“What’s the matter?” Clarice asked them.
“Nothing,” Maisie said quickly.
She forced a laugh. “You know,” she continued, “the other night I thought there was this big urn over there.”
She pointed to the empty corner.
“There was,” Clarice said. “Those terrible Pazzis smashed it. Lorenzo has commissioned something even better, more beautiful. In fact, we’ll have a sculpture in every corner!”
“They smashed it?” Felix said, his stomach sinking.
“To smithereens. It was unsalvageable. We had to throw every piece away,” Clarice said. “And that was an antiquity. Irreplacable!” She added under her breath, “Those Pazzis!”
“How terrible,” Maisie managed to say.
“Where did you say you threw those pieces?” Felix asked hopefully.
Clarice laughed. “I have no idea. The servants take care of things like that.”
She studied their faces in that serious unnerving way she had.
“Why are you two so concerned with a broken urn, anyway?” she asked them.
“I just . . . um . . . admire antiquities,” Maisie stammered.
“O-kay,” Clarice said doubtfully.
Felix and Maisie looked at her as innocently as they could, holding her gaze until she finally said, “Well, then, come and eat.”
“Great,” Felix said.
“Oh, by the way,” Maisie said, trying to keep her voice light. “In all the excitement the other night, what with the Pazzis breaking everything and me hiding, I lost the seal I use on my letters.”
Clarice’s thin eyebrows arched.
“Really?”
“It’s gold? With the giglio on it?” Maisie continued.
“Hmmm,” Clarice said.
“I think I dropped it”—Maisie giggled—“in that urn.”
“You dropped it in the urn?” Clarice repeated.
Leonardo had made his way over to the three of them, his lute beneath his arm.
“I’m about to play,” he told them.
“One minute, Leonardo,” Clarice said.
She motioned to one of the servants, who scurried over to them.
“Madame?” he said.
“Aren’t you the one who took care of the urn the Pazzis destroyed?” she asked.
“Yes, madame.”
“Was there anything in it?”
“Yes, madame,” he said. “I gave it to Signor Medici.”
“A gold seal?” Maisie blurted.
The servant looked at her sternly. “Yes, miss,” he said.
“Great!” Maisie said happily. “I’ll just get it from Lorenzo.”
Leonardo grabbed Felix’s arm.
“That’s the object?” he asked. “When you give that to me, you’ll return to the twenty-first century?”
“Yes,” Felix said.
Leonardo nodded solemnly.
“I understand that you need to go back,” he said.
“Understanding is the noblest joy,” Felix said.
Lorenzo had retired to his chambers. That’s what Clarice told Maisie when she went looking for him. And the seal.
“Um,” Maisie said, “I kind of need to see him.”
Clarice smiled, revealing her small and slightly crooked teeth. “When he is rested,” she said.
“When will that be?” Maisie asked.
Clarice smiled again, and shrugged.
“And,” Clarice added, “I think I need some rest, too. What a marvelous day it’s been!”
Maisie watched Clarice walk away, climbing the staircase to the family’s private quarters.
Well, Maisie thought, I’ll just have to wake up Lorenzo.
She gave Clarice time to get upstairs before she followed.
Maisie had not been up to the private quarters before, and the first thing she noticed was how much art they had. Paintings hung crowded together on every wall, leaving almost no blank space at all. Sculptures stood by doorways and in corners, some of them with arms broken off or pieces missing, others shiny white marble. She paused in front of two portraits, one of Lorenzo and one of Clarice, both of them dressed in formal clothes. She tried to imagine having to sit for a painter to get a portrait done. How did Clarice manage to do so many adult things, even though she was just a teenager? There’s a good reason to live in the twenty-first century, Maisie decided as she continued down the long high-ceilinged hall.