“Well, if you’re sure it won’t be an issue.”
“I’m sure.” Nico waited for her to catch up before starting down the stairs.
“So, why Florence?”
“I must see my muse on occasion. Furthermore, it gives me the opportunity to stroll through some art supply stores, see what artists are using these days, give me some ideas.”
“I thought you couldn’t take things back from the real world?”
“You can’t,” he affirmed.
“Then. . .”
“The mansion is very good to me.” The answer seemed mysterious, but Jo heard it for what it was: another “because magic” explanation. “I find often that after I go on these excursions, I’ll have some new supplies in my room with which to work, or the recreation room will take on a new shape for my practice.”
“Reality is what you make it,” Jo paraphrased one of the first things Wayne had said to her upon entering the Society.
“Well said.”
Jo pulled open the door to the briefing room, holding it for Nico. She hated being in there the instant her foot met the obsidian floor. The usually chilly air was now bitterly cold, as if the mansion itself was angry for the wishes being passed along to its occupants. While the idea of a semi-sentient mansion was somewhat off-putting, it was nice to think of someone standing up for them, even if that someone was a building.
Nico paused at the Door. Jo’s eyes fell on his hand as it began punching in the coordinates. He was three numbers in when the fourth button stuck. The man paused, staring at it in confusion. He pressed it again, finally freeing it from its depressed state. The motion reminded Jo briefly of the flickering monitor, but the thought vanished from her mind the second the Door opened.
Italy.
It was a country of postcards made real. They stepped into a shadowed street made of stone. Condensed buildings stretched up in walls of plaster and warm-hued paints on either side of them. Doorways, square and arched, indented by wooden doors with heavy knockers stood just off the street. Metal pleated doors, most bearing some sort of graffiti, covered garages. Up ahead there was a sign with a big white P on a blue background; behind her a café was just beginning to open up, popping the umbrellas above the few outdoor tables in a fenced-off section.
“What do you think?” Nico asked, starting off in a direction only he knew.
“It’s lovely.” The way the buildings were built on top of each other, clearly constructed and renovated at very different times, had her thinking of Paris. Yet this was wholly different. “Quieter than I thought it would be and it seems. . . I don’t know, real?”
“How so?”
Jo tried to think of the best way to rephrase her odd statement. “Like the people here aren’t. . . I don’t know, fake?”
“How would they be fake?”
“Not touristy, I mean.” She finally landed on what it was. “This feels like a real street where real people live.”
Nico laughed loudly. Yet the sweet sounds of his amusement did not resonate or echo. They existed only for her ears. “Of course it is. And, I will say that the people who live in touristy areas are also real.”
“Obviously.” Jo shook her head, laughing a bit at herself. “I don’t know what I was saying.”
“It’s inviting?” he suggested.
“Inviting, that may be a good word for it. . .” Jo half-mused, half-agreed. He held up his right hand horizontal, so his fingers stretched parallel to the ground. Nico pointed at the base of the line between his middle and ring fingers. “If the Cathedral is here—” Jo had seen the famous Duomo of Florence from Nico’s room back in the mansion. “The Ponte Vecchio is here.” He moved his finger down and to the left. “It’s a very famous bridge, I’m sure you know of it.”
She gave a sort of non-committal hum and a nod. She hadn’t heard of it, but didn’t want to risk discouraging the man.
“Up here—” he moved up from the initial placement of his finger to the base of the line between his ring and pinky fingers “—is the Palazzo Medici.”
“And that’s where we are?”
A chuckle, though Jo didn’t know why the question was funny. “No, this humble little street is not the palace of the Medici.” He moved his finger to the right some—east, if the top of his hand was north, from the Palazzo. “We’re right around here.”
“I guess I see why it doesn’t feel too touristy, then.” Jo wasn’t sure what else to say, though she didn’t want to give the impression of not appreciating the quick geography overview. “But it’s lovely here.”
“This was to be my street.”
