Lysara surrendered herself to the painting.
For a time, there was nothing else. Not Daevyn. Not Aurora. Not the wedding gathering momentum behind her back. Not House Vale, with its beautiful old bones and rooms that seemed to ask questions she was not ready to answer. There was only colour, light, movement, and the quiet obedience of the brush in her hand.
She did not notice when the first of the women left.
Nor the second.
Nor the third.
By the time the studio had emptied around her, the afternoon had deepened into evening, and the great windows reflected only dim shapes back into the room. Lysara blinked when a lamp flared to life behind her, the sudden glow disorienting enough that she lowered the brush and stared at the canvas as though waking from a dream.
Celeste stood behind her with two glasses of wine.
“I have never seen anyone paint quite like that,” she said, passing one across. “It is probably irresponsible of me to offer you alcohol when you have neither eaten nor drunk for hours, but I have never been an icon of responsibility.”
Lysara accepted the glass and leaned back with a soft groan as every muscle in her body remembered itself at once.
Celeste’s mouth curved. “There she is. I wondered whether we’d lost you inside the paint.”
“I might have preferred that.”
“Understandable.”
Celeste moved behind her and set her glass aside before placing both hands upon Lysara’s shoulders. Her thumbs found the tight knots at the base of Lysara’s neck with such immediate accuracy that Lysara’s eyes closed before she could stop them.
“Oh, gods.”
Celeste laughed quietly.
“If you stop, I may cry.”
“I took a course.”
“Of course you did.”
“I took a great many courses.” Her voice remained light, though something colder slipped beneath it. “Some in languages. Some in etiquette. Some in locks, ledgers, poisons, persuasion…” Her fingers pressed deeper, merciless and wonderful. “And some in the many elegant arts by which women are taught to make themselves useful to powerful men.”
Lysara opened her eyes.
Celeste continued working at the tension in her shoulders as though she had not said anything remarkable.
“I was in love,” she said. “He was Fae and I was a half-breed. I knew from the start that if I was ever to be accepted in the Winter Court I would need to be perfect.” Her laugh was soft and without warmth. “And then, when it came down to it, I wasn’t perfect enough.”
“I’m sorry,” Lysara said quietly.
“For what?”
“I don’t know. That he was an idiot.”
Celeste’s hands stilled for the briefest moment before resuming. “You have a tender heart. It will get you into trouble.”
Lysara took a cautious mouthful of wine. It warmed its way down into the emptiness of her stomach far too quickly.
“My parents were never truly Court,” she said after a moment. “Not the way Daevyn’s family are. We were invited sometimes, after Papa became wealthy enough that certain people decided we were useful to know, but we were never really inside it. Not properly.”
“Useful money is almost as good as old blood,” Celeste murmured. “For a while.”
Lysara smiled faintly despite herself. “Exactly. I spent years in the Human Realm, and now half I’m not entirely sure where I fit anymore…”
“Torn between two realms,” Celeste nodded. “I can appreciate.”
“Yes,” Lysara knew that. Celeste was half Fae, she would know better than anyone. “And yet sometimes it feels so right too. Being with Daevyn. But then I wonder if I am seeing something that isn’t there because of the bond.”
“Ah.” Celeste moved away at last, taking up her own wine again. “I have never felt the bond.”
Lysara turned in the chair.
Celeste stood beside the canvas, studying it with unreadable eyes. “Everyone speaks of true mates and soul bonds as if they are a blessing. But it is also destructive.” She drank. “Is it a wonderful gift that connects you to your fated mate, or a chain that binds you to them?”
The studio seemed quieter than it had a moment before.
“It can be broken,” Lysara said.
Celeste looked at her then, and for the first time the amusement fell away completely and Lysara was reminded of the grief that had haunted Daevyn’s eyes the night that Aurora had come to Vale House.
She walked towards the nearest easel, where one of the other women had left her unfinished copy to dry. “Oh, I know. It’s part of why it hurts so much.”
Her fingers hovered near the canvas without touching it. “A lifetime together, decades of planning and love… and it wasn’t enough reason for him to break it.”
Lysara said nothing.
“One day I belonged in his rooms,” Celeste continued, her voice still controlled. “I knew his business, his secrets, his enemies. I knew the shape of his ambitions before he spoke them aloud. I stood beside him when everyone else would happily have watched him fall.”
“And then?” Lysara asked softly.
Celeste’s mouth curved, but there was no humour in it. “And then fate discovered a better bride.”
The words landed with quiet brutality.
“For a little while, I told myself it was temporary. Political. Necessary. Men from the old Houses are always very convincing when explaining necessity.” She took another drink. “Then suddenly she was the wife, and I was the embarrassment everyone expected to become dignified about my own replacement.”
Lysara’s fingers tightened around her wineglass.
“I was angry,” Celeste said. “No. That is too delicate a word. I was incandescent. I had given him years. Loyalty. My body. My work. My secrets. And I was expected to smile because a soul bond had arrived and made all that history inconvenient.”
Lysara looked down.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, though she knew it was useless.
Celeste sighed. “Don’t be. Pity wrinkles the face.”
Despite herself, Lysara laughed.
“There.” Celeste pointed at her with the wineglass. “Better.”
She crossed back to Lysara’s canvas and stood before it for a long moment. “You are extraordinary.”
