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Chapter Text

~~~~~~~~~

Romance does not factor into their initial partnership.

She finds him handsome, of course. Truth be told, Renoir is exactly the sort of man Aline would choose as a model for her pieces—he carries himself with conflicting gravity and warmth, all dark hair and pale eyes. She supposes that there is romance to him, if not between them.

No. The love comes later, all-consuming and maddening, but that is still some ways off. Now, they sit across from each other in the Dessendre manor, listening to their parents play politics. He meets her eyes once, perhaps an hour into negotiations, and shrugs as if to say This can’t be helped.

And she supposes it cannot. The time has come to marry, and she could do considerably worse. He is only four years her senior, wealthy, handsome—she's lucky. Aline mulls over this, half listening as her father espouses the virtues of a potential union. It seems fitting to sketch the Dessendre heir’s portrait.

Aline waits until both patriarchs have turned their attention elsewhere before holding up her sketch for Renoir’s inspection. His brow furrows in surprise, expression melting into an endearingly open pleasure. The young man glances towards the head of the table, finds their parents still distracted, and stretches his hand out, crooking his fingers for the sketchbook.

She rolls her eyes—not without good humor—before sliding it across the table. If they are to be married, they might as well be in conspiracy too.

Renoir handles the sketchpad more carefully than she expects—almost delicately, careful not to smear the charcoal. She expects him to thumb through her work, hungry for a look into one of the city’s premier young painter's mind. He does not. It seemed too intimate, Renoir tells her later, too personal to explore her portfolio without her permission. He takes a piece of paper from his breast pocket, scribbling a note before sliding it and her portfolio back.

In a neat and flowing hand, he writes:

You flatter me, mademoiselle. I only hope to return the favor one day soon.

She tucks the note away in her skirt pocket and starts on another portrait, mind wandering. This time, it is pure chance that the man so closely resembles Renoir.

~~~~~~~~~

“It is an advantageous match, non?”

Her father's voice echoes in the vastness of the Dessendre banquet hall. He stands at the head of the table, hands folded at the small of his back, the picture of decorum and good breeding. Lord Dessendre stands on his right.

They are a study in contrasts, Aline thinks. Lord Dessendre does not smile—he is a dark, serious-faced man, tall and bordering on too thin. Compared to her father, his dress is simple. Well-appointed tailoring, undoubtedly expensive but understated—no whites, no golds, no black.

A pity, she thinks, surveying her betrothed again. He'd look handsome in gold.

Her father pushes gamely forward, not at all discouraged by the continued silence. He moves to take her hand in both of his. “Our…preeminent family's bloodline, our place among the Painters and your…” he hesitates, clearing his throat.

“Our wealth?” The younger Dessendre says, cocking his head to the side. A feline glint plays within his pale eyes, growing when her father shifts his weight from his left foot to the right. “It wouldn't be the first time the nouveau riche jockeyed for your daughter's hand.” Their eyes meet, a gentle challenge in his expression. “Or am I mistaken, ma chère?”

His father raises a hand. “You forget yourself, Renoir.”

“My apologies,” he speaks with perfectly serviceable contrition, bowing his head. The glint in his eyes remains unchanged.

Aline speaks before her father can, “Don’t apologize, sir. You are correct. I do not need to know you to love your fortune.”

“Aline!” Horror from both her parents.

Renoir only chuckles. She likes him better for it.

~~~~~~~~~~

They tour the gardens in companionable silence, her hand tucked in the crook of his arm. Her maid walks a half dozen steps behind them to ensure propriety, looking resolutely anywhere besides the young couple. Birds sing their lilting songs. The sweet scent of summer flowers hangs on the stagnant afternoon air. It is, in short, a perfectly pleasant afternoon.

Only a half-dozen words have passed between them since leaving the dining hall. Aline has the distinct impression that he is waiting her out, weighing her value. A part of her rankles—he has no right to challenge her—but most of her is amused. Too many nobles kowtow to her potential. She is a Paintress, and there is power in that designation.

“There must be other noble families to marry into,” she finally says.

Renoir arches a brow, eyes crinkling near the edges as he smiles. “Are you concerned I am squandering my prospects, ma chère?”

“A life is quite a thing to waste.”

He hums, bowing his head in agreement. Aline notes his height with no small amount of pleasure—she has always preferred tall men and the Dessendre heir does not disappoint. “Quite.” He squeezes her hand. “You were my first choice. If that sets your mind at ease.”

It soothes her vanity if nothing else. “Would it be presumptuous to ask why?”

“Not at all. I wish to paint. You are a Paintress.” Renoir shrugs as if this explains everything.

Aline laughs. “You want a tutor? You’d marry me to secure…what, an apprenticeship?”

Renoir smiles. “Is it so absurd? The Dessendres wish to legitimize themselves by marrying into old blood. I wish to learn. You satisfy both criteria.”

“How romantic.” Still, she smiles. He’s honest; it’s more than she can say for most nobles. Aline squeezes his arm, signaling for them to stop. “Renoir” — and she does not miss the infinitesimal way he stiffens when she speaks his name— “You could study under the greatest master on the Council for far less than a marriage.”

“The current masters do not impress me.” There is an awful, unyielding steel in him when his pale eyes survey her. Renoir’s tone broaches no argument. “I have seen your work. You’ll surpass them. Not today, not tomorrow, but you will. And I,” he brings her hand to his lips, the soft hair of his mustache tickling the back of her knuckles. “Will settle for nothing but the finest instructor. Is that explanation enough?”

She stares at him, eyes narrowing. Nothing on his face suggests anything but the truth. He’ll marry her. He’ll buy her everything she could ever need to excel—finer canvases than her family could hope to afford. The only cost is to teach him to paint. She’d call him a fool, but he’s clearly anything but that.

Aline speaks slowly. “If I am to teach you, you will defer to me during our lessons.”

“Of course.”

“I am an exacting instructor.”

She feels him smile against her skin when he kisses her hand. “I do not doubt that for a moment.”

~~~~~~~~~~

He cuts a far different figure in private.

She shouldn’t be here—certainly not alone—but Aline has always chafed under the weight of expectation. She slips away from her party in the garden and wanders off in search of her betrothed.

She finds him deep in the bowels of the manor, too far for her to feign happening upon him by chance. The door to his atelier stands wide open. He paces around a large marble slab. He cannot yet paint, but he sculpts.

Renoir looks more akin to a penniless artisan than a noble, shirt stained with sweat and sediment. He’s pushed the sleeves up to his elbow, revealing forearms corded with lean muscle. The man scrubs a hand through his hair, caking dust in the dark mass, frowning as he inspects his work. He is the lone splotch of chaos amidst an otherwise orderly space.

Aline’s attention flicks to the accordion resting on the shelf and the guitar beneath the window—he cannot paint, but he plays and composes. There’s a sheaf of sheet music alongside his literary collection. Fresh ink dries on the paper and his fingertips, suggesting he has only just shifted his focus.

“Do you play?” He says sharply. You are uninvited here, it says.

Aline nods, reaching out to touch his work with near reverence. “The piano, and less often than I’d like. But I’ve no talent at all for composition.”

“That surprises me.”

“It shouldn’t,” she murmurs, scanning his work—it’s slower than she might have expected, nearly grave. “Too many rules, too much structure…inspiration comes to me like a wind, and that…” Aline smiles letting the sentence drift off. A familiar sensation twists in her stomach. Not loss—you could not mourn something you never possessed—but…melancholy. She touches the sheet music again. “It’s not for me,” she repeats. “You, however, are talented.”

His posture softens. Renoir folds his hands at the small of his back, tipping his head towards the hall. “How long ago did you slip your jailor’s leash?”

“Not long.”

He crosses to a desk on the far side of the room, small and neatly arranged. What surprises Aline most about Renoir’s studio, apart from the meticulous neatness, is the heaviness of the air. There are no windows and thus no natural light. Shadows pool near the corners of the room where the lamps fail to reach—claustrophobic and intimate in equal measure.

She touches the curve of his arm to signal her closeness. Her fingers are cold; his skin is warm. It's as good a reason as any for both to shiver.

He presses a thinner binder into her right hand. “I composed these for my mother sometime back—before she lost her taste for the arts. You are welcome to them.” Renoir frowns, coloring slightly. “There is...a duet.” Almost too quickly, he adds, “If you’d like. There is no obligation.”

Aline chews the inside of her cheek, thumbing through to the work in question. “It’s unfinished.”

His flush deepens. “Inspiration can be fickle.”

She understands that better than most. “We’ll find it again.” Against her better judgment, she leans up to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

Renoir huffs. “Off with you, ma chère. Before our more respectable company notices you’ve gone missing.”

~~~~~~~~~~

He brings her two gifts the following week—a new canvas and a piano concerto.

She paints him a landscape in return. Chroma drips from her work, the surface shifting in a way that always reminds her of heat waves wafting off cement in the summer. Aline creates a forest devoid of any green—the foliage is the same blue as his eyes. The lighting is as low and intimate as his study. The flowers match Aline’s hair.

He stares into the canvas with naked longing. “What does it feel like? Creating art—painting life—like that?”

Intoxicating? Liberating? It’s being drunk; it’s an addiction.

Words are clumsy, and there is no way to properly express the soul-deep ecstasy that so often accompanies her work.

Aline winds their fingers together. Her voice is thick with promise. “I’ll show you.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Their wedding is a lavish affair—the social event of the season, if you believe the papers.

Renoir makes a handsome groom. Aline is a beautiful bride. It is a fine match, and she will not deny the soft swell of satisfaction when she catches sight of their reflection. There are more than a few jealous eyes in the audience (it pleases her more than she will ever admit). The ceremony passes without incident, all a blur until the vicar proclaims them man and wife. Suddenly, she is Aline Dessendre. The change bothers her less than she imagined.

It’s the kiss that surprises her most. She has been kissed before, and this is an entirely chaste affair, as expected before the church and god. Renoir takes her in his arms, bends, and brushes his lips across hers. All too brief, almost perfunctory. It is too little, even for a marriage of convenience. Aline digs the nails of her right hand into his shoulder in warning. She closes the distance again, lingering in the kiss long enough for the audience to manage some applause.

He swipes his tongue along the seam of her lips before he pulls away for the second time, and she stiffens, uncomfortably aware of the way she leans in for more. Her husband stares down at her with a naked challenge in his eyes. Aline looks away first. She feels color burning in her cheeks.

Renoir offers his arm. She takes it.

Aline tastes him on her lips for hours. Not even the wine helps.

Chapter Text

“Some food, Aline?”

While not a superstitious man by nature, Renoir's brain registers the words as an ill portent. Their first true moment alone as husband and wife, and he ushers it in with something so damnably mundane.

The afternoon wedding and subsequent time in the summer sun have left a touch of sun-kissed red on her face, with residual heat still clinging to the satin of her gown. His bride stares, vacant and wide-eyed, around the suite. He touches her arm, and she blinks, shaking her head as if to clear away an imaginary veil. Some of her typical self-possession returns, albeit slowly. He doesn't blame her—the nuptials, the party, the ride to the hotel—there has been nothing but movement and noise since the early morning. A fever dream, he thinks. And still some time before we wake.

Aline sighs, the sound carrying an almost physical weight. This near-stranger, now-wife glances up at him with her lovely gray eyes, still seeing without seeing. The reality that she may have suffered some light heat stroke dawns on him with sharp and sudden horror.

Perhaps reading the path of his thoughts, Aline leans her weight into his side. The scent of orange blossom lingers in her hair and on the gown’s fabric. A bright scent, clean, but he's unsure it suits her. She deserved something more rich. Renoir folds an arm around her waist, supporting the bulk of her weight.

She brushes her skirts out of the way, a frothy sea of satin and lace and pearls, motioning to the sofa. They cross the room in dazed silence—they must make a pitiable pair, he thinks, even with their finery—and Renoir helps her into a sitting position. When he moves to step away, she shakes her head. Aline pulls his hands into her lap. “Sit with me. We’ve earned a moment’s reprieve, no?”

The young man chuckles. “Perhaps the one.”

Without the distraction of movement or her work, Aline is a slight creature, more delicate than the force of her personality might suggest. It was not uncommon for artists to lose themselves in their work—most would neglect sustenance in those rare moments of creative flow. By the look of her, she has missed more than her share recently. Much later, he will learn that this is precisely the case. The Painted world offered solace from the stress of their upcoming nuptials, and she'd turned herself over to it with increasing frequency. There are flecks of paint, small enough for the average observer to miss, dried in her nail beds.

He leans back, allowing the day’s stress to melt off his shoulders. Music drifts into their suite through the open window, accompanied by random wisps of conversation. Life goes on outside this room much as it ever has—they are so little in the scheme of things. He tells himself these things are valid truths, but they ring hollow. The insidious whisper of anxiety refuses to stay silent. Aline swipes her thumb along the inside of his wrist, sighing.

He tries his earlier question again, squeezing her hand. His wedding band clinks against hers. “Are you hungry, my dear?”

She tips her head against his shoulder. “No. I’ll be ravenous when the adrenaline wears off but for now.” She shrugs. “If it sets your minds at ease, Renoir, I will eat something.”

He goes to stand again. Aline does not relinquish her hold immediately, grey eyes narrowing as he slips away. The dull pangs of hunger prove more insistent than his desire to indulge his new bride, and he crosses the suite to the lavishly appointed table.

You’ll be starving by the time it’s through—no one cares to eat before the ceremony. And you’ll be too busy after, Mother had warned. Renoir supposes this is the latest of her gifts: a medley of fruits and cheeses, bread, and chilled champagne. He pops one of the berries into his mouth.

He turns in time to catch Aline’s wince as she settles back onto the sofa. His wife plucks at her gown’s bodice, heavily beaded with pearls. “Whatever else tonight may bring, I look forward to being out of this dress.” She chuckles, more life bleeding into the sound. “I am exhausted. I am hot. But I am beautiful.” Aline smiles. “And you. You were handsome. Are handsome.”

Renoir nods gravely. “Handsome, overheated, exhausted…we are in agreement.” She returns to plucking at her heavy skirts. Slowly, carefully, Renoir asks, “Would you like help undressing?”

He has the distinct displeasure of watching her expression shift in real-time: shock, hurt, and finally—most awfully—acceptance. Her gaze flicks from his face to the oversized bed, back. “It’s only…is it not…well, early?”

“If you can relax in your gown, by all means, continue as you are. It's a question of comfort, no more than that.” He places the tray of fruit beside her on the sofa. “I am not rushing you to bed, my dear.”

The music playing outside their suite stops. A few snatches of conversation drift up to the balcony, and then that goes silent as well. The sensation that they are isolated from the world returns with more force—he feels it pressing in on them, charging the air with expectation. He pours himself a glass of champagne. Aline takes a slice of bread from the tray. She seems more interested in mangling the poor thing than in its consumption, rolling it between her thumb and forefinger until it is a perfectly smooth ball.

It is, perhaps, not genteel to tease her. But the air is charged, and Renoir prefers her irritation to this more timid creature sitting beside him. He pauses, champagne flute pressed to his lips, and asks, “Will you be disquieted if I make myself more comfortable?”

Aline scoffs and flicks the bread at him.

~~~~~~~~~

The hour is late, the champagne is gone, and they have exhausted all polite avenues of communication. She asks him if he can dance (poorly). He asks if she can swim (also poorly—concerning considering their pending trip to sea). Neither much cares to ask after the other’s families—they have a lifetime to learn all those unhappy eccentricities.

All that is left is to adjourn to bed.

Aline forces her body to relax, tipping her head back against the sofa. The suite’s ceiling is painted with a lavish fresco, a medley of romantic forays. She wonders how many young lovers have joined themselves under its watchful eye. The paintress reaches up a hand, trying to feel the flow of chroma within the paint. Nothing, of course. It is beautiful and dead.

“You look pensive,” Renoir says, and she shivers. He would have made a fine politician, she thinks. The populace would have come for miles to listen to his voice, low and warm. Her mind, all too eager to convert thoughts into images, conjures a snow-covered valley with a cabin at its center, dark aside from a smattering of embers drifting in a pillar of smoke. It is the best way she can describe the sound of him.

She nods towards the fresco. “Do you like this?”

Renoir's brow furrows. He has, as promised, made himself more comfortable. Only, she notes, it is comfortable according to high society's rigid standards: he's draped his tie and jacket over the arm of a wingback chair. His vest is unbuttoned but still present. He's unfastened two buttons on his dress shirt, enough to keep the thing from choking him while showing precious little skin.

She's grateful for his consideration. She also hates him for it. The longer she looks at him, the more inclined her mind is to wander. And she has never lacked imagination.

Renoir examines the fresco thoughtfully, mouth pursing. Finally, he says, “No.”

“Tell me why.”

There is an obstinate thread in him, one that will knit badly with the matching stubbornness in her. The corner of his mouth twitches up in a smirk. Renoir sets the book he has been reading aside, resting his chin in his cupped hand. “Are you making demands of me already, my dear?”

Heat coils at the base of her spine. She wonders if he'd taste like cherries and champagne if he kissed her now. “I'm to teach you, no? Those were the terms of our arrangement.” She holds out her hands, drawing him back down beside her on the couch.

This close, she can see the hint of chest hair peaking up from beneath his collar. Her models have always been perfectly smooth and beautiful, nearly boyish. She prefers him.

“There's a sterility to it,” he says, halting, phrasing it almost like a question. Aline nods in encouragement. “A lack of movement.”

“Life?” She offers.

“As you say.” His smile softens, and he looks younger. “The artist is technically skilled, certainly. But it is devoid of meaning. I find it…empty.”

This close, she feels his chroma, raw, unfocused, with so much potential waiting to be shaped---a blank canvas.

He brushes the back of his fingers along the outside of her thigh. “Does my answer satisfy you, Madame Dessendre?”

Aline swallows, swiping the fall of her hair away from her shoulders, taking a steadying breath as she turns to present her back to him. “Help me with the laces.”

~~~~~~~~~

His right-hand settles on her stomach to hold her steady. Aline knows what she will see if she turns her head: a self-satisfied smirk, a patronizing/amused glint in his pale eyes. Renoir clucks his tongue, leaning in to press an open-mouthed kiss to the side of her throat. Patience.

He finally slips the gown from her shoulders. It pools in a sea of white around her feet.

She turns and finds nothing she expects on his face. Her husband cocks his head to the side, eyes narrowing—fond but puzzled—as he drinks her in. The panicked voice in her head (her father’s) still chants that this is moving too quickly, but it’s quieter. It’s getting more difficult to focus on anything but the blood rushing in her ears and their mingled breathing.

Renoir rests his chin on the crown of her head, patient as she works his shirt open. There’s no girlish tremble to her hands—her grip is too steady after years of painting. Curiosity slows her progress, a need to explore every new inch of exposed skin. She tugs the dress shirt free of his slacks, slipping it off him, murmuring her thanks when he shrugs out of the garment.

One naked man is fundamentally no different from any other. The proportions might change, the minute details, but the broad strokes were largely universal. He is not so different from the men she studied…

…it’s a flimsy justification. Renoir is different. He is not her work, not her model—he is just hers. The same heady rush of power she gets from standing at the heart of a canvas washes over her. Aline’s stomach clenches, hands sweeping up his side and over his ribs. Lean muscle flutters under her touch as she skates her nails down his belly, fascinated by the solidity of his figure compared to her own. Curious, she leans forward, dipping her tongue into the shallow notch between his clavicles.

He laughs, shivering, clutching Aline to his chest and pinning her hands between them to hold her still.

“Kiss me,” she murmurs, distracting herself by mouthing at his pulse.

Renoir chuckles again, more strained, as he struggles to fold himself over her enough to see the laces of her corset. “I am still fulfilling your first request, demanding creature.”

But he indulges her. They will change in many ways across the decades, but this remains constant.

Until the day it doesn’t.

~~~~~~~~~

Like dancing, maman had said. It will be like dancing—beautiful, once you learn the rhythm and the steps.

It feels more like burning.

“Breathe, love,” Renoir murmurs, tracing her nose with his before licking into her mouth, stealing the air she badly needs. He presses a second finger inside her, and she jerks, grip tightening in his hair to the point of pain.

Dancing, she thinks again, thoughts airy and disjointed. Renoir said he danced poorly.

There is something beautiful and profane in looking down the length of her body, watching his hand move between her legs. She falls into his rhythm, rocking her hips in time with his touch, and the sharp surge of pleasure leaves her gasping and jerking away from him, too sharp, too much, not enough.

Renoir strokes the underside of her right breast, fingers still tacky with her arousal. She opens her eyes to find him staring down at her in that odd way—fond and puzzled, warm. Something in it makes her heart ache inexplicably. He brushes the hair out of her eyes and kisses her again.

~~~~~~~~~

He wonders why so many turned themselves over to the comfort of the dark. To lessen the embarrassment? To hide any latent misgivings? A waste. She is lovely by lamplight, a piece of living art. He cannot imagine sacrificing such intimacies. Not for something as shallow as pride.

He commits the lines of her figure to memory, tracing the line of her throat, the curve of her slight breasts, and the flat plane of her stomach. His wife shifts, brow furrowing in a mixture of curiosity and puzzlement. Renoir follows the same path with his lips, cataloging the way she shivers and shifts, tasting the remains of the day on her skin: sweat, the more acerbic notes of residual perfume, and something other. Her chroma, perhaps. He is more inclined to believe it is purely her.

“Renoir,” Aline caresses his cheek. His wife crooks a finger at him, gray eyes sweetly pleasure-drunk and hooded. “Please.”

Her legs fall open for him, hooking around his hips as if to keep him from pulling away. Nothing has ever been further from his mind—she is soft and pliant beneath him. Her arms wind around his back, clutching him until there is no light between their bodies. Renoir chuckles, kissing her cheek, painting a lazy trail back to her mouth. “So you can ask politely when the mood takes you.”

“When it takes me, yes.” She hums, rocking her hips against his erection, so wet for him. Aline strokes his hair. “Take me, darling.”

The desire to tease her dies on his tongue. He’s only a man, and she is breathtaking, flushed, and wanting him, her auburn hair fanned out behind her on stark white sheets. A vision. A muse.

She stiffens when he first fucks into her, but that is the extent of it. Aline is ready for him. Made for him, some delirious voice murmurs. It’s impossible to tell if it's in his head or she’s whispered it in his ear. She falls into his rhythm with the natural grace of a dancer.

What else is there to say?

The world blurs around the edges as the pleasure builds to a delirious fever pitch. Aline tucks her face in the curve of his throat, whimpering as she comes apart. He tumbles over the edge after her, groaning, savoring the fluttering aftershocks of her pleasure.

They linger like that for a moment, staring at one another, not quite knowing what to think or make of their new spouse. Aline smiles at him, uncharacteristically shy. She is a vision of loveliness, kiss-swollen lips, and hopelessly mussed hair. Renoir presses his lips to her cheek and rolls off of her. He regrets the loss immediately.

His wife excuses herself to the washroom. A moment later, he hears the tap running.

Renoir waits until Aline returns before he turns out the lamps. Darkness settles over them like a blanket, familiar and companionable. She squirms until she’s pressed back against his chest. He folds an arm over her.

They will work well together, he thinks, already slipping off to sleep. They will thrive.

Chapter Text

He has never been a late sleeper.

Even as a boy, his tendency had been to wake just after dawn to begin his studies. And while his parents had praised his scholastic dedication, Renoir wonders if it wasn’t something simpler. Persistent insomnia, most likely. A melancholy boy, too introspective for his good, in love with the morning silence.

He turns his face into the pillow, pushing those morose thoughts away, forcing himself to exist in the present, the physical—the feel of the sheets tangled around his legs, the lingering scent of Aline's perfume.

There. Present again.

The angle of the sunlight slanting across the bed suggests it is not late, but he has indulged. And is it any wonder? Everything about the Riviera is bright. The sun warms his exposed skin, and humid air coils in his lungs and around him with the weight of a lover. Outside, waves crash upon the sand in a rhythmic drone.

Aline’s half of the mattress has long since cooled. The young man shakes his head, pinching at the sheets. Mercurial—that is the only way he can think to describe her approach to waking. Some mornings, he will find her absent before the sunrise, consumed by her need to create. Others? She lingers.

The door to the veranda is open, telling him everything he needs to know. Renoir pauses long enough to collect his robe from the floor and steps out into the sun. The scent of salt and sea intensifies, and he breathes deeply, lingering just long enough to drink it in.

Aline has managed to drag an old easel from storage to the balcony. The canvas and the paints are stopgaps, picked up during the journey to the coast, not up to her typical standards. She struggles gamely along, working with practiced smoothness as she immortalizes the morning's beauty. She pauses, reaching up to absently swipe hair out of her eyes before resuming her work, adjusting her grip on the brush. Aline leans forward until her nose almost touches the paint, careful as she adds a series of precise strokes to the illustrated shoreline. The minor adjustment manages to create the illusion of depth.

Satisfied, she steps back. The breeze flattens the material of her robe against her body. Renoir notes, with equal parts fondness and exasperation, that she has cinched the dressing gown with his belt, the black looking starkly out of place against the cream-white.

Ah, but it is symmetry, no? Matched and mated to the garish kiss-sucked bruise over her heart—purple/black on white.

Renoir waits until she has lowered her brush to speak. “Is the morning so remarkable that it has stolen you from me?”

“Did you bring me to the sea and expect me to ignore her song?” She purses her lips, eyeing the horizon and making an adjustment to her work. It is a strikingly accurate recreation of the landscape. He finds this curious. Aline tended towards the fantastical rather than the mundane. She shoots him a sly smile. “You were asleep, Renoir. I let myself be borrowed.”

“Mm. I will forgive the indiscretion,” Renoir says, speaking with mock gravity. He moves to her side, wrapping his arm around her waist. “So long as you'll return to me.”

Her gray eyes search his face. Aline's expression softens. “Always.” She plucks his right hand from her waist and presses the brush into it. The stubborn set is back in her jaw, the note of challenge that resonates in the hollow of his chest. “I seem to have misplaced my inspiration. Perhaps you will fare better.”

He turns to the Canvas and sets to work.

