I tried to pull her into a hug. “This threat of leaving is becoming tiresome, mia cara . . .”

“I’m not staying here.” She pulled away and swept a knot of jewelry into her bag. “Alidosi, Imperia, my father . . .” She stuck a serrated knife into her belt. One of her father’s old baking knives, I presumed. “Everyone in Rome dies.”

“There are a lot of us still alive.” I took her traveling bag out of her hands, put it on the bed, and pulled her into my arms. This time, she let me.

She turned her face toward mine and said, “Run away with me.”

“Cosa?”

“Let’s leave Rome, go someplace where there’s no money, no power, no papacy.”

“No money and power? How do you expect me to keep a profession?”

“You’ll paint pretty Madonnas for churches, and I’ll bake bread, and . . .”

It was my turn to pull away. “I can’t leave Rome.”

“We can leave. Together.” She trailed behind me, reaching for my fingers, my elbow, my sleeve. “I grew up in Siena. It’s not exactly a small town, but not nearly as deadly as Rome.”

“I can’t leave. Not now”

She threw up her hands. “You keep saying that. ‘I can’t leave. I can’t leave.’ Ma dai, not even now, when Imperia’s dead, probably killed by someone desperate for power at your precious Vatican. How is it still ‘not now, ’Gita, not now, not now, not now’ . . . ?”

I took her face in my hands. “The Vatican is finally turning in my direction.”

She stepped out of my reach. “Whatever direction the world is currently turning, it’s not the direction in which I wish to move.”

“The pope has just invaded Florence.”

“And that makes things better?” The bite in her tone was harsh as black on ivory.

“Michelangelo is a Florentine. As he falls, so I rise.”

She crossed her arms.

“I’m allied with powerful people, now, ’Gita: the pope’s nephew, his daughter . . .”

“What is it that you need from me? Tucking hair and smoothing breeches? I can do that.” Margherita started going through my routine, but I grabbed her hands to stop her.

“Stop mocking me.”

“I want to leave.” She picked up her traveling bag off the bed. “And I want you to come with me.”

I shook my head. “His Holiness thinks I create miracles.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in those, Rafa.”

“I don’t . . . I do . . . I . . .”

“Only when you make them, I suppose.”

“I love you, ’Gita. That’s enough of a miracle for me.”

“I’m leaving Rome. Now. I don’t want to be trapped in this den for one more night.” She crossed to the door. Before exiting, she turned back. Her eyes caught the light shining in through the room’s only window and glistened honey. “Are you coming?”