Excerpt: THE ART OF CHARMING A CHANGELING by Sylvie Cathrall

Chapter 1

As a royal conservator well versed in the fifty-six varieties of painting damage, Florrie Hyverfell felt quite confident she’d just discovered the fifty-seventh.

Not intentionally, mind you, but that wouldn’t make much difference once her blunder was revealed. As the brush dropped from her trembling fingers, Florrie forced herself to re-examine the canvas with respectable detachment.

For the most part, The Resolute Portrait of Vibrant Lord Vernal Mauve Among the Ruins remained in fine form. The condition report she drafted before commencing the cleaning had been almost monotonously straightforward. Jewel-pigment on weave, fifteenth century. Original cast-blossom frame and backing extant. Surface injuries limited to candle soot accretions, slight canvas-buckling on the lower left quarter, and gentle discolouration of the floreated border.

Now she was obligated to add “ghastly swirl of flaking paint and ease-flower stains obstructing the stone arch in the midground, courtesy of an apparently inept conservator”.

This apparent ineptitude vexed Florrie the most. While she would never count herself among the finest conservators in Stillscape, Florrie employed the utmost caution when treating an object for the first time. As a matter of fact, the cleaning solvent responsible for this destruction was the gentlest substance in her alchemist’s pouch.

Florrie turned to her flacon of ease-flower extract, examining the wrinkled label for answers it could not provide. The spun-glass bottle, angular and lace-grey in the fourteenth-century style, felt comfortingly cool to her gloved hands. Her mentors at the Conservatory had always joked that it was impossible to harm a painting by applying ease-flower—unless one literally threw the bottle at the canvas.

No, the fault must lie in the painting itself. Under other circumstances, Florrie might have assumed it was painted with substandard stone-powder instead of fine pigments, or that the canvas was woven with unpredictably enchanted threads from the days before trade of such materials between Fairies and Folk dwindled. It would not be the first time she had caught an enterprising lordling mislabelling a painting to bolster their reputation.

Yet a painting of The Resolute Portrait’s repute simply could not be mislabelled, and Prince Ardant was no mere enterprising lordling. When she had arrived at the Commonplace Palace earlier that morning, laden with chemicals and cloths, Florrie had felt cautiously thrilled about accepting a position with one of Stillscape’s many princes. (By present standards, a collector of any gender must possess a mere thirty artworks of only middling quality to qualify as a prince.) Prince Ardant had set Stillscape abuzz by announcing his search for a conservator to reside at the Commonplace Palace—and only increased the uproar by selecting Florrie, a conservational consultant he had never even met.

In fact, Florrie herself had set eyes on her employer for the first time as she ascended the palace’s third-century cascading staircase. To her relief, Prince Ardant appeared as stately and smiley as the gossip columns in curatorial circulars suggested. He was lithe of build, with strikingly eager eyes, a simple silver circlet slung across his dark brown brow, and black hair glossed with the amethyst dye that was quite the rage in the capital.

“Pardon my impertinence,” he said, most graciously, “but I don’t suppose you happen to be Miss Floral Hyverfell?”

“Please,” murmured Florrie, pulling a bow, “call me Florrie, if you would be so kind.”

“Do forgive me!” exclaimed Prince Ardant. “Florrie it is. Well, what shall we do, Florrie? Haul your cases to your new quarters? I’ve prepared a lovely guest chamber for you in the east tower; I hoped you might appreciate a view of the gardens. But perhaps we ought to enjoy some breakfast first? Or … Have you visited the museum before? Shall I give you a tour? Oh, but only after you’ve put down your cases and eaten. Apologies. I’m a bit of a wretched host.”

“I’ve breakfasted already, and my cases are remarkably light. May we make for the galleries?”

The prince’s welcome was bafflingly hospitable. No collector of Florrie’s acquaintance would consider themselves a host to their conservator. According to the Conservators’ Code, princes and conservators must treat each other with nothing more cordial than courteous disapproval. They were, after all, natural rivals. Conservators decried the mishandling of artwork by incautious collectors, while princes resented what they described as “conservatorial arrogance”.

“Might we discuss your expectations for my work, as well?” she added. “I appreciated your kind letter of invitation, but I’m afraid I have ever so many questions.” (The first of which was Whyever did you choose me?, though she wasn’t about to begin with that.)

“But of course! Won’t you please follow me to the atrium? It’s a glorious, glassy thing—new construction, all of it. You can gaze into the galleries while we speak.” He paused to catch his breath. “Have I exhausted you already? Forgive me. You must understand that this is a momentous day for our collections.”