~~~~~~~~~

By day, there are social engagements to keep.

Their evenings are their own, most ending much like this—settled in Aline’s makeshift atelier. It is too small to suit their needs, barely large enough to house two chairs and her easel. The room smells of paint, linen, and fresh flowers—sweet roses. It is always this side of too hot, only worsening in the evening when the sunlight streams through the large window.

Renoir will look back on that ridiculous closet with nothing but fondness, and in his mind's eye he will always see the same thing. Aline, paint smeared across the bridge of her nose and cheek, sweat beading on her skin, patently ridiculous looking in a peasant’s blouse and a pair of his trousers. His apparel is similarly plain. Their parents would be scandalized.

Part of the appeal, he supposes. They can afford this little rebellion, though their youth is in its twilight years and they have already capitulated in every way that counts.

In those moments, they could be anyone—two struggling artists in a cramped studio. Aline touches the small of his back, a featherlight warning as she moves to his left.

They paint, he improves, and time passes.

~~~~~~~~~

The surface of the Canvas ripples, an ever-shifting spill of colors and shapes. Renoir observes it more carefully; the sea has maintained its hold on the Paintress. He sees a flash of the shore in the paintslick before it slips away in favor of an underwater forest—this fades, too. Now, there is an island. Now, a village, built out over the waves.

Aline brings their joined hands to the surface. “Close your eyes.”

He does as instructed. In the darkness, he notes the heat of Aline's skin, the scratch of dried paint. He presses his palm flat against the surface and finds it…pliant. Like dragging his fingers through the slick film on a pond’s surface. “Feel for the Chroma’s current…”

“How?”

She sighs, exasperated. “Renoir, I cannot put it in finer terms. Close your eyes, feel.”

Their first attempt is an abject failure. Aline speaks of the flow of Chroma, of windows into the Canvas, while offering precious little in the way of practical application. He excuses himself from their lesson. If he stays, the conversation will only end in a fight.

They do fight after his second attempt. An unreasonably warm autumn night leaves both poorly rested, compounding an already stressful week. She locks herself in the atelier and retreats to her painted kingdom. Aline does not emerge until well after midnight and says nothing when she finally slides into her side of the bed.

Another month passes. They are scheduled to leave for Paris in the morning, their sojourn to the coast concluded. Their personal belongings—the entirety of the atelier included—have long since been packed away, sent ahead to the chateau they will occupy until his father's passing.

He should be resting, not prowling the beach like some wayward spirit, the breeze tugging at his overcoat. In one of his fugues, his mother liked to say.

On a conscious level, he recognizes the absurdity of demanding perfection of himself. He has made great strides over the past few months. The words ring hollow, a lilting undercurrent chasing them through his head. Failure, it says, sounding as intimate as a boyhood friend.

There is a wall in his head. His inability to push through is…

…what? Maddening? Wrong? It should be easier. It comes to her so naturally.

Renoir frowns. Shall you run your wife down to satisfy your ego? Is that the intent of this tantrum?

Counterproductive, my dear.

The Dessendre scion shakes his head, glancing back down the beach to find the light from their veranda has faded to a golden pinprick. It flickers like a beacon in the dark.

He moves towards it.

~~~~~~~~~

They make the journey to the station in silence. Board the train in silence.

After what feels like hours, Aline slips her hand into his. Peace, it says. Let us have peace.

Renoir nods, bringing their joined hands to his lips. Peace, love.

~~~~~~~~~

They do not find the chateau empty upon their arrival.

“It is less grand than the manor,” Madame Dessendre says brightly, stepping aside to allow them entrance. “But I have never found that to be a negative.”

Renoir recovers from his shock enough to ask, “Is my father…?”

“Home,” she says, quickly, and Renoir feels a weight lift from his shoulders. The gentle curve of his mother’s smile suggests this does not go unnoticed. “He warned me off coming—and he was likely correct. But,” she steps forward to touch his cheek. “You must forgive a mother for missing her son.” She turns to Aline. “And for my intrusion.”

He sees a doe presenting its neck to a lioness. There is something heartbreakingly earnest in Maman's expression. Hope, perhaps, that she will not be thrown out—that she can hold onto some sliver of her only child. Leave me a corner of his heart—you can have the rest. Just leave me that much.

Aline takes the older woman's hands and squeezes. “No intrusion at all. Truth told, it’s a relief to see you, ma mère.” Relief washes over Madame Descendre’s face. “You are familiar with running this house, non?” His wife leans in nearer, as if in conspiracy. “I expect your son will be of no help at all.”

It is an effective olive branch. Maman embraces her, delightedly speaking to the chateau's finer features.

And the matriarch has seen to their comfort. The pantry is stocked. His belongings have been moved from the manor. Even Aline’s atelier has been reassembled. On the last count, his mother had colored somewhat—it had required a letter to the bride’s family to verify her preferences.

Aline looks touched. “You are too kind, ma mère.”

“I am…aware of how difficult these transitions can be, child.” He has never liked that particular smile—the barest twitch of the lips, the sentiment dying before it reaches her eyes. His mother clears her throat, leading them to the upstairs hall. “Now. You’ll find the children’s rooms furnished—a nursery as well.” She carries blithely on, ignoring the newlyweds’ naked surprise. “And if you will follow me, Aline. I took the liberty of choosing a room for you—the view of the gardens is particularly lovely in the spring…”

~~~~~~~~~

After the day's exertions, neither can find the energy to protest the proposed sleeping arrangements.

They spend the first night in their new home preparing for bed in separate rooms, his mother asleep in the guest quarters. Renoir turns onto his back, frowning up at the ceiling. He has slept alone most of his life. It's strange how, after only a few months, it could feel so empty.

He considers stealing over to her room before deciding against it. It is one (sleepless) night.

They bid the Madame Dessendre goodbye the following morning after sharing breakfast. The door has barely shut before Aline favors him with an arch look.

“And how did you sleep, Renoir? For my part, it was quite cold.”

She breezes past him before he can respond, muttering something he’s halfway sure is obscene—contrasting the utility of waking to a garden view versus her husband. Ever the artist, she paints a compelling picture. Renoir chokes back a laugh.

It is the last time she makes use of ‘her’ quarters.

~~~~~~~~~

A new world stretches out before them.

Aline has sketched only in broad strokes: an empty plane, a cloudless sky. A simple entry point, she says. He cocks his head to the side, frowning. “Would it not be simpler to step through together? Could you…take me with you?”

Horror swims in her gray eyes. “If you wish to drown.” Aline shakes her head, “No. Until you are more comfortable in the Canvas, you should walk alone.”

“My dear, I would be content with entering the Canvas. Forget comfort.”

She purses her lips. Renoir has come to recognize that pinch between her brows for the warning sign it is—her patience rapidly approaching its end. Aline moves across the atelier, sinking into one of the chairs. She makes a languid get-on-with-it gesture with her left hand.

Renoir sighs. The same sensation fills him: dragging his fingers across the murky surface of a pond—stagnant water, entirely without current.

He hears Aline move behind him.

The Paintress shakes her head when he makes to turn. Her right arm comes around him, her left hand settling on his hip. He feels her breath, warm in the morning air, through his shirt and tickling his spine. Aline sways to a song only she can hear, the fingers on her left hand tapping its notes against his skin.

He opens his eyes, staring into the paintslick, fascinated. The chroma has a rhythm to its movement, matched to his wife's exertions. It is a smooth progression, stilling to nothing before winding up again. It’s that lull Renoir has been looking for—the hole, the window.

The chroma in his body resonates with the Canvas. The feeling is both heady and sweet, and he chases it. He waits for a break, a musician preparing to join the orchestra. He pushes.

The Canvas gives way.

~~~~~~~~~

How to explain entering that world…

Coming untethered? Renoir supposes that is an apt comparison. He feels something tear, the sensation of his physical body falling away. It is—he frowns, focusing—like pouring water out of a cup. He loses structure. He spreads. His chroma stretches across the entirety of the Canvas. He is the world and can feel its edges—shaping it is like shaping himself. His mind struggles to process the sudden influx of stimuli.

The return to reality is no less jarring. Renoir's skin feels tight. The whole of his body feels akin to a cage. Renoir winces, plucking at his vest in an attempt to create much-needed space. He aches, a sensation extending beyond the physical—it is soul-deep.

Aline listens as he explains these things, dancing her fingers along the stem of her wineglass. His attention keeps flicking to the way the light catches in the crystal, refracting splashes of red across her skin. He takes the wine when she offers, fingers trembling.

“You’ve handled this with more grace than I managed,” she admits, lips turning up. “I was sick.” She leans back in her seat, expression momentarily distant as she flicks back to the memory. “The Master was unimpressed.”

When he smiles but does not respond, Aline asks, “How do you feel, love?”

Renoir considers. The claustrophobia continues to fade, a feverish feeling chasing its heels. More than anything, he is tired.

“That will become more manageable with practice,” she promises. “But it will never fade entirely. The Painted World is a sacrifice, Renoir—your chroma, your soul, your life. You can and will reclaim these things, but every Canvas demands the same trade.”

Renoir can feel that space inside him—a sliver of emptiness, resonating in time with the painting. He presses a hand to his stomach, tracing where he feels its edges. “When can I return?”

She holds out her hand for their wine. “Morning.” Aline pins him with a severe look. “And your initial trips will be brief.”

It is a compromise he is willing to accept. Renoir glances towards the Canvas once more, pride swelling in his chest.

~~~~~~~~~

They fall into a comfortable pattern.

Renoir practices in his own Canvas, building his endurance and trying his hand at shaping reality. In the evening, Aline will examine his work, offering suggestions and consistently pushing.

It’s always strange to reenter his painted world after her visitations. She is always meticulously careful not to alter the chroma, but he is still aware of her passing. She is the aftermath of a flash flood, the rush of stormwinds.

She teaches him about the limits of their craft—how to manipulate his chroma, how to translate the images in his head to the Painted World. They curl together in the evening, skin still flushed and cooling, bandying ideas back and forth.

It is pure creation.

~~~~~~~~~

She has never been shy.

She has never been falsely deferential about her talent.

Aline recognizes that this behavior has not endeared her to every member of the Painter’s Council. Upstart is a word they like to bandy about, family name and noble blood be damned. They will call her impulsive and dangerous for pushing the bounds of their craft. Publicly, she bears it with aplomb.

Privately, she confides her feelings—her fears—to her husband. With every passing year, the Council grows more stagnant. They are content with their craft, artisans rather than explorers. Aline glares out towards the gardens. “The Writers do not suffer similar inhibitions. They evolve.”

Despite these minor rows, the Council continues to exhibit her work. Tonight is a grander affair than usual—the newly minted Madame Dessendre’s first painting since returning to Paris. She suspects Renoir has had a hand in the evening’s lavishness. There is no shortage of noble faces among the crowd. She glances up at him and feels a swell of gratitude.

Her husband looks—if she may speak plainly—unfairly and unspeakably handsome tonight. Renoir is a lithe shadow in his suit, a lock of dark hair falling stubbornly over one eye. His overcoat lends him a hint of the dramatic, exaggerating already broad shoulders. Aline realizes she’s staring too late. Renoir catches her eyes and winks.

Whatever her critics' thoughts, her painting debuts to glowing acclaim. She cares little for verbal praise—too easily falsified—but the wonder on a viewer’s face? Few things brought her such satisfaction. It is an overwhelmingly positive experience.

It does not bother her in the slightest when one Master decries her painting as an ‘elaborate flight of fancy, lacking the substance of true art.’

Her husband, however.

“How ironic for her to speak to a lack of substance.” Renoir’s voice drops to a low growl. The muscles in his forearm tighten under her hand, the tension in his figure leaving him eerily reminiscent of a great prowling beast. A lion or a wolf—Aline cannot decide which suits him better.

She presses her lips to his ear, whispering, “Renoir, criticism is not new to me.” He looks no less severe. The Dessendre scion gathers her more closely to his side, not hiding his displeasure as they cross the gallery. Aline feels a brief swell of pity for her critic. The other woman blanches under the force of her husband’s stare, muttering some excuse before slinking away. “I do believe you frightened her.”

He flicks his gaze down. The barest hint of a smirk plays near the corner of his mouth, an echoing sentiment in his eyes. Aline is inclined to call it pride. In the driest voice, he replies, “Consider your honor championed.”

~~~~~~~~~

They paint. Renoir improves. Aline advises.

Temperatures begin to plummet outside. Inside, a fire flickers in the hearth.

Tonight, Renoir putters around their atelier. Aline, having long since abandoned the pretext of reading, watches him work with no small amount of pride. “The Council will have to display your work alongside mine before long.”

He stops abruptly, blinking. The atmosphere shifts briefly, growing more tenuous, and Aline thinks, for a second, his expression falls. “Aline.”

It dawns on her, hideous in its clarity, that Renoir believes she’s teasing him.

The immediate surge of anger is so violently bright that she can barely process it. It has no divinable source and thus no outlet; she cannot champion Renoir's honor. All she's left with is impotent fury that the sum of his life experience has led him to this self-doubt.

He must see some of it on her face. Renoir's brow furrows. She thinks if he asks her what's wrong or, worse, what he's done, she'll scream. Either outcome will succeed only in making the situation worse.

She chooses a third option. Aline takes his face in her hands and kisses him, painting over old hurts with new pleasures.

~~~~~~~~~

The feeling of holding his breath, slow suffocation, eases with practice.

In the waking world, his progress seems inexplicably rapid. In the Painted Realm? He spends first weeks, then months, within his creations. With each new work, he refines himself.

His first completed piece is a fragment of a greater whole—a caldera, dusty, lifeless, and vacant. It is all he can manage before the canvas begins to feel oversaturated, rejecting additional infusions of chroma. With each attempt, the world expands a little further.

He builds subterranean kingdoms lit by phosphor mosses. He raises cities only to cast them back down, finding greater beauty in their ruined streets. Renoir paints it with deep golds and greys—a world in the process of winding down, caught in its final sunset. There is a sobering note to the piece that he quite likes—it speaks to the emptiness of excess and life’s inevitable decay. Aline calls him pretentious. She smiles when she says it, not bothering to hide the pride on her face.

As his skills develop, he comes to realize two things. First, there is nothing quite like the act of creation. Second, it is an inherently lonely endeavor.

Aline has her canvases. Renoir has his. Minutes in reality translate to weeks or months without her company. It bothers him. More and more, he finds himself hating the omnipresent silence of the painted world.

He clears his throat. “There is a path near the coast, here,” he indicates a piece of the Canvas. “That I designed with you in mind. Walk with me?”

“Renoir…” Her face twists with naked want, warring against her better judgment.

“Please.”

His wife makes a miserable noise low in her throat. “Impossible. Reckless and impossible man. If I hurt you…” The sentence drifts off, but the sentiment hangs between them.

It’s an acceptable risk. And if there is a little pain? It is still preferable to walking without her.

When Aline steps through the Canvas, Renoir understands.

The very air of his world seems to twist, superheating, pulling in on itself before expanding. It is Aline's air, clawing its way into his lungs, threatening to choke him. The Canvas shivers and twists to accommodate her chroma. She is a crushing, impossible force of elemental strength. Renoir chokes in another breath, staggering. Drowning.

The most terrifying part, he supposes, is he can feel the ways she is holding herself back. Aline, diverting the river of chroma around him. Aline, pulling in on herself to keep from suffocating him. Aline, energy incarnate, her skin plated gold set over a painted Cosmos. In the places her feet touch the ground, life erupts, revitalizing his dying world.

“Look at you,” he says, barely recognizing his voice, raw, wondering. “Magnificent.”

~~~~~~~~~

She does not slide back into her body when they exit the painting so much as she crashes into it.

Self-preservation, she thinks, half-heartedly batting at her husband’s hands when they grab for her. She cannot claim, with any degree of good faith, that she tries very hard to escape.

“You may…” she makes a small noise of protest, interrupted by an increasingly insistent kiss. “Join me tomorrow. If you…” Aline snickers, turning her head in time to avoid his lips. “If it appeals, thank you.”

If he responds, the words are lost. There’s only a flurry of movement—Renoir walking her back to the atelier door, hands on her body, wrapping herself around him, burying her face in his shoulder as he breathes her name and breaks them apart.

What a pair they must make, her skirts rucked up over her hips, his slacks kicked down around his knees. True nobility, she thinks, chewing the inside of her cheek. Scions of the Dessendre name.

Renoir lifts his head to look at her, hair wild, eyes bright, and her heart hurts. With a thousand thousand years to practice, she knows she could never properly capture his image. God or chance has done its work too well. He is an anomaly, beautiful, and impossible to replicate. Aline touches his cheek.

A poet might explain it better. She is left to muddle through on her own, fumbling for words to make sense of an entirely insensible emotion. Love, she concludes, is a strange thing, vulnerable and brave. There is a sort of insanity in the act. To willingly tear the heart from your chest, place it in another's care, and say, ‘Here. Everything I am is yours.’

She brushes hair back from his forehead. How odd, she thinks, to feel no fear at all.

Aline draws his head to her breasts, shivering. Let him have her heart.

Renoir will guard it more zealously than his own.

Chapter Text

Time marches ever onward.

It is comic, she thinks, the amount of weight ascribed to such an ephemeral concept. Minutes, hours, days, months—in the end, there is a setting sun and a rising sun. Everything else is semantics.

Even that is fluid.

Aline has passed decades in the blink of an eye. She has spent the better part of a century walking in the spaces between stars, creating life where and as she sees fit. She has set the limits of the sea and watched it wear away the stolid shoreline.

Time is strange—it has been strange since she was no more than a girl laboring in her father's atelier.

All this to say, she has not always marked its passage particularly well.

“My parents are insistent on having a celebration at the Manor.”

Aline blinks at him, setting her tools aside and wiping paint on her skirt. “Generous of them. Have they mentioned why?”

Her husband eyes her in that particular way— certainly not cold, but puzzled. She will only recall later—caught up in another task entirely, that nearly a year has passed since their nuptials. And it will occur to her, much more strongly, why she finds the date so unremarkable. The world will praise them for surviving their first year, but she has loved him for decades in the Canvas. Renoir shakes his head. He holds out a letter. “The courier brought this for you. I was also asked,” he smiles at her, “to convey his admiration for your work.”

The Paintress takes the paper from him, absently turning her cheek for a kiss. He is warm, the hair of his beard tickling her softer skin. She brushes the backs of her fingers down his tie. “You ought to have invited him in. He could have taken something home,” she indicates the stacks of paintings with an idle tilt of her head.

“You would give them away?”

She laughs, “Shall we sell them? Store them? I happily defer to you on the matter, mon coeur, but we are running out of space. And besides,” Aline sighs, drumming her nails against her hip. A chill spring wind gusts into the atelier, carrying with it the scent of morning rain—fresh, deliciously full of life. “Besides, art should bring pleasure and wonder to others. It does no good collecting dust in the cellar.”

“Generations of collectors are quailing as we speak.”

“Let them. And if you have the boy's name…”

Renoir's expression turns indulgent. He takes her shoulders in his hands before bending to kiss her forehead. “If it pleases you, my dear. Make your selection, and I will have it passed along.”

Aline takes a moment to admire the fluid way he moves through their atelier, shrugging out of his overcoat, draping it lazily over a stack of books—shedding the skin he wears for the world and baring himself for her. Renoir rolls his sleeves up to the elbows and sets to work on his painting.

“Your letter, Aline.”

With a little snicker of amusement, Aline settles herself in the oversized chair by the window. The opulent style clashes with the rest of the atelier and the chateau at large, clearly designed with the manor’s stylings in mind, but it has never bothered her. It is a dark, crisp note amidst a sea of color and life; the contrast pleases her.

‘Madame Dessendre’ is written in a tight, fastidiously neat script she does not recognize. Aline frowns, opening the envelope to find a single slip of paper. The contents are woefully brief.

Aline,

I would speak to you, one Paintress to another. Kindly leave your shadow at home. I dare say he will survive an evening without you.

I expect a prompt response,

Madame Garneau.

She rereads the letter a second and third time before setting it aside, leaning back, and folding her hands over her stomach. Aline cannot say she understands—throughout her time with the Painters, she has passed perhaps half a dozen conversations with the woman. Nothing that would merit such an invitation.

“Good news?” Renoir pauses with his brush pressed to the canvas, a violent splotch of red smearing across its surface like a heart's blood.

“Confusing is perhaps more apt.” She slides the letter across to him.

Renoir scans the note, his expression darkening. “Garneau is in no position to make demands of a lady of the Dessendre family.”

“As a noble? No. As a Paintress?” Aline shrugs. “And I am curious enough to forgive the slight.”

Some of the tension bleeds out of him at her admission. All is well. She does not require protection. Her shadow returns to his task. She grabs a pen and paper and sets to work on a response.

~~~~~~~~~

Despite her prominent place on the Painter’s Council, the Garneau estate is not particularly grand, set well away from the heart of Paris. It translates to a quaint, rustic charm not dissimilar to her own familial home.

The Garneau patriarch, a young man perhaps a year her senior, rushes to greet her, clutching her hand in both of his, sputtering a string of apologies she barely has time to process. His lady grandmother is absent, yes—beg forgiveness, Lady Dessendre. She is escorted to the old woman’s atelier only after she gives her word she will not alert her husband as to the slight.

Madame Garneau remains seated at her escritoire as they enter, turning only after her grandson takes his leave. She cuts a dark and forbidding figure, hands long since gnarled by arthritis, dressed in a sea of black fabric. Garneau's garb of perpetual mourning. There is never sorrow in her eyes, only a harsh and glittering light when she describes them as such. I have outlived three husbands—I have outlasted my sons, and I will outlast you, it says. At nearly seventy, Aline is inclined to believe the boast.

