“Ah, but maybe I could—sooner than you think….”
My eyes widen as I realize what he’s talking about. “You found another way out?” I would much rather talk about Oliver’s problems than my own.
“Well, I found some kind of portal, at the very least! I met with Rapscullio, and he’s a brilliant painter!”
“Painter?I thought he was a villain!”
“No,” Oliver says. “Remember, I told you, that’s just his role in the story. Anyway, he’s figured out how to paint an object onto a special canvas that’s an identical portrait of his lair… and have that object magically appear.”
“That’s how he creates Pyro, the dragon—”
“Exactly. But apparently the mechanism works even when the story isn’t in play.”
I shake my head. “How will that help? It’s not likeRapscullio liveshere.He can’t just paint you into this world.”
“Yes, but I think I might be able to paint myselfoutof my own.”
I ponder this for a moment. “That won’t work. You’d just wind up repainted somewhere else in your story. Like a clone.”
“A scone?”
“No, a cl—Never mind.” I get up from the bed and start pacing in front of it. “If there was a way, though, to get a painting ofmyworld into Rapscullio’s lair, then maybe—”
“I thought you might need some comfort food….” At the sound of a voice, I whirl around to find my mother standing in the doorway with a dinner tray. There’s a grilled cheese sandwich and a glass of milk. She peers around the room. “Who on earth are you talking to, Delilah?”
“My… a friend.”
My mother glances around again. “But there’s no one here….”
“Oliver’s on the phone,” I say quickly. “Speaker phone. Isn’t that right, Oliver?” He doesn’t answer, of course, and I feel myself blushing furiously. “It’s a pretty bad connection.”
My mother’s eyebrows raise.It’s a boy?she mouths silently.
I nod.
She gives me a thumbs-up and—leaving the tray—backs out of my room. “That was close,” I tell him, and sigh.
He grins. “What’s for dinner?”
“Can we be serious here?” I say. “I don’t suppose you’ve taken any art classes?”
Oliver laughs. “Those,” he replies, “are forprincesses.”
“Oh yeah? Tell that to Michelangelo. Let’s say that someone painted over that magic canvas so itisn’ta portrait of Rapscullio’s lair… but instead a painting of my bedroom. And then you happen to start to paint yourself onto it. Logic says that—”
“I’ll wind up in your bedroom!” Oliver’s eyes shine. “Delilah, you are amazing!”
When he says those words, a shiver runs the length of my spine. What if hedidshow up right now, sitting on my bed? Would he high-five me? Hug me?
Kiss me?
At the thought of that, my cheeks burn like they’re on fire. I hold my palms up against them, hoping Oliver hasn’t noticed.
“Ah, now I’ve embarrassed you,” he says. “All right, then. You are not amazing. You’re perfectly ordinary. Run-of-the-mill. Completely dismissible.”
“Shut up,” I say, but I’m smiling. “I want to try an experiment. Have you got your dagger?”
“Of course,” Oliver replies. He draws it from its sheath. “Why?”
