The Cardinal’s men found nothing. The tutor was a ghost. But the grandsons? They kept his books hidden beneath the floorboards. And years later, when they themselves became outlaws, printing seditious pamphlets in a mountain press, they signed each one the same way:

Domenico was packing a small leather satchel. He did not turn around. “I am a tutor, Leo. The truest kind. I teach the past so it may live again.”

“No,” Domenico whispered. “Worse. You would have remained safe .”