They say Florence is loudest at noon, when the market’s in full roar and the bells won’t shut up. They’re wrong. The city is loudest just before sunrise—when everything is almost quiet. The Arno crawls under its bridges, black as ink. Smoke from last night’s fires hangs low, trapped between stone walls. Carts creak over cobbles, the wheels wrapped in rags to keep from waking the rich. Bakers open their ovens. Priests clear their throats for the first mass. And somewhere in the gray between night and day, that’s when the strange ones leave their houses. That’s when I first saw him. I was sixteen, old enough to think I knew everything and young enough to be wrong about all of it. My name isn’t important. Most of us river workers didn’t keep our names long anyway. I unloaded grain barges, scrubbed fish guts, and tried not to think about stealing from the sacks. That morning was cold. My breath slipped out in little ghosts. The mist over the Arno was thick enough to hide the statue on the bridge, but when I squinted I could make out a tall figure standing near the parapet—still as carved stone. “Oi,” my foreman grunted, thumping a crate against my chest. “Stop staring at the river.” “Who’s that?” I jerked my chin toward the bridge. “Some artist,” he muttered. “Or a lunatic. Same thing.” He walked off. I stayed, eyes glued to