Florrie certainly did understand. She was, to the best of her knowledge, the first conservator invited to the Commonplace Palace in recorded history. The former prince-in-residence, Ardant’s grandfather, insisted upon keeping his galleries locked away decades after other Stillscape princes had opened theirs to visitors. Only after his grandfather’s recent passing did Prince Ardant dare to announce the palace’s public reopening as the Commonplace Palace Museum.

Despite the fashionable humility implied by its name, today’s Commonplace Palace was expansive, with a series of fuchsia stone-spired towers sprouting from the central seed of a keep in the Elegant Eclectic style. Every so often, Florrie spotted bricks painted with delicate mist-scape miniatures in the soft colours and fragile dry-brushing of the thirteenth century. The entry hall was more ostentatious, with vesperwood carvings of fish and field crickets—aggressively twelfth-century in every aspect, she noted—dangling from the vaulted ceiling with eyes wide and mouths agape.

The prince ushered her through the hall until they reached a vast room of windows, suspended by columns (spiralling vegetal, tenth-century) and beams (woefully contemporary) above the crowded galleries below. He waved his hand in the general direction of a plush taupe bench, and she sat beside him. To Florrie’s disappointment, their present perspective prevented her from identifying any paintings on the gilded walls beneath them. She did recognise one famous sculpture—the moralising fifteenth-century gem-and-paste titled A Captive of Curiosity, which featured a shield-bearing Fairy warily regarding the triple-socketed skull of some impossible animal.

“I thought she might catch your eye,” gushed the prince. “A Captive of Curiosity is one of my favourites. Why, as a boy, I frequently indulged in a most embarrassing daydream about the lady coming to life and asking me for a dance. Made my heart pound to think of it!”

Florrie gasped before decorum could intervene. “Do you mean to say that you appreciate Fairy portraiture, Prince Ardant?”

“Appreciate it?” Ardant laughed so fiercely that he had to steady himself on the bench’s wrist-rest. “There’s nothing I appreciate more—though I’ll confess, with apologies to this dear sculpture, to a slight preference for Fairy paintings. When I heard word of your unusual interest in that subject, I knew you were the only applicant worth considering. I do hope to get along with my conservator, and you understand what a fraught topic the genre can become in polite company.”

Florrie could hardly contain her excitement. Painting Fairies had fallen out of favour—understandably so, since there were no Fairies left in a Folk city like Stillscape to paint. The limited novelties of unmagical Stillscape only captured the Fairies’ attention for a few centuries before they retreated to their own dazzling realms, taking their artistic enchantments with them. In response, the prideful Folk of Stillscape reached a collective cultural agreement that magic of all sorts was both unnecessary and unfashionable.

Most of Florrie’s colleagues dismissed her passion for Fairy art as a peculiar fancy. Years ago, she’d even ruined her first conservation commission by babbling on about fifteenth-century Fairy paintings until the frustrated client showed her the door. Consequently, Florrie had long learned to keep quiet about the interests that made her feel the most exuberant. She left little notes on her wardrobe, inside her condition-report journal, and atop the lids of her brush boxes to remind herself never to speak of Fairy portraiture without an invitation.

“I knew your grandfather possessed a few portraits of Fairies, but I did not realise you admired them yourself.” Florrie tugged at her gloves as she tried to repaint her irrepressible delight into something vaguely businesslike. “How many does the museum contain?”

“Fewer than I’d like. You will be responsible for hundreds of objects, and only five of them feature Fairy subjects. But among those is one I cherish above all, and I did not wish to entrust it to someone who dismisses Fairy art as sentimental nonsense.” Prince Ardant sprang from the bench, though they’d only just sat down. “Oh, I can’t help myself!”

The prince smiled—again—and Florrie marvelled at the ease with which he did so; the upward curves of his cheeks looked so natural and convincing. She’d have to keep that smile in mind when practising her own expressions in the future.

“Let me introduce you,” Prince Ardant continued. “Do you mind? I suspect not—you give off the distinct impression that you’re eager to begin. Why, you’re already wearing your conservator’s gloves!”

“As it happens, these aren’t my working gloves,” Florrie said, keeping her voice light. “I put a fine antique pair over my regular gloves while examining art. I’m trained in all handling modalities currently mandated by the Conservatory. Were you aware that some scholars believe bare, clean hands might be safest for painting conservation? Though the Conservatory has yet to rule on the matter. New edicts tend to require at least a decade of consideration before they are codified.”

