Luvian opened his mouth, then closed it. “It’s what I would have liked to do, if I could have. If the option had been there for me,” he said finally. “My grandfather was a great lover of art. He taught me.”
Sorrow had never seen Luvian look sad before. Angry, cheerful, arrogant and annoyed. But never sad. She realized it was the first time he’d ever revealed anything about himself. His time at university was “educational”, his family were “amicably estranged”. He never spoke of friends, save to say he wasn’t popular, nor of lovers or love interests, only focused on his work. All accounts from his time at university said the same. She’d assumed there was a tragic story there, some kind of falling out with his family, or maybe childhood shyness he’d only outgrown after university, because no one could accuse him of it now. To be honest, she’d stopped thinking about him as anything other than part of her, Irris and him, the team she hoped to win the election with. He’d slotted so seamlessly into Sorrow’s life, barely causing a ripple, that she’d almost forgotten he was still mostly a stranger to her.
He seemed to realize he’d let his mask slip as he forced brightness into his voice and continued. “So I used the gift of foresight to become a political maven, with the intent of seating a chancellor who will make it possible for me to indulge my hobbies. And on that note, we have work to do.”
There was no point in pretending they weren’t who they were – the country was abuzz with the news from Rhannon and the fact that both candidates were attending the Naming, even though no one had anticipated them coming to Ceridog.
So they didn’t try to be discreet, instead walking slowly through the town to the central square, Dain shadowing them closely. Though Sorrow felt horribly exposed, she tried to relax, reminding herself no one knew they were there.
She forced herself to pause and look in windows, as Luvian marvelled at the things for sale: books, jewellery, trinkets that could have no real use except to be looked at as they gathered dust, until eventually Sorrow’s curiosity was real, and her enthusiasm too. All around them Rhyllians walked and chattered, sitting on tables outside cafés with small cups of steaming coffee, gossiping in their lilting language, looking happy and relaxed. On a street corner a tall olive-skinned Rhyllian pulled a shining silver flute from a case and began to play, as passers-by flicked silver coins into a hat he’d left on the ground. Two children darted forward to dance, and Sorrow found her mouth curving involuntarily.
There was so much room for pleasure in the world, Sorrow realized, as Luvian handed her a small cake, topped with cream and crystallized petals, that he’d ducked into a bakery to buy after she’d pointed it out in the window. This was what she wanted for Rhannon. For life to feel worth it, not just be toil and misery.
Luvian handed one of the confections to Dain, who stared at the cake as though unable to believe it was real. She ate it in three bites, but there was a reverence to them that Sorrow found oddly charming. She would never have expected one of the Decorum Ward to be so … human. Though she was loath to admit it, after what happened at the bridge, and now this, the woman was beginning to grow on her.
When Sorrow took the first bite of her own cake, she couldn’t stop herself from moaning. She’d thought the feast at the inn was incredible, but it was nothing, nothing, compared to the rapture of sugar and cream that flooded her tongue now. She met Dain’s eyes with a complicit, chocolate-coated grin, as she licked the cream from her fingers greedily, not wanting a single morsel to go to waste. Irris hadn’t said it was like this. Sorrow was right to demand everyone give her cake, she thought giddily. There really ought to be cake every day.
When she glanced at Luvian, he was staring at her, rubbing the back of his neck, his lips parted, and she realized abruptly she wasn’t behaving like a future chancellor. She swallowed the remainder quietly, making sure she appeared composed every time her advisor darted a nervous glance her way.
Though she’d find a way to go back to the bakery before they left.
After they’d spent enough time establishing themselves as curious tourists, and Sorrow had finally recovered from her cake, they headed for the Registry of Colours. It was two streets back from the square, an old-looking, golden-bricked building that dominated the leafy avenue.
Sorrow pulled Luvian away from Dain. “How do we play this?” she whispered.
“Straight. There’s no point in lying, they’ll see right through it. We say we’re trying to trace the artist, and we know this is one of the colours they used.”
