I accidentally let the quill rest while thinking on the last stanza I wrote, and a stain of ink forms on the page. The porous parchment absorbs the glossy pigment until the blotch has grown from the size of a pebble to a ducat, encroaching on the nearest word, but instead of making an effort to stop it, I just stare at the letters about to be engulfed.

The words leap off the page, taunting me. The verse is so terrible, so shallow and meaningless, that even the ink is trying to absorb it back into nothingness. I want to tear the page from the sheaf of papers and shred it to a thousand pieces, but instead I force myself to read the words over and over in the hopes that I will discover what is wrong with the poem and see a way to bring to life the feeling I'm so desperately trying to convey. A thought even more melancholic crosses my mind: maybe I have not lived enough of life in my fourteen years to express anything worth reading.

"Dannazione! I don't deserve the attention of these words. Sta venendo uno schifo . . ."

The pile of crumbled papers on the floor only fuels my frustration. Everything in the room represents my year's worth of nothingness—a multitude of failed experiments to find my calling: An instrument used to view the stars, built by my tutor, sits next to the stone window. A smattering of scales, vials, and an apparatus for containing flames covers a table on the far side of the room. Two mandolas, a viola da gamba, and a flute lay on top of a litter of sketches and paintings on the floor. Despite having so many interests, I've yet to figure out my purpose in life.

Beauty versus reason has become my great struggle.

From my lips escapes a sigh so pitiful I become grateful for my solitude. No one should witness such an expression of lament, and especially not my brothers nor my sister, though sometimes I think she, unlike them, is capable of compassion.

By the time Emilio reached fourteen years, he had already killed a man in defense of our father and become a hero. It was four years ago, but I still remember the parade thrown in his honor as if it were yesterday. Now he is well on his way to being handed the key to the Florentine Guard. My heart tremors at the idea of Emilio having an arsenal of weapons at his disposal, but he has been primed since birth to become the best man to defend the city.

When Gabriel was fourteen, he became the youngest foreign diplomat in the history of Firenze, in all the kingdoms of Italia, and now he's a key ambassador in Roma, Milano, and Venezia—an integral part of the family business. I possess neither the brutality nor the charm necessary to join either of my brothers on their paths to greatness on the battlefield or in politics. However, it is not their qualities that I covet, but rather their confidence in knowing their own destinies, enabling them to hurl themselves forward.

And, of course, my sweet Giovanna, whose upcoming marriage is destined to create one of the greatest alliances in Florentine history. Perhaps greater than anything my brothers could achieve through negotiation or force.

I have no burning desire for greatness, and I seek neither the attention my brothers demand nor the acclamation they crave, but every day the giant clock sitting on my shoulders ticks louder in my ears, telling me that if I don't carve my own path, one will certainly be carved for me. And as my brothers are so keen to remind me, there are far worse things than the army or politics.

"Sword, coin, or cross," I mumble, dragging my fingers through my hair. I beg the spirit of our grandfather to guide me.

Scuffles come from the hallway, and my fingers rest on the dagger tucked at my waist.

"From here on out," a familiar voice says, "you will be a Medici. Do you understand the importance?"

"Father!" I cry, leaping to my feet. But who is he speaking to?

I hurry around the desk as he opens the door and comes through, his arms outstretched. He embraces me tightly. "Figlio mio!" he says with love, and kisses my cheeks.

"You have returned!"

"I hear you have been busy, Niccolò. Emilio tells me you have quite the talent for the written word. You must read us some of your poems after dinner."

My teeth sink into my lower lip as scenarios of fratricide run through my head. "Sì, Padre," I reply through locked jaw.

"My son, let me introduce your cousin, León Medici, who has just arrived with me to Firenze."

Cousin? I turn to the stranger with suspicion.

He looks about my age. His features are handsome, and his hair sits in piles of dark-cypress-colored curls atop his head. His clothes are distinctly Italian—Florentine, even—but each piece seems too large, making me wonder if he was not the person they were intended for . . . like his birth name, apparently.

