“To be sure,” the dwarf agreed, tipping his chair back on two legs. He was almost handsome, despite his stunted height and oversized head. His hazel eyes made a striking contrast to his dark hair, and his features despite the prominent brow were bold and regular. But he sat there at my table, twirling a slim knife between his oddly double-jointed fingers, and my unease swelled to fear. I didn’t like him. I didn’t like his face, I didn’t like the way he was playing with that knife, I didn’t like the way his gaze fixed me—idle, curious, as though I were some anomaly to be solved. Santa Marta save me, but I could not afford to be solved. I could not afford curiosity. I could not afford to be discovered as anything other than a cook.

“I burned the frittelle,” Giulia said mournfully, oblivious to the looks passing between us. She gave a poke to the little scorched lumps in the pan. “Maybe we can scrape off the blackened bits . . . Here, let me try another batch.”

“Next time, Madonna Giulia!” I said brightly before she had the whole kitchen up in flames. How had she gotten those little lumps both scorched and raw? “Don’t you wish to introduce Messer Leonello to Madonna Lucrezia?”

“Yes, I suppose we should. She’s upstairs with Joffre and the tutor; they’re translating Homer . . .” Giulia stripped off her apron and put her arm companionably through that of her diminutive new bodyguard, leading him away. Leonello looked back over his shoulder at me, lazy as the lion he was named for.

Leave me alone, I almost cried out. Just leave me alone!

But I did not think this oddly dangerous little man would do anything of the kind.

Giulia

I see it, I see it!” Little Lucrezia’s voice rose into a squeal, and she flapped her hand at me. “White smoke!”

“Where?” I rose so fast I spilled my embroidery to the ground, whirling to the edge of the balcony where Lucrezia stood leaning out so far that I put a hasty hand on the sleeve of her nightdress.

“There, just above the Piazza San Pietro—”

“White smoke?” Madonna Adriana began to rise from the table where she was playing a halfhearted game of chess with little Joffre, but a bored voice interrupted us all midmotion.

“It’s a cloud.”

I turned back to my new bodyguard. “How can you tell, with your nose buried in that book?”

“Because even if there’s been an election, they won’t release the white smoke until dawn.” Leonello turned a page in the book he’d borrowed without permission from Madonna Adriana’s library. “You can’t see white smoke until it’s light, so what’s the point of lighting the fire until the crowd down there will be able to see it?”