“All right.” She returned to Dain. “I’m sorry, but I need to ask you to wait here.” She pointed to a wooden bench, positioned beneath a tree. “This is confidential. You can’t come with us.”
“I’m supposed to guard you. I have orders.” When she’d spoken at the bridge her voice had been a commanding bark, iron-lined and brutal. But now her voice was soft, sweet even, at odds with her muscular frame.
Sorrow looked at her more closely then, at her clear, bright skin, her delicate nose and large, thickly lashed eyes. She couldn’t be much older than Luvian, perhaps mid-twenties. Her cheeks still had a childlike roundness to them, and again Sorrow thawed towards her. She wasn’t the battle-hardened monster Sorrow imagined all the Decorum Ward were.
“I’m sorry, Dain. I can’t tell you why you can’t come, but that’s my order. Please,” Sorrow tried.
Dain gave her a long look, and then nodded. “Very well. I’ll wait.” She sat on the bench, knees apart, hands resting atop them.
“Call me deluded, but I think Vine might have accidentally assigned me the only decent member of the Decorum Ward,” Sorrow murmured to Luvian as they approached the door to the registry.
“Miracles do occasionally occur.”
He pulled the cord that hung beside the door, releasing it when a deep bell chimed behind the thick wood. A moment later, the door swung silently open and a young Rhyllian woman stood there. Like Rasmus, she was adorned in jewellery, her ears lined with hoops, another in her left nostril, and one piercing her left eyebrow. Her paint-splattered fingers were full of rings too, and through a tear in her equally stained tunic, Sorrow spied another ring through her belly button. The girl looked from Sorrow, to Luvian, then back to Sorrow, before frowning.
“We have some paint fragments we’d like to match,” Luvian began, in Rhyllian.
“I know who you are,” the girl replied in heavily accented Rhannish. “You’re here about the portraits. Of the lost boy returned. You want to know who painted them.”
“Yes.” Luvian blinked. “But how—”
“It’s me,” the girl said, leaving Luvian gaping like a fish, and Sorrow stunned into silence. “I paint them. Well, I painted the last one, at least. You’d better come in.”
She stood back to allow Sorrow and Luvian to enter, and they did, stumbling through the doorway.
They stood in a light, airy hallway dominated by a white wooden staircase that curved like the spirals of a shell, narrowing as it joined the floor above. The floor was tiled, also white, and the girl’s bare feet made no sound as she walked past them, heading to a small door set back in the wall.
“Were you expecting us?” Sorrow asked, bewildered by the fact she’d been there, as though waiting for them.
The girl gave her a scathing look over her shoulder. “I was passing the door when you rang the bell. This way,” she said.
Sorrow and Luvian exchanged a confused glance before following.
The Rhyllian didn’t bother waiting for them as she moved silently down a corridor, turning left and vanishing around a corner. By the time they reached that bend, she was about to disappear around another, and so it continued as they chased her through a warren of identical passages, until at last they came to a corridor halted by a wall at the end, the girl nowhere to be seen. Nervous, they edged down the passage, pausing as they drew level with an open door. When they peered into the room beyond, they found the girl in there, throwing sheets over canvases.
&n
bsp; They hovered in the doorway, something about the space forbidding them from entering without permission. It was a studio, that much was clear. But it was also a home; there was a low, narrow bed in the corner that hadn’t been made, a small table covered in dirty dishes, clothes in rainbow colours thrown over a mannequin and heaped on a chair.
“Come in,” the girl said, apparently more concerned with hiding her work than the evidence of her life. The girl lowered herself to the floor, crossing her legs under her in a smooth motion. “I don’t have any refreshments to offer,” she said bluntly.
“That’s all right,” Sorrow said. She walked over to the girl and sat opposite her, Luvian kneeling beside her, trying to remain calm. Finally they’d found the artist. Finally she’d get some answers about Mael. “So, you’re Graxal?”
“No.”
Sorrow paused. “But you said you were the artist.”
“I am. Now. But Graxal isn’t my name. It isn’t a name at all. It’s two names, made one. My name, Xalys. And my mother’s, Gralys. She was the artist, and when she died, I moved here and took over her work.”