Alone, they are Paintresses, not nobles. Neither stands on ceremony. Garneau motions to the small sitting area near the window, holding out her arm. Aline takes it without comment, supporting the Master’s weight as they cross the room. The scent of old books—slightly musty— and paint hangs around the other woman.

The Councilwoman says nothing as they take their seats. With achingly slow, painstakingly careful movements, she lifts the decanter from the end table.

Garneau pours two glasses of wine. She hands the first flute to Aline. When the younger woman raises an eyebrow, she says, “It will make the things we must discuss easier.”

“Forgive me, Madame. I’m accustomed to conversations beginning with such banalities as ‘hello.’ But vague and foreboding non-sequiturs are certainly acceptable.” The wine tastes heavily of iron, thinner than she likes, and colored by a hint of vinegar.

“I have as much interest in hearing your gossip as you have in mine, child—none at all.” Garneau holds up her glass for a toast. “Drink, and then we shall address the business at hand.” When they have finished the wine, the old woman asks, “Your father is a Painter, yes? Of middling talent, perhaps, but still a Painter.”

Aline bites her tongue. “Yes, Madame.”

“Hackles down, child. I’m saying nothing you aren’t already aware of—you surpassed him as a girl.” Garneau cocks her head to the side, adding with a begrudging respect. “Your protege has surpassed him.”

As ever, an unmistakable pride bleeds into her voice. She sits up taller. “Renoir is a rare talent.”

“I shall defer to your no-doubt unbiased opinion on the matter,” Garneau says, tone dry. “Regardless, the Dessendre heir is not the primary reason I’ve summoned you, tangentially related as he may be.” She leans back in her seat, lips pursed to a thin line. Garneau’s gaze rakes over her, lingering briefly on Aline’s belly before sweeping back up. The old woman waits until has raised the wineglass to her lips to speak, “My question is simple—simple enough that I wonder why your honorable parents have not voiced their concerns. It’s curious you are not yet with child, non?”

She manages not to choke. “A year is not a long time, Madame.”

She smirks. “Were he making perfunctory trips to your bed each month, my dear, I might agree. Are his visits so irregular?” Aline feels color flare in her cheeks. The young woman drops her eyes. “I thought not. You have that…air about you.” She carries blithely on. “Had your mother been the Painter in the family, you might have been spared an old woman’s meddling. But here we are. More wine?”

Aline holds out her glass. Its taste is suddenly less objectionable.

“Now, Aline,” Garneau fixes her with the look of a particularly tenured professor addressing a promising, if irksome, student. “What does every Canvas demand?”

Her answer is immediate, “Life.”

“Life, a soul, energy—there is a cost to creation, as you are well aware. And there are limits to what one can sustain.” The older woman frowns, the deep lines on her face only rendering the emotion more severe. Dark bags rim her eyes, suggesting no shortage of sleepless nights. Aline smoothes her fingers up the stem of her glass, grounding herself in the touch, the coolness of the glass.

She knows what the Master will say, and feels its truth deep down in her bones. And some part of her rails against it.

Garneau nods. “We are all vessels, in the end—there is only so much of us to pour out before we are emptied.” Her expression softens. “And there is not enough in you to sustain a child and the Canvas. The information is yours to use or ignore, child. You are under no obligation to listen. But it would be no kindness to let you fumble in the dark.”

The old woman goes silent.

Aline purses her lips. Her pride wants to argue that things might be different, that her gifts might so outpace Garneau's that she could perform both tasks, but it rings hollow. They have certainly made no attempts to avoid a pregnancy, even if they have not actively pursued one. Barring a more concerning underlying condition, she finds it improbable that they have not conceived.

She speaks slowly, almost feeling her mouth form the words, “It would be a temporary arrangement?”

“Do you intend to carry the child to the end of your days?”

Aline shoots her a withering look. “To term, then.”

“To term.”

She regrets the question before she finishes it. “How long before I conceive?”

Garneau barks out a laugh. “Entirely dependent on the Dessendre boy's efforts, I imagine.”

“How long must I be removed from the Canvas,” Aline grumbles, feeling her cheeks heat. “Before I am…recovered enough to conceive.”

Garneau shakes her head, still chuckling, as she reaches out to set her hand over Aline's. “Child, I have no specifics for you. Only broad strokes. If they spare you even a little pain, I will consider the endeavor worthwhile.”

It is a kindness, Aline concedes. There has been no concern over their capacity to supply an heir, and their attention has fixated on Renoir's lessons, but in another year? Two? It is all too easy to picture her mounting frustration.

She looks at the Councilwoman again, seventy years of life hanging off her shoulders. She sees a young woman fumbling through years of trial and error, thoroughly isolated, until she stumbles onto a solution by pure chance. Had she entered a Canvas after falling pregnant? If so, what had happened to the child?

Aline doesn't ask. She doesn't want to know.

“Thank you,” she says. Her voice is quiet, but Garneau must hear. The old woman nods, filling her glass again.

The chateau is empty when she arrives home. Monoco putters in from the garden just long enough to butt his head into her outstretched hand. With the task of greeting his mistress accomplished, the hounds ambles off in search of a comfortable sunbeam.

Aline smiles. There’s just enough wine left in her system to leave her head swimming pleasantly. The world and, by extension, she feels soft. She moves through to the kitchen, throws together a light snack, and settles at the kitchen table to wait.

Her thoughts keep straying to the Garneau manor—to the Canvas, to her prospective children.

Motherhood has never frightened her. She has never stopped to consider it, granted. It is only a foregone conclusion, nebulous and inescapable. She will marry. She will produce heirs. She will tend to them as befits her station.

Aline closes her eyes, turning herself over to her imagination. It paints her a dizzying kaleidoscope of images: a dark-haired little boy, blessed with his father’s eyes and an expression too dour for one his age. A girl as delicate as her mother, tugging at Renoir's hand, demanding his attention. She imagines herself heavy with his child—their child—and nearly chokes on the force of her want. Renoir, kneeling before her, lips pressing to the gentle swell of her stomach.

Aline shifts uncomfortably.

She has no desire to sacrifice her connection to the Canvas—it is as much a part of her as breathing. But…

“...but it is only a temporary thing, child. Rest assured: Paris and the Arts will survive those months without you.” Garneau’s voice fills her head, gruff and lightly chiding but tinged with a note of understanding. They will. And she will still paint.

By the time Renoir returns, she is resolved.

~~~~~~~~~

Monoco alerts her to his arrival.

She has spent the afternoon dozing, pleasantly warm, the dog spooned up in front of her. The hound jolts awake and is gone before her addled mind can process any offense at this callous abandonment.

Aline blinks back to awareness in time to see her husband hunker down, scooping the wriggling creature up in his arms. Monoco, far too large for such things, seems to care not at all. He contorts his body in a desperate attempt to bathe his master's face with kisses.

Renoir carries the creature over the threshold before depositing him safely back on the ground. He scrubs a hand across his cheek, and it comes away slick with the dog's saliva. It is a humanizing note to his otherwise impressive image, darkly handsome in his riding leathers.

She sits up, stretching languidly. “Renoir, if you don't greet me with equal enthusiasm as the dog, I may be upset.”

He shrugs, plucking her from the sofa with just as little effort. The scent of horse and the far more pleasant smell of hay lingers on his skin and clothes. Aline takes his face in her hands. She manages a quick kiss before pulling away. “You taste like Monoco.”

“Perhaps if you'd greeted me with equal enthusiasm to the dog…”

Aline snorts, shoving his face away. Renoir's grip on her tightens, holding her steady even as he rocks back a step. The idea that he might drop her never so much as crosses her mind. He sets her back on her feet, but she is in no hurry to distance herself from him. She tightens the arms looped around his neck.

Renoir's hand settles at the small of her back, a soothing weight. “Your meeting with the Councilwoman was productive, I take it?”

“Very. I have much to share.” She leans her head against his shoulder. “It can wait. You are in desperate need of a bath, my love.”

“There is no reason we cannot accomplish both tasks at once.” He murmurs, sliding his hand around to cup her hip. “If you are feeling amenable.” The pang of want swells again. Aline nods mutely, taking his hands and leading him through to the bathroom.

If the study screams ‘Renoir,’ then this place is hers—brighter than the majority of the chateau. Flowers grow in the window box, scenting the air, and there is so much light. They are far enough from the manor and any major thoroughfare that she sees no reason to cover the large windows. Renoir stands there, loitering and looking out of place, as she runs the bath.

She dips a washcloth in the warm water. Aline holds it out to him. “Your face.”

Renoir chuckles. “You’ll sting Monoco with your disapproval.”

“Then don't tell him, and he'll never know.”

He concedes this point with a generous tip of his head. In short order, the bath is ready for them. Renoir holds out a steadying hand to help her into the tub before he settles. His touch remains on her hips, stabilizing until she sinks into the water. Aline taps his knee, a gentle correction as she opts to straddle his thighs instead of settling in the space between his spread legs.

She dips the washrag in the water again and sets to cleaning the dirt from his exposed throat. After a cursory attempt to coax her closer, he relaxes back against the tub. It is a reversal of their typical roles—Renoir ever giving, always tending—and a task Aline is all too happy to provide. She leans over to lather soap between her palms, kneading up his biceps and shoulders before sweeping downwards, threading her fingers through the dark hair on his chest.

She loves him like this—surrounded by light and beauty, purely at ease. It’s a state he allows only infrequently, as though he fears the world will steal away all he loves should his vigilance briefly waver. Aline leads him in a languid kiss, tapping a warning nail to his sternum when he alters their lazy rhythm.

He breaks away from her, breathless, pale eyes glassy. When she presses him back against the rim of the tub, Renoir goes willingly, hissing at the press of chilled porcelain to his overheated flesh.

“Your conversation with Garneau?” He prompts, tracing lazy patterns down her back. The muscles in his neck cord as he makes to look at her, then slacken as he relents.

“Mmm. The Councilwoman found it curious that we had not yet conceived.”

“What.”

She presses her fingers over his lips, shivering when he responds with teeth. “Hush. It was a kindness to reach out.” She sees the doubt in his pale eyes, but she continues, aware of the way his grip instinctively tightens, slipping up to tangle in her hair. “It is…unlikely I will carry a child while I walk within the Canvas.”

Renoir frowns. Aline slides her arms around him, leaning her head against his, listening to his weary sigh.“You would swear it off? For months? Aline, I will not ask you to make that sacrifice.”

“Oh, mon coeur, I know—you never would. But it is a sacrifice I will have to make regardless.” She scratches nails through his hair, voice dropping to a whisper. Aline presses her lips to his temple. “And one I make willingly.”

Her husband sucks in a breath, shifting beneath her. “Aline…” His eyes are so miserably blue, flicking to the side. A curious degree of conflict bleeds across his face, echoed in the sudden gentility of his touch—featherlight, ghosts of sensation, sweeping in over her ribs and down over her stomach. “You…we need not rush into any decision. My father is healthy. We are young.”

“Renoir…”

“It is a sacrifice, Aline. I only…” he pauses. Muscles flex beneath her legs, not precisely a fight-or-flight reaction. Renoir, railing against an unassailable truth—in this arena, he cannot protect her. “...I only ask that you fully consider the implications before charging in headlong. Madame Garneau is not the only Paintress in the city. There may be alternatives open to us.”

“You may be right.” She traces his nose with hers. “But let me put it plainly: we must produce an heir, and we will never have the same freedom as now. If I must step aside, better sooner than later.”

The Dessendre scion bows her back until her hair floats on the water’s surface, an auburn oil slick. He leans forward, mouthing at the rise of her breasts, following the path of a particularly industrious bead of water with his tongue. She stifles a whimper as he pulls one of her nipples between his teeth.

She presses forward, voice breathy. “I know my mind.” The water is blisteringly hot, but she watches gooseflesh rise on his skin.

His breath tickles against her wetted skin, and she gasps, fingers tightening in his hair to hold him in place. “It would be impossible to argue that, obstinate woman.” Renoir lifts his head. “You are certain?”

“I know my mind,” she repeats, reaching between them to take him in hand. Her husband grunts, muscles flexing in the way she loves so well—he is always so controlled, and in that brief moment he is desperate—as she strokes him to readiness.

And oh, these feelings will change in the coming months. Aline's determination will flag. This feeling of rightness at setting aside the Canvas will twist in her gut until it burns like poison.

But those thoughts are so far away, impossible to comprehend when her senses are full of him. She lifts her hips, sighing as Renoir guides himself into her. Aline tucks her chin over his shoulder, clinging to him and reveling in the familiar warmth, the sensation of being stretched just this side of too far.

They move together as best they can within the tub's cramped confines, turning themselves over to slow and lazy pleasure. Renoir will hold her to his chest, listening as she paints pictures of an idealized future. Their children will paint. They will teach them together. They will be loved and safe.

“Will they?” he murmurs, already in the process of drowsing.

She brushes the damp hair from his forehead, shifting until she can cradle him in her arms. “You would never allow us to be anything else, mon coeur."

~~~~~~~~~

Aline puts the finishing touches on her Canvas over the next month. Their anniversary comes and goes. His parents host an elaborate dinner at the manor. It’s a night full of music, overheated from too many bodies and summer air. And wine. Far too much wine. They are left to field an onslaught of questions.

Have they settled comfortably? Yes.

How tolerable is the union? Renoir regards the gentleman with a bemused look, tone entirely flat as he answers, “Tolerable.”

Is the young Madame Dessendre expecting? It has been some time—they are surprised. Who would have anticipated such a delay when they make such a handsome pair?

It’s only half a lie when she leans into his side and paints on her most winning smile. “Renoir wanted to make certain I was comfortable before we welcomed any children.” More than one gathered lady looks jealous at that, admiring her husband with more than passing appreciation. Aline shifts to stand in front of him, and if it is a touch petty and territorial, she can make her peace with it.

~~~~~~~~~

Near the beginning of autumn, she’s late. Aline keeps no more than three of her morning meals down that month, swinging from violently ill in the morning to crushing exhaustion in the evenings.

Aline feels something caught between begrudging respect and distaste for the thing growing in her womb. Her touch strays to her still-flat stomach. She has half a mind to throw herself into Renoir’s Canvas and call the whole thing a failed experiment.

Eventually, the symptoms subsist.

~~~~~~~~~

It will be a sacrifice. But it is a temporary thing. And Paris and the arts will carry on without you.

For the most part, it’s true. The Painter’s Council seems pleased by this reprieve, and her younger contemporaries are too busy building their legacy to pay her much mind. As the season turns cooler, they attend more and more exhibitions.

She enjoys those evenings, even if there is that omnipresent ache. It is more than the sensation of having lost a limb—it is more…god, she struggles to put it into words. Like being locked away in a small concrete cell with no light and no life. It’s having her hands bound and her eyes put out. It is…

“Withdrawals,” Madame Garneau offers, hand tucked in the curve of Aline’s arm. A young painter pauses to admire them, shouting that he will happily put their image to canvas.

“Maiden and Crone, I’ll call it,” he says, laughing, only for his gaze to stray to the gentle swell of Aline’s belly—or perhaps he catches sight of the lion’s head broach she wears these days. To remind them that you are a Dessendre, Renoir had said, pinning it to her dress. The painter wanders off without additional comment.

Garneau eyes the broach, a knowing look in her eyes. “Sent the lion in his absence, did he?” She snickers. “You cannot fault the boy’s devotion—heavy-handed as it may be.”

Aline ignores the jibe. She takes no small amount of pride in wearing his sigil. “You were saying something before we were interrupted?”

The old woman nods, naked understanding sketched across her features. Along with that? Pity. Something in her rankles at that. “Withdrawals, child. In there, we walk as gods. Out here?” Garneau tips her head to the lion broach. “You rely on that for protection.”

Aline purses her lips. It feels only half-correct—she misses the freedom, creativity without bounds, and wild bursts of inspiration unbound by a physical brush and canvas.

But it is only temporary. Aline whispers this more frequently than she cares to admit.

~~~~~~~~~

Renoir continues to paint.

Renoir ventures into the Canvas.

She will sit beside him some days, head cocked to the side, and wonder where he’s gone, what marvels he’s created without her. If she asks, he will always regale her with stories once he returns. His voice is beautiful and often chases her to sleep, but it is never quite the same. Words lacked power.

He kneels before her one evening, taking her hand in both his. Renoir’s shirt hangs open to the waist—despite the biting chill outside, the fire in the atelier leaves the air overheated to the point of stifling. This close, she can make out the beads of sweat kissing at his skin.

“It bothers you.” Not a question.

Aline sighs, eyeing his Canvas with a touch of jealousy. “Yes.”

He flashes her a lopsided smile, nearly boyish. “Very well then. Consider my lessons suspended.”

The ease of the admission strikes her like a physical blow. “Absolutely not. Renoir, without continued practice, you’ll undo so much of our work. Out of the question.” He arches a brow, and she hears the silent inquiry, amused: giving orders again? Aline huffs, stretching her left leg to hook it around his hips. The angle is all wrong for her to put any real force behind the movement. All she can do is dig her heel into the back of his thigh to urge him closer.

He shuffles forward on his knees. Aline chews her lip to keep from laughing, shaking her head.

“It will wait,” he murmurs, curving his hand over the swell of her belly. “It will always be there. You—you both—are more important than any Canvas.” Renoir ducks his head, that ridiculous wisp of hair falling across his eye. “And there’s a touch of romance to it, yes? Two lovers rediscovering the Canvas together.”

“I won’t ask that of you.”

“No. And if history has taught us anything, you’re unlikely to listen to me either.” He takes her face in his hands and kisses her. “Perhaps your own words will get through that stubborn head: I make the sacrifice willingly.”

She feels small and petty. Renoir tuts, gathering her close, a hand smoothing over her hair.

He makes the sacrifice so readily. Aline loves and hates him for it.

~~~~~~~~~

There is a quality to pregnancy that is not unlike creating life in the Canvas—intimacy, perhaps. It is unnerving to share her body with another life, but warm, too. And it is strange how she comes to know the little thing growing inside her, how without seeing its face or hearing its voice, it becomes so distinct.

Aline will be going about her day, and the little beast will kick her in the ribs hard enough to drive the air from her lungs. It refuses to stay still, shifting in her womb as if it cannot get settled. On that point, at least, they agree—she cannot remember the last time she felt properly comfortable in her skin.

She is painting one morning—tempting fate, truly, as the babe has been active since just after sun-up—and it kicks her with enough force to send her formerly precise brush stroke cutting a diagonal across her work. Aline stares at it in naked horror.

There is a voice—very small—that thinks the child acted with intention.

“You are a violent little creature,” she grumbles. Aline holds her brush steady, waiting to see if it will move again. It does—admittedly with less force—and she’s left to glare, posture ramrod straight. “Truce, my love, please.”

She feels its hand press against something delicate inside her, which seems a wholesale rejection of her proposal. But she learns, and they adapt. Aline finds that if she sings while she works, her little beast remains calm.

She learns that—in addition to everything else—their child can deceive. Renoir is entirely in its thrall. In the evenings, curled against her husband’s side, fingers threaded together over her stomach, Renoir will read aloud. The child will still, almost as if listening to the sound of its father’s voice, calming within her before drifting to sleep. When she complains about this, Renoir shrugs.

“She prefers me,” he says, smirking.

Aline rolls her eyes. “I am aware. It is not subtle about its preference, mon coeur.”

“She,” Renoir corrects, resuming his reading before she can contradict him.

And so ‘it’ becomes ‘she.’ ‘She’ becomes ‘Clea.’

If nothing else, it makes arguing with her easier.

~~~~~~~~~

There is a period—somewhere in the sixth to seventh month of her pregnancy—where she considers smothering Renoir in his sleep.

Aline feels no guilt. She sees something similar reflected on her husband’s face—the urge to have her committed, maybe. Or to shake her until she sees reason.

Some of it’s hormones—she feels emotionally raw most hours of the day. More than anything, it is the feeling of being caged. Someone has slipped a collar around her throat, and every day it tightens, little by little. Until she’s struggling to breathe, move, and think of her own volition. It leaves her lashing out more frequently, isolating herself.

You cannot enter the Canvas.

Think only placid thoughts.

It is unwise to be on your feet too long.

Eat this, not that. Wear this. Avoid the excitement of the theaters and crowds!

Painting is her sole reprieve. She wonders if Clea hasn’t come to realize as much. The child remains as active as ever, but there is something softer in her movements, a fluttering sensation that Aline comes to relate to curiosity. In the rare moments when she is allowed to keep her own company, Aline takes to explaining her artistic process to her daughter. Ridiculous, almost certainly, but that does not stop the swell of love she feels for her little one in those moments.

She wonders if she’s going mad.

It comes to a head one rainy morning. The overcast skies match her mood, and while the midwife has protested mightily, Aline insists on flinging the windows open. The damp air burns in her lungs, gooseflesh chasing along her arms and legs. She takes a stubborn delight in the older woman’s disapproving expression.

“Come and sit, Madame. Best for you and the babe if you rest your legs.”

She does not look up from her work. “Your input is noted.”

The sound of rustling skirts breaks the silence as the other woman crosses the room, hesitating, weighing her instructions against the scowl on the noble’s face. The midwife takes her arm, tugging her towards the sitting area. “Madame.”

Aline wrenches away, shoulders squared and jaw-set. The words escape her in a growl, “You are dismissed.” She flicks her paintbrush towards the door, sending a spray of verdant green paint across the atelier. “Get out of my house.”

She is not foolish enough to believe there will be no ramifications—the midwife will rush to inform either her husband or father-in-law about her manic fit—but this place is hers again. Aline sets her hands on her hips, scanning the dearth of half-finished paintings scattered about the room—landscapes, more fantastical designs, the occasional portrait. None speak to her.

She sets to work on something grander, struggling the canvas into place.

~~~~~~~~~

“Aline!”

His voice pulls her away from the dreamy flow state she’s slipped into. “In here, Renoir!”

She thinks nothing of her position—it’s one she’s performed hundreds of times. Aline hooks her bare foot against the ladder’s edge, standing nearly at its top. She leans out to reach the far side of the canvas. She sways briefly, still growing accustomed to the excess weight and her new center of gravity, but it’s such a little thing. The ladder remains stable. She does not lose her grip on either the brush or palette.

You would think she’d gone tumbling face first by Renoir’s reaction. The man stops cold at the entrance of their atelier, a stack of books tucked under one arm. He looks at her first, seemingly without seeing, gaze sweeping from her to the overstuffed little library near the far side of the room. Renoir blinks, seemingly stunned into a state of catatonia. The ladder creaks when she extends herself a little more, and that seems to jar him back to awarness.

Aline twists to take a rag from her skirt pocket. Her last stroke is too thick, and the weighting throws off the entirety of the—

“Renoir!”

His name escapes her in an outraged and panicked yelp. Before she has time to process exactly what has happened, he’s crossed the length of the room, hands closing over her hips like a vice. Renoir hauls her bodily from the ladder. For the first time since the earliest weeks of their marriage, she hears genuine anger in his voice. “Have you no sense of self-preservation, woman?”

She contorts in his arms in an attempt to wriggle free. Renoir doesn’t shift. Her husband holds her fast to his chest, eyes blazing as they search her over.

“How dare you! Put me down.”

“Where is the midwife?”

“Let me go.”

Renoir allows her to take a step back without releasing her arm. Somewhere in the scuffle, she’s lost both brush and palette. The floor of the atelier is a riot of color. Both the front of his vest and her robe are ruined, ugly smears of paint slashing across the fabric. She plucks at it in distaste.

He stabs an accusative finger at her. “Why must everything be difficult with you, Aline? Why is everything a battle? Why can’t you…” The sentence drifts off, seemingly lost in the panicked rush of his thoughts. Renoir’s expression darkens. He glares at the painting. “Reckless, selfish woman.”

“How should I behave, my love?” She snaps. “Should I be grateful? To be coddled? To be stripped down to nothing more than a child? Told when to eat, when to move, when to sleep, where to go?”

