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127
“Your friend is incredibly bright,” Arthur says, leading away from my worst fears and suspicions and back to the present. “He’s handsome, loaded with potential, and though he doesn’t realize it now, this is a wonderful opportunity for a promising kid with limited resources to forge a better life for himself. You, better than anyone, can help him find his way here.”
“I’m not sure Mason wants my help.” I wince, unable to shake the pinch of Mason’s perfectly drawn red lips, the furious slant of his brow. “It’s clear he blames me.”
“And who do you blame?”
I sigh. When I arrived, the list was long, but I’ve since whittled it down to just one—me.
Elodie set me up, my mom signed me away, butI’mthe one who chose to fail my way out of school and go along for the ride.
“You’ve had a long day,” Arthur says. “Why don’t you take some time to relax, and then tomorrow, you can bring a breakfast tray to Mason’s room, have a long chat, and see if you can’t begin to heal some of those wounds.”
I nod. I mean, what else can I do?
Though just as I’m about to leave, I notice the blank spot on the wall directly behind Arthur.
It’s the spot whereVanitashung.
Nothing Arthur does is by accident. Even a simple walk down a hall comes with a motive attached.
When he notices me looking, he hooks a thumb over his shoulder and says, “I had it transferred to your room. If you don’t like the placement, say the word and it can be moved.”
I stare at that blank square on the wall, noticing how the paint is one shade darker than the surrounding area. Then I glance at Arthur, and I feel sick to my stomach.
Though I initially asked for the piece as a reward for all I went through to secure Arthur’s Gets, now I can’t help but wonder if his agreeing to hand it over has more to do with Mason.
Is Arthur using the painting to distract me from the horror of what he did to my friend?
I swallow past the lump in my throat, lower my gaze to my fancy designer-shod feet, and say, “Thank you.” It’s all I can say.
He regards me with a hooded gaze. “No reason to thank me. You earned it.”
What remains unclear is exactly how I might’veearnedit.
By bringing him one step closer to restoring the Antikythera Mechanism?
By returning Killian to Gray Wolf?
Or by agreeing to help Mason accept this unexpected detour in his life’s path?
“Besides,” Arthur continues, his brow gathered in a way that renders his gaze into two glimmering shards of obsidian, “as you know, there are still more missing pieces to gather, and you’re the only one who can find them. In fact, you might even get to stay a while in this next location. It’ll require specialized training, of course, so we’ll have to see how that goes. But what do you think about Tripping back to Renaissance Italy for a couple of weeks?”
On the outside, I blink, but otherwise remain motionless before him.
On the inside, my mind is a whirl of possibilities of what I might do there, all the people I’d meet. I mean,Renaissance Italy!The time of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Titian, Caravaggio, Raphael, Donatello…there are too many to mention.
“Are you familiar with the paintingSalvator Mundi?” Arthur asks.
“Th—theSavior of the World?” I stammer, my skin pricking with chills when I see Arthur nod.
“And what exactly do you know about it?” he says.
I squint toward the blank square on the wall as I struggle to remember. “I learned about it in art class—it’s thought to be a long-lost painting by Leonardo da Vinci that was purchased for less than two thousand dollars, then ultimately sold at auction for over four hundred million.”
I blink at Arthur, wondering if he wants me to go back in time and fetch it, so he can be the one to claim the windfall. But, judging by the way Arthur waves a hand in dismissal when I mention the dollar amount, that’s not what he cares about.
“And you’ve seen pictures of this painting? You know what it looks like?”
