No one is there.

“The morning exercises. They’re probably already working,” Leonardo says.

I bite my lip and nod, opening the workshop door. But the space is dark and still.

I tiptoe inside, unease coiling in me. “Where is everyone?” It’s just after or during breakfast time—the start of the workday. Even the candles are still snuffed out, the edges of the room hidden in shadow. “Lupa?”

Nothing.

Leonardo runs a finger down his bargain mark, What the hell is going on? written all over his furrowed brow. I lift a hand, urging caution. There’s a reason for this. There must be.

But then a shadow grows sharper at the back wall, comes out into the light. My gasp of fear turns into surprise when I see who it is. “Master Verrocchio?”

Verrocchio slowly draws closer, a queer expression on his face I can’t quite read. “She’s already gone.”

“Gone?” It doesn’t make sense. We came here as fast as we could. Lupa’s faster, of course, but Verrocchio wasn’t expecting her: I thought I’d find them mid-quarrel. I rise up on my toes, searching the farthest corners of the workshop, as if Lupa’s lurking just out of sight, waiting to play an unfunny prank on us.

“That’s what I said, no?” The column of Verrocchio’s throat pulses. Too late, his expression clicks into place.

It’s one of fear.

Iron hands clap down on my shoulders.

The workshop floor is suddenly filled with Medici guards.

There are six of them, each one standing in a pool of shadow except for the one who grabbed me. The other five stand eerily still, faces hidden behind pewter helmets. I tear away from the guard with a snarl.

He doesn’t try to touch me again. But the rest of them join him, stepping out from their hiding place to form a gleaming, deadly line.

Acid floods my insides, hot and horrible.

An ambush. But no. Lupa had to know I’d follow her. She wouldn’t lead us into a trap on purpose. And six guards feels like a number you’d send to capture a dangerous, successful murderer, not a former artist apprentice who once accidentally stabbed himself with his own palette knife.

Unless they think I’m more than I seem.

The guards step closer. Leonardo sucks in a soft breath. I plant myself between the guards and him, thumb caressing the empty sword scabbard at my belt. It’s nothing, laughably useless. I’d be better off throwing paint in their eyes. Actually, that’s not a bad idea.

But the table that holds the paints is curiously clear. I blink, frowning. The last time that table was cleared off was the moment it was newly built into the workshop. There are crusty smears on it older than I am.