“How else should I treat you? You seem determined to endanger yourself—did you consider what might have happened had you fallen, Aline?” He scrubs a hand over his face, stepping away from her. His anger has a curious appeal, almost frenetic. It is so much the opposite of his typical composure. Slower, quieter, he says, “If you had fallen and I had not returned home…”

The truth is it never crossed her mind.

Aline feels a dull and horrible sort of unreality wash over her. Clea twists in her womb. What if she’d fallen? Renoir’s hands clench and unclench at his side, bone white. She goes to him without thinking, pulling him into an embrace. He clutches at her with panicky strength.

In the morning, there will be fingertip bruises emblazoned across her shoulders and hips from his grasp. The smeared paint adds a sickly quality to their contact. It feels like blood.

~~~~~~~~~

She expects to find the door to the atelier locked—another piece of freedom snatched away. It isn’t. Somehow, that’s worse.

They barely speak for the remainder of the week.

~~~~~~~~~

It’s the sort of thing they should discuss. Rationally, Aline understands this.

Neither wants to hear the simple truth—theirs is a mated stubbornness. They are the same steel. Renoir will always chase her, clutching. She will always rankle in his grip. They are simultaneously twinned and diametrically opposed.

Aline finds him settled at his desk, failing to write. Renoir glances up and offers her a half smile. He looks tired. Neither of them have been sleeping.

They should speak.

It is easier to let him draw her into his lap and wind her arms around him. It’s easier to whisper her love instead of an apology.

~~~~~~~~~

Their daughter comes into the world with a surprising lack of drama.

There’s no last-minute illness. No storms. No rush to the hospital. The physician is waiting to deliver the baby. The manor has no shortage of servants on hand to see to her needs. It is a textbook childbirth.

It hurts. It is agonizing. Aline thinks Clea might intend to kill her—and it would feel very like her after everything else—but the pain loses its harder edges. Everything blurs—the world, her screams, the low drone of the physician’s voice.

She must blackout at some point. They send Renoir away, ignoring his protests. When she comes back to awareness, he’s there again, coldly surveying the others. His jaw sets, mouth pursed to a thin line, daring anyone to challenge his place here. The argument drops when she fumbles for his hand.

Clea does not cry so much as she howls her displeasure at being forced out into the world, red in the face, squirming in the doctor’s hold. They are telling her something, but the words don’t register through the haze of exhaustion and residual hurt.

Renoir holds her steady against his side, blessedly stable as the rest of the world continues to swim out of focus. The physician beckons him over.

He stays with her. When they begrudgingly bring the babe to him, he seats himself on the bed, uncaring of the blood and sweat. Renoir holds their daughter for Aline’s inspection.

Clea, lovely Clea, her little brow furrowed, gaze flicking between their faces.

Lovely Clea—the first of three children, their prodigy.

Chapter Text

A minor hemorrhage.

The physician refuses to meet Renoir’s eyes when he speaks, gaze darting fitfully past the scion and towards the delivery room. The chaos from only hours earlier has since faded to silence, only the maids occasionally coming and going with fresh linens. From the look of rabbity panic on his face, the small man is aware of this relative isolation.

“And you kept this from me?” Renoir begins, taking a step forward. An underlying note colors his voice, low and pitch dark. He sets a hand on the physician’s shoulder. Nearly growling, he continues, “Aline, bleeding out in her bed, and you stayed silent?”

The physician eyes him with a breed of caution Renoir would find comical under better circumstances—the look of a man uncomfortable with hounds, forced to cohabitate with just such a creature. “She was in no danger, monsieur.” He is a round-faced, bespectacled little man, forced to crane his neck and fall back another step in the face of Renoir’s advance. “Minor, Monsieur Dessendre, a minor hemorrhage—”

“So you’ve said. Perhaps an object lesson will help me understand, monsieur. A demonstration, if you will…”

“Renoir.” His father’s voice interrupts the physician before he can speak. The Dessendre Patriarch seems to materialize at his son’s side, grim-faced and jaw-set. “A word.”

Renoir flicks his attention to the older man, gauging the severity of the situation before finally stepping back. Something ugly twists in his belly, clawing at his better reason, demanding recompense. It is a howling, caged thing. In the later stages of her pregnancy, more prone to melancholic fits, Aline had confessed to feeling like a collar had slipped around her throat. Renoir feels it now.

His father does not shrink under the weight of his glare. He only motions for the boy to go ahead. The two men fall into lockstep, silent. Renoir clenches and unclenches his fists. In one of the rooms they pass, his daughter continues to howl.

Clea.

The wet nurse had borne the child away without so much as a glance in his direction. His questions meet silence and blank stares. Exhaustion presses down on him like a physical weight, but all he can afford to feel is caged—Clea, abandoned to a stranger's arms in some corner of the manor. Aline, bleeding and alone in her birthing bed. Energy coils in the hollow places in his chest and the marrow of his bones, demanding satiation in the form of movement, action, and control.

Behind those two thoughts—Clea, Aline—there is a third.

He finds himself longing for the Canvas. For the feeling of control.

Beautiful as the library is, Renoir has never strictly associated it with comfort—it is a thoroughly mixed affair. Throughout his years, it has alternately served as a place of discovery and discipline. His father closes the doors behind him. He remains where he stands, hand still lingering on the handle. He speaks with the cold clarity Renoir remembers all too well from his youth. “Do you need me to tell you you have behaved in a manner unbefitting a Dessendre?”

Renoir clenches his jaw. “No, père.”

“An uncharacteristically reasonable response—good.” His father sighs, indicating a pair of wingback chairs. “Sit, boy. Champagne?”

“Forgive me for not feeling celebratory, père.”

Etienne Dessendre shakes his head. His father has always been a thin man—lit by candle and firelight, Renoir finds him nearly gaunt. He is reminded of a great crane—too tall by half, long-limbed in a way that might have been graceful in his youth but failed to reach such great heights in old age. Still, his hands are perfectly sure as he fills two champagne flutes, pressing one into his son’s hands despite his protest.

“Consider it forgiven—I owe you that degree of paternal fidelity.” Etienne brings the flute to his lips. A touch of grim amusement bleeds into his father’s voice, one brow arching in question. “What in god’s name possessed you? Storming the delivery room? Threatening the physician? Paris will be calling you mad by morning—I have half a mind to let them.”

Renoir scoffs. “Paternal fidelity?” Etienne raises his glass in a wordless salute. The young man wet his lower lip, shaking his head before finishing the glass of champagne in two long swallows. His father ignores this as well, waiting for Renoir to continue. “Aline needed…”

He drifts off, tasting the excuse—perhaps Aline had needed him. More truthfully, he needed to be there. Listening to her cries through the closed door had been insanity-inducing.

“...Aline needed nothing from you, mon fils. Tonight, you were a detriment, not an asset.” His father’s expression softens, reflecting the handsome man Renoir remembers from his youth. “It was an admirable thought, however foolish. And whatever megrims you may be nursing, consider: Aline still lives. Your child is healthy. Many walk away from these occasions with far less.”

Renoir nods, leaning forward to hang his hands over his knees. “Am I dismissed, père?”

Etienne eyes him, folding his hands neatly over his stomach. “So you can return to your little crusade? No. I will accompany you to Clea—you will introduce me to the first of my grandchildren. And then you will rest. Is this clear, Renoir?”

The younger Dessendre nods, scrubbing at the inside of his wrist, digging his nail into the tender flesh. “Perfectly.”

He knows better than to expect he will sleep.

~~~~~~~~~

She is such a little thing.

Renoir takes his daughter from the midwife, allowing the woman to adjust the placement of his hands until he has the child safely cradled against his chest. He places his hand over her chest, marveling at the steady thrum of her heart under his palm. “She was crying?”

The midwife snorts. “All babes cry, monsieur. Yours is just a touch more spirited.”

“Her mother’s daughter, then.”

“That’s what I often hear fathers say.”

Renoir tips his head in concession. Clea quiets nearly as soon as she hears his voice. It is almost certainly nothing more than some sentimental drivel. Still, Renoir wishes to believe she recognizes the sound. This man read to her so many evenings, spinning pretty tales to lull her to sleep. She purses her little mouth, staring up at him with huge blue eyes. His eyes. Clea's brow pinches in that way he associates with Aline in her more obstinate moments. The man smiles, his exhaustion momentarily far away.

What a strange thing, a wondrous thing, to bring life into the world. Not a product of his design but a perfect blend of himself and another. He has never found an act of random chance so lovely.

“She's beautiful,” he murmurs, reverent and unaware he's spoken aloud. He glances up to find the midwife staring, her expression softer now. Renoir bows his head in gratitude, voice still gentle. “Go, get yourself something to eat, madame. I'll sit with her for a while.”

Renoir settles in one of the available chairs, holding Clea in the crook of his arm. The child blinks at him, eyes drooping shut until she finally sleeps.

~~~~~~~~~

The physician insists Aline spend the first three days of bedrest in isolation. She will confess to some gratitude for the first two days—Aline's exhausted beyond what she imagined humanly possible. By the third? She is still weak but hearty enough to read, at the very least. They deny her even that much, and so she drifts in and out of slumber, roused only when one of the midwives insists she eat.

“When will I be able to see my daughter?” Her voice remains hoarse. It startles the poor girl who has come to collect the remains of her meal—she jolts upright, scattering the cutlery across the floor. It’s an ear-splitting noise, cutting through the oppressive silence. Aline raises a hand, waving off the panicked apology she can already see on the young woman’s tongue.

“That’s to the physician’s discretion, madame.” The hesitant note coloring her voice suggests she does not precisely agree with this stipulation. “The wet nurse has seen to your little one during your convalescence.”

Something clenches in her heart—Aline pats the space on the bed next to her. The maid ventures closer but lingers by the edge of the mattress. “How is she?”

“I don’t know, madame—I could ask? From all that I’ve heard, Monsieur Dessendre visits her frequently.”

Aline stares. “Renoir?”

“Yes, madame.” The other woman takes a small step forward, lowering her voice. At barely more than a whisper, she says, “It’s not my place to say, but he seems a good sort.”

She smiles, plucking at the blankets in her lap. “You’re very welcome to say, mademoiselle. And very correct.” Aline chews her lip. “Would you fetch Monsieur Dessendre for me?”

“Madame, it isn’t wise…”

“I assure you, no one will be more fastidious about my convalescence than that man.”

The maid sighs, glancing about the room once as if to assure herself they are truly alone. She speaks with that same conspiratory tone. Even in the silence, Aline has to strain her hearing to catch the words. “If I happen across him…I’ll do what I can. But you must rest, madame. Please.”

As if to stress this, the young woman reaches out, adjusting the bedding around her lady. Aline settles back. To her chagrin, she is tired. Even the brief exchange takes more out of her than she cares to admit.

She awakens to the same maid gently shaking her sometime later. A frenetic energy clings to the woman, eyes bright and halfway owlish. The low light suggests the better part of the afternoon has long since passed, tipping securely into the evening. She takes Aline’s right hand in both of hers, clasping them tightly. Her addled mind struggles to process the series of events until she feels the soft scratch of paper against her palm. The maid nods, smiling. “From your monsieur.” She’s off before Aline can formulate a question.

Alone again, she attempts to read the note in the low light. She realizes, with no small degree of amusement, that Renoir has neither addressed nor signed this bit of subterfuge. Aline traces the letters, warmth settling in her chest. It’s all too easy to recall their earliest moments together, missives passed in secret as their fathers traded away their futures.

This seems a ridiculous precaution, chérie. Yet, here we are—I have made every effort to reach you these past three days. The physician harbors a grudge—forgive me, I will admit to having been harsh with him—and has done his utmost to keep me away. “C” is well. I would lay her ‘spiritedness,' the nurse’s words, not mine, at your feet, but that seems uncharitable. And she is magnificent.

If you send for me again, I will come. Damn the consequences.

She rereads the note before tucking it away beneath her pillow. The next morning, she composes a letter of her own requesting his company.

~~~~~~~~~

Nine days.

Aline spends nine days confined to her bed.

The doctor advises an additional two weeks of rest, under the strictest observation from the staff and her husband. Renoir does not miss the downward curve of his wife’s mouth or the way her hands clutch at the duvet. By her admission, the lack of movement has driven her nearly out of her skull. At the very least, she is allowed back on her feet for brief stretches.

Aline leans against his side, allowing Renoir to support her weight as they take a turn around her chambers. She’s still paler than he’d like, hair back in a messy braid and matted with sweat, but there’s more Aline in her face. They pause by the window long enough for Renoir to draw back the curtains. Light floods the room. His wife sighs.

“I do believe I’ve taken the sunlight for granted,” she murmurs, bringing her hand up, teasing her fingers through dustmotes. “You can’t imagine how happy I am to see it again.”

“I’m certain the feeling is mutual.”

Aline glances up at him through lowered lashes, humming. “You are good to indulge me.” She sighs, tipping her head back against his shoulder. His wife shifts her hand, finding the seam between his slacks and dress shirt. Renoir huffs out a laugh as her thumb brushes against bare flesh, trailing along the line of his hip. She stills, seemingly content with the skin-to-skin contact. “How is Clea? Tell me about our daughter?”

So he does. They talk of Clea. They speak of ideas he has had for their next Canvas. Things are…right between them. Like growing reacquainted with an old friend.

~~~~~~~~~

He begins to feel a little like her hound.

Renoir stands watch by her bedside, this time at the physician's behest. The little man had spoken in a dry, flat voice, “There, monsieur, you have your wish. Monitor her moods and energy—ward off any unwelcome guests. That, at least, you will have no trouble managing.”

And it is a necessary measure. The pair welcome Aline's family, his, his parent's associates, and friends—it is an endless parade of social interactions. They bear it with admirable aplomb. Clea feels no such compulsion towards grace. Their daughter grumbles as she is passed from person to person, occasionally wailing to make her displeasure known.

Once—after he has seen the last of their guests out and locked the door— Aline catches his wrist and pulls him to her for a chaste kiss. A part of him wishes to ask her why, but her bemused expression speaks volumes. She doesn't know either, and if they are both lost it cannot be all bad.

He will catch her staring from time to time. Renoir never knows what to make of her expression; it is simultaneously open and curious, her smile a touch distant. When he asks her what it is, she only says, “You're here. Always.”

He cocks his head to the side. “Would you prefer me to leave?”

Aline considers this, her voice gentle when she speaks, “No.”

~~~~~~~~~

It is the end of a particularly grueling day. A few members of the Painter’s Council and the Guild arrive to offer their well-wishes. Madame Garneau offers her congratulations to the pair and the assurance that: “Your child will be perfectly safe, should you wish to return to your craft.”

There are so many questions. When can they expect Aline's next piece? Will Renoir graduate from her tutelage and join their order in truth? Is there a gala in the future? Have they considered Clea’s place within the Guild? Over those hours, Aline begins to list.

“For months, I’ve wanted nothing more than to step back into the Canvas,” Aline begins. He glances over his shoulder, hands still lingering on the lock. Renoir waits for her to continue. Her expression twists, a mixture of exhaustion, irritation, and distress. “And now, do you know what I feel? Exhausted.” She sighs, leaning back against the headboard.

“Chérie, did you think this was something you could overcome through force of will?”

“Something like that,” she admits. “Don’t laugh, Renoir. I know it’s ridiculous.”

He shakes his head, moving to sit on the mattress’s edge. He brings her hand to his lips. “Aline, you are allowed to rest.”

She flashes him that distant smile again, bowing her head. “Of course. You’re right.”

He wants to tell her that is not the point and never has been. There is no right or wrong, no competition for either to win. Renoir squeezes her hand and moves into the adjoining washroom to run her bath.

It is a careful dance. Renoir helps her into the tub but stands aside while she undresses. He helps her settle but knows not to offer any additional assistance until requested.

“Renoir,” Aline catches his wrist again. She looks small and delicate in the oversized tub, auburn hair floating on the water's surface. “Thank you.”

~~~~~~~~~

They return to the chateau as a trio.

His mother has sent staff ahead to air the place out, leaving their home pleasantly cool and scented with the rain. Stepping over the threshold registers as a near physical release, the weight of these past weeks sloughing off his shoulders like a snake's skin.

Home.

Renoir sets their bags aside and moves to stoke the fire. It isn’t until he kneels to collect the wood that he realizes how exhausted he feels. The task complete, he leans his head against the mantle. He feels almost dizzy.

Aline’s hand settles at the small of his back. He manages a weary smile, melting into genuine affection as he takes in the sight of her, Clea nestled against her breasts. His wife leans in to press a kiss to his shoulder, nodding towards the stairs. “Go,” she whispers. And then, mimicking his tone, “You’re ‘allowed to rest, Renoir.’”

The Dessendre scion shakes his head. He pauses long enough to press a kiss to the crown of Clea’s skull before stumbling up the stairs. For the first time in what feels like weeks, he falls into a dreamless sleep.

For the next few months, life settles into a comfortable routine. Nothing much happens.

~~~~~~~~~

At Aline’s insistence, he resumes his lessons.

“The longer you put it off, the more you’ll forget and the worse it will feel.”

She’s right, of course. His initial return to the Canvas feels as nauseating his very first trip, perhaps worse. He feels like a long-distance runner who has stepped away from their craft—his body remembers how it should react, how it should feel, but the muscle refuses to respond. His lungs burn. Renoir plucks the images from his mind, stretching his chroma over the outline, attempting to make it manifest. What he summons is little more than a hollow imitation of his vision, clumsy and flat. He wanders the dilapidated landscape for a time, smoothing out its harder edges, desperate to align it with his original goal. It never feels right.

Aline awaits him in the atelier, Clea on her hip. Their daughter has discovered her voice over the past weeks. And has determined it best she employs it liberally. As if in response to his return, the girl makes a disgruntled noise, attempting to lift her head from Aline’s shoulder before finally relenting.

“No, mon petite. I don’t know what your papa was thinking.” Her grey-blue eyes glint with unmistakable mischief. She adjusts the child, bringing the paintbrush up for the girl’s inspection. Clea coos. “You are correct—we warned him not to overexert himself.”

Renoir manages to slump into the waiting chair, body aching. He scrubs a hand through his hair, longer now than he’d prefer to keep it. “You think she would turn against her father?”

“Our daughter is eminently reasonable, mon cher. You cannot expect her to support your foolishness.”

Renoir chuckles, shrugging in concession. A few hours in the Canvas—a few dozen minutes on this side—have left him well and truly drained. He leans forward on his knees, watching Aline as she returns to her canvas. So long as her mother continues to speak, Clea seems content with the arrangement. Aline winces, contorting her body at an awkward angle to reach her palette. A variety of shades of blue and green dot its surface—Clea's favorites.

Aline dips her brush, waits for Clea to track its movement, and then brings it up to the painting—a Parisian cafe they frequent, abandoned in the lonely stretches of the night but still so well-loved. Looking at it soothes him. Renoir crosses the room, gathering her palette and holding it for her before she has to twist again.

“How do you feel about your performance, Renoir?” She asks, leaning in closer to her work. Her brow pinches, the muscles in her forearm flexing to provide that extra touch of stability as she sets into the detail work.

He knows better than to make excuses. “There’s no reason for you to visit. My work was uninspired.”

“Of course it was—you tried to rip an entire countryside out of your ridiculous head.” Aline glances at him, the harshness of her tone at odds with her expression. “Repeat your instructions.”

He purses his lips. “Limit my vision. Perfect the small details before expanding the Canvas. Reacquaint myself with the chroma’s flow.”

“How well did you listen?”

Renoir sighs. “Not at all.”

Aline turns to face him, turning her brush until she can reach out and press the handle to his shoulder. She leans in, turning her cheek up for a kiss he happily provides—it feels like an olive branch, a truce. Clea makes a distinctly irritable squawk. His wife’s voice softens, setting her brush aside before caressing his cheek. “It is not my intent to limit you, mon coeur. Only to reduce these frustrations as you retrain yourself. Do you understand?”

He nods, glancing towards Aline’s Canvas. For once, she has practiced the same restraint she preaches. There is no grand or fantastical world on the other side of the swirling paint. Instead, she has recreated their suite on their Riviera down to the minute details. It is a sun-soaked oasis, caught amid perpetual summer, the scent of sea salt and climbing roses coloring the air. Over the past month, she has expanded its boundaries to incorporate the beach and shoreline, but no further. It is not, she insists, necessary for her purposes.

It is a place for them, a sanctuary built for stolen moments when Clea still sleeps. It need not be more than that.

Aline scratches her nails through his beard. “How are you feeling? Well enough to try again?”

Renoir reaches out for Clea instead. “Later, perhaps. Go on, I can watch her.”

On his next attempt, he narrows his vision. It is a vast improvement.

~~~~~~~~~

Even with staff on hand, it’s impossible to deny the flow of their lives change after Clea’s birth. Their presence is requested at the manor more frequently. There are more invitations to tea and fewer evenings out at the opera. Renoir does not mind this, but it does make the occasional night out all the more precious.

They enjoy a decadent meal at Lapérouse, sharing a bottle of champagne between them, tucked away in one of the restaurant’s darker corners. In a rare twist of fate, no one lingers by their table for longer than a handful of minutes—they make polite congratulations to the couple before taking their leave. Aline reaches across the table, threading their fingers together. The food is divine, the company is better, and he leaves feeling perfectly refreshed.

Renoir offers his arms as they step out into the Parisian night, smiling. A full moon paints the sky in silver, bleeding into the gaslamps' warmer glow. Residual heat kisses the air—the perfect night to roam the city. He angles them towards the Seine.

Nights in Paris are never silent. Music drifts from a handful of cafes, still open after sundown, restaurants, and cabarets. The chatter of a hundred different conversions in a medley of languages dance on the air—friends, lovers, families. Renoir has enough champagne in his system to luxuriate on this—nearly two million souls in Paris, all going about with their lives, independent entities with their hopes and dreams.

“Could one hope to create life like this?”

Aline leans against his shoulder. She’s worn his coat since leaving Lapérouse and clutches it more tightly around herself now. “Not precisely like this. And not easily.” He arches a brow, waiting for her to elaborate. Instead, she shrugs. “It’s best not to discuss these things, mon amour. The Council is…stringent.”

“Mm. You tantalize and then refuse to explain? How like you, Aline.”

His wife laughs. “Yes, I am famously tantalizing.”

Renoir curls a finger under her chin, pulling her nearer for a kiss. She melts against his chest without so much as a token show of resistance, hands sweeping up his back to tangle in his hair. They have had so few moments stolen together outside the Canvas since Clea’s birth. The taste of her mixed with the champagne is purely intoxicating. His hand settles at the small of her back, applying gentle pressure to guide her forward. Aline sighs against his lips.

“Oh, scandalous behavior. Scandalous, Madame Dessendre!”

Renoir does not recognize the newcomer’s voice. His wife does, stiffening in his arms, tongue swiping along her teeth. She squeezes his hip instead of stepping away. Her lips are still pressed to his when she speaks. “Henri, we are preoccupied.”

“You think to cow me? Here? The Seine is for Parisians great and small, Madame!”

Aline heaves another sigh, sagging against his chest before she turns. A group of three, two men and a young woman, loiter just to their right—safely out of arm’s reach, Renoir notes. Henri rocks back on his heels, a gentleman of Renoir’s age or perhaps a touch older, hair a reddish brown. His wife turns to face them.

Henri brightens, clapping his hands together. “There is our lovely Aline! So good to see your face without…” he motions vaguely at Renoir.

“Monsieur Dessendre, please forgive Henri,” the young woman says, stepping forward. “His manners are every bit as poor as his breeding.”

Aline clears her throat. “Renoir, allow me to introduce Henri, Berthe, and Jean, fellow painters. Two of them are even talented.” She glances pointedly between Berthe and Jean. “You may use your discretion to determine which two.”

Henri scoffs. “Ye hateful woman. And we came to you with such a proposal!”

Jean elbows the other man. “What Henri means to say is we have missed your company. And we have never had the pleasure of your husband’s! If you're not preoccupied, a new cabaret is opening in Montmartre—a themed affair. It promises to be interesting if nothing else.”

His wife glances up at him, leaning back into his chest. “You decide.”

He glances between the party and his bride. The staff is more than equipped to watch Clea for the remainder of the night—they can afford one evening out. Renoir brings her hand up, kissing the back of her knuckles. “Let it never be said the Dessendre family are not patrons of the arts.”

Aline shakes her head, lingering behind the rest of their party just long enough to whisper to him, “Oh, mon coeur. You will regret this.”

