Chapter 22
For the time being, however, Mim’s book remained wrapped and tucked away as Florrie walked back to the palace.
She only had eyes for Predelle’s catalogue.
His descriptions were woefully generic – “shepherds sitting about an enormous flower from which the moon itself rises”, for example, could apply to fifteen distinct artworks.
While Florrie maintained a fairly excellent mental catalogue of most paintings from the past few centuries, she knew her recollections alone would be insufficient.
She wouldn’t want to waste her time replicating the wrong painting.
After completing her conservator’s duties – which involved the altogether enjoyable task of revarnishing the lid of a three-hundred-year-old “picture pianoforte” in the Decorative Arts gallery – Florrie decided to pay a visit to the palace’s art-historical library.
Like any esteemed prince of Stillscape, Prince Ardant insisted upon collecting every catalogue, monograph and retrospective as they were published.
Florrie hoped at least one of those might help her create a list of changeling-painting candidates.
She could have walked up through the galleries to reach the library, but instead Florrie took the roundabout tunnel route that led past the storage cellar.
The picture pianoforte was rather unwieldy and had been impossible to remove from its gallery.
Consequently, Florrie hadn’t been in the studio all afternoon, and she quite fancied the idea of stopping in to see Vern.
She smiled to think how her visit would surprise him.
It was Florrie, however, who was surprised when she entered the studio – and found it already occupied.
Lady Aestival sprawled on Florrie’s bench, facing the painting. The dim light of the studio’s lanterns reflected off her pink-tinged spectacles.
“Oh, there she is now,” said Aesti, giving Florrie a languid wave. “Forgive the intrusion— Bother, I mean I’m sorry for showing up like this, Florrie. I came by to make some enquiries about the museum. When I realised you were elsewhere, I thought I’d introduce myself to my younger brother.”
“Younger brother?” Florrie echoed.
Aesti grinned at the painting. “My brother in image, at least, if not by blood.”
“Florrie, have you finished your work already?” asked Vern.
“Not yet,” said Florrie. “I… simply wanted to see you.”
What she could see now, even from this distance, was the sudden, giddy intensity of his smile.
Aesti must have noticed it herself, because she groaned. “I hate to interrupt your joyful reunion,” she said, “but Florrie, since you’re here, I have a few matters to discuss with you. It’s just museum business, Vern, which I hope you won’t find too dull.”
“I’ll leave you to it,” Vern replied. “It was lovely to make your acquaintance, Aesti! And Florrie – well, I’m most eager to see you later.”
“I’m sure he is,” murmured Aesti as Vern vanished. “That boy has talked of nothing but you this entire time.”
“As a matter of fact,” said Florrie, “Vern and I did some sums together last night. Considering the age your brother was in the portrait, in Fairy years, and considering that Vern now ages like I do, he is approximately four and thirty in Folk terms. That’s only a year younger than I am, and certainly not a boy by anyone’s standards. ”
“Florrie, I am nearly two centuries old.”
“Oh… yes. But of course.” She rocked onto her tiptoes and back down again. “It was kind of you to introduce yourself to Vern. Even Prince Ardant hasn’t yet – but that’s beside the point, I suppose. How may I help you?”
Lady Aestival proceeded to interrogate Florrie about the collections – asking, for example, which objects would be considered most valuable by Folk standards, and which galleries could benefit from improved safety measures.
Florrie did her best to answer, but she also explained to Aesti that the palace’s greatest weakness was not what one might expect. “Prince Ardant is immensely trusting,” Florrie concluded. “I fear someone could exploit his generous nature to access the collections.”
“Trust me, I am well aware,” said Aesti. “It’s a shame, as I admire that generous nature – but my admiration certainly didn’t stop me from accessing the collections with Mauve that time.”
As the bold Fairy smirked, no doubt lost in pleasant reminiscences about her Commonplace Palace heist, Florrie realised she might have found the perfect accomplice for her research.
“Were you involved in any other changeling-painting operations, Aesti?”
“I might have been,” said Aesti with a wink.
“Is that a way of saying you were? Or are you teasing me?”
Aesti sighed. “Alas, I’ve never stolen any painting other than Mauve’s ghastly portrait. I am fond of reading, however, so I know a great deal about heist history.”
“How much is a great deal? Enough, say, to identify certain stolen and replicated Folk paintings, if I were to show you examples from a catalogue?”
“What a specific request,” Aesti observed. “I don’t suppose this relates to your hilarious involvement with a certain cheerful painting-dweller?”
“Hilarious?” Florrie repeated, her voice trembling more than she would have liked.
“Yes. Considering your profession, the circumstances are, indeed, hilarious. There are many amusing things I could say about a conservator incapable of keeping her hands off the art. And—”
“Would you please accompany me to the library, Lady Aestival?”
“I shall,” said Aesti magnanimously. “I am not too bitter to help lovers in need of assistance – even if they are as cloyingly sweet as you two.”
True to her word, Aesti spent the next few hours at Florrie’s side.
The knight confidently identified three changeling paintings from her knowledge of art-heist history – or “heistography”, as she insisted on calling it.
Florrie took copious notes and bookmarked each page in the catalogues to review later.
When dusk fell outside the library’s crescent-shaped windows, Aesti stood up and gave Florrie a stately bow.
“Time for patrolling and puzzling,” she declared. “I’ll take my leave now. What fun this has been!”
“I can’t thank you enough for your help.”
Florrie’s new colleague simply adjusted her spectacles. “Please, don’t thank me at all. It’ll embarrass me awfully,” she replied with a yawn. “It’s a shame I couldn’t find myself a match in one of these changeling paintings. They all looked rather tediously gentle to me.”
