“It’s exquisite,” I breathed, unable to contain my excitement.
Simon frowned and dropped his phone. “Please refrain from speaking. Now I have to start the video again.”
“If you want to stay in the studio, go over there,” Ryan jabbed a finger at the easel he’d set up for me under the window. “And be quiet. We’re on a deadline. If I hear so much as a brush scratching the canvas from over here, you’re out.”
I mimed zipping my lips shut and settled into my stool. My painting looked shite compared to Ryan’s masterpiece. I hadn’t lied when I told Candice that I was rubbish at two dimensions. My portrait of Corbin looked like a kid’s fingerpainting. But after hours hunched in that hard hospital chair, trying to fight back the darkness that threatened to consume our coven, my fingers itched to finish it. There was something calming about painting that sculpture lacked. My thoughts rolled off in a million directions, and I found I could think of Corbin without wanting to punch the sky. All I needed was a glass of whiskey to make it almost fun. If I believed in fruity woowoo shite, I might’ve called it a meditation.
I’d used streaks of black and purple to form Corbin’s hair spilling across the canvas and right over the edge, as though the square wasn’t enough to contain him. Inside his tresses I painted galaxies and constellations, pulling up star charts on my phoneto copy the patterns exactly. Just for a giggle, I added all our star signs. Maeve would say they were all wrong because of the earth’s wobbling shenanigans, and her nose would wrinkle and her voice would get that schoolteacher tone that was so fecking sexy?—
“I like it,” a voice said behind me, startling me out of my thoughts.
I whipped my head around. Ryan leaned over my shoulder, staring at my canvas with a furrowed brow.
How could Ryan Raynard like it?
I squinted at my painting, trying to see it through his eyes. All I saw was a mess. Ryan’s paintings always looked like stuff. If you wanted to know his mind, you just had to study the different elements of the image. Mine didn’t evenlooklike Corbin. Instead, it contained all the things that made him who he was – dark brown rectangles representing his books, splashes of colour for his quick mind and dry humour and his love of drinking mead and talking shite with the rest of us. The runes he translated for Arthur followed the wavy lines of his hair, and a shaft of light that was meant to represent Maeve and the coven pierced through the centre of the canvas. It was supposed to be a patchwork of Corbinness, but like all my paintings it looked so much better in my head.
Now Ryan fecking Raynard was standing in front of it and saying helikedit, like he considered me some kind of equal.
“You don’t have to pretend.” I rested the palette on my knee and raised the brush to add another layer of brown to the book rectangles. “I know it's shite.”
Ryan snorted. “I’m not in the habit of giving out unearned praise, Flynn. You’re competent. With more discipline, you could be good. No,” he pushed my hand down. “Don’t tweak any more. You’ll overthink it and ruin the rawness. It’s time to let itrest. When you come back to it, you’ll see if it needs anything else. We’re going to release my painting now, if you want to see.”
Did I want to see one of the most famous artists in the world release a painting to the world? You bet your Irish whiskey I did. I threw down the palette and practically skipped down the hall after Ryan and Simon. Ryan unlocked a door to a room I hadn’t seen before, and ushered me into an airy office.
I thought there’d be some kind of ceremony, with press and and a grand unveiling with the painting behind a velvet curtain. But I forgot momentarily that Ryan was a recluse. He seemed sonormal– not like artist savants in films who couldn’t hold a normal conversation. He didn’t even have any of Rowan’s weird ticks. Apart from the whole being a fox shapeshifter thing, Ryan just didn’t seem to care what anyone else thought of him, which was why it was so weird he made all this effort to avoid being seen in public.
I liked that he didn’t give a shit. I wished I could be like that. But I cared a whole fecking lot what other people thought.
Simon had the auction house in London on speaker, and as soon as a clock on his desk counted down, he pushed PUBLISH on an image of the painting on Ryan’s website. There were gasps on the end of the line as the collectors got their first glimpse of Ryan’s genius.
My stomach fluttered with nervous energy as the bids rolled in.Eighty-five thousand… a hundred-and-five thousand… Two-hundred twenty thousand…
I reeled at the numbers. How in the world doesanyonehave two-hundred and twenty thousand pounds to spend on apainting?Ryan leaned against the wall, completely stone-faced, as if the money was of no consequence to him. Probably it wasn’t. I bet he blew his nose with hundred-quid notes.
After much fanfare, we reached a final number – £331,000. Simon switched to a private call to arrange payment and deliverywith the buyer. I threw my arms around Ryan. “Congrats, mate. You’re richer than Croesus. Who is Croesus, anyway? You should bust him up and steal his money, too.”
A weird fluttery feeling arced across my chest.Corbin would know all about Croesus.
Ryan shoved me off. “Save the caresses for your girlfriend.”
I backed away, not wanting to annoy him. “What are you going to do with all the money? Indoor-climbing wall? Fill a swimming pool with one-pound notes? Lifetime supply of saffron and caviar-flavoured ice cream?”
“I have some ideas, but I’m not rushing into anything.” Ryan gave me a laconic smile. “After all, if the world ends tomorrow, I’m not really going to get much use out of an indoor climbing wall.”
Ryan took over the computer while Simon fielded phone call after phone call from press and gallery directors. I watched in fascination as Ryan’s social media pages lit up with talk about the painting and the sale. Email notifications popped up so fast they blurred the corner of the screen.
“The crew will arrive within the hour,” Simon called to Ryan. A local gallery was going to display the painting for three days before it went to its new owner. This would draw an incredible amount of attention to Crookshollow and its witchy, haunted history – all fuel to stoke our belief magic stores.
“Flynn,” Ryan gestured for me to follow him. “Come help me move the painting down to the entrance hall. We need?—”
A buzzer sounded on the wall. Ryan pulled up a computer screen with a camera trained on the main gate. I was shocked to see hundreds of people clamouring around the gates. Vans and other vehicles had blocked traffic on the avenue. The press had arrived. How had they got here so quickly?
“Ryan Raynard?” A voice crackled through the intercom. “Is this?—”
“No comment.” Ryan barked into the speaker.
A police badge slammed against the camera. “This is a police matter. I want to speak to the tenants of Briarwood. Let me in or I’ll come back with a warrant.”