~~~~~~~~~

The Cabaret de l’Enfer and its sister establishment are unlike anything else in Paris. It is death and hellfire, gold running up the walls in tracks that remind him of blood. The air remains scented with brimstone, gouts of fire occasionally spurting from the center cauldrons. There are devils on the stage and imps scurrying between the tables.

Aside from the edifices outside, he cannot deny there is a certain macabre beauty to the cabaret. Grasping gargoyles and nude women are carved into the walls, reaching out to the clientele. A dragon leers from overhead, its fanged mouth open, forked tongue jutting between its teeth. There is no food, but the alcohol flows freely enough. Aline’s earlier warning comes back to haunt him.

He will regret this.

The Dessendre scion chuckles as their new friends place another round of drinks on his tab—struggling artists, all. It is an amusing enough distraction, and he listens with no small amount of interest as they discuss the goings-on in the Salon and the guild. An imp sets a mug of coffee and cognac in front of him, bowing its head.

“They will never exhibit us in the Salon,” Henri grumbles. “The Council has their favorites. We will never be among them.”

Aline scoffs, tracing the rim of her drink. “And your solution is…”

“We start a Salon of our own! Highlight young and upcoming artists—we offer support to the new generation.”

“Mmm. And who will fund this venture?”

Henri drops his eyes. “Aline, you cannot say you are satisfied with the state of things. It is a bloated, stunted institution. The Writers…”

Berthe groans. “Oh, don’t bring them into this. We are trying to enjoy our evening.” The other woman glances over at him. She is far taller than Aline, her eyes nearly black in the low light, dark hair tumbling around her shoulders. “You’ll drive off Monsieur Dessendre.”

“I do not frighten easily, mademoiselle,” he replies, holding up his drink in salute. Up on the small stage, Mephistopheles continues his sermon, voice low and booming. Something in the curl of the devil’s horns inspires him. He resolves to include the angle in his next painting, perhaps the red as well. “And I will admit to knowing very little of Painters besides what is public knowledge or shared by Aline.”

“Ah, yes. You’re still Aline's apprentice, aren’t you? How long?”

Aline stiffens beside him, grip tightening on his knee. Her expression darkens, inching nearer to anger. He squeezes her hand. “Two years now.”

“You’ve not applied for fellowship?”

He shrugs. “There were more pressing matters to attend to. And why should I complain? My master has been a pleasure to serve under.”

His wife chokes on her drink.

Henri eyes them. “How quaint.” The man jolts upright, yelping before bending to scrub at his knee. “Violent creature! My next question was civil! What do you paint, noble friend? Can we count you among our number?”

Aline leans in and whispers, ‘Impressionism.’ Renoir chuckles. “I paint what I paint.”

“How bohemian!” Henri turns to Aline. “Is he any good?”

She looks up at him. Looking at her in the low light, he thinks of stars set in a clear night sky. She is bright and lovely, color high in her cheeks, a striking contrast to the macabre sights around them. “Another year, and he’ll be better than all of you.”

Goodnatured cries of distress resound from the group. It’s nothing that another round of drinks will not smooth over.

By the time they part ways, the sun threatens to crest the horizon. The gaslamps have long since been extinguished. They should be on their way home; instead, the pair walk for a time, touring the Montmartre in blessed silence. Soon, the cafes will open. Artists will rouse from their slumber. Life will begin again. For now, the morning is theirs alone.

Aline tugs on his hand, stopping. The wind whips at her hair and flattens his jacket against her body. “You should apply for fellowship with the guild, Renoir.” She presses on before he can comment. “I undersold you to the others—you are superior to any of them. You deserve their respect. On your own merits, your skill. Not your family name and not my tutelage.”

“You flatter me, chérie”

She rolls her eyes. Aline steps nearer, smoothing her hands down his vest. “I am being honest, ridiculous man. Stop running yourself down.”

He offers his arm. They do not return home until well after dawn.

~~~~~~~~~

The Council had two criteria for apprentice painters to qualify for full membership.

Firstly, a painting. Neither the subject nor style mattered. The only intent was to prove one’s understanding of the craft. Most works, Aline offered, a touch of derision in her voice, were shallow things.

Secondly, they would request a demonstration within the Canvas.

“And something like this will be enough?” Renoir gestures around them. The pair sit together on a cliff’s edge. They have been experimenting with light this evening. Little motes of gold float on the air in place of a proper sun, fluttering in and out of existence—a world lit by nothing but fireflies. Willow trees bend over a series of ponds, giving the impression of a low-lying marsh. For as visually impressive as it is, he cannot help but notice the silence. There is no birdsong, no frogs, no wind in the branches.

White petals flutter in Aline’s wake, shifting with her as she turns to face him. “You overestimate the average apprentice.”

“Perhaps I want to impress them.” He drums his fingers on the rock, eyeing their creation again. “This place does not strike you as…stale?”

“Renoir.” She eyes him. “What are you asking?”

He asks the question that has haunted him since they walked near the Seine. They create worlds. Why not life? Why should their craft suffer this sterility? “You said it could be done,” he finishes, watching her expression.

Aline purses her lips, bringing her right hand up to make a wishy-washy gesture. “Apprentices and fellows cannot add life to their Canvases. The Painter’s Council believes it works in our order's best interests. It doesn’t stop everyone—you’ll never stamp out the more unsavory aspects of our craft—but it has helped.”

She does not expand on what it has helped; he lets that lie, instead asking, “Have you tried your hand at it?”

Aline smirks. “I am not a Master Paintress, Renoir.”

“My Aline would view this as an inconvenience, not a deterrent.”

She raises a brow at his little note of possession, gray eyes glittering with an emotion he cannot quantify. Aline’s voice dips lower, nearly syrupy, “Are you calling me a delinquent, mon amour? Am I unruly? Difficult?”

“You are both, chérie.”

His honesty shocks a laugh out of her. “At least flatter my ego!” Aline smiles, biting her lower lip as she shrugs. “Yes, I have….dabbled in those acts of creation.”

And the final question, most important of all. “Will you teach me?”

She stands, offering her hand.

Chapter Text

~~~~~~~~~

6

~~~~~~~~~

There is nothing quite like watching Aline in full flow.

He will not say there is a complete delineation between his wife, his Aline, and the Paintress—it would be an oversimplification. It would be more appropriate to say she flattens, and even that feels somehow off. Aline's body remains present beside him, but the vast majority of her—soul, attention, energy—has slipped away from her shell. Renoir closes his eyes, imagines the flow of chroma above their heads, and feels her there—the darkness of the void gives way, bleaching white as she lays hold of its energy.

Aline paints like she dances, fully lost to her song of creation. Her brush serves as an extension of her arm, working in smooth, sweeping strokes, chroma flowing behind it like a glittering afterimage. Inspiration comes to her like the wind, and he supposes that is only fitting—she is a creature of the air, some celestial storm, starlight woven into her skin and skirt.

The world expands beneath their perch on the cliff face, out beyond the limited horizon. Its flatness gives way to towering mountain ranges. He watches cottages shimmer into existence near the marsh’s edge, candlelit and lovely, moss growing on weatherworn roofs. The willow trees they have already shaped together grow taller and grander, the droop of their bows more exaggerated. So much life, all of it erupting over seconds.

Renoir glances towards the Paintress, smiling absently—the wind catches in her hair, drags white petals over the cliff’s edge to float on the water below. Flowers bloom in their wake, lilies. Another sweep of the brush as she maps in more precise details—a small dock on the far side of the pond, the cobblestone road weaving from the village to this endpoint. A rowboat rests on the shore, unmoored, one of the paddles left abandoned on the grass. He wonders where its mate has wandered off, and that’s the point, no? These little things, so easily overlooked, are her masterstrokes.

There are stories in Aline’s world—it is lived in. By the side of the road, there is a sign that has long since faded, pointing towards a city that doesn’t exist. The barrel on the dock is filled with well-loved fishing rods that have never seen use. In the center of the village, there is a mighty tree, taller than all others, lanterns hanging from its limbs, its bark scarred. Hundreds of lovers have gathered beneath its branches over the years, carving their initials into its trunk—an old superstition they hope will bring luck to their union.

But this world is hours old. There are no lovers, no history, no people of whom to speak. Motes of gold illuminate the night like fireflies, and this old-young world continues in melancholy silence.

Renoir takes his leave, following the road to its point of origin. He opens the door of the nearest cottage and finds a single room, modestly decorated. It is altogether unremarkable aside from the hutch near the back. Inside are a pair of fine porcelain dolls inside, with a scuff on the girl’s cheek. Both are well-loved. There is a crib near the far side of the home, but it is empty. Perhaps the child is grown and has since moved on.

He thinks not, noting the pall hanging over the hut. Renoir replaces the dolls, expression grim as he turns to leave. A painting near the door shows just enough for him to make out a family of three—someone has thrown black paint across its surface, blotting out the parents’ faces, covering the child in its entirety.

A girl, he thinks, aching. Long gone, no more than a memory now. The specifics don’t matter—he feels Aline’s fear of loss, the familiarity and depth of her love, tied up in this place. He knows if he were to scrape the paint away, he would find Clea staring back at him.

There are stories in Aline’s world, he thinks again. Pieces of her tied into reality’s fabric.

He steps back into the night, crossing to the central tree. So many of the letters mean nothing at all, pulled at random from the recesses of her mind or the void itself. Renoir traces their lines. With a lazy flick of the wrist, he summons a carving knife. It seems only right. Like a schoolyard youth, he carves their initials beside the other lovers.

Aline’s voice tears him from his reverie, oddly breathy, as if she’s still adjusting to the constraints of her body and its lungs. “Our names were the first on the tree, Renoir.”

Another flick of the wrist and the knife shimmers out of existence. “Why not carve them twice? It’s our tree—your tree.”

“Our tree,” she agrees, speaking with that same flatness, listing a little as she walks. Renoir takes her arm, supporting her weight when she leans into his side. Aline offers him a small smile, squeezing his hand. “Give me a moment? I may have let myself get carried away.”

“How unlike you.”

She manages an airy chuckle. The two cross the pavilion to what Renoir expects is an ale garden. His brow furrows—there are empty glasses, open bottles of wine—it is a living, breathing scene, and all he can focus on is the silence, the dead air. Renoir helps her into her chair before settling beside her. Aline makes an idle gesture, and the unlit candles burst to life, bathing them in a flickering lowlight.

Aline sighs, turning her head to inspect her work. Little by little, she comes back to herself, gray eyes softening, tension bleeding out of her posture. “Do you like it?”

For the first time, he notes the change in temperature—warmer, nearly balmy. A summer night. It is the perfect evening for a drink under the stars. Renoir leans over to another table, plucking up both the wine and glasses.

“This place?” He asks. Aline nods. He will not call it shyness, but there is a note of trepidation to her in these moments. They are each perfectionists in their own ways—that her art should not elicit wonder, that it should feel flat or mundane, is an omnipresent fear. Renoir glances around again. “Beautiful. Too small a word to properly encapsulate your work,” he motions around them. “But I can think of nothing more apt. You are an artist, Aline.”

She colors with genuine pleasure. “Thank you.”

“May I ask…why? We spoke of creating life. And this…”

“...makes you feel its absence more keenly?” She asks. Renoir nods. Aline takes a testing sip of her wine. Her face lights up with surprised pleasure. A charming little eccentricity, he thinks, when she is its creator. She takes a deep breath, drumming a staccato beat on the table. “Call it personal preference.”

“You wouldn’t expend your chroma so flippantly.”

“Oh?” She smiles again, reaching out to trace the back of his hand. Her energy bleeds through to his, white feeding into red, her affection and trepidation washing over him like a wave. “Before we begin, I want your word: you will never attempt this in my absence.”

“Of course.”

“You will speak of this to no one.”

“Aline,” Renoir says, frowning. “Your trust is sacred. Is that in question?”

“No, mon coeur. I am only stressing the gravity of the situation.” She rests her elbows on the table, setting her chin in her palm. The candlelight catches in her auburn hair, brightening it and leaving it looking a little like fire itself. “If we continue, I will have dragged you out of the Council’s good graces before you've fully joined our number. Is this truly what you want?”

Renoir summons the knife again. In actuality, it means nothing at all—it is a spiritual wound, not physical—but he draws the blade across his palm without hesitation. He holds his upturned hand out to her, blood trickling lazily between his fingers, down his wrist. “Come, I’ll swear it to you.”

“You didn’t…!” Aline sputters. “Renoir, I asked if you were certain, not to maim yourself.” He smiles, crooking his finger in invitation. Blood—or is it chroma in this place?—drips onto the table, seeping into old scratches in the wood. Aline glances heavenward. She leans forward, setting her hand in his. A morbid curiosity washes over her features, lovely in its oddity, when he cuts her. Aline cocks her head to the side, wincing against the pain, but never looking away.

Renoir threads their fingers together. “Is that enough?”

“A ‘yes’ would have been sufficient, ridiculous man,” she grumbles, no heat in her tone. Renoir expects her to pull away from him or heal the injury. She does neither. Her attention remains fixed on their joined hands—blood has smeared across their wedding bands. There is something equally macabre and beautiful in the sight. Clearing her throat, she says, “Now that you’ve finished with your theatrics, shall we begin?”

~~~~~~~~~

In truth, there is very little difference between creating land and life. The same core principles still apply—manipulating chroma, shaping it until it matches the image in his head. He listens, fascinated, as Aline speaks, the pair walking hand in hand through her painted world.

Gods, he thinks. They are not unlike gods. And that is a sobering realization.

By Aline’s estimations, any apprentice could imbue a degree of life into their works. Animals were simple.

“You know what a dog looks like. You know how it behaves. Marry the two and voila.”

Renoir frowns. “A two-step process, then? Shaping and then imbuing?"

“If you like.”

“And if you skipped the second step?”

They have come to rest in a small clearing ringed by ashwood trees. One casts a diagonal shadow across the glade and, by extension, Aline. She shrugs. “You would have a very pretty doll, I imagine. The void is stagnant. Everything we pull from it is stagnant. We give it meaning.”

They experiment with simple creatures—fish to fill the ponds. Nightingales, to fill the world with song, and so something is moving in the vast night sky. His brain fills in the gap almost instantaneously—it sees the animal, and it imparts the matching behavior.

Aline watches him work without comment. When he has finished, she pats the place beside her on the grass. “You asked me why I added all of this.” She motions around them. “Depth. Few think beyond the immediacy of their environment.”

“I do not understand.”

She looks disappointed. “Those animals you created? I provided the means to make their homes. But you gave them nothing to eat.” Aline takes his hand, their palms tacky with drying blood. “They will starve. And they will die.”

Renoir stares down at her. “If I painted them without the need to eat?”

“Will they still reproduce? If they cannot starve and they have no predators…”

There’s an archness in his tone that he does not like, hiding embarrassment. “You’ve made your point.”

“Don’t sulk.” Aline stands, placing her hand on his cheek and turning his face towards her. Her voice is unflinching, “I withheld information to make a point: creating life is simple. Maintaining it is not. The average painter is not equipped for the responsibility.” She smooths her thumb over his lower lip. “You will be.”

And there is a touch of the heretical in that, isn’t there? They are qualified. They are different.

He traces the bones in her wrist, feeling the chroma flowing beneath skin that isn't skin. “Apprentices and fellows cannot paint life. Masters are permitted?” Aline nods. Renoir's brow furrows as he searches for the correct words. “They tolerate animals and presumably our own creations. What of sapient life? Humans?”

Aline's tone sharpens. “No.”

“It's only a q…”

“Renoir, there are lines best left uncrossed. That is one.”

He looks at her, really looks. It’s best to bow his head. “Very well. I defer to you.”

Renoir does not ask if she has crossed that line. He knows her too well by now.

She has.

~~~~~~~~~

He knows better than to push her on these matters.

Over the next few weeks, they fall back into a companionable rhythm. In the evenings, with Clea tucked away in bed, they venture into the Canvas to work. Aline pushes him to his limits, forces him to think in layers, building systems on systems, until he’s certain life could sustain itself without his interference. It is grueling, tedious work. In it, he learns something about himself.

Aline paints the world as it is, down to the most minute details. He looks upon her works with awe—because they are awe-inspiring, are purely wondrous—but not with envy. He sees majesty in the macabre. He sees art in layers, stories and parables spun into the world's shape. His beauty is at times surreal, unburdened and unshackled in a way Aline cannot—or perhaps will not—entertain.

His dreams have always been vivid, plagued with unknowable creatures. He’s collected these with fastidious care across the years, sketched in portfolios or on stray scraps of paper. Not all are monstrous. Most are strange.

It is easier when he breaks away from her process and adopts his own.

Renoir paints an island out at sea, set well away from Aline’s villages and forests. In this space, sequestered away, he gives those dream beasts shape. Aline’s systems are of no consequence—the beasts do not eat, sleep, or reproduce. It is more difficult to animate these creations—he has seen them only in flashes and does not know them as distinct entities. Still, even that is a challenge he enjoys. He builds out a series of archipelagos, each island’s landscape specifically crafted to flatter his creation.

It’s easier, he thinks. Better to start with an idea, crafting around it and building outwards, than to start at a macro level and work downward.

One island remains devoid of life. He crafts it around an idea, an ideal, all the same.

She is a celestial being, not terrestrial—his tribute to her is swirling winds, hurricanes caught in orbit around one fixed point. He crafts her elegant spires, gossamer fabric drifting from every window, cascading into the sea. There is a garden with flowers plucked entirely from his mind’s eye, their petals ghostly and translucent, radiating their own light.

It is ethereal, and impossible, and purely her.

Aline looks out over his creation, wide-eyed. She glances at him, back out to sea, scanning this gold-bathed courtyard at the center of all things. For a long time, she says nothing. When she speaks, the roar of the winds threatens to drown out her voice. Renoir makes a gesture with his brush. The storm quiets.

“Renoir, all this…?”

He links his hands at the small of his back, smirking. “My muse was particularly compelling.”

She doesn’t laugh. Aline stares at him in naked wonder, pure admiration. The full force of her attention is frightening in its fervor, stealing the air from his lungs. “I don’t know what to say. It’s…”

For a moment, she is not his wife or his mentor. She is an artist inspecting her contemporary’s work.

“...it’s you,” Aline finishes. “It’s freer.”

Renoir feels a swell of pride. “I hope you can forgive me for deviating from your process?”

She huffs, moving to take his arm. They wander the halls of his creation. She listens, rapt, as he discusses his new approach to the Canvas, asking questions as they go. They are like peers. It is a heady sensation.

~~~~~~~~~

Watching Clea grow is unlike anything else.

Suddenly, she’s sleeping through the night. She’s sitting by herself on the parlor floor, brow pinched in concentration as she stacks her toys. Their daughter is fascinated by texture and touch, but is not particularly gentle about her explorations. Aline takes to wearing her hair back in a tail for those months. He considers shaving.

She has also made the initial effort towards crawling, which inspires levels of dread in him heretofore unrealized.

Tonight, however, Clea seems to have forsaken her mischief. She lies with her back to his chest, alternately glancing between Renoir’s sketchpad and his face, fascinated. Now and again, she will reach out. Lacking the fine motor skills to replicate his lines, she presses her palm flat against his drawings. He offers her a pencil. Clea holds it gamely, offering the occasional suggestion in childish babble. She’s since lapsed into silence, head thunked back against his shoulder, lovely face rapt as she listens to her mother at the piano.

It’s been too long since they had music in the house.

Renoir stands, shifting Clea to rest on his hip, setting his sketches aside. Art has consumed so much of their lives these past weeks. It feels liberating to step away. He sits on the bench beside Aline.

“Care to join me?”

He shakes his head. “And ruin your performance? No.”

“Do you play, mon cher?” Aline flashes him an absent smile, attention never completely leaving the sheet music. Renoir turns the page for her. “I’m beginning to wonder—your guitar has gathered quite a coat of dust.” Her fingers still on the keys, amusement glittering in her eyes. “I imagine Clea would love to hear. Wouldn’t you, ma petit?”

Clea says nothing at all, preferring to amuse herself by tugging at handfuls of her father’s beard.

“She does not appear interested.”

“You’re distracting her.” Aline flicks him a sideways glance. “And me.”

He ducks away from Clea’s questing grasp. “I won’t apologize. Though I would ask that you continue your performance. Unaccompanied.”

She purses her lips, looking dangerously near laughter. Aline plays on.

The next evening, he does join her, albeit clumsily, well out of practice. Clea does not seem to care. She sits by herself on the floor, listening to her parents’ duet.

~~~~~~~~~

The Painter’s Council, like many of the Parisian guilds, had no permanent meeting hall. In the decades prior, the Louvre had served that purpose, closed to the public most days of the week. He supposes the museum is still their premier locale, though hearings took place exclusively on Mondays when its halls were restricted solely to artisans.

Renoir arrives early for his appointment. Aline had warned him off such behavior—creatives were rarely, if ever, prompt, and took a perverse pleasure in keeping young artists waiting. But he is a noble’s son foremost of all, and cannot bring himself to breach decorum.

They are late.

In this case, he does not care. The Louvre is empty aside from a handful of souls, and each seems determined to avoid crossing paths with their contemporaries. Renoir is left alone with centuries of paintings and sculptures, only the sound of his footsteps for comfort. Once the sound dies, the overwhelming silence reasserts itself. He wonders if places like this—ancient, hallowed—have memories. He wonders if one might consider the art itself a memory. He believes so.

Eventually, the Council does arrive. He does not immediately recognize—they are old, most having fallen out of the glitz of high society. Some might be modesty off—he knows Garneau’s grandson has managed to hold onto their estate—few of these “masters” had the luxury of social distinction.

He is an outlier, he supposes.

“Monsieur Dessendre, a pleasure.” The head of the Council bows his head in greeting, extending his hand to the younger man. “Your membership has been a favorite topic of discussion among our little circle. Honestly, we were quite surprised Aline did not push for your inclusion earlier.”

“Madame Dessendre,” Renoir corrects, “Determined it was more essential that a painter should be capable of painting. The title mattered little compared to practical application.”

The older man blanches. “Of course. No disrespect meant to you or A…Madame Dessendre.” He clears his throat, motioning to the doors beside them. “Come. We’ll discuss your fellowship, sir.”

They feed him pretty words, talk about proceedings. It is much as Aline said—he will provide them one purely physical piece to evaluate his skills outside the Canvas, and then a live demonstration before the Council itself.

“It need not be grand, monsieur,” the head painter assures him. “You are only applying for fellowship—show us that you can enter the Canvas and manipulate chroma, and that will be enough.”

Mon coeur, if you demanded admittance and showed them nothing at all, most would acquiesce. Aline’s droll voice echoes in his head. You are young. You are rich. You are handsome. The Council will want you for the same reasons I did.

They are social climbers as much as artisans.

“You may bring your physical piece at your earliest convenience,” another member rushes to supply. “We will need to make arrangements for your exhibition—will a month be sufficient?”

If they kowtowed so easily now, he wonders where else they might give ground—if their laws could be influenced or bought by other aristocrats.

Renoir paints an easy smile on his face, bowing his head. “A month is more than generous, monsieurs, madame.”

When Renoir arrives home, he sends a courier with one of his works to the Head Painter’s home.

He receives a letter of congratulations the following evening.

~~~~~~~~~

The chateau is just far enough from the manor to dissuade everyday solicitation. Renoir’s mother will visit, of course. Still, with summer waning into cooler autumn nights, those social calls have decreased in frequency.

