“I promised you a quiet artist’s afternoon at my studio, did I not?”
She looked well recovered from the other night. When Baz mentioned as much, her smile grew tight, eyes flitting uncomfortably to her brother. “That night was a blur. Must have been the drink. Now come along, we’re losing precious light.”
Clover squinted at her. “You’re not going to see that tailor again, are you?”
“Of course not.” There was a hard edge to her placating smile.“You made your feelings on the matter quite clear.Thatpart of the night I didn’t forget.”
Cordie’s studio was on the upper floor of a tavern Baz had been to before, known in his own time as the Veiled Atlas, though here it was named the Emerald. He remembered in vivid detail all the portraits of Clover that hung in the room he’d dined in with Vera and Alya. All the baubles and paintings that looked like they’d been plucked out ofSong of the Drowned Gods, which the Veiled Atlas believed to be a true story Clover had lived through.
Evidently, there were no such things here now.
Gauzy curtains framed tessellated windows that let in wintry light, and glossy floorboards speckled carelessly with paint creaked beneath their feet. A myriad of canvases—both finished and unfinished—leaned against the tapestried walls, and a lone velvet divan that seemed far too expensive and entirely out of place sat in the middle of the studio.
Being here was a welcome distraction from the Bicentennial. In a new sketchbook gifted to him by Cordie—since the one his mother had given him for the solstice had been left in his own time—Baz tried his hand at charcoals while Cordie worked on a large canvas she wouldn’t let him see.
“It’s a strange one,” she said, frowning at her work. “Not sure what it’s supposed to mean yet.”
The way Cordie spoke of her paintings made it sound like she was letting some higher power guide her hand. When Baz said as much, she laughed. “That’s not far from the truth, I suppose. Sometimes inspiration hits me in a way that can only be explained by my Seer magic.”
Baz raised a brow. “Your magic tells you what to paint?”
“In some ways, yes. It’s always a surprise to see what I might work on next. An impression I got from someone I crossed inthe street, or a crystal-clear image of a scene that came to mind with no context or explanation. I’m not good at deciphering these psychic visions I get, but translating them on canvas helps some. Mostly I just think they make for pretty paintings that tell intriguing stories.”
“And the one you’re working on now?”
Cordie bit the top of her dirty paintbrush, squinting at the canvas. “Like I said, I’m not sure yet.”
If the disparate artwork strewn around the studio was any indication, itwasa pretty eclectic collection, ranging from ultra-realistic portraits to abstract works of colorful shapes. No two pieces were done in the same style, as if every vision she got also inspired a different artistic approach.
“Do you not sign them?” Baz asked, noticing none of them had a distinct signature.
Cordie shrugged. “I can never quite bring myself to sign the ones that were inspired by visions. They’re notmyvisions, after all.”
“They’re drawn by your hand, though. You make it yours by giving it life.”
Cordie hummed pensively. “Maybe you’re right. But I like the mystery it adds.”
They worked in comfortable silence after that. Baz found his stride, and his confidence, with every stroke of charcoal. The hours passed like they were nothing, until suddenly the light coming in was low and muted, cutting large shadows across the paint-speckled floorboards.
A knock at the door made them both jump.
Cordie’s face was flushed with excitement as she set down her brush. “I’ll be just a moment.”
She let out a little squeal as she opened the door and leaped into Louka’s arms. So much for promising her brother she wouldn’t see him again. Their hushed voices drifted through the crack in thedoor, and Baz busied himself with whatever he could think of to give them privacy. As he put away the charcoals he’d been using, he caught a glimpse of Cordie’s current painting out of the corner of his eye. Intrigued, Baz stepped around the easel to look at it.
His jaw fell to the floor. For a second, he thought he’d stepped into one of his nightmares—not the printing press, but another that followed him like a shadow. Keiran, dying in his arms. The haunting image of him in Dovermere, lying in a pool of sea-foam and blood, was painted on the canvas.
Perhaps it could have been any young man that was depicted here. He was featureless enough done in this particular style that Baz couldn’t pinpoint anything that was distinctly Keiran-looking. But with his hands folded neatly on his chest, the water and sea-foam and blood pooled around him, the blood that ran down his mouth and the wound in his middle… it was a perfect replica of Keiran’s death.
And with what Cordie had just admitted to him…
Did she know where this particularly gruesome vision came from? How it was linked to Baz?
“Sorry about that,” Cordie said as she came back into the studio, cheeks flushed and eyes shining. “Please don’t tell Cornelius. Louka was just…” She wavered when she saw him looking at her painting. “What do you think?”
“It’s…”
“Morbid, I know.” Cordie came to stand beside him, folding her arms as she studied her work. “But there’s something strangely… peaceful about it, don’t you think?”