“Is there something wrong with that?” asked Florrie, feeling strangely defensive of her own “tediously gentle” match.
Aesti gazed at the closed exhibition catalogues. “For me, yes. My ideal partner is someone solid. Reliable. With a mind of her own, and just as stubborn as I am. And I assure you I am far too stubborn to spend another second sighing over sweethearts with you, Florrie Hyverfell.”
Aesti was not, however, too stubborn to give Florrie a generously friendly wave as she left the library. Florrie found herself hoping that whichever woman would one day merit the affections of Lady Aestival Violet might make herself known sooner rather than later.
Then Florrie stopped sighing over sweethearts herself and returned to her work.
She started by cross-referencing the descriptions in Predelle’s catalogue with the paintings Aesti had identified.
Only one seemed to be a match: the thirteenth-century “multi-landscape” I Dwell in Idylls by Vetchley Glase.
The multi-landscape genre gave artists an excuse to show off the range of their abilities, with each such painting featuring at least one ruin, a village scene, a mountain peak and a lea.
Glase, Florrie knew, decided to elevate the genre still further by populating their multi-landscape with both Fairy and Folk architecture.
Predelle’s catalogue suggested this painting was likely replicated by a Fairy copyist at the museum of Lambent Lord Esker Verdigris, with the original stolen sometime in the late 1200s.
The lively sublimity of the landscape transfixed her.
Though Vetchley Glase used rock walls and winding rivers to divide the scene into neat and orderly eighths, each section was beautifully chaotic.
Fairy and Folk structures of all sorts – spires and spruce-nests, houseboats and hermitages – sparkled before backgrounds of grass, woods or water.
It was a great many structures to paint over a small patch of trees in the corner of Vern’s canvas, and a great many to replicate exactly, of course.
A true painter would struggle to do what Hyacinthine Mire had suggested: demonstrate nothing but perfection when matching, stroke-for-stroke, the creation of another.
A skilful conservator, however, demonstrated such perfection every day.
Florrie sharpened a pencil on the whetstone edge of her pocket palette-knife and opened her sketchbook.
She began sketching the multi-landscape in sections, familiarising herself with the contours of each river and road.
When the charcoal proved too dark for the snowy crags at the left of the composition, she fished a wax stick from her belt and lined them with a soft, misty grey.
It was a peculiar mismatch of materials and styles, but it was a start.
If she couldn’t copy the painting using Folk materials, she’d have no chance of doing so with the mercurial Fairy paintbrush.
The thought compelled her to shut her sketchbook and rise from her seat.
Before it grew later, Florrie resolved to pay a visit to Ceru.
Perhaps, if she shared what she’d learned, Ceru might provide some insight about the feasibility of her plan to connect the paintings – and, at the very least, consent to increasing the frequency of their lessons.
The door to Ceru’s makeshift workshop was open, revealing the bright flames of a penumbral candelabra, so Florrie ran into the room without hesitation. She found Ceru sat atop the table, staring most intently at a dew-quail’s egg.
“Are you mixing up binder for paint, Ceru?” Florrie asked, gesturing to the egg. “Oh, but pardon me – can you paint at all, now that you’ve given me your brush?”
Ceru, apparently unstartled by her interruption, simply shrugged.
“I do possess other brushes, of less historical significance. Besides, Florrie, this egg is a most fascinating object,” he mused.
“I would very much like to paint one, but it’s so very round.
Too round. Like it contains all the wisdom of the world. ”
“Have you read Hyacinthine Mire’s published dialogues with the Folk scholar Ephy Traceley?” Florrie exclaimed, her leg jostling wildly at her side.
“Lord Mauve’s dear old Hyacinthine, you say?” Ceru gave the egg an inquisitive tap. “I knew they were fond of Stillscape, but I didn’t realise they had publications.”
“I think I might be able to connect Vern’s Resolute Portrait to other changeling paintings.
I have one painting in mind – it’s called I Dwell in Idylls, by Glase – and you might think ‘Florrie, if you copy a painting, won’t you simply make a new changeling painting?
’ – though that’s not the case, because, well, I don’t know why, but Mire said the magic is both canvas-borne and brush-borne, and—”
Suddenly Ceru dropped the egg, and Florrie gasped. They watched as the tiny purple sphere tumbled through the air until it landed with a crash on a conveniently placed marble palette.
“Oh, thank goodness,” said Florrie. “That won’t go to waste now, and it won’t make a mess, either. Have you any pigments? If you don’t intend to use it, I might—”
“Florrie,” said Ceru, leaning forward. “Is that exactly what Hyacinthine said?”
“About the magic?”
Ceru nodded, and Florrie did the same in return. “Of course,” she said. “I remember it precisely. Why?”
Ceru stood up, retrieved the palette, and placed it on the table. “I’m afraid you must excuse me. A most unique and unlikely thought has occurred to me and, like all good artists, I mustn’t ignore anything unique – regardless of its likelihood. We’ll continue your lessons tomorrow, as planned.”
Florrie didn’t mind this unceremonious dismissal, as she’d only just realised the lateness of the hour.
The sundial on the workshop wall had switched to its moondial form, informing her it was nearly eleven.
Vern might not follow the same clock – or any clock – as she did, but he must have been disappointed when she had failed to appear earlier in the evening.
When she crept into the cottage, she found Vern at his spinning wheel, fast asleep.
He leaned on the topmost spoke of the largest wheel, with his head curled against his shoulder and his hair perilously close to the skeins of unwound yarn he hung from pegs on the wall.
The lantern-light fell perfectly around his face, leaving the rest of the cottage in soothing shadow.
Despite the many paintings she’d examined over the course of the day, Florrie knew she could find no composition more striking than this.