The shift in subject caught Lysara off guard. “You flatter me.”
Celeste turned slowly.
Lysara winced. “All right. I am good.”
“Good?”
Celeste set her glass down, caught Lysara by the wrist and pulled her to her feet. She drew her towards the nearest easel.
“Ilithia is good,” she said, nodding towards the copy drying there.
She tugged Lysara to the next.
“Renatha is excellent.”
“She is,” Lysara agreed.
“And you…” Celeste brought her back to her own canvas and placed her in front of it. “You are not good.”
Lysara stared at the work.
In the lamplight, she could see all the places where it differed from the original. The pressure of her hand. The life inside the colour. The small decisions she had not consciously made because instinct had made them for her.
“You are brilliant,” Celeste said. “Possibly infuriatingly so to lesser artists.”
The praise made Lysara uncomfortable enough that she took another mouthful of wine. “Thank you.”
“No.” Celeste lifted the bottle and refilled both glasses. “Thank you. You have just become extremely useful.”
Lysara glanced at her warily. “In what way?”
Celeste laughed, throwing her head back with such sudden delight that, for one impossible heartbeat, she looked almost young.
“Oh, darling. You really are precious.”
“That sounded insulting.”
“It was affectionate.”
“I’m unconvinced.”
Celeste handed back her glass. “Truth time.”
She moved through the studio, extinguishing lamps as she went until only the glow nearest Lysara’s canvas remained.
“Old Houses keep everything,” Celeste said. “Letters, ledgers, jewels, portraits of dead relatives no one liked even when they were alive. They inherit more art than they can display, lock half of it away, and then forget it exists.”
Lysara looked towards the original Van Gogh standing framed beneath the central light.
Celeste followed her gaze and smiled.
“Occasionally, I borrow things.”
“Borrow.”
“It is returned,” Celeste said, lifting one elegant shoulder. “Eventually. That makes it borrowing.”
“You break into noble Houses and steal paintings.”
“I enter neglected storage rooms and rescue imprisoned masterpieces.”
“That is not better.”
“It is considerably better phrased.”
Lysara stared at her.
Celeste’s amusement faded into something more serious. “I learned to open doors because closed doors have a habit of keeping women where men prefer them. Safes are only doors with better locks.”
“And the copies?”
“Sold.”
“As originals?”
“As newly discovered works.” Celeste smiled faintly. “Which, in a sense, they are. The original returns to its dusty little prison, the buyer receives beauty, my artists receive money, and I receive the satisfaction of knowing that another ancient family has unknowingly funded women they would never invite to dinner.”
Lysara should have been horrified.
She was horrified.
A little.
But she could not stop looking at the paintings around the room, at the work produced by women who would likely never have been given patronage by the very Houses whose forgotten treasures they copied.
“It’s fraud,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You say that very calmly.”
The other woman’s expression sharpened. “Do not mistake me. I know precisely what I am doing. I am not asking you to believe me virtuous.”
“Then what are you asking?”
Celeste stepped closer. “For understanding. I was dependent once,” she said. “On affection. On promises. On a man’s version of honour. Never again.”
Lysara looked away first.
Celeste’s voice lowered. “You are about to marry into one of the oldest Houses in the Winter Court. Perhaps Daevyn Vale adores you. Perhaps he will be faithful, generous, tender, everything a husband ought to be.”
“He is a good man.”
“I believe you.”
The simplicity of it unsettled Lysara more than mockery would have.
“But good men still choose duty,” Celeste continued. “They choose Houses. Fathers. Debts. Names carved into stone long before either of us were born. They do not always mean to hurt us when they do it.” Her mouth tightened. “Sometimes they weep beautifully afterwards.”
Lysara thought of Daevyn’s face above hers, that sudden raw grief she still did not understand.
“What do you want from me?” she asked.
Celeste’s smile returned, but it was softer now. More dangerous for being sincere.
“I want to make you rich.”
“My father is already rich.”
“Your father is rich,” Celeste corrected. “House Vale intends to become rich again. Daevyn will be rich if his plans succeed.” She leaned closer. “I am talking about you.”
Lysara said nothing.
“There is a difference,” Celeste said gently, “between being loved by wealthy people and possessing money no one can take from you.”
The words slid beneath Lysara’s skin far more neatly than they should have.
Celeste saw it. Of course she did.
“Happily ever after is a charming phrase,” she said, lifting her glass. “But in my experience it bears a strong resemblance to a large private account, a locked door only you can open, and enough independence to leave any room in which you are no longer respected.”
Lysara looked back at the canvas.
“And if I refuse?”
“Then you refuse.” Celeste shrugged. “I shall be heartbroken for at least an afternoon and then find another genius with fewer scruples.”
Despite herself, Lysara smiled.
Celeste’s answering smile flashed bright and sharp. “But if you stay… if you keep painting like this…” She gestured to the canvas. “You and I are going to become very, very wealthy.”
Lysara drew a slow breath.
Beyond the windows, the city had darkened entirely. Somewhere below, the Chinese restaurant had begun its evening service, and the scent of ginger, garlic and hot oil drifted faintly up through the old floorboards.
“What happens now?” she asked.
Celeste collected her handbag, her smile turning wicked.
“Now, darling, we eat. I have just offered you a criminal empire, and you have had nothing but wine since breakfast. Even I have limits.”