She is adding the finishing touches to her latest Canvas—she is glad to be done with it, suffused with the energy that always results from reclaiming that wayward piece of one’s soul— when the maid comes to find her. Aline scrubs flakes of dried paint from her hands, checking her reflection in the mirror. Sweat has left the natural wave in her hair more pronounced, bordering on wild, and there is a high flush in her cheeks. Her dress is even more of a lost cause—one of Renoir’s old shirts, billowing around her, its tails shoved into her trousers to give the outfit some vague approximation of shape.

The maid makes some nondescript noise, scanning the atelier and lingering on Renoir. He remains lost in his own Canvas. The older woman offers, “I can send him away, madame.”

“Tell me who it is first.” Aline sets her palette aside. “That seems a better starting point, no?”

“Monsieur Dessendre, madame. He’s waiting in the parlor.”

That causes her to pause. Aline purses her lips, smoothing her hands down the front of her trousers. “Ah.”

“Yes,” the maid agrees. “Apologies, madame. He’s not the sort you leave waiting on the stoop. But if you are indisposed…”

“No. No, it’s fine. Thank you. If you would be so kind as to bring Clea to me?”

“Monsieur Dessendre sent for her already.”

Something twists in her gut, naturally possessive. “Of course. I’ll be right out.”

She considers entering Renoir’s Canvas to fetch him, only to decide against it. His desk is covered with half a dozen new designs for fantastical beasts and impossible architecture. She will not rob him of the pleasure of creation. Perhaps more selfishly, she will not deny herself either—the sooner he finishes, the sooner he will invite her to tour his work. The fundamental strangeness of his worlds inspires her.

Aline follows the maid back towards the parlor, hands folded over her belly. From down the hall, she can just make out Clea’s chattering. Her grandfather’s voice, deep and grave, responds—she cannot make out the words, but the tone suggests weary understanding.

She lingers in the doorway, observing her father-in-law. He is tall—taller than Renoir, though not so finely formed—features sharper and more severe than her husband. He is different around his granddaughter. The feeling is mutual. Aline would go so far as to say her daughter actively dislikes the majority of her grandparents, Aline’s father being the chief offender. Etienne has escaped this disparagement. He rests a hand over the child’s chest and she settles, soothed by the weight.

“How old is she now?”

Aline chuckles, stepping into the parlor fully. “Eight months.”

Etienne repeats this, drumming his fingers over Clea’s shoulders. She reaches up with both her hands, catching his fingers and grumbling in a way that suggests he should cease. The Dessendre patriarch bows his head in concession, addressing the child directly. “You’re remarkably opinionated for such a young lady.”

“Was Renoir so different?”

The father and son share the same eyes—pale blue, a clear summer sky or polar ice, depending on one’s preference. She cannot place what passes over his face—nostalgia, perhaps? But that seems too shallow. “My son was never vocal. I believe his nursemaids referred to him as polite.”

“Hah! I’ll have to hope our next child takes after their father.”

Etienne smiles, the sentiment dying somewhere before reaching his eyes. “You’d come to miss the noise, I promise you. Silence is…its own concern.” He smooths a hand over Clea's hair. “So many sleepless nights by their bedside, fearing the worst.”

“Monsieur?”

He lifts his head, looking at her properly for the first time since her arrival. Renoir's descriptions of the man have always warred with her own experiences—her husband has called him distant and exacting. Aline has known him as severe but gracious, indulgent of Clea’s whims and—by extension—her own. He chuckles. “Etienne, child. I won't have you stand on formality for an old man. Not in your home.” Aline moves to sit beside him on the sofa, touching her daughter's cheek. This close, she cannot help but notice how pale he's grown. “You are well, Aline? And my son?”

Heavy bags rim his eyes. The words taste banal on Aline's tongue, stale and somehow wrong as she catalogues the changes in his features. Nothing seems appropriate, and so she sticks to the safe: “Every prior joy in my life pales in comparison to Clea sleeping through the night.” Etienne chuckles dryly. More hesitantly, she volunteers. “And Renoir will be a Painter before the month is out.”

The man has shown precious little interest in either her talents or Renoir’s. She will not call it active disdain, only a general dismissal. He found the Painters, tied to old blood and the tired remains of both monarchy and emperor, tedious.

“That will please him.”

She watches his profile, brow furrowing as his attention flicks back to his granddaughter. Aline touches his wrist. “Are you well, père?”

“Unless you construe a bout of sentimentality as illness.” He offers her a wan twitch of the lips. “The season is changing, the days are shorter—and old men lapse into their megrims.” Etienne looks at her again. “Would you take me to my son?”

She holds out her arms for Clea, but he waves her off, rising with a grunt of effort. They move through to the atelier in silence, Etienne scanning the dozens of paintings they've mounted over nearly every available surface. She’s struck again by his lack of curiosity.

Renoir remains where she left him, standing stark and stiff in front of his Canvas, arm outstretched. It doesn’t matter how many times she’s advised him to sit before these jaunts. Why add any unnecessary strain on one’s already overtaxed body?—he ignores her. It is the stiffness he cannot abide, particularly in the knees and hips. Aline finds it ridiculous.

Still, she will concede he cuts an impressive figure. He is strong and sure, if a little paler as the Canvas takes its toll. The blue of Renoir’s eyes is gone, replaced with sightless, swirling chroma. A glance into the swirling paintslick showcases his most recent designs—less deadly, more whimsical. Something for Clea, she believes he’d said.

Etienne steps between his son and the Canvas. The older man reaches out to touch his son’s cheek. “I’ve never cared for this. So much life bled away.” He frowns, deepening the already severe lines near the corner of his mouth. He looks paler than she remembers—older. “He looks dead, doesn’t he?”

Aline shifts to stand at her husband’s side, gently interjecting herself between the two men. “Renoir is in no danger.” More gently, she says, “But I will fetch him for you, père.”

The Dessendre patriarch’s demeanor softens at the designation. “No, child. That will not be necessary.” Etienne stares at his son. He leans forward, curving a hand behind Renoir's neck before pressing a kiss to her husband's forehead. “It will wait. Let him finish his business with the Painters.”

“It is no trouble…”

“It will wait,” he repeats, waving her off. Almost as if he’s come back to his senses, the man turns on his heel, marching towards the chateau’s entry. Aline is left to trail after him, thoroughly confused.

Her father-in-law relinquishes Clea to her at last. Cold air blows in from outside—it looks like rain. When she insists he stay, he shakes his head. Etienne sets his hands on her shoulders, that same absent smile playing across his too-wide mouth.

“I rarely indulged Renoir—with one heir, the Dessendre family could hardly afford it. You were my greatest concession.” He worries his thumb over the fabric of her stolen shirt. “And look how it turned out. Perhaps I should have heard the boy more often.”

He presses a kiss to the crown of her head before stepping into the night. “Be well, ma fille.”

Aline stares after him until Clea begins to fuss in her arms. It’s only then that she turns back to the house.

She cannot say why she feels like crying.

~~~~~~~~~

To call it an exhibition is generous.

All the necessary pomp and circumstance are present—the Council has assembled in its entirety. Artisans, those who will be his peers in a few short hours, fill the Salon. Aline stands off to the side with Henri, both stone-faced as they whisper among themselves. He can only read one word on their lips.

Uncustomary.

The Council has chosen to make an example of him—Renoir Dessendre, son of a nouveau riche family, officially aligning himself with the Painters.

You will have to adjust for the presence of so many Painters. Some will attempt to lay claim to the chroma—it is not expressly forbidden for them to do so, and it will amuse them to complicate your showing.

She’s correct. Renoir can already feel more than one of the Painters reaching for the energy, its color shifting to reflect their interference. It doesn’t matter. He has done more with less.

Renoir closes his eyes, breathing deeply. Chroma saturates the air to the point of feeling thick in his lungs, every molecule charged with energy, inert potential begging for realization. Standing here—the purgatorial antechamber between the Canvas and the waking world—always feels like the last chance to keep his head above water. When he steps through, it will wash him away in its current.

Gravity comes unmoored in the liminal space. Raw chroma rushes to fill the vacuum, washing over Renoir like the tide, dragging him out to sea. The instinct is to fight, claw his way up to the water’s surface. Renoir forces himself to take a breath, drawing air into his abused lungs. He makes himself go slack, visualizing feeding his chroma into the current, bleeding red into muddy gray waters. The pressure lessens before abating entirely.

He steps out onto the nothingness of the Canvas, empty white in every direction. The Council will not follow him into this place, not yet, but he feels them on the other side of the swirling paintslick, staring in.

Renoir sets off to work.

~~~~~~~~~

What is there to say?

His success is a foregone conclusion. Still, he takes an unusual amount of pride in watching the Council’s expression shift as they take in his Painted world. They exit the Canvas to dead silence, the entirety of the Salon awaiting their judgment.

He is Renoir Dessendre, a fellow of the Painter’s guild.

These new peers gather around to offer their polite congratulations. Most are all too eager to offer their talents to his noble family.

Aline meets his eyes from across the room. Pride radiates from his wife, her attention fixed upon him even as she speaks with others.

His new title means nothing in the face of her pleasure.

Chapter Text

~~~~~~~~~

How odd, how fitting, that the warmth of the night prior gives way to rain.

Residual heat clings to the air in the form of humidity, thick in her lungs. The weather feels more like London than Paris—an omnipresent gray coloring the morning, a mist that seeps through her jacket and deep into her bones.

Gray, gray, gray…

They’d awoken to so much color.

She does not immediately recognize where she is—a suite in a hotel near the heart of Paris? They make their way there after the festivities have wound down. They could return home; they should. But they are both light-headed, drunk off champagne, and their triumph. It seems only right to indulge in one another for the night.

And there is a part of her, disbelieving and delighted, that marvels at the difference—how she can wake one morning to Clea’s hungry wails, and today to Renoir’s head between her thighs, lapping at her until she’s nearly sobbing.

Aline slips her hand into Renoir’s, watching the Parisian landscape pass by the carriage window. The silence feels oppressive, nothing more than the clatter of wheels on cobblestone and the horses’ grunts of effort. He’s said nothing at all. His throat bobs as if he’s swallowing down the words he wants to speak.

She is only vaguely aware of the early morning sunlight cutting across the bed.

Renoir turns her face towards him, kissing the corner of her mouth, licking along the seam of her lips to request entrance. The taste of her lingers on his tongue, a far sweeter reminder than the press of sodden sheets to her knee. She feels obligated to muster a token show of resistance, turning away from him, mouth still shut.

She traces the bones in her husband’s wrist, watching his profile. His lips press to a thin, hard line. Renoir’s hair remains wild, strands falling across his forehead at roguish angles—if she focuses, she can see the places she gripped too hard, teasing it through her fingers. Aline’s hair is worse—the loose tail barely imposes any semblance of order.

“Aline,” he warns, the low rumble of his voice chasing through her. She feels his lips turn up, smiling, as she denies him. His hold on her chin tightens, applying the barest pressure until there's a dull ache in the joints. Renoir presses his thigh upward. Aline fights back a moan, clutching the sheets as he cants her leg higher. He pauses, giving her a moment to adjust to the stretch or call off her little act of defiance. She shakes her head.

The Dessendre courier tells them not to rush. They have no bags to pack, no spare sets of clothes. The pair barely pauses long enough to slip back into their rumpled finery, looking more than slightly debauched. It is a flurry of movement until they are here, the warmth and laziness of their morning long since forgotten.

Renoir tuts, pressing back into her with aching slowness. He brings more of his weight to bear, pinning her between the mattress and his less yielding frame. Her husband links their hands, breathing her name again before rocking into her all too willing body.

She thinks it may be guilt sketched across her love’s handsome features, misguided as that may be. Renoir inhales through his nose and seems to hold onto that breath.

The air in her lungs burns. Aline cries out, smiling when he turns her face, kissing her to swallow the sound. There’s something sweetly possessive in the act, easing her down from her high as her muscles slacken. Renoir groans in her ear as she flutters around him, her little aftershocks of pleasure driving him towards his release.

Aline brings their joint hands to her lips, kissing one of the scars weaving over his knuckles. He doesn’t react to the touch. He’s gone away from her.

She’s vaguely aware of Renoir dragging his lips across her shoulder before climbing from the bed. Aline stretches, toes curling in the sheets, body flush and deliciously loose. Cool air kisses her skin in her love’s absence, gooseflesh licking up the length of her spine. She’s already in the process of drifting when his hand curls over her thigh. He cleans between her legs with a warm washcloth, delicately, chuckling at the way she shivers. Aline has only just rolled onto her back, arms extended to him, when the knock comes at their door.

Aline doesn’t know how to bring him back.

How odd, she thinks, to have one’s world come crashing down over the span of minutes.

~~~~~~~~~

Renoir has never feared death.

In truth, he finds a sort of cyclical comfort in the concept—to emerge from the darkness, alone, into the light of life, returning to darkness in the same fashion. Birth and death are bookends. And while he supposes there are cruel ways to die, death itself has always struck him as impartial.

Pretty and enlightened thoughts, flecking away like ash when the courier comes to fetch him.

There is no immediate danger, the young man swears, the veracity of the words at odds with the way his gaze shifts. He will not look at Renoir. The physician insisted on communicating as much.

But that is a lie, spoken only to keep up the pretense of decorum.

The muscles in the Dessendre scion’s jaw clench.

The manor looms before them, a dark stain on the horizon. They pass through the gates, by the lions holding their eternal vigil. The grounds are all but abandoned. Maman has sent the staff away. Any nonessential members, he expects. A desperate attempt to delay the inevitable rumormongering. It will buy them a day, most likely. Two, if they are supremely lucky. What did it matter? Tomorrow comes.

“My apologies, chéri,” he murmurs, face still turned towards the window. “This was not the way I saw our morning proceeding.”

The overcast day robs her eyes of some of their color, leaving them more gray than blue, soft and sad. Aline’s touch strays to his wedding band, smoothing her thumb over the metal, before she threads their fingers together once more. “Come. Your mother’s waiting.”

His parent's marriage has never been a love match, Renoir recognizes that. Deep bags rim Gabrielle’s eyes, regardless. Relief floods her features when she sets eyes on them, exhaling a watery breath as she moves to embrace her son. Renoir takes her hands, unsurprised to find them shaking.

“God be praised, they found you. Oh, Renoir.” She buries her face in his chest, shuddering. Aline waits off to the side, scanning the grand hall. All but one of the fires has burnt out, leaving the building both uncustomarily dark and chilly—tomblike, that’s the word.

He holds the woman away from him, clutching her biceps. “Maman, tell us what’s happened.”

“The fool thought to go riding.” Gabrielle rings her hands together, shaking her head. “He swore it off, Renoir—he promised me.” His father had always been perfectly sure in the saddle. She purses her lips, voice steadier when she states, “The physician says he lost consciousness before the fall, not because of it.”

“Ma mère,” Aline says, sliding an arm around the other woman’s shoulders. “When was the last time you’ve eaten?” Gabrielle’s attention flicks to his wife. Her brow furrows, seemingly puzzled as she takes in her daughter-in-law’s appearance. “You’ll do Etienne no good wasting away—and something tells me no one else in the manor has thought to eat either. If you would be so kind as to help me locate the staff…”

“I sent them home.”

Aline meets his eyes, flicking a look towards his sire’s bedroom. Go, it says. Let me carry this.

He wishes she'd left the task to him. No, he wishes she’d stayed.

Because, truthfully, what is there to do?

Sit by his father’s bedside and wait? Etienne has yet to wake, his arm splinted and ribs wrapped, breathing rasping and uneven. Now and again, he will lapse into a wracking cough, distressingly wet. Renoir leans forward to wipe blood from the man’s lip.

He feels as if he is back outside Aline’s delivery room, pacing fitfully. Purely powerless.

All he can do is wait. Tomorrow comes, sure as death itself.

~~~~~~~~~

Etienne does not die.

Etienne does not wake.

The Dessendre family is caught in limbo. Renoir falls into his father's duties without pausing to breathe. There are business partners to reassure, reputations to maintain. They are forced to make an appearance at some pointless high-society gala the very evening after returning home.

Renoir is too numb to do much of anything, his mood casting a black pall over their host's soiree.

Aline makes some great show of wanting his arms around her, laughing and bright. His wife positions herself between him and society at large, perfectly charming and amiable. Their host relaxes.

The Painter's Council sends their condolences (and requests that, should he come into his inheritance, he make the manor available for their next gathering).

His uncle sends word from America, grieving for his yet living brother (and should Renoir feel so inclined, he would welcome continued financial support).

It is an endless parade of bureaucracy.

Days fade into weeks. Etienne does not die.

~~~~~~~~~

Renoir begins to come to bed late and rise early.

He never wakes her. Aline doesn’t ask about this behavior. Why should she? She knows what he’ll say: Clea demands too much of her already, and he will not deprive her of rest. These days, it seems her husband is as eager to speak for her as he is to martyr himself. Most nights, he slides into his half of the bed still dressed from the day, gone before she awakens the next morning.

It cuts her—hurts her— in a way she does not care to admit.

Aline will not begrudge him his space. She understands the need to be alone with one’s grief. It is a quiet, insular process. So, she does not push. She does not hound him to keep her company. She makes herself useful in whatever other ways she can.

Aline spends the majority of her waking hours managing the manor. She instructs the couriers to bring any social invitations to her atelier rather than trouble her husband. A visit to Gaurnier assures that the Council will come to Aline before hounding her love. Where she can shoulder the weight, she does.

And then there is a shift.

Renoir has gone off for the better part of the week to inspect the Dessendre family’s holdings in the south of France. He does not ask her to come along. Aline says nothing.

It is so damnably stupid—she cannot see the desperation in his eyes, begging her to reach out to him, drag him back to the surface. Renoir does not see the hurt in hers. Neither says a thing. They are both guilty of that self-same sin: pride or presumption. Why should they talk? They already know.

Aline is left alone in the manor, longing for their chateau. For all its grandeur and beauty, the place does not feel like home. It is cold and cavernous, dark and dead. There is so much black and so few windows. By the time evening rolls around, the woman finds herself hungry for sunlight. Gabrielle promises she will adjust, smiling her exhausted smile—the false one that never reaches her eyes.

Some evenings, she will sit at Etienne’s bedside, her hands in his, willing him to wake (or die).

She keeps telling herself the situation will break.

The morning sickness begins shortly after.

~~~~~~~~~

Painting becomes his singular reprieve.

Time slows within the confines of the Canvas. He is allowed to process and think without Paris breathing down his neck. Renoir does not set out to create his magnum opus. In truth, he is not looking to create at all.

That first night, alone in the south of France, his steward asleep in the adjoining room, he enters the Canvas with no other intention but to sit. Renoir sketches out only the barest outline of a world: blue sky, brown earth, a horizon line. It is empty and dead. He sits cross-legged at the center of this place, eyes closed, letting the stillness wash over him.

His mind wanders.

Memory is different in the Canvas. He cannot say why, precisely—perhaps the veil between dreams and reality is thinner—but the past is closer, more easily accessible. Those infinitesimal details he would never be able to recall during his waking hours come into stark relief within the Painted World.

Decades later, he will recognize the unconscious desperation of his actions. He does not consciously settle on a memory; instead, he lets his mind cycle through events until it finds one he likes. At the moment, Renoir thinks it is as little more than an attempt to lionize his dying sire, to remember the man as he’d been. In the future? He will see it as a silent, desperate attempt to self-soothe. Here is his father, strong, supportive, present. Renoir is safe; he is not alone.

How old had he been? Five, six? Old enough to watch Lucian parade around the stables with their father, tall and bright and handsome, feeling a swell of admiration and jealousy. He remembers Lucian’s mare, one of the most beautiful creatures Renoir has ever seen—white as snow, flowers braided into her mane. She looks small beside Papa’s stallion, a surly brute, and Renoir loves her in that pure way only a child can manage.

He loves Lucian by extension, dreams that he will be invited to ride behind the older boy, but the invitation never comes. He is too young.

“You wish to ride?” Etienne’s voice, ever stern, makes the question sound more like a statement or accusation.

His mother’s hands tighten on his shoulder. “It’s too early.”

He continues as if she hasn’t spoken, attention fixed on his son. “Speak up, boy. Or others will speak for you.” Gabrielle’s nails bite at his shoulders before she seems to realize it.

Renoir shakes free of his mother’s grasp, beaming. “Would you allow it?”

The hard lines on his father’s face soften. He bends, hooking Renoir beneath the arms to pull him up into the saddle. One of the man’s arms folds across his middle, holding him fast against his chest. With his free hand, he tugs on the reins, wheeling the stallion around, kicking him into a trot and then a slow gallop.

His mind fixates on the sensation of the wind in his hair—it is the first time he feels truly free in his life. It lingers on the weight of his father’s arm, the scent of leather and pipesmoke—strength, support. At that moment, fear seemed a purely alien concept.

Renoir opens his eyes to find the stable painted around him. Lucian’s mare and Papa’s stallion are both dressed for exhibition, nickering pleasantly in their stalls. Their riders will never come. He strokes a hand over the mare’s flank.

He does not know how long he spends riding across that nondescript countryside.

When he slips back into his body, he feels more like himself.

~~~~~~~~~

Aline comes to him one evening, face drawn and pale. An instinctual panic settles in his chest, pushing away from his father’s desk in a single movement, already in the process of moving towards her. The past months have worn away at both of them—they are both thinner, both sallow—but Aline looks genuinely small for the time since Clea's birth. There is a brittle, uncertain quality to his wife as she crosses to him, at odds with her innate strength.

He takes her in his arms without thinking, relieved when she clutches at him with the same feverish intensity. For a moment, the strangeness, the distance, between them fades. Renoir buries his face in her hair, inhaling the scent of her, allowing himself to find refuge in her embrace.

Speaking feels like it will shatter this temporary peace. Renoir takes her face in his hands, frowning as he searches Aline's expression—god, she looks so miserably tired (how has he not noticed?). Renoir presses a delicate kiss to both eyelids, lingering with his nose tweaked against her forehead.

Her right hand finds his, moving it to rest over her belly.

The note of hesitation, of concern (for him, not herself), in her gray eyes hurts him more than he will ever admit. He knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that some part of her has considered keeping this from him. To protect him. To lighten his load.

He looks at his wife—naturally proud and vital—and sees what might be an apology on the tip of her tongue. Renoir kisses her because hearing that might drive him mad. He tastes her relief, her hands fumbling into his hair to hold him close, breathing the same air.

She tells him later, his head pillowed on her lap, that she cannot bring herself to regret her mistake. Her negligence after finishing her work has led to this. It is a delicate admission, her voice reduced to a whisper. “My carelessness will cost you—that is my only concern.”

“Aline?”

She smiles when he reaches up to tug on a strand of her hair. “You can only carry so much, mon coeur.”

“I could say the same for you.”

She hums, stroking his cheek. Neither considers sharing their loads—there is only sacrifice, taking weight from the other, solitary journeys. Renoir turns his face into her stomach. He imagines he can hear the child’s heartbeat, though that is still months off. She tells him of her morning sickness, gentle by comparison to her first pregnancy, and her hopes.

“A boy would be—” she trails off, longing and grief coloring the words. “—I want a son.”

“At a guess, the odds are at least fifty percent in your favor…”

Aline snorts, swatting him upside the head. “Terrible.”

“Yes,” he agrees. “But you love me?”

She releases a shaky breath, gathering him nearer. “How dare you make that a question.”

Aline leads him to their temporary bed in the manor, breathing promises against his lips. When they make love, it is an act of affirmation and reassurance more than passion, both too hungry for the other, too desperate for touch, to manage better than a desperate fumbling.

Renoir lies awake in the aftermath, his wife's head pillowed over his heart, fingers carding through her hair.

Aline will need rest. Aline will need his strength.

