The line for tickets began at the bottom of Wawel Hill. Tourists wrapped around a kiosk halfway up the slope, waiting beneath the castle walls.

Dani looked uphill.

“Let’s keep going. There’s probably another.”

So, we kept walking.

She was right.

A second ticket office waited near the top with only a handful of people ahead of us.

While I stood in line, Dani wandered into the gift shop. She came back hugging a stack of books and museum pamphlets to her chest—dragons, churches, paintings.

She smiled.

“Six dollars. You should be glad this is all I bought.”

~

Dragons followed us through Wawel.

They hung from gutters, perched on rooftops, guarded stairways, and breathed bronze fire.

One was supposed to live beneath the hill.

The bones of another hung over the cathedral entrance.

The cathedral was crowded too.

Red brick walls, pointed roofs, little chapels and green towers stacked against one another. Gold domes caught the light above the courtyard, while brown domes absorbed it.

We stood beneath its shadow, then stepped inside.

Sunday Mass had just ended, and people poured through the doors. We went in with them, shoulder to shoulder, stopping whenever the people ahead of us stopped.

A chapel opened off one side, then another.

We stopped when the crowd stopped, moved when it moved.

Someone in front of us raised a phone, and half the people behind him did the same.

So did I.

Then the crowd carried us forward.

By the time we reached the bell tower, I had spent more time looking at the backs of strangers than at anything around us.

An hour later, Dani had seen enough.

“Let’s get out of here.”

~

We stepped back into the courtyard and wandered toward the quieter parts of the castle.

I pointed.

The building facades were flat. Painted details. Shallow shadows. Blue sky showing through the windows.

“That’s wierd. They’re hollow.”

One window was dark.

Beneath it, Dani spotted a sign.

“Up here.”

I followed her up the stairs.

At the top we found a small gallery.

One room.

One painting.

Da Vinci.

Cecilia Gallerani stood, her head turned slightly toward us. The ermine rested across her arm, its fur rendered in tiny strokes I could never see in a reproduction.

No one was standing in front of us.

No one was waiting behind us.

Dani moved closer.

I moved closer too.

We stood there, and for a while, neither of us said anything.

~

When we finally stepped back into the courtyard, the cathedral bells were ringing again.

People hurried toward the sound.

Dani and I went the other way.