"You will treat him with the same fondness as your brothers," my father says. "You will share your tutoring sessions and then, shortly, go to Siena together for university—"

"University? How long will he be staying here?"

"You will spend the summer helping him master Italian—"

"Why, I beg, have I been assigned this task? I am very busy with"—I look around the room—"my experiments."

"Because you have a kind heart, Niccolò . . . and because, in time, I think you will find that the two of you have a lot in common. You will be able to . . . learn from each other."

"Learn? Learn what?"

"Plus, with your passion for the city, I know you'll make a Florentine out of him in no time." He embraces me again.

I grow impatient, knowing he is about to leave without giving me any real information on this misterioso cugino.

"Lend him some clothes until we can have some proper garments made," my father says. "Don't let your brothers beat him up too badly."

"Sì, Padre."

He says nothing more, just nods to the boy and walks out of the room, leaving me and mio cugino alone.

We gaze at one another, frowning.

"A Medici who doesn't know the ways of Florence?" I ask as I return behind my desk. I lean back in my chair, scrutinizing the boy, wondering if he's really my half brother. My father's bastard. I immediately feel defensive for my mother.

His eyes are a shade of blue almost as dark as a nighttime sky, nothing like the glassy, light green all four children of this house share. He has neither Gabriel's sharp chin nor Emilio's prominent nose, which has been broken so many times it now has a permanent crook.

"And what is so special about Florence, cugino mio?" León asks in perfect Italian, but with a hint of dialect I cannot place. "Is that what you spend your days writing about? The splendor of Tuscany?"

He reaches for my sonnet and begins dragging the paper across the desk with an interested eye, but I whip my dagger from its sheath and stab the page, straight in between two of his fingers.

Never breaking his gaze, I slowly drag the page back.

"You cut me," he says, bringing his finger to his mouth.

"Sì. Stay out of my things, or next time you will lose a finger."

"Of course, cousin," he says, seemingly unaffected by the threat.

He strolls around the room, taking in each detail with equal scrutiny and fascination, and I detect an aura of entitlement. It is well hidden beneath a lifetime of armor, but I recognize it.

"Who are you?" I ask, genuine curiosity overtaking my suspicion. "Where are you from?"

He picks up the viola da gamba and pulls the bow slowly across the strings. I expect him to stop after the dramatic display, but instead he whips it back across the strings into a melody that sounds distinctly Spanish—Catalonian maybe. He plays with both confidence and ease, his body moving jovially with the instrument.

He ends the tune with a slight bow and sets the instrument down. He glances over at my sonnet, which now contains a second blotch from the droplet of his blood. "You have your secrets," he says, his tone almost playful, "and I have mine."

I relax into the chair as he moves to pick up the mandola. Instead of plucking the strings, he flips the instrument over and pats the back of the gourd.

Thump-thump.

Again he slaps the hollow cavern with his hand.

Thump-thump.

The room starts to spin. Léon looks directly at me and begins to laugh.

No. This is not how it happened. León did not laugh at me.

His image blurs, and his voice grows distant, as if he's a mile away, but the drumbeat becomes louder. I hold my head, and my blurred vision becomes gray; the gray is swallowed into black. I blink, but there is only blinding darkness.

Thump-thump.

I cry out to León but hear nothing in return. I no longer hear even the sound of my own voice. The muscles in my throat move, but I get nothing back other than an all-encompassing, senses-destroying obsidian.

Thump-thump.

In the silence between the beats, the sound of water rushes like a river.

I am no longer fourteen.

I am no longer in Florence.

I am lying on my back in a very small space.

I command my fist to punch through the cassette, but I cannot move. It's as if my body is full of sand. I cannot even open my eyes.

Magic.

I cling to the moment of consciousness, now remembering it won't last long.

Thump-thump.

Thump-thump.

The pounds vibrate against my rib cage, rippling through my entire skeleton. The water rushes through me. Drowning me.

It's not water. It's blood.

It's not my heartbeat.

It's her heartbeat.

Thump-thump.

Thump-thump.

Adele must be close.

The phantom smile that spreads across my face feels more real than any previous smile from the past four centuries in which I had lived.

She's going to open the door.