Everything else pales by comparison.

~~~~~~~~~

In a story, his father would awaken once more before the end.

Life is never so neat. There is no fanfare, no satisfying conclusion. In the early stretches of the morning, cold and gray, the physician comes to find him. It’s finished, he says. The Dessendre patriarch has passed.

How odd, he thinks, a touch numbly, to have expected an event every hour of every day these past months, and for it still to come as a shock. Renoir makes his way through the otherwise silent manor, steps measured.

Gabrielle sits by her husband’s bedside, one of his hands clenched in both of hers. Silent tears track down her cheeks. She glances up at his entrance but cannot bring herself to smile. Renoir moves to stand behind her, clutching her shoulders, allowing her to sag back against his support.

The man in the bed is a shadow, not his father. Etienne Dessendre died the day he fell from his horse. A cold, logical comfort, if it could be called a comfort at all. He takes a deep breath. When he speaks, his voice is calm and steady: “I will contact the authorities.”

“Give yourself a moment.”

He shakes his head. “You know we cannot afford it.” The city’s highborn families have been breathing down their necks, eager to offer their condolences and ingratiate themselves with the official head of house. He bends to kiss Gabrielle’s cheek before taking his leave.

The authorities will not permit them to hold the body longer than three days. Renoir sleeps no more than a handful of hours over that space of time, throwing himself into his work. Aline finds him on the second day, her voice firm when she commands him to their bed. His wife allows him a moment to settle before sprawling across his chest, a less-than-subtle attempt to restrain him.

She doesn’t wake when he slips away from her.

He finds it more worthwhile to spend those few hours in the Canvas. There, at least, he can channel these impotent feelings into art. The initial stable remains, of course, but he has built so much around it. The valley is lush and verdant.

He paints a forest with trees that climb ever upward, ghostly branches brushing the sky and blotting out all light. Black gossamer cloth hangs from their limbs, fluttering mournfully in the cool breeze. Beneath the canopy, there is no green. The trees have grown too thick, strangling all life below, leaving only dead earth and corpses.

Faceless-things, humanoid by only the most generous stretch of the imagination, roam the woods in an endless funeral procession, singing dirges in a language he does not recognize. Renoir will sit and listen to them for hours, grieved and moved by their beauty. He builds them a kingdom, a ruin of whitewashed and dilapidated buildings, but still a place to rest their heads.

And in the waking world? It feels like half of Paris’ high society arrives to see his father buried.

Etienne has his wish—they find him a plot away from his forebears, tucked away beside his firstborn son. Aline's gaze lingers on this second headstone, frowning.

What is there to say? Nothing. Old news. Old hurts. Renoir keeps his eyes fixed ever forward, dour-faced. He feels so many eyes on him.

Paris watches the new Dessendre patriarch, searching for gaps in his armor.

He shows them none.

~~~~~~~~~

The world moves on.

He moves with it, runs, unwilling to stop or breathe.

He is everything Paris expects. He is everything Aline and Gabrielle need, smiling and offering comfort. By night, he slips back to his Canvas, expanding its borders. He adds towering mountains to his world, snowless, barren, their peaks replaced with great calderas. Bones and ash coat these basins, the wind whipping both into lazy little dust devils.

Some nights, he will take his brother’s mare and his father’s stallion to ride across the valley. He carries his family’s ghosts with him, one nearly two decades gone, the other newly buried.

“You grew into a grim bastard, didn’t you?” In his mind, he sees Lucian’s spirit pull a face, still the handsome young man he remembers. Not the war-ravaged corpse, mangled beyond all recognition. “All maman’s feeling, all papa’s fatalism…god save you, baby brother.”

Renoir chuckles. “You left me to this fate—this was your cross to bear.”

“I apologize for any inconvenience my death may have caused you, Renoir.”

“You are forgiven.” He frowns, staring out over his world, caught in the perpetual gloam of twilight. The Dessendre does not allow himself to look at his companions. To do so would be to admit insanity. He speaks nonetheless, stroking the mare’s neck. “We never rode together, did we?”

“Only that once.”

“A shame.” In the distance, his creations begin their funeral procession once again, their ghostly torches flickering beneath the forest’s dark bows.

“Papa kept you on that damned lead so long, I wondered if you’d ever really ride at all.” It’s easy to imagine the spirit smiling. “You look sure enough in the saddle. And you’ve stolen my pretty mare.”

And there is part of him, some small insidious voice, that whispers they could make his long-dormant dream a reality. It would be so simple. Just a flick of the wrist to add life to his Canvas. In those moments, he will hear Aline’s voice in his head.

Some things should not be done.

Etienne’s ghost never speaks. His father only stares at him in that strange and melancholy way he favored near the end of his life. Renoir swallows, knowing the reason for this silence all too well. He cannot remember the last words he exchanged with his father.

Guilt roils in his belly, its root stretching upward to wind around his heart.

~~~~~~~~~

Months pass.

Clea’s first birthday has come and gone. Aline’s belly begins to swell.

Renoir continues to pull away from her.

She will find him in the atelier in the early stretches of the morning and late in the evening, well after he assumes she’s drifted to sleep. Some nights, Renoir has the presence of mind to slip back to their bed, at least playing at normalcy. Even these cursory efforts have grown more sparse.

Aline watches her husband, fear clenching at her heart.

He is diminished, diminishing.

She has seen this behavior more times than the Council would ever admit over her years. It is a loss of self. It is the blurring between the waking and the Painted World, the breakdown of reality as a whole. The signs of physical deterioration manifest before the mental: heavy bags under the eyes, weight and muscle loss—the body begins consuming itself to feed the brain. Renoir’s once fitted suits now hang in the chest and arms. If she slides her hands over his sides, she can count each of his ribs.

Aline chews the inside of her cheek, sitting on one of the benches within the atelier, gaze fixed on the swirling paintslick marring the Canvas’s surface. Every fiber of her body screams to go in after him, drag him out, make him understand.

Only there is their child to consider. She wants to rage against the cruelty of it all. Her choices? Watch her husband die a slow and miserable death, drowning himself in his delusions, or risk sacrificing their son to save him?

It is purgatory, she thinks. It is maddening stagnation, slowly sinking in quicksand.

One night, she waits for him in the atelier. Renoir stops short, scanning her with naked concern, still so much the man she adores. When she holds her hands out to him, he takes them, bringing both to his lips.

“Come to bed,” Aline murmurs. “I miss my husband.”

He chuckles. “I don’t recall having left you.”

“Liar.” She strokes her fingers over his temples, the hair now lightly threaded with gray. Despite himself, he turns his face to her touch. Her heart sings at that—he still cares for her in some fashion. “Renoir, the Canvas is a sweet and hollow panacea for grief. I have watched friends lose themselves to it. Please,” she curves her hand over the back of his neck, drawing him down to press her forehead to his. “Come to bed. Just for tonight.”

He glances towards the painting. Renoir stiffens briefly before he nods. He pulls her to his chest. “If it will set your mind at ease, my love.”

Aline falls asleep with her husband curled behind her, his arm a comforting weight over her midsection.

He’s gone when she awakens.

~~~~~~~~~

He stops in at the manor for a change of clothes between negotiations, half out of his waistcoat before he notices their belongings are missing from the guest bedroom. Renoir casts about for his wife, finds no sign of her at all. Half-dressed, he wanders the hall until he finds one of the maids. The girl blanches, staring at a point beyond his shoulder rather than at him.

“Madame Dessendre insisted, monsieur.”

“Aline?”

She shakes her head. “Madame Gabrielle, monsieur.”

He marches towards the master suite and finds his mother waiting, eyeing him with a mix of warriness and concern. Gabrielle does not reach out to him.

“What is the meaning of this?” He stares around his parents' bedroom in dumb horror and mounting repulsion. They have so recently buried the man, and already his presence has been scrubbed clean. Staff amble about the room, collecting his mother's belongings before moving them to one of the manor's more modest bedrooms.

“You are the master of the house, Renoir,” Gabrielle says, hands folded in front of her stomach. “It is poor form for a man to sleep like a guest in his own home.”

Throughout his life, he has spent no time at all in this place. The master suite has always carried a quality of otherness; it is his parents' private sanctum. Robbed of all its furniture, the already cavernous chambers come across as oppressive.

(Aline will call it haunted, not by a vengeful ghost, but nameless grief).

“You think we'd cast you out,” he states, a touch more coldly than he intends. “Are Aline and I opportunists, here to set upon your life?”

She holds her head higher. “I will forgive you for that. I think you are reasonable. I think you are not fool enough to risk a visitor seeing an old widow in the manor's finest room, while your pregnant wife makes do with her cramped and empty bed.”

He recoils as if struck.

His mother takes a step towards him. She hesitates before taking his right hand, squeezing. “Come up for air, my love. You’re drowning.”

She leaves him in a swirl of perfume, the sound of her heels echoing throughout the now empty bedroom. Renoir moves through to the adjoining washroom. Heavy curtains block out the windows, rich and red, exacerbating the severity of the black walls. The large room feels nearly claustrophobic as a result.

Aline will hate it.

~~~~~~~~~

He stops coming to bed.

He cannot be in that place. Not now, not yet. Aline catches him dragging a small mattress into the atelier, hair wild. She is reminded implicitly of some dark romantic hero, torn straight from the pages of a tragedy.

“We could go away. The Riviera, London, New York, if you need it.” Aline cups his cheek. He nearly sags into her touch. “Leave the Canvas. Your body cannot…”

Renour smiles, kissing her palm. “Aline. It is my responsibility to worry about you. Not the other way round.”

She wants to scream. Renoir moves past her, settling in front of his Canvas. He stares for a moment, chroma glazing his eyes over. Etienne’s voice echoes in her head—he looks dead, doesn’t he?

She does not know how to help him. She does not know how to save him. Renoir flees into his private sanctum and she is left to pace before its threshold.

Aline cannot follow him.

It’s only a matter of time before he loses his way home entirely.

~~~~~~~~~

The first time it happens is purely unintentional.

Renoir walks among the funeral procession for a time, observing his creations. He does not recall giving them their lanterns, or the gauzy fabric they’ve taken to wearing, but he must have. The creatures pay him no heed as they go about their mindless, eternal vigil.

It is a grim, miserable thing, he thinks, to be caught in one’s grief with no hope of reprieve. Worse, to know nothing of the pain’s origin, laboring under that shapeless yoke.

Loss.

The word flits through his mind. Renoir settles on one of the whitewashed steps, reaching over to pluck a handful of ash from a nearby pot. He scrubs it between his palms. Their loss is not individual, but cultural. Perhaps their empire has fallen; maybe they have been driven out. Either way, it is the death of life as it has been, and it is that they mourn.

“Your world has ended,” he murmurs.

For what feels like months, Renoir traverses the far reaches of his world, giving shape to the edges of this reality—black seas, wild and untraversable. He stares down the length of the sandbar and thinks—almost absently—of Aline. Beautiful Aline—he sows white flowers all along the coast and seafront cliffs in her honor.

When he returns to the stable—each of his sojourns seems to begin and end there—, he finds his attention drawn to the mourners.

Banners flutter in some of the city windows, a sigil painted in gold over the ink-black fabric. Renoir cocks his head to the side, puzzled and fascinated in equal measure. More of the creatures have gathered together now. In the past, they have never spoken, only sang their strange and tuneless dirges. One has dipped a stick in ash; it uses this to etch crude pictograms across the walls—a city, fire, a crowd.

Their tale of loss. Renoir presses his palm flat over the markings, vaguely aware of how his creations edge back from him.

He travels again, this time for an extended period. The scholastic bent of his mind demands he gives them space to develop without his intercession and influence. To that end, Renoir does not know precisely how much time passes, only that it is measured in years and not months.

The Dessendre Patriarch rides into their city. The world is almost painfully silent, the dead air disturbed only by the beat of his horse’s hooves against the cobblestone—no songs, no wordless chatterings. He frowns, inspecting the houses. They are empty. Dark etchings cover the surface of every building. Some of these drawings devolve. The ‘ink’ is more viscous by comparison—blood.

Renoir swallows. He dismounts, leaving his steed to crop grass near the city’s edge. His legs feel weak. He forces himself to walk towards the central pavilion, somehow knowing what he will find. The sight drives the air from his lungs all the same.

They are there, all of them, hung from their banners, crude lengths of rope—anything they can find. No funeral procession. Only a mass grave. Renoir closes his eyes, turning away. In that darkness, he hears his wife’s voice in his head, low and measured. You gave them the capacity to grieve. You gave them the impetus—their reasons—to mourn. But you never offered a light, Renoir. You never thought to give them hope.

Negligence, that’s it. Renoir has been negligent.

Renoir touches the foot of one of his creations. The next attempt will be better. It must be better.

He will justify their loss.

~~~~~~~~~

Some go mad.

Renoir will discover, far later in life, when the shame had ebbed somewhat and the wound has scarred over, that this is the most common outcome when creating sentient life. A Painter’s reality was often too thin. When their creations found the seams, they tore at them, shattering their minds in the process.

He loses more to hopelessness. Try as he might, Renoir looks around his Painting and cannot see a future. It is a world caught in its final death throes. Whatever hope he thinks to provide them rings hollow. They summarily reject it.

It is a fruitless endeavor. Renoir rolls their consciousness back—no more etchings, no history, no loss. They are the funeral procession once more, mindless, moving scenery. It’s better that way.

Renoir lingers in the antechamber between the Real and Painted world. He has been here too long. It is time to go back.

He pauses, frowning.

Perhaps the problem has not been his technical skills, but the scope of his work. Renoir attempts have been on creatures entirely alien—their culture, their thoughts. It has stymied his ability to contribute. He cannot impart distinct personalities to beings he barely understands. The endeavor is doomed to failure.

If he were to start smaller? If he were to pull from his own experience? That, he thinks, would be manageable.

He turns back to his dying world and begins again.

~~~~~~~~~

She begins locking the atelier door, the key tucked safely away within her skirt pocket. Aline refuses to let the staff see him in such a state; she will not risk visitors or the Council stumbling across him. Idiotic as he is, Renoir remains hers; she’ll die before letting the world shame him.

Aline tips his head back slightly, bringing the glass of water to his chapped lips. Most of the liquid trickles down Renoir’s chin and throat, but he swallows some. Enough to set her mind at ease for the time being. She settles in the chair she’s moved beside him, leaning her head against his arm as she watches the Canvas.

The images come only in flashes, rarely focused upon Renoir. The damned thing is, his work is beautiful—Renoir has created something extraordinary. Grief, mourning, and loss weave into the very fabric of that world’s reality, all colored with Dessendre blacks and golds. Aline tips her head to the side, watches some monstrous winged beast tear across the sky, its feathers singed, the flesh of its face peeled back from the bone. The way it moves, the way it jerks its head from side-to-side in a manner so clearly avian and equally alien fascinates her.

There are swamps with blackened mud that catch and consume his less fortunate creations, ugly places lit only by strange ghostlights.

He’s caught, she thinks, unsmiling. Not his most subtle metaphor.

And as miraculous as these things are, none would strictly bother her. The paintslick twists, blurring, until it reveals her husband. Renoir, astride some great dark charger. He wheels the horse expertly around, the wind ruffling his hair, tugging at his coat. A second figure gallops into frame, grinning, reaching out to clasp her love’s shoulder.

She does not know him. She doesn’t need to. It’s written in the pale eyes, the line of his jaw, the gentle slope of his nose—Dessendre. One final rider joins their group.

Aline inhales through her nose, lips pursing.

Etienne Dessendre—grim-faced, but so clearly alive—stares back at her.

~~~~~~~~~

It is a strange thing, losing oneself.

Pushed to explain it later, Renoir will lapse into silence. He doesn’t know precisely when it happens.

He supposes it is like losing context. One could explain the Canvas to the everyman or woman—they might even understand it in theory—but it was impossible to impart the feeling, the weight and reality. It’s an idea, ephemeral.

Renoir remembers Paris. He remembers Aline, Clea, the manor. All the pieces are there, but all the connective tissue’s been cut. They are adrift; he is aware of them, but they could very well belong to another man. A different man.

He pauses in the midst of saddling his horse, glancing across to Lucian. His brother arches a brow. “What is it, Renoir? Are you ill?”

“Forgive me. Only a feeling; it’s passed.”

“Still sulking that Papa refused to join us?”

Renoir scoffs.

(Etienne never joins them, never speaks. Try as he might, he cannot get the man right and…he will get him right).

He swings up into the saddle, kicking his mount into a canter. He will feel better soon. He always feels better after a ride—they will watch the processions, those strange, strange creatures, and all will be well.

“Lucian,” Renoir asks. It comes as a surprise; he has no intention to speak. He licks his lower lip, painfully aware of how dry his mouth has become. His lips feel chapped, his body weak. The Dessendre sways, nearly falling from his horse before he comes back to himself. “Have we always rode together?”

The young man smiles, confused. “Are you sure you’re well, baby brother? Of course. Always.”

Yes, of course. Always.

~~~~~~~~~

Seven months.

It has been just over seven months since their nightmare began.

She can no longer wait for him to come to his senses.

Aline smooths her hands over the swell of her belly, dread pooling in the recesses of her chest. Garneau had no concrete answers for her.

“There are few enough Paintresses as it is, child. And most have the presence of mind not to endanger their young. But to your question—it may be done. Some women have entered the Canvas and emerged only to carry to term. Others?” The old woman lapsed off.

She has no choice.

Renoir is a husk. At the outset, the time between the interludes in the Canvas had been enough to counteract the effects on his body? Now? It’s been weeks. If he leaves—and she has no reason to believe he does—it is for mere moments. He drinks what they bring him. He eats the same. Looking at him aches. Gabrielle dabs sweat from his damp, feverish brow.

Paris and society at large will call her a failure as both woman and mother. They’re right. God, they’re right, but she cannot bring herself to leave him. She cannot cut the tie; she cannot lose him. Aline has spent too many long nights imagining a life without him, Clea curled in her arms, asleep against her breast. It’s blank. Not empty—blank, absent, nonexistent. There is no future without him in it.

Aline swallows, lingering before the Canvas.

Whatever happens, Clea will be safe. Aline’s parents will watch her as long as necessary. It will all be fine. It will.

I am sorry, my love. She thinks, pressing her palm flat over her stomach. Her little one shifts. Aline imagines it pushing back against her touch. He is such a quiet thing, a far cry from his elder sister. It shouldn’t have come to this.

It doesn’t have to, either. If the child in her womb is male, the Dessendre family will have its heir, and they will be no worse off. Life will go on if she walks away.

It won’t. And Aline can’t.

She braces herself and steps through.

The difference is immediate. Aline steps into the antechamber and feels something rip free. The void tears at her, hooking fingers in her skin and pulling. The Paintress grits her teeth, grasping for chroma and folding it around herself like a shield. The pain eases.

She finds him at the stable, dressed in his riding leathers, restored to his prior glory. Renoir’s hair is longer, skin more sun-kissed. Seeing him, awake, aware, leaves her nearly lightheaded. She calls his name without thinking.

Renoir turns, grinning—a purely instinctual reaction to the sound of her voice.

And then he realizes what has happened.

“Aline,” he stares at her in naked horror, rushing forward to take her by the shoulders. Renoir's hand drops to her belly. “What have you done? How could you risk our child?”

“How could I? Renoir, have you taken leave of your senses so fully?” She steps back, searching his face. She sees no madness. Only the face of the man she loves. Only a father sick with worry. “I've given you all the time I can, but you know the cost of this place—it will kill you.” She squeezes her hands into fists to keep from reaching out to him. “It is killing you. My love, come home.”

Her voice echoes throughout the hills of his dead world, eerie and flat. For all its beauty, it is a miserable, shallow place and her husband does not belong.

“I know my limits, chérie,” he speaks so gently, as if indulging a petulant child. “You helped me set them.”

She has gone about this entirely wrong. Aline recognizes that even as she desperately tries to claw back control.

“This is not a debate.” Aline holds her head imperiously high. Anger is preferable to fear, and she fights to keep from shaking from one or the other. “We are leaving.”

“No,” Renoir’s voice sounds soft by comparison, steady and sure. “I have work to finish here.”

“Mon coeur, you have lost track of time.”

Love makes her foolish. Love holds her fast when he reaches for her, his pale eyes glittering with affection, what she thinks is understanding. Renoir’s hand curves over her stomach once more, the other coming to rest at the small of her back. He brackets her with his arms, chroma enfolding her like a jacket, as comforting as the scent of his shirt or the press of his body. Feeling him—here with her, present—after weeks apart…she wants so badly to trust. Her Renoir, ever reasonable.

He cups her face, thumb smoothing over the rise of her cheek. “Aline, I will come home. But to go now…” Renoir frowns, staring over her shoulder towards his creations. “...you must trust me.”

“I can’t.” Something in her threatens to shatter at the admission—she sees the naked hurt painted across his face. “Please. I have no desire to destroy your work, but you cannot stay here.” Aline clutches his wrist before he can pull away. “Please.”

Her husband stares at her with such misery. His pale eyes search her face for something—compromise, she thinks—and find it absent. Renoir’s hand slides up her arm. “There can be no peace between us?”

Love makes her stupid.

Aline shakes her head. “No. Not here.”

His touch moves to her breast, pressing flat over her heart. “Then forgive me, bien-aimé.”

It happens so rapidly that she barely has time to process a reaction. Renoir pushes, turning the entirety of his chroma and the Canvas itself onto her. Aline is shunted, thrown, rocketing from the Painting, through the antechamber and liminal space without so much as a breath to adjust.

He forces her out.

~~~~~~~~~

She rocks forward, clutching her middle to keep from doubling over. Someone is touching her arm; they’re speaking, but it’s impossible to decipher the words over the buzzing in her ears. Is she screaming? Aline doesn’t know. Her soul crashes back into a body in the process of seizing, shutting down, and expelling the thing growing in its womb.

Aline bares her teeth against the sudden stabbing pain. Something in her gut twists with sickly heat as the muscles contract. A mix of blood and amniotic fluid coats her thighs, staining her white skirt, leaving the material clinging to her legs.

She vomits, blood and bile amalgamating on her tongue, tasting of iron and acid. The grip on her bicep tightens to the point of pain, jerking her back from the Canvas. The world does a dizzying spin, colors blurring like paint swatches on a palette, all washing into one another.

There is one clarifying feeling, stitching her body to soul, all conscious thought and pain fading to a dull thrumming in the back of her awareness: rage.

How dare he? Selfish, reckless, stupid…

Aline scrubs a hand across her mouth, shrugging away from the grasping hands.

A voice shrill with panic demands to know, “Aline, what has happened? You must sit…”

She's deaf to anything but the furious litany roaring through her blood.

Arrogant, impudent, infuriating man—to cast her out? To use her teachings against her? Aline stumbles towards the Canvas, more violent pain rocking through her. Every muscle in her body screams to stop—they cannot and will not hold her much longer.

She will not need long.

“You’re bleeding, Aline,” Gabrielle whispers, genuine fear in her voice. For her, of her—Aline doesn’t know or care. There’s only red, only rage, and if she releases her white-knuckled grip on that, she’s certain she’ll die. “We must get you to the hospital.”

The words come through gritted teeth, “Call the physician.”

Aline reenters the Canvas.

Chapter Text

The creature cocks its head to the side, listening.

It pauses at the crest of the hill, half concealed in the golden grass. Even in the world’s perpetual twilight, it has taken shelter beneath the bows of a skeletal tree. Other beasts roam the plains below in packs. It does not need to feed, but soon it will hunt.

Hunting pleases it.

The beast stands, stretching in a manner one could loosely categorize as feline. Its great claws tear ruts in the earth, and it would be such an easy thing to lunge into motion. Its creator has given it that gift—the entirety of its body is a weapon, sinuous, lithe muscle corded beneath too-tight skin. But it is not yet time. It is still tired. The wind and earth still smells sweet. Its prey will linger a while longer.

It has no concept of time. It feels no need to rush.

The creature knows only that it is—and that is enough. The beast rests its head on its forepaws, glittering green eyes lulling shut. Dozing. Listening.

Life—purely mundane—going about its business.

This is the story all throughout the Canvas. In one corner of the world, carrion birds make their homes amidst the sea-side cliffs. Renoir’s mourners wander their forests, ghostly lamps illuminating the dark. Life continues as it has for centuries.

A booming sound echoes throughout the countryside, deafeningly loud, tearing the bark from trees and small shrubs from the ground

The creature lifts its head, scenting, unable to discern that it is not a smell at all—the air prickles. It lurches to its feet in one fluid movement, hackles raised.

Its prey bleats, scattering to the wind—some are knocked from their feet entirely, sent flying.

The sky darkens. The sky tears open.

In that moment, it understands a purely animal fear.

And then it is gone, consumed in blistering white fire. It burns.

The world burns, too.

