Page 27 of DATE
"Move aside."
She stepped aside, and the stone on the table became visible.
The thing was quite large, and hiding it under the bed might have led to it being discovered—there was no need to hide it anyway.
"This—this stone?" Da Vinci asked in surprise. "What are you doing?"
Hedy glanced at the powder she had already crushed and laughed helplessly. "I wanted to help you make some paint."
It was better to leave the door open anyway. The sulfur dioxide needed ventilation.
Da Vinci quickly recognized what it was. There were copper mines near his hometown in Vinci, and he had even gone to see them as a child.
"Wait, can you… can you make it turn blue again?"
"This is what the alchemist next door taught me," Hedy replied without missing a beat, fabricating a lie. "Sir, could I borrow the small crucible from the kitchen?"
They started a fire and added the crushed white powder into water, then began heating the solution.
A miraculous sight unfolded before them.
The powder that had been immersed in the water started turning blue as the temperature rose, with translucent, ice-blue crystals precipitating out.
Ultramarine, as precious as gold, had a deep, elegant color when made into paint. But this crucible contained a lively, bright sky-blue, reminiscent of a clear sky after a heavy rain.
Da Vinci was so overwhelmed that he covered his face, staring silently for a moment.
"Impossible—how is this even possible? How did you manage to do this?"
He turned to Hedy, his joy as pure as a child’s. "If we use this solution to paint, will it change color again?"
"It won't," Hedy replied, carefully controlling the temperature and setting the crucible aside on a stone slab to cool.
If the heat was too high, the reaction would reverse, turning the color back to white.
"We have blue—and we have an endless supply of it!" Da Vinci nearly jumped with excitement, looking at Hedy as if he wanted to hug her. His brown eyes sparkled with the reflection of the fire. "How can I ever thank you?"
"Meat," Hedy answered succinctly, "I want to eat meat."
Meat was certainly something they’d have to buy, but it couldn’t be done right away.
This was the first time Da Vinci had seen something so crystalline blue, like sapphire. As he watched Hedy carefully scoop out the crystals, he reached out to take one and inspect its color.
"Don’t touch it—it's toxic!"
Hedy instinctively slapped his hand away, her tone serious. "Sir, it's fine to use this pigment for painting, but you should never touch it with your bare hands or get too close to smell it."
Copper sulfate, when inhaled in large quantities, could cause vomiting, and excessive contact could lead to more severe poisoning.
She had originally intended to make gloves or a mask, but hadn't found the right material at home, so she had to improvise and make a few small samples for now.
"We also need to find a stabilizer... Once it’s added, it’ll never change color again." She muttered to herself absentmindedly, "What to use... egg whites?"
"Should I go get some eggs?" Da Vinci was about to get up, but suddenly paused, as another idea struck him. "Maybe add some grease to it?"
"That’s up to you, sir."
These past days spent alongside Da Vinci in the side chapel of the Palazzo Vecchio, Hedy had witnessed many new and intriguing things.