“Is it not uncomfortable to wear two pairs of gloves when you work?” enquired the prince. “You are welcome to relax a bit here—regardless of what the Conservatory might say.”

“That won’t be necessary.” The skin on Florrie’s shoulders prickled, and she resisted the urge to scratch it. “I wear this pair constantly for the preservation of my good health.”

That was the easiest way of explaining it. Though gloves, unlike magic, were still vaguely voguish in Stillscape, good sense and good manners alike dictated that one must remove them when engaging in such quotidian activities as painting one’s gowns, revarnishing antiquated furniture or embracing a lover. Florrie sported hers ceaselessly, however. At present, she owned well over twenty pairs, which she washed and replaced as necessary while taking care never to leave her hands unclothed for too long.

Explaining away this quirk with an unspecific medical excuse generally ensured it would be improper for anyone to pry further. At the same time, Florrie could not demand propriety in private, and she often wondered what Folk thought, in secret, as they tried to comprehend her condition. An allergy to several of the three-hundred-odd gemstone powders used to make pigments, localised to the tips of her fingers? A childhood injury, no doubt from over-vigorous sculpting, that left her with weakened wrist joints?

“Forgive my discourtesy.” Prince Ardant gave her a hasty bow.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” Florrie replied, as she always did. “To the galleries, then?”

“Let us away!” The prince strode down the corridor with great urgency, as though they could physically leave the awkward subject of her health behind. “What else may I tell you about the position?”

“What of my daily responsibilities? I presume I’ll spend every hour in the studio making repairs.”

“Perhaps not quite every hour.” For the first time since Florrie met him, the prince nearly frowned. “On occasion, I may ask you to assist me with installations or give your advice on curatorial matters. I ought to have hired a proper curator, but so many sneer at Fairy art. And I was advised by my peers to omit this responsibility from the advertisement, because, and I quote, ‘conservators turn up their paint-smeared noses at collections management.’”

“We’re proud of our trade, I suppose,” Florrie said. “But I’m not too proud to assist with curation. As a matter of fact, I studied the history and practice of art before enrolling at the Conservatory.”

She prayed Prince Ardant would not ask why her life’s trajectory had changed so dramatically—and, fortunately, Ardant was far too preoccupied with progressing speedily through the galleries.

“We can savour these landscapes later,” the prince said in apology as they rushed past walls of paintings. “You simply must meet your primary charge. I fear it is in desperate need of some attention. It ought to occupy a place of honour in the gallery, but given its current condition, I’ve tucked it away.”

Prince Ardant had apparently “tucked it away” by moving the painting in question to its own private gallery. The vibrant carmine walls—Red Overwhelm being the most fashionable tint this season, as Florrie knew well—made the place seem bright and cheerful. Florrie assumed the prince’s favourite painting lurked behind the pair of closed eighth-century hearth curtains. The room was empty, save for a single upholstered bench and about thirty Folk politely battling for said bench’s limited space.

“How fortunate!” exclaimed the prince, ushering Florrie to the westmost wall. He unfurled his knapsack and produced a duo of uniquely embellished gallery stools painted to resemble coral-speckled mushroom caps. Prince Ardant collapsed with a sigh onto the first one, inspiring Florrie to follow his lead with the second.

“Prince Ardant!” exclaimed a becaped man at the front of the crowd. His proud bearing, distinguished plait and unabashedly perspiring pink face convinced Florrie he must be a gallery guide in the midst of a demanding tour. “What a pleasure to have you among our guests.”

“Do carry on as though I’m not here, Pennery! Or perhaps I may assist you?” The composition of the prince’s expression took on a most jovial angle, which Florrie also appended to her ever-growing mental catalogue of facial communication options. “Might I pull back the curtains when the time comes?”

The gallery guide, seemingly too delighted by the prince’s presence to respond, merely cleared his throat. Prince Ardant rose from his seat and gave Florrie a cheerful nod of farewell. “Are you ready to meet your new companion?” whispered the prince with an amiable wink.

It was not until the echoes of the prince’s incredibly audible whisper had faded that the gallery guide allowed himself to begin.

“I expect most of you fine Folk would be disappointed if you knew what hid behind these curtains,” he proclaimed. “And I wouldn’t blame you. Fairy paintings are about as fashionable as travelling by flight, aren’t they?”

