Luna stumbled from the room and hurried along the corridor. Men’s voices sounded in the loggia and she recognised one as belonging to Bernardo Rucellai, whom she’d spoken to at the Academy. She climbed the stairs with haste to avoid meeting the visitors, tears blurring her vision. At the top she lost her footing and crashed to her knees. The fall knocked the breath out of her and she stayed against the cold wood as the mark of her tears darkened the boards. The echo of little girls’ taunts from all those years ago played in her ear but even through those memories, she could hear her step-mamma’s raised voice addressing the visitors.

‘Bernardo, what a surprise to see you, though welcome of course.’

‘Where is Vincenzio?’ the man commanded.

Luna sat up and listened more intently; there was an abruptness in his tone that made her nervous. Next she heard her papa’s footsteps and she went to the balcony and peered over cautiously. Her father was bowing to Signore Rucellai, who wore the crimson coat of his office as the Gonfalonier of Justice. He was flanked by two officials of the Signoria. Papa stood aside then followed the three men into his studiolo.

Luna could see her step-mamma standing rigid as a statue, then Mamma Lucrezia rushed to the closed door and pressed her ear against the wood. Luna moved to the top of the staircase from where she could see along the hallway to Papa’s studiolo.

The gentlemen reappeared soon after and Mamma Lucrezia went to stand by Papa.

‘Yes, that book belongs to me.’ Her father frowned as he answered Signore Rucellai, and Luna recognised the annoyance in his clipped tone. She strained to see what book they were discussing. Rucellai was holding The Sand Reckoner. In the courtyard below, the hollow clop of Apollonius sounded as he was led across the cobblestones into his stable. He struck the stable door impatiently. Papa had not taken him out yet today.

Luna watched the Gonfalonier open the book. He unrolled a sheet of parchment. ‘Did you write this?’

An explosion like fireworks went off inside her head.

‘What is that?’ her father asked, his eyes narrowing as he took the page.

‘Do you not recognise your own handwriting?’ Rucellai stepped towards him and spoke again. ‘What were you thinking, Vincenzio, writing such heresy?’ This last was said with a friend’s familiarity.

When he stepped back again it was with an official air. He straightened his shoulders and spoke formally. ‘What say you, Vincenzio Fusili?’

Luna held her breath and stared with horror at the parchment she herself had written and slipped into the pages, unfinished.

‘Answer me, Signore Fusili!’

Her father was reading. Luna couldn’t see his face but she knew the words so well; how much care she’d taken writing them.