Chapter 1 #4
“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.