Though Prince Ardant looked rather displeased, everyone else tittered knowingly. One visitor even had the fortitude to murmur “Nothing feels so real as a wheel!”, the motto of the Society of Folk for the Preservation of Reasonable Transportation. Florrie, for her part, had always felt a little disappointed that the brief popularity of enchanted floating carts—an innovation imported from the Fairies—had died down as a result of the Society’s efforts. It seemed art was not the only area in which her tastes tended to the old-fashioned.

“Yet it is my duty to present a renowned example of Fairy portraiture,” the guide continued. “If any of you ever attended a lecture on fifteenth-century art—and paid the slightest bit of attention—I suspect you might recognise it.”

The guide paused, clearly lacking the confidence to cue the prince to open the curtains. Fortunately, Ardant soon took it upon himself to reveal, with a flourish, a most singular painting.

The Resolute Portrait. Florrie had glimpsed it countless times while flicking through the illustrated appendices of catalogues on Fairy portraiture. Previously, there had been nothing about the painting she had found especially compelling. Its primary distinguishing quality was that the ruins in the background landscape featured only a single arch instead of the requisite four. Seeing the painting in the gallery, however, changed everything.

Florrie reached up to tap the embossed silver vines on her hair-comb. To her frustration, the gallery guide had apparently decided to start mumbling at this precise moment. That was the only possible explanation for why she suddenly found it difficult to follow his words. After all, she’d seen, held and repaired some of the most famous paintings in Stillscape. Why should this one prove particularly disorientating?

“Presenting The Resolute Portrait of Vibrant Lord Vernal Mauve Among the Ruins, painted in 1484 by Honnor Loftus,” the tour guide muttered—or so it seemed. “Vibrant Lord Vernal Mauve was one of the first Fairies featured in Folk portraiture, and the very first to appreciate his own likeness as rendered by one of our artists.”

Her attention drifted. Obviously, she knew all the biographical particulars. Like a young art historian tasked with composing a visual analysis, Florrie ignored the guide in favour of properly evaluating the painting she was expected to restore.

It was an archetypal ruin portrait, a sub-genre that was terribly common during the fifteenth century. The top third of the picture-plane hosted a thick glade of botanically unrecognisable trees, while the midground included several isolated groups of ruins. The most elegant of these was a stately colonnade, supported by seven intact floreated columns topped with finials sculpted in the form of fierce-looking dragonflies. The artist had also included the significantly solitary arch, the remains of a large floor mosaic in the shape of a spiral, and several stacks of moss-covered ashlar stones. Behind the ruins, diminished in the distance, was the only complete structure in the picture; the domed-roof weaver’s cottage in the thirteenth-century style was, no doubt, Loftus’s attempt to appeal to the viewer’s misplaced nostalgia.

It was, by all standards, a pleasant but predictable composition for a Fairy portrait. What made the painting so striking was its subject.

A perk, or hazard, of Florrie’s occupation was that she spent a great deal of time examining exceptionally beauteous people. In her youth, Florrie had declined the attentions of a potential beau who admonished the frequency with which she “stared at other fellows” in paintings (even though the loveliness that Florrie tended to survey—both professionally and personally—was not restricted to that of gentlemen). By now, however, she had become largely immune to the idealised charms of portrait subjects, and it took more than shapely drapery or well-shaded musculature to catch her eye.

In this painting, Vibrant Lord Vernal Mauve looked as poised and polished as one might expect. His proportional relationship with the ruins suggested he was short in stature, but there was a confidence to his stance that made him appear to occupy much more space. Lord Mauve was dressed in a ruffled blouse of tea-rose lace that lay daringly unlaced across his collarbones, paired with a set of trousers seemingly sewn from a full meadow of fresh rose petals. Like most Fairies, he sported a pair of false wings. Because Fairies’ magnificent wings were invisible to Folk, fifteenth-century Fairy visitors delighted in designing fashionable contraptions to help them maintain their winged appearance while abroad in Folk cities such as Stillscape. Lord Mauve’s wings featured a patchwork of iridescent tulle, which Loftus highlighted with a convincing shimmer.

In an appealing departure from the acutely toned physiques prized in prior centuries, the Fairy’s figure was rounded and soft beneath his elegant attire. His chin curved pleasantly into a bright, full face, and the madder glaze layered atop the beige pigment of Lord Mauve’s skin gave him a rosy glow. Most perplexingly, Loftus had evidently decided to buck tradition by gracing Lord Mauve with the warmest smile Florrie had ever seen. She could not tear her eyes from it. How tempting it was to imagine the gentle voice and endearing mannerisms that would accompany such a face!