~~~~~~~~~

At the heart of the Canvas, tucked away from the devastation, a sliver of Renoir’s soul continues to paint.

It lifts its head, right hand fumbling across its palette, dragging a smear of color across the antechamber floor. Dull pain chases through its essence. The Renoir-fragment rocks back before sitting on its haunches, knees pulled up towards its chest. The shadow does not breathe, but it takes a shuddering breath, attempting to steady itself. It aches—a cleaner pain that it has been subjected to these past months.

Separated from the whole of Renoir, the soul is largely stagnant. There is bleedthrough, of course—it feels the rest of its master moving through the Canvas—exhaustion, hurt, desperation coloring his chroma. It recognizes these emotions, distantly feels them, but cannot or will not incorporate them into the Canvas.

The fragment is not those things.

It is melancholy, but does not drown in grief. It feels longing, but there is a degree of romantic nostalgia tied up in the emotion, not the delusion to which its master has succumbed. The fading man reaches for its brush.

Renoir demands that it paint. All it can do is comply.

Pain, again, sharper than before. Something else moves through the world now, searching for the heart of the Canvas. It feels delicate hands sifting through the sea of chroma, reaching out. Even separated from its master, the Renoir-fragment recognizes the intruder.

His Aline. Beautiful Aline.

She is hurting it, it knows. Renoir’s chroma howls this truth, massing in a desperate attempt to drive her back. He loses ground. Time and again. The chroma is his, the Canvas is his, and still, he loses ground.

Aline calls again, voice sweet—a siren’s song masking the violence she wreaks across the Canvas. The fragment shivers, warmth suffusing it—it has been so long since it felt anything but its master’s empty hurt. His Aline searches.

Stay hidden.

Renoir’s demand reverberates through it. Stay. Hidden.

Aline calls.

No part of him can deny her long—it is only a question of time.

~~~~~~~~~

Oh, my love—you’ve forgotten, haven’t you?

Cold dread washes over Renoir, his mouth suddenly dry as he steps to the edge of the battlements. Here, gazing out from his vantage point, his citadel set high amidst towering, impossible mountains, he can see for miles.

Lucian speaks, but the words are barely discernible over the sound of cracking earth and roaring winds. “God above—what is this?”

Armageddon.

Armageddon is the answer.

His brother touches the curve of his arm, blue eyes huge. Decades later, he will see a similar expression on his youngest daughter's face and think back to his kin’s horror. In that moment, Lucian appears more akin to a frightened child than a soldier.

Forgotten what I am.

Meteors streak across the sky, white fire chasing void-black energy. The meteors do not leave shimmering trails of heat in their wake—no afterimages, no. They erase. They tear jagged lines across the horizon. Renoir watches, numb, as they rip holes in the fabric of reality itself, the nothingness of the void peering through.

His world’s eternal gloaming gives way to brilliant solar light.

“Down,” Renoir barks, reaching out to grab fistfuls of the other man’s shirt. He drags them both to the ground, shielding his older brother with his body.

Her voice fills his head.

Forgotten that you were my pupil.

All the air seems to rush by them, dragged to a central point hundreds of kilometers away. For one brief moment, everything in the world seems to stop—Renoir's heartbeat, wind, light. It all fades to gray before exploding in white. Heat, extreme enough to tear flesh from bone, rips across the top of the battlements. Some hellish whining noise precedes a boom that threatens to rupture his eardrums, leaving a ringing in his skull. The world sways. Lucian coughs, arms giving way. Renoir manages to stay upright, but it is a near thing. Debris rains down around them, chunks of stone, wood, flesh. Biles rises in his throat.

He stands on unsteady legs, swaying badly.

Let me remind you.

A crater stretches from the forest to the sea, a pockmark on the face of his creation. The meteor has obliterated all life in the region—erased years of work in seconds. Chroma weeps from the gaping wound, red petals drifting on upward drafts of air. Renoir throws out his consciousness, grasping for them with desperate hands.

She rips it away. Searing pain explodes in his chest, something like nails sinking beyond flesh and into his soul. Renoir bites down a scream.

What you are.

Smoke wafts from the crater, blackening the sky. The plains have caught fire. The desolation tears at him, but it is a distant thing, a pale spectre in the face of her wrath. Renoir feels the moment when Aline crosses over.

What I am.

She is a storm. She is a bringer of life and the end of all things.

Something rises out of the crater, taller than his mountains. It should be impossible. Renoir controls the chroma. Renoir controls the Canvas.

Her creation stares down at his world, its face a blank and terrible mask. The doll—the titaness—raises its right hand. Void energy sees through the holes in the sky to gather around the things fingers, Aline’s chroma staining its edges with white light.

Lucian screams, pulling him back down.

A titanic blast erases one of the mountains from the canvas. Shards of rock bounce off his back, tearing at the exposed skin of his face. Renoir shakes free of his sibling’s grasp, struggling back to his feet. The thing has no face, but he feels its attention on him. Aline watches.

No pleasure colors her words, only grim certainty—truth as unerring as death itself.

And the gulf between us.

~~~~~~~~~

It is only a question of time.

Time, she thinks, is a double-edged sword.

She cannot wrest control from him as she might have in a guild exhibition—in a neutral Canvas, its chroma less inherently polarized. In such a place, tearing him from his fortifications would have been as simple as breathing. Here, in the seat of his power, anchored by a fragment of his own soul, she is forced to play a longer game, siphoning chroma by repainting or erasing his creations.

The edges of the Canvas fold inwards as her husband cannibalizes his world to repel her advancement. The seas and all the creatures in them are gone. The ruins of a once grand civilization fade to nothing. He sets his kingdom ablaze just to keep her out.

Aline frowns, extending her hand. She has no intention other than feeling for the natural flow of energy within the Canvas. One of his beasts emits a low rumble, nuzzling into her touch. Thin gold lines weave across its ebon skin like spiderwebbing, her own minor contribution during the thing’s repainting. It pads around her, a nightmare of muscle, fangs, and claw, seemingly devoid of skin, chuffing—monstrous, and devoted to her. She strokes its snout.

She has gathered many of his lost toys, repainted and repurposed. She finds reclamation more effective than outright destruction, sealing the chroma away from her husband's use. Eventually, Aline will starve him.

It is a question of time.

And her body is dying. Everything—physical, spiritual—screams for her to return. The world blackens around its edges. Aline rocks back, pain lancing through her skull. Renoir’s beast stands behind her, supporting her weight as she fights to maintain her grip on the Canvas.

She cannot afford to gentle him.

She cannot drag him by the heels either.

The Dessendre matriarch drags a hand through her hair, clenching her jaw. Expelling Renoir from the Canvas is a stopgap, not a solution. He will spend a week convalescing. She will be dead or bedbound. The cycle will begin again, this time without her intervention.

It must be him, his choice: a life at her side or his ghosts.

Aline focuses again. Chroma flows throughout the Canvas, its current pulled in two distinct directions, herself and Renoir. She has accomplished a great deal in a relatively short time. As deftly as her husband might manipulate this world’s energy, he has never learned to hold it.

He will adapt, or she will drown him.

She glances up at her axon. A crude tool, but no less effective for it. Aline presses her palm to her ankle, allowing her grasp on her physical body to fade, flowing into this new avatar.

The change is as jarring as ever. Aline lifts her hand, flexing her fingers.

Renoir huddles in his fortress, chroma massing around him in a makeshift barrier. She feels him there, energy lashing around him, desperation coloring his palette. His brother and father flank him. Aline traces them with more than passing interest. Renoir has painted and repainted, muddying his work. There are experimental strokes where he has attempted to expand on existing characteristics only to realize the error. Etienne’s chroma is a writhing mass, awkwardly stitched together, as if her husband has never managed to settle on a proper draft. A low, roiling anger simmers in her chest.

She will not begrudge his attempts to self-soothe. But the shoddy quality of his work, this amateur simulacrum? That she will hold against him.

The axon takes a handful of steps forward, closing the gap between their positions. The world shakes at Aline's passage, his repainted creatures forced to lumber after their new mistress. She sets them off with a thought: roam. Hunt.

The barrier burns when she drags her fingers across it. She taps a nail against the surface. There is a gentle give when she presses. She hums. More talented Painters than Renoir have erected these barriers against her. She turns her back on him.

Taking a deep breath, she focuses on the swirl of energy in the Canvas sky, throwing her consciousness beyond it. The void writhes beyond it. The axon reaches up. Instead of passing through nothing, Aline grabs fistfuls. She focuses her attention on thinning the barrier, erasing the layers of Paint between this world.

Reality gives way. The Void pours through.

~~~~~~~~~

As a boy, he remembers looking out over the Bay of Biscay, being struck by its beauty and its violence. Safe ashore, he could appreciate the swell of the waves, gentler breezes ruffling his hair as he stood at his sire’s side.

On the water? Gales tore across its surface. Massive swells could manifest as simply as breathing, swamping small merchant vessels. Renoir remembers the weight of his father’s hand on his shoulder, squeezing, as a storm tore inland, rocking the unfortunate few ships still lingering in the Bay. Etienne had turned him away from the sight. When he asked after the vessels the following morning? The man said nothing at all.

They drift on the Bay now, he thinks. Waves of chroma swell around them, pouring over the sides of the battlement, threatening to pull them beneath the surface.

Renoir maintains a white-knuckled grip on the stone, watching as Aline’s avatar tears the sky asunder. Oxygen seems to drain from the world. Renoir stares, wide-eyed, as she widens the gap to what he can only describe as a massive doorway. Beside him, Lucian has gone deathly pale.

Meteors or stars themselves tear through the gate, streaking by her avatar to wreak unholy devastation on the world. They hammer against the barrier. Renoir grits his teeth, focusing on maintaining its integrity.

It is unlike anything he has ever felt. Worse than falling from his horse. Worse than the break in his arm, or the bullet that tore through his knee. Beyond the physical—a screaming pain in his head, threatening to rupture his eardrums—there is a nearly spiritual ache. The Canvas is anchored, to some degree, in his soul. As she fractures this plane’s reality, he feels an answering pain, that fragment of him staggering under the sudden pressure.

Let it fall, Renoir.

Another wave of energy strikes the barrier. Renoir staggers back a step. It isn’t enough.

Renoir lets his mind drift to the edges of his world—the newest of his creations. He unmakes them all, the fields of bindweed, snow white, the little village near the sea, grasping fistfuls of chroma and funneling it into the barrier.

The pain intensifies.

Aline’s avatar turns its head, the great curtain of silvery hair sweeping out behind it like a wave. The thing wears no expression, but he feels her scowl. She removes a hand from the gate, making an idle gesture with her wrist, fingers curling as if to beckon something nearer.

The hair on the back of his neck and arms stands on end. Coldness sweeps over him.

Back on the Bay, back on the cliff, staring out over the sea and watching the ships—

Something tears through the gap, nearly as large as Aline’s avatar. She lays hold of it, white fire licking along the surface before lobbing the thing towards their position.

—Chroma whips up into a gale, buffeting them. The projectile hits home. Pain chases along the length of his arm, and he grunts, biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood to keep from screaming. It feels as if the bone has liquified, all the muscles torn loose. He manages to stagger backward, a sea of golden motes cascading around them as the barrier shatters. A deafening noise rings out, stone giving way, or the earth itself.

Renoir throws himself back, coughing on the dust and smoke, so thick in the air he can barely see. He casts his awareness out, searching for his brother and father in the carnage. They remain, chroma faint. Everything feels faint in comparison.

The Canvas’s half-light fades to near darkness. More than anything, he feels the stifling weight of her chroma pressing over them. Renoir lifts his eyes to find her avatar’s hand hovering over the battlements. Black chroma pools on the tips of her fingers, growing fat, but never falling. Thick and inky, full of damning potential.

Renoir sucks in much-needed air, vision swimming around the edges. A second crash sounds through the evening. The Dessendre scion manages to fight his way into a seated position.

The Paintress strides out of the smoke, the vapors curling around her with the intimacy of a lover, radiant in gold, a vengeful divinity come to banish him from the Canvas.

The steel in her voice threatens to cut him. “Are you deaf or obstinate? Why did you not drop the barrier?”

Renoir manages an airy chuckle, shaking his head. “You declare war, then ask why I defend myself? Shall I ask if you are delusional, chérie?”

The air crackles in response to her frustration. Above them, her avatar curls its fingers. A lone drop of chroma falls to the ground, tearing a hole in the Canvas. Aline waves him off, scanning the assembled figures on the battlements.

He has gathered his favored creations to this place, a desperate attempt to preserve them in the event he could not repel her advances. Aline takes a step towards them.

Renoir presses up on his arm, shocked when it still holds his weight. If he cannot get to his feet—

Aline flicks her wrist. The earth softens to the point of quicksand, dragging him down, swallowing his legs. Renoir shifts and feels himself sink deeper.

Aline strides forward, his creations breaking around her, slinking back. Renoir watches, horrified, as thin strands of gold spiderweb across their skin. He focuses on their chroma, his own red, and sees it bleach white. Reaching for them feels like burning. Almost as an afterthought, she tips her head towards him. “Behave, Renoir, or I will take all of your toys.”

“Etienne?” She calls. Silence.

“Aline,” Renoir says. “Your quarrel is with me.”

“I’m well aware. Etienne Dessendre!”

“What can you hope to learn from ghosts, woman?”

Her skirts thrash around her legs when she turns, manifesting the fury the Paintress’ blank face cannot. “They were compelling enough for you to break from reality.” Renoir has no response. He shifts. The sand drags him further below.

He feels the facsimile of his father shift, confusion threaded through its chroma. Aline feels it as well. She strides towards the man, flicking the smoke aside. His creation stares at her in naked confusion, brow furrowed, but unmoving. His right leg bends at a grisly angle.

The Paintress kneels. She reaches out a hand, pressing it to the older man's shoulder.

There is a sharp jolt of pain. Something inside Renoir comes untethered.

~~~~~~~~~

The fading man pauses in its endeavors, clutching a hand in its vest. Everything aches, dull hurts that flare up to stabbing pain.

Renoir cannibalizes his world, ripping swathes of chroma away and leaving emptiness in its wake. The fragment is left to smooth these edges, to paint what remains of the Canvas back into one cohesive whole. The alternative is the world fragmenting entirely. Its master wields this energy like a weapon, surgically precise in a way his creatures cannot manage.

Still, chroma sifts through his fingers like sand, and Aline is there. Aline waits.

It shudders, clenching and unclenching its fingers.

Aline erases and repaints, erases and repaints, takes and takes. It is caught between the pair of them, energy flowing through the heart of the Canvas, through its chest. They will tear it. The flow of chroma is ever shifting, the river bending back towards Aline, but the pressure has yet to subsist. It shudders.

It feels her reaching out to it, closer now, following the ley lines back to their source. Aline’s chroma feels like a sunlit spring dawn—chill, but crisp and sweet, full of promise. The antithesis of this world. It reaches out, catching a spill of white petals. The ache subsides.

There is no reason for you to hurt. Aline's voice in its head. Her fingers trail down the length of its forearm to take its hand. Tell me where you are—let me help.

Something in the Canvas shakes. The Renoir-fragment clutches its head. Nails are scratching across its surface, smearing its colors, and it hurts.

Its master’s voice grows fainter—the scales tip towards Aline.

~~~~~~~~~

Sifting through the simulacrum's chroma makes her nauseous. The Paintress fights the urge to wipe her hands on her skirt. Touching it feels wrong.

The thing stares at her in naked confusion, pressing back on its hands to create a miniscule amount of distance between them. Aline’s presence threatens to suffocate or overwrite her husband’s creation. It would, she thinks, be a mercy.

Renoir and his need for control. Aline peels back the layers, each of his many drafts, until she reaches the core of his work. The initial sketch is the most accurate, the most raw, barely recognizable in the face of his many edits.

Etienne has gone mad half a dozen times. The memories are pared back, year by year, stripping away experiences. A part of her wonders how he’s capable of recognizing Renoir—he should only know him as a boy. The other one—the brother—is no better off. She knows nothing of him, but his chroma is nearly as jumbled, its experiences altered or entirely fabricated.

Aline looks at her husband, jaw set, handsome and defiant. Does he recognize what he’s done? Or has he made unconscious adjustments as he walks through the world, subtly altering events to facilitate his comfort? She believes the latter.

It takes so little effort to strip away the excess layers of paint, restoring Etienne to the original draft. Aline focuses on extending her husband’s work rather than painting over it entirely, blending their chroma. She does not know the man intimately enough to paint in more than broad strokes, but she offers him a fuller life: the elder son lost to him, but Renoir wed. He will have one grandchild born and another on the way.

A life beyond empty rides in a dying world.

The simulacrum glances at her, then shifts its attention to Renoir. “Did you come here to die, boy? In this empty place?” Her husband says nothing. Etienne’s stare is no less cold when it settles on her. “And you, child. You are dying.”

She opens her mouth to respond. The words are swallowed in a ragged gasp. The woman clutches her belly as her muscles threaten to seize. Cold spreads throughout her body. Aline breathes through it, willing the sensation to pass. The most she can manage is a jerky nod.

Renoir inhales sharply. “Aline…”

The pain lessens when she slips back into the Paintress’ skin. For a moment, it feels as if she’s in freefall. “Yes. Here. Allow me to show you.”

It is a trick she’s rarely had to use in the past. Summoning her brush, she makes one quick cut through the air. The three stare through the makeshift window, gazing into the atelier. Renoir remains, diminished, but standing. Her husband makes a choked sound, rushing to her side. He looks at himself only briefly.

He stares at her, the Aline on the other side. Fear settles over her shoulders like a shroud.

The physician has arrived. They’ve moved her to the floor, still and lifeless as a doll. Her skirt has caked against her thighs, dyed a deep red. The child is coming, but something is wrong. Another wracking wave of pain. Aline watches her physical body shudder, its knees pulling up. Blood coats her inner thighs.

Her time has run out.

~~~~~~~~~

In that moment, he forgets his grief, father, brother—they are hollow things in the face of his fear. Aline. Aline is dying.

Staying here is killing her.

Renoir takes a step towards the window’s swirling surface. The dull haze covering his thoughts fades briefly. Neurons fire and reconnect. That place, that life, feels closer. Not another man’s, but his.

Renoir rounds on his wife, panicking, making him clumsy as he reaches for her. Aline dances back, white hair billowing behind her. She holds up one hand in warning. The avatar flicks its fingers, tainted chroma spreading across the battlements—a warning.

Renoir must drive her out. He must.

He closes his eyes and sees his wife bleeding out on the atelier floor.

“Child,” Etienne staggers to his feet. His wife’s attention flicks to the elder Dessendre. It takes every ounce of Renoir’s self-control to keep from lunging at her. “This is suicide.”

“I have no recourse, père; Renoir knows my terms. He has chosen to reject them.”

His father rounds on him. He realizes with a dull amusement that the Dessendre patriarch more closely resembles himself in this moment than any prior. Aline has fixed his work, has done it so simply. The other man's voice drops, bitingly cold. “What is worth their lives?”

Renoir barely knows. The fog remains; he is so far away, struggling to push back against that numb sensation. A hand settles between his shoulder blades. Lucian staggers to his side, blood trickling down the side of his face, staining his hair red. His brother regards the Paintress in naked confusion, gaze flicking to the mirror. His expression drops.

Aline means nothing to his sibling. The Painter follows his brother’s gaze. It settles heavily on Renoir’s body, worn thin by time, sallow and diminished. His clothes hang from his figure, hair long and matted. Half-dead, he thinks, grimly.

“Is this a trick?” Lucian asks. “This is my brother?” Aline nods. His kin scrubs a hand through his hair, extending the streaks of red. He looks half-mad, grinning. “Miserable looking creature, isn’t he?”

She speaks with a gentility Renoir barely recognizes, reserved for Clea. She handles his creation as she would their child. “He’s dying.”

“That does seem to be a recurring theme.” Lucian flashes him a smile full of too many teeth. “Papa has asked his question. Allow me to modify it: what in god’s name is worth your life?”

Anger simmers in his gut. “That is of no concern.”

“Oh, isn’t it, baby brother?” His expression curls in an answering fury. Lucian takes three quick steps towards Aline, stabbing a finger towards the atelier. “Madame, can you save him?”

“Renoir needs only leave the Canvas.”

“And will this satisfy Papa’s query? Will it save your life?” Aline nods again. Lucian shrugs. “All this carnage for a breathtakingly simple solution. Renoir, off with you.”

It is a purely logical solution. On some level, Renoir recognizes that. It is a question of time, he supposes. Centuries in this world versus decades in that other place. He wants it to feel real again, but there’s a catch in his mind. Paris is a distant dream.

Renoir shakes his head. He hears the obstinacy in his voice and loathes it. “I will not be driven from my own Canvas.”

“Then volunteer, stubborn bastard,” Lucian snaps.

He ignores the other man. Renoir flicks his hand, and the window to the atelier slams shut. He turns his full attention to Aline. “You are not allowed to die here.”

She laughs, the sound half-mad, tapering off into a groan. Aline clutches her belly. Her avatar shimmers above them, her focus lapsing as she weathers another stab of pain.

Renoir slips into the Curator’s form, grimly resigned. The stubborn creature will not leave. She has siphoned so much of the Canvas’ chroma, but some remains left to him. “If you will not save yourself, it falls to me. I sent you from this Canvas before. I will again.”

The Painter turns his attention to his remaining creations. They will not be enough, but the distraction may create a hole in her defenses.

Something strikes him upside the head hard enough to leave him reeling. Renoir staggers back.

His brother’s voice cuts through the ringing in his skull. “Putain, why, Renoir? What is the point?” And to Aline, “Madame, do what you must. Drag the fool home.”

His wife lifts her hand, glancing between the two elder Dessendre men. “It will unmake you.”

Renoir’s father nods. Lucian laughs.

He watches his kin begin to fade, a drift of swirling chroma and crimson petals. A grim voice, darkly pragmatic, whispers that this will be the turning point. If Aline consumes them, she will hold the majority of chroma within the Canvas. It will be near impossible to drive her out, to save her.

Renoir does the only thing he can think to do.

He erases what is left of his kin, grasping what little remains of their chroma. He calls what remains of his creations to his side and turns to face Aline.

~~~~~~~~~

The Renoir-fragment feels the shift. Her repainted hordes tear across the countryside, consuming. Aline lays claim to his master’s sire and brother. The fading man pauses in its efforts. The worst of the pain has passed. Aline’s chroma is sweeter, pooling around it, flowing through it. She holds dominion over the majority of the world’s resources. It cannot help but listen when she speaks.

Stop painting.

Does she want it to destroy the Canvas? It will.

No, Aline’s voice soothes it. Wait. Rest.

These are simple commands. It sets its brush aside and waits.

~~~~~~~~~

He cannot hope to equal her technique or power, but his wife is no fighter. She wields the brush of light like an oversized blade. Aline brings her weapon down in a sweeping arc, pure energy chasing the swing, erupting in solar light.

She moves like a dancer twirling silks. His wife floats, her movements fluid, spinning through the air in a manner both graceful and pleasing to observe, but largely impractical. She cannot overbalance, levitating as she is, but he watches as she swings her leg out to counteract her momentum.

Aline resets to a neutral position, brush held like a natural extension of her arm, palette raised. The material of her skirts, void energy flecked with silvery stars, billows behind her, a striking contrast to the stark white of her hair. She brings the brush up, holding it overhead—meteors flicker into existence.

Renoir counts. One…two…three…

The projectiles arc out, crashing into his