“For Mary’s sake, maestro, it’s fresco. I would have to tear the whole thing down and start again.” I didn’t want to admit that I had no hope of replicating that figure. Not yet.

“I watched you correct mistakes on the dry ceiling in my father’s rooms,” Felice said, and I got a chill thinking about her watching me. “Do it. By orders of my cousin—your duke.”

I stepped away from the edge of the scaffolding. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. The Duke of Urbino was nephew to the pope, and Felice was His Holiness’s daughter, so, of course, they were cousins. Threatening violence must be a family trait. “I’m not altering another painter’s fresco,” I called down. “Maybe nobody else would notice, but what about when Michelangelo comes back?”

“If we have any luck, Michelangelo will not come back,” called Felice. “Ever.”

My stomach turned to porridge as a memory flashed: that white vial of poison in my duke’s armored hand. Did wanting to poison Michelangelo run in the family, too? Torch in hand, I raced down the scaffolding, searching for their voices—where were they? I descended, one platform after another, moving so fast that I almost toppled off the end when I reached the bottom rung of the scaffolding, where the ladder should’ve been. I was far enough down now to make out the ladder lying flat on the floor below me. From down on the floor, Bramante called up, “Don’t bother trying the other exits.” He stepped up next to the fallen ladder. “All the ladders are down.”

I rubbed my face with my hands. “You’ve trapped me up here?”

“We’ve given you incentive to help us,” came Felice’s voice.

“What’s wrong with Michelangelo?” I asked.

“He’s sick,” said Bramante. “A fever. Brought on by working too hard perhaps . . .”

“He may or may not recover,” Felice added. Did I hear a lilt of glee in her tone?

Yes, poison was still on my mind—it was Rome after all—but Michelangelo was, no doubt, obsessive enough to work himself to sickness, so . . . I called down, “Who’s taking care of him? There’s nothing worse than being alone when you’re sick. No one—not even Michelangelo—deserves . . .”

“Don’t worry about Michelangelo,” Felice said, stepping into the pool of flickering light cast by my torch. “Worry about blotting out that accursed thumb.”

I sat down defiantly on the scaffolding. They were the ones who needed my help, after all. “Why do you want to hurt Michelangelo?”

She crossed her arms. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“And yet, here you are, trying to get me to mar his fresco.”

“Not mar. Improve.”

“What about the first night I met you, when you were stealing his drawings?”