In other words, Florrie suspected that if she were to meet this Lord Mauve in passing, she would blush deeply and dedicate all her subsequent daydreams to imagining an improbable scenario in which they might become better acquainted.

Her reaction was most peculiar. Fairy portraits were not exactly intended to make undiscerning young conservators blush, and most such portraits depicted figures with proud or imposing expressions. Yet Lord Mauve kept smiling at her in the most sweetly puzzling way. Why had no art historians studied his anomalous expression?

“What do you make of him?”

Florrie jumped. She looked away from the painting to find the prince beside her, smiling expectantly.

In a thoroughly empty gallery.

“Whatever became of the tour group?” she whispered.

“You’ve stared at The Resolute Portrait for a quarter-hour,” said Prince Ardant. “It warmed my heart to see you so entranced. They say the best conservators are those who truly cherish their work, and you looked as enraptured as a young lover!”

“The painting is not what I expected,” Florrie murmured in the blandest tone she could manage. “His expression, in particular, is quite notable.”

“Is it?” enquired the prince. “I suppose I’ve not looked closely in years, and I am invariably without my spectacles. When I studied the painting as a child, I always thought the poor fool looked rather surly.”

As far as Florrie could tell, the prince was gregarious, thoughtful and altogether not the type of client who would recoil at a contradicting opinion from a conservator. Still, the Conservators’ Code forbade her from arguing about something so inconsequential as an expression, especially when she’d given the painting only a cursory glance. As she surveyed Lord Mauve’s grin yet again, Florrie recalled one famous critic’s comment about The Resolute Portrait: “Bold among the ruins, Lord Mauve glares upon us with the most seductively scornful sneer.”

Why did all other accounts of the painting contradict what she saw on the canvas? The visual interpretation of emotions had not always come naturally to Florrie, but even she knew there was nothing about this Lord Mauve that qualified as sneering. Or scornful. Though, in a way, the critic might have been right about—

“Oh, if only I could sneak into that sharp mind of yours and hear your art-historical observations as you make them!” bemoaned the prince. “My grandfather was wary of conservators, but I hope you know I do not feel the same. Not in the least!”

“That is perfectly understandable,” said Florrie. “If your grandfather was born in the last century, he was no doubt acquainted with the older school of restorers, who primarily repainted historical objects to suit their contemporary tastes. That is not the guiding philosophy our Code dictates today.”

“Indeed, so I assumed!” Prince Ardant cleared his throat and gestured at the painting. “Due to my grandfather’s antipathies, however, The Resolute Portrait has suffered a great deal. No small amount of candle soot has accumulated on the canvas, for example. I must confess that I sometimes lie awake worrying about how filthy this painting has become.”

“I can certainly address that. I typically examine the entire painting, including the frame and backing, then compose a condition report and propose methods of intervention. Does that suit you?”

“You are welcome to do whatever you like, as long as you clean the thing first!”

Florrie scratched the sliver of skin that emerged where her right glove met her sleeve. “I’d rather not apply anything to the canvas until I determine the painting’s condition.”

“Yes, of course—but in the meantime, isn’t there something exceptionally simple you could try to remove the soot?” pleaded Prince Ardant.

Though the thought of beginning a cleaning hastily (a clear violation of at least seven distinct subclauses in the Code) made her nervous, Florrie reached down to unbuckle her satchel. “This is ease-flower, which is the shining standard for soot accretions. I’ve used it on fragile second-century oils with no ill effects. But I would still prefer—”

“Brilliant!” The prince nodded fondly at the bottle. “Who would have thought such a funny little liquid might save my dear painting?”

Before Florrie could object, Pennery the gallery guide took this moment to dash back into the room.

“Dear prince,” he gasped. “I ran into your visitation page after concluding my tour, and they begged me to tell you that Prince Valer is here.”

“Prince Valer?” echoed Prince Ardant with a sigh. “Do you happen to know if she is with or without a suspiciously ring-sized box?”

“She is rarely without,” murmured Pennery.

Prince Ardant nodded at Florrie and took one grand, apologetic step towards the door. “I’m afraid it is time for my bi-weekly marriage proposal. Perhaps I ought to say yes, to keep her on her toes! Won’t you excuse me, Florrie?”

While Florrie recognised that the prince must be busy, she rather wished—for his sake as much as hers—that he was not so eager to leave a stranger in charge of his beloved painting.

“I’m sorry to trouble you,” she called, “but is there a studio space where I may work? And a padded cart for transporting the painting?”

