Painted in Shadows

Chapter 1

Mrs. Harwicke's portrait is glaring at me.

I know paintings can't actually glare, but this one manages it anyway. Probably because my magic painted what she is instead of what she wanted—which was apparently someone else's face entirely.

"Your nose is exactly as requested." The lie burns coming out. Her nose could shelter small villages, but that seems rude to mention. Unfortunately, my magic has no concept of rude. The canvas shows every pore in loving, terrible detail.

"I specifically requested flattering adjustments." She waves at the painting like it might attack. Given how the yellow streaks turned out—all sharp edges and judgment—maybe she's right to keep her distance. "This makes me look severe."

Well. Yes. Also like someone who alphabetizes their spice rack and judges people who don't, but I keep that to myself.

"Would different lighting help? Sometimes afternoon sun can be—"

"Different lighting won't fix incompetence."

Right then.

She's digging through her purse now. I know where this goes. Same place it always goes when people realize I can't paint them prettier than they are.

"Half payment, as we discussed if I wasn't satisfied."

We didn't discuss that. We discussed full payment. We discussed the deposit she's pretending doesn't exist. But arguing about money makes my stomach hurt worse than lying about noses.

"Would you like the painting?"

"Why would I want that monstrosity?"

The door slams hard enough to knock my landscape off its easel—the one where the clouds accidentally formed screaming faces. Should probably fix that. The screaming, not the falling. The falling already happened.

I pick it up, dust it off, prop it against the wall with the other paintings too honest to sell.

My stomach growls. Half payment means creative meal planning. Which means day-old bread if I'm lucky, and vegetables that believe in themselves enough to last another day.

Mrs. Harwicke's portrait watches me count coins that won't stretch far enough. The bread crust from yesterday could work as a weapon at this point.

"Right. Market."

The smart thing would be cleaning my brushes first. The paint's already getting tacky. Tomorrow-me will hate today-me for this. But hunger makes compelling arguments about priorities, and painting while dizzy never goes well.

The Drowned Quarter market at dusk almost looks pretty if you squint. Mist rolls off the canals, softening everything into watercolor blurs. Vendors pack up fast—nobody stays here after dark without good reason or bad judgment.

"Olivia!" Emil waves from his vegetable stand. "Saved you some carrots!"

"Are they still technically carrots?" I sort through the survivors.

"They're carrot-adjacent. Distant cousins maybe." He wraps them in yesterday's newspaper. "Two coppers."

I hand over the coins, trying not to think about how that's a quarter of what's left.

"You should paint somewhere with better clients," he says, not for the first time. "Uptown. Where they pay."

"Uptown wants pretty lies. I paint truth."

"Truth doesn't buy food."

"It does. Just... less food."

He shakes his head but throws in an extra potato that's only slightly green. Emil's good people, even if he thinks I'm an idiot. Which. Fair.

The baker's already closed, but Marie's still inside, counting the day's take. I tap on the window. She looks up, sighs, but opens the door.

"Day-old?"

"If you have any."

She hands me a wrapped loaf that's more rock than bread. "No charge. It'll break someone's teeth if I sell it."

"My teeth are very optimistic."

"Your teeth are going to be very disappointed." But she's smiling. "When are you going to paint something people want to buy?"

"When people want to buy truth?"

"So never."

"Probably never, yes."

Back home—if you can call two rooms above an apothecary home—something's wrong.

Matthias gave me the rooms above his shop after asking exactly zero questions about why a young woman with paint-stained fingers needed somewhere anonymous to live.

That's the thing about the Drowned Quarter: everyone's running from something, so nobody asks what.

Perfect for someone whose paintings occasionally reveal more than they should.

Less perfect for keeping your belongings, but you can't have everything.

The door to my studio stands open. I locked it. I always lock it."

The Drowned Quarter has opinions about unlocked doors, and those opinions usually involve your things becoming someone else's things.

Heart hammering, I edge inside. Nothing's missing. Nothing's moved. Except—

Someone's been here. Looking at the paintings. I can tell because one's been shifted. Just slightly. The one I painted six weeks ago of a man I saw for exactly five seconds in the rain.

He was buying bread. Normal transaction. Except something about him made my magic go insane. I barely made it home before the compulsion took over, painted him in one frantic session that left me exhausted for days.

The portrait shouldn't exist. I don't know his name, never saw him again. But the painting...

The painting shows someone drowning in their own shadow. Someone who's forgotten that drowning isn't mandatory. Dark hair, darker eyes, sharp features carved by exhaustion. He could be handsome if he wasn't so busy being terrifying.

I've tried selling it eight times. Can't. Every time someone asks the price, I say it's not for sale. Don't know why. My magic gets opinions sometimes, and this one's apparently staying.

Whoever was in here spent time with this portrait. Touched it maybe—there's a fingerprint in the dust on the frame.

That should terrify me.

Instead, I'm wondering if he recognized himself. If he knows I painted him tired and human instead of whatever he pretends to be. If he realizes someone saw him, really saw him, and thought he was worth remembering.

"This is fine," I tell the empty room. "Completely fine. Someone broke in to look at art. That's totally normal. People do that."

People don't do that.

I heat water for tea with hands that barely shake. Nibble the rock-bread that Marie wasn't wrong about. Stare at the painting that someone wanted to see badly enough to break in.

He didn't look dangerous in that moment I saw him. He looked like someone who'd forgotten that gentleness exists without conditions. Like someone who needed somebody to notice he was tired.

The smart thing would be moving the painting. Hiding it. Destroying it maybe.

Instead, I clean my brushes from today's disaster. Reorganize my paints. Set out fresh canvas like tomorrow might be different.

The portrait watches me with exhausted eyes that somehow got painted more beautiful than the rest of him.

My magic has opinions about him, apparently.

Inconvenient opinions that make me notice things like the careful way he held his bread, like he was afraid of breaking it.

Or breaking everything. Or already being broken.

"This is going to end badly."

Saying it out loud doesn't make me stop. Doesn't make me pack up and leave. Doesn't make me any smarter about men who break into studios to look at their own portraits.

Instead, I start mixing paints for tomorrow. Warm colors this time. Something hopeful. Something stupid.

Because apparently, I paint truth even when truth is that I'm worried about a stranger who probably kills people for fun.

The portrait doesn't argue with my terrible life choices. Just watches me with eyes that got painted softer than they probably are. Which is either my magic being optimistic or me being an idiot.

Probably both.

Definitely both.