“That’s how we got here,” Felix said. “With a seal of the city of Florence. And we need to give it to you.”
“Fine, then,” Leonardo said. “Give it to me. Maybe then I can come back to the future with you.”
“No,” Felix said, shaking his head. “Once we give it to you, we’ll go back. Just Maisie and me.”
“Impossible!” Leonardo said vehemently. “There must be a way!”
“Actually, that’s not exactly right,” Felix said. “We give you the seal, and you give us advice.”
“What kind of advice?” Leonardo said. “I have no advice for you. Or for anyone.”
“Not so much advice,” Felix said, “but like a lesson. Something that will help us when we go back.”
A slow grin spread over Leonardo’s face.
“Excellent,” he said. “Then I will be sure not to give you any lessons. Until I figure out how to return with you.”
“No!” Felix said adamantly. “We need to go home. We have a family and school and . . .”
“And?”
“It’s complicated,” Felix said.
Leonardo waited.
“Our great-uncle, he’s dying. But by time traveling, we can save his life.”
“How?”
Again Felix struggled. “I don’t really understand it,” he said, “but every time we time travel, he gets . . . not younger . . . but healthier? More vital.”
“So if you don’t go back?”
“He’ll . . .” Felix’s voice caught. “He’ll die.”
“I will take this under consideration,” Leonardo said finally. “Is the life of this uncle of yours more important than seeing what the future holds?”
He stood.
“We are late, and Lorenzo and the rest of them will assume I’ve forgotten the berlingaccio.”
Felix stood, too.
“Leonardo,” he said, “you belong here. Your ideas need to grow from this place, this time. The Renaissance—”
Leonardo interrupted. “Renaissance? Rebirth?”
Felix nodded. “That’s what this era will be called. The Renaissance. A rebirth of ideas and art after the Dark Ages.”
“Renaissance,” Leonardo said to himself. “I like it.”
When Leonardo and Felix arrived, the multicourse dinner of soup and pasta and meat and cheese had finished. The servants were just putting several ring-shaped cakes on the table for dessert.
“Ah!” Leonardo said after everyone had greeted him. “We didn’t miss the berlingozzo!”
“Almost,” Sandro kidded.
Maisie tried to make eye contact with Felix, but he had his worried look on his face, and she couldn’t get past that.
The cake tasted like lemons and sugar, and Maisie happily accepted a second piece once she’d finished her first. But Felix merely moved the crumbs around on his plate.
“Come,” Leonardo told him quietly, “there’s something I want to show you.”
They easily slipped away from the others and walked up the stairs to the family’s quarters.
“You know,” Leonardo said as they walked past giant tapestries, endless bookshelves that seemed to stretch forever, and more marble and gold than Felix had seen in any of the Newport mansions. “If you are alone, you belong entirely to yourself. If you are accompanied by even one companion, you belong only half to yourself. With that many people, even less.”
Felix brightened. That sounded important, like a lesson. Maybe Leonardo had inadvertently told him something important, the very thing he and Maisie needed to go home.
“Here,” Leonardo said, opening a door.
Felix gazed at the room. It looked like a church, complete with an altar. But it was the most beautiful church he’d ever seen.
“The Magi Chapel,” Leonardo said, his voice hushed. “Frescoed by Benozzo Gozzoli.”
Felix took in the frescoes that covered the walls. He recognized the scene of the Three Wise Men, but . . .
“Hey!” he said.
Leonardo laughed. “That’s right. The Wise Men are the Medicis.”
Felix recognized Lorenzo, with his black pageboy haircut and dark eyes.
“That’s his brother, Giuliano, and his father, the two other Wise Men. The other characters are various emperors,” Leonardo explained.
Felix nodded appreciatively.
From down in the courtyard, a sudden burst of voices and shouting rose up to them.
“Don’t worry,” Leonardo said, “they are just in the spirit of Carnival.”
Almost as soon as Felix and Leonardo left, Lorenzo stood and recited a poem. It seemed to be about life and happiness but also about how those things can change so easily.
Sandro watched Maisie’s face intently as Lorenzo recited.
“How can it be?” he asked softly.
Maisie turned her attention away from Lorenzo and toward Sandro.
“How can you understand Tuscan?” he asked her.
“I was wondering the same thing,” Signor Ficino said.
“Tuscan is Italian, isn’t it?” Maisie asked as she fingered the shard hanging cool against her skin.
“No,” Sandro said, narrowing his eyes. “Tuscan is the language here, little used now. That is why I wonder how you can understand it.”
“They don’t speak Tuscan anywhere but in Tuscany,” Signor Ficino said in that cold voice of his.