Sorrow hadn’t been able to look at the signatures on the older portraits, back in the Winter Palace, before she’d left. She’d taken it for granted it was the same signature, same artist. Graxal. Gralys.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Sorrow said finally.
The girl – Xalys – shrugged. “It was too soon.”
Sorrow left a respectful pause before she asked her next question. “So your mother was the person who originally painted the portraits of Mael?”
“Yes.” Xalys looked at them with silver eyes. “Until this year – she died before she could finish. So I finished for her, and signed it from us both.” She paused. “I suppose your next question is who commissioned the paintings?”
“Exactly,” Sorrow said.
“Lord Vespus Corrigan,” Xalys said. “Though I suppose I can technically call him ‘Father’.”
Something Long-Term
“Your father?” Sorrow stared at the girl. She’d expected Vespus to be the answer to the question. But she hadn’t expected this. “Vespus is your father? Rasmus is your brother?”
Xalys raised her eyebrows. “Half-brother. Lord Corrigan married Rasmus’s mother when I was six. He was never married to my mother.”
Sorrow was stunned, momentarily forgetting why they were there as she stared at the Rhyllian woman before her, trying to find Rasmus, or Vespus, in her features. Rasmus had no idea this woman existed; he’d often wished for a brother or sister, despite Sorrow’s dark warnings that they could be more trouble than they were worth.
“So Lord Vespus commissioned the paintings?” Luvian’s tone was a nudge, warning Sorrow to pay attention, and she shook off her shock and focused on what Xalys was saying.
“Yes. As a gift for your father, from the people of Rhylla.” Xalys looked at Sorrow. “To express our condolences for what happened at the bridge. You didn’t know that?”
“The records of who painted it were lost,” Sorrow said. “We were curious about who did the work, year after year. And how the tradition began. It was pure luck to find you here. We thought we’d have more of a search on our hands.”
“They’re really something,” Luvian added. “The pictures. It must have been challenging to imagine him.”
“For the first one we worked from a Rhannish painting. When they’re that little, they don’t change very much.”
“What about as he got older?” Sorrow asked, following Luvian’s lead.
“A combination of guesswork and pictures of the chancellor and his wife. And a model Lord Vespus brought.”
Sorrow froze. “A model? A Rhannish one?” To her ears she sounded too curious; she could hear the desperation in her voice, and she held her breath, waiting to see if Xalys noticed.
But it seemed not, as the Rhyllian replied, “I don’t know. I was never allowed to see him; Mama always sent me away when they came. He came for a few years. Then he stopped, and Vespus told my mother what he wanted changed.”
Luvian spoke before Sorrow could. “Such as?”
“Nothing especially. Comments on the length of his hair, the size of his lips, the tilt of his nose. It’s hard, sometimes, to predict how a child will look, especially through their teens. Vespus said the very same about Rasmus – that he’d changed into a boy he didn’t think he’d recognize. He said he didn’t want that for your father.”
Sorrow turned to Luvian, who met her gaze with his own bright eyes.
“Did he?” Luvian murmured. “How interesting. I wonder where the model is now?”
“I couldn’t tell you. Lord Vespus probably could.”
“We’ll be sure to ask when we see him at the Naming,” Luvian said.
Sorrow nodded, her whole body buzzing with this new knowledge. There had been a model. Someone had sat for the paintings. Someone real. And they’d stopped going after three years… So the model would have been around seven. Young enough, perhaps, to not remember doing it. Sorrow couldn’t remember anything specific from her seventh year; it was only after Rasmus had arrived that she had real memories of her childhood… So the Mael she knew might have been the model… And if he’d stopped going, was it because Vespus didn’t want him to remember doing it?
Even if the model wasn’t Mael, but some other child, Xalys had practically proven Vespus had been planning this for years. Why else would he do it? Sorrow fought back a grin at this realization. Finally, they had something.
“Does he look like her work?” Xalys asked Sorrow, interrupting her thoughts. “Mael, the real one. Were we close?”