“Why, of course!” The prince twisted a trio of rings onto his thumb, which produced a viridian light that flickered across the gallery’s rear wall. As the colour shone forth, a portion of the wallpaper neatly detached itself to form a door-like flap with a corridor behind it.

“A Fairy marvel, from my grandfather’s time,” he explained, pocketing the rings once more. “Most unfashionable, I know. My colleagues dismiss it as ‘an affront to the beautifully mundane mechanisms of an exceptionally ordinary Folk door’. But it’s wonderfully convenient. Each gallery connects via papered-over passages to the storage cellar. My previous conservator found everything quite serviceable.”

Florrie gaped at him—and not exclusively because of the hidden passage he had revealed through the power of outmoded Fairy colour-casting.

“Forgive me,” she said, “but am I not the first conservator to hold this position?”

“This position? Indeed, you are!” Prince Ardant clarified. “In times of need, however, I occasionally enlisted the assistance of a family friend. They had no interest in permanent employment, but they will have kept everything tidy downstairs. And there ought to be a cart someplace, and a mechanical lift at the far end of the corridor.”

Instead of dwelling upon the unthinkable notion that there might be a conservator who wouldn’t want a permanent position, Florrie glanced down the corridor and spied the cart. “Now, are you quite certain you are comfortable with me cleaning—”

The prince, she realised, was already gone. Though his confidence in her was deeply discomfiting, Florrie knew the Code would instruct her to fulfil his cleaning request at any cost.

The Resolute Portrait was installed by way of an antique wall-bracket that took only moments for Florrie to detach. As she lifted the painting onto the cart, Florrie allowed herself the small pleasure of running her fingers along the frame. Though it appeared white on the wall, she could see now that the frame possessed a glistening quality, thanks to a clear varnish laced with what must be quartz dust. Between the sparkles and the smoothness and the small ferns and flowers that felt pleasantly solid through her gloves, Florrie could not imagine anything more ridiculously fifteenth-century.

The cart was clearly a relic of Stillscape’s bygone Fairy era, equipped with brocade padding enchanted to keep the painting from jostling during transit. Still, Florrie pushed the cart slowly over each bump on the roughly hewn floorboards. After travelling through the unlit and rather uninspiring passage for some time, she soon exited the lift and found herself in the heart of the storage cellar.

Most of the prince’s collections remained on perpetual display, so few paintings and sculptures were kept in storage. Instead, empty frames from every era crowded the floors and walls. Florrie gaped at soaring thirteenth-century porthole frames, accented with rosebuds preserved in resin. The unadorned silver casings of the Rebellious Era, too, appeared in great numbers, as well as some intentionally half-shattered frames popular among contemporary artists.

A line of enormous eighth-century doorway frames blocked her access to the other side of the cellar, so Florrie carefully stepped through the tallest of them—resisting the urge to pretend she was walking into a painting—to reach the former conservator’s studio.

As Prince Ardant promised, his friend of the family was indeed a well-organised sort. The table was thoroughly dusted and held nothing but the most elementary tools—a lamp-bonnet, a simple oil scraper and a bottle of ease-flower extract almost identical to Florrie’s. Taking full advantage of the space, she unpacked the first layer of her satchel, assembling in neat lines an assortment of jarred salves and solvents, a variety of brushes and scraping tools, and more gloves than the Conservatory recommended for one’s kit. She set up her suspension easel on the ceiling hooks and hung The Resolute Portrait before her with the greatest care.

After drafting her condition report, Florrie set to cleaning.

“Well, Vibrant Lord Vernal Mauve, how do you fare today? Would you care to see that arch more clearly?” Florrie swirled her brush in the solvent, enjoying the clink of the handle against the glass. Even if it was only a childish fancy, she liked to imagine that the paintings she restored appreciated her care. Besides, in her many years of play-acting these whimsical, one-sided conversations to entertain herself, Florrie had never encountered a painting kind enough to reply.

Until now, of course—moments after she had used a supposedly foolproof solvent to annihilate the arch in The Resolute Portrait.

“Oh, please don’t cry!” exclaimed a faint, ethereal voice. “If it’s any consolation, that was my least favourite arch in the painting.”

“But the painting famously features only one arch,” Florrie whispered as she wiped her eyes. Then, realising what she’d just heard, Florrie looked back to the portrait—and nearly threw her ease-flower extract at the canvas in surprise.

Resolute among his painted ruins, Vibrant Lord Vernal Mauve regarded her with distractingly handsome distress.