His lips twist briefly before he says, “I don’t usually let myself feel it. I channel it into my portrait—any emotional pain, guilt, or regret. I can feel my link to the painting, you see—like a thread that’s tied just here.” He touches the center of his chest. “The transference of physical harm to the painting is automatic, and any associated pain is brief and minimal. When I start to feel anything emotionally uncomfortable, I just push it along that tether, and it goes away. I can make every bad emotion disappear if I want to. But this fear—this knowledge that my days may be numbered—is ever-present. I can’t get rid of it.” His voice is taut with stark desperation. “You have to help me.”
“I wish I could. But I’ve vowed to myself that I won’t use this thing inside me ever again. I used it once, before I knew what itmeant, and someone died horribly. Someone I loved.”
He hesitates, pacing the room a couple of times.
“You used your power before you understood it,” he says. “But you understand it now, don’t you? So why not use it for your benefit and mine?”
“Didn’t you hear me?” I set down the mug of tea and lace my fingers together, trying to stop them from shaking. “I lost someone to this—thiscurse. I won’t risk that again. I don’t paint portraits of anyone, not even strangers, because my mother told me even the smallest affinity to the subject you’re painting can create a partial transference, and I won’t risk it. It’s almost impossible to avoid a link to your subject when you’re doing a portrait. Things can go wrong in so many ways if the connection is imperfect or if the session is interrupted. My mother told me stories—”
“But in this case, I’m fully informed.” Dorian continues pacing the room with impassioned steps. “I know the risks, and I consent. By doing this, you won’t be hurting anyone else. You’ll be saving my life. We simply have to create the right conditions, and then—”
“No.”
He stops behind the sofa. Grips the back of it with both hands. Different rings today, same long fingers. A pianist’s fingers. I wonder if he plays.
“No?” he says, low. His eyes crystallize to cold blue ice.
“You’ve had almost two centuries, thanks to your first painting. Don’t you think maybe it’s time to—make a graceful exit? I know that sounds harsh but…you’ve had so much more time than most people get.”
He stares at me, frozen, but I sense the impending crack, the explosion of the iceberg.
“I don’t even know if what you’re asking is possible,” I venture. “Altering a completed transference, moving your soul from oneportrait to another… I don’t know if it would even work.”
“And you won’t try.” His lips barely move over the words.
“I don’t think it’s right for you to have that advantage over everyone else.” Heated indignation is rising inside me.
“I never claimed to be overly dedicated to fairness. I’m thinking of my own survival. That’s evolution, darling. Pure and simple.”
“Fine. If you can’t empathize with humanity at large, let’s make it more personal,” I say. “Did you ever think about how I might feel, gifting you this kind of deathless immunity when I can’t have it? People like me can’t paint self-portraits and tuck ourselves into them. We have to decay and die like everyone else. Why should you get to be ridiculously richandimmortal?”
“That’s your real reason, isn’t it?” His brows furrow, a sneer curling his mouth. “Selfishness. You can’t have it, so no one else will. I thought you were better than that.”
“You don’t know me,” I hiss. “And how amIthe selfish one here?”
“You’ll let me die because you can’t handle the emotional trauma from your past. That’s fucking selfish.”
I open my mouth to yell a protest, but I hesitate.
Is he right? Am I being selfish?
I’ve never encountered an offer like this, a situation like this. Maybe I’m reacting too quickly, without thinking it through. I’m being harsh, expecting this man to resign himself to death.
There has to be another option. A way to give him what everyone should have: a single mortal life.
“Look, my mom mentioned something she did once—a process to remove the subject’s soul from a painting and put it back in their body. It’s painful for everyone involved, but I think I remember how she did it. I could try to make that work.”
“But then I would be normal again.” Dorian strides around thesofa, his eyes like blue blades, splitting me open. “I would growold. I can’t bear to grow old, to become wrinkled and spotty, thin-skinned and leaky. I won’t sag and shrink and crumple. You can’t ask that of me, Baz. That’s just cruel.”
I vent an incredulous laugh. “Cruel? That’s life. That’s the shit everyone deals with! You called my ancestor a coward, but I’m starting to think you’re the coward here.”
Too far. I think I went too far with that one.
The blaze in his eyes is hot enough to consume me alive. Every muscle of his bare body is rigid and contracted, and his fingers twitch as if he’s itching to clamp them around my neck.
I swallow hard, crushed by the sudden realization that he’s only holding back because he needs me. I’m the last of my line, his only chance at a new portrait.
If I wasn’t, I’m pretty sure he’d kill me right now.