“He’s identical,” Sorrow said, unable to keep her glee from her voice. “It’s incredible.”
Luvian rose to his feet then. “Well, that’s cleared that puzzle up. Now we know who our mysterious benefactor is, and the gifted artist. Thank you for your time.” He offered Sorrow a hand, hauling her up with surprising strength as Xalys gracefully unfolded her limbs and stood too.
“Can you find the way out?” Xalys asked.
“Not a chance,” Luvian replied cheerfully, and the Rhyllian girl smiled.
For the first time, Sorrow recognized Rasmus in her face, and her stomach gave a gentle flip in response.
Xalys led them back along the winding passageways, until once again they were standing in the entrance hall. Two other Rhyllians were descending the spiral stairs, and they looked coolly at Sorrow and Luvian but said nothing as they passed them, disappearing into the warren of rooms and studios beyond.
“Thank you.” Sorrow echoed Luvian’s words as Xalys pulled open the main door to the street.
“Enjoy the Naming,” Xalys said.
“We will.”
“Oh, and if you’re looking for somewhere to eat tonight, there is a place on the other side of the square, on Crown Street, called Anwyn’s. It sells kishkies; they’re a pastry peculiar to Ceridog. You should try them while you’re here.”
“Thanks again,” Sorrow said. “I mean, you’re good to us!”
Xalys closed the door then, seemingly deciding the goodbye was over.
“To the inn?” Luvian asked, and Sorrow nodded, trying to contain her happiness.
They remained silent as they retraced their steps back through the bustling square to the inn, collecting a bored-looking Dain on the way. They told the bodyguard they were going to rest before dinner, and left her outside the floor once more. Sorrow opened her door, counted to three, then closed it loudly, before sliding into Luvian’s room and silently latching it shut.
He was already sitting at his desk, coat sleeves rolled up, a pen in his hand and a frown at his brow. She sat on his bed and watched as he began to go through his ever-present list of children, crossing things out before writing something else, underlining that and drawing arrows between words. There was a breeze dancing through the open window, and he tutted at it, as though that might make it stop, trying to pin the sheets down and write at t
he same time. She wanted to ask why he was working on the list now, why then of all times, but something in his posture made her wait until he’d put his pen down and sat back.
“Is now really the time?”
Luvian jumped, as though he’d forgotten, or not realized, that she was there. “What?” He ran a hand through his hair, causing it to stick up like the crest of a bird.
Sorrow nodded towards the papers. “To do that?”
He gave her a long, unreadable look before replying. “There were over fifteen thousand children reported missing or presumed dead during the seven years I’m looking at.”
“Fifteen thousand?” Sorrow was shaken.
“Relatively it’s a small amount, especially for a country with a population of almost twenty million people. But still, a lot,” he added hastily, when Sorrow gaped at him. “So whenever I have time to do this, it’s time to do it. Besides –” he paused, taking off his glasses and cleaning them on his tunic “– it helps me focus. It’s something solid.”
“So is what we learned from Xalys,” Sorrow said.
Luvian paused, and put his glasses back on. “Oh, that’s something,” he said, confirming what Sorrow had realized earlier.
“So…” Sorrow didn’t understand why he wasn’t as pleased as she with what Xalys had told them.
“We still have no proof that Mael is an imposter. All we know for certain is that Vespus commissioned the portraits, and, in the early days, had someone model for them. We don’t know who the model was, Xalys never saw him. He might not even have been Rhannish – it could have been Rasmus, did you think of that? Perhaps the reason Xalys had to stay away was so she didn’t meet her brother.”
“But—”
“But nothing, Sorrow. It’s confirmed our suspicions, and raised a lot more questions. That’s all.”
A lump formed in Sorrow’s throat and she swallowed, forcing it down to say, “So finding the artist was pointless, despite everything she said.”
Luvian wrinkled his nose. “It depends on what the point is. If it was finally proving Mael is an imposter, yes, it was pointless. But what it proves is that Vespus has been behind the portraits from the beginning. He ordered them five years before he became the ambassador. And he clearly wanted it to remain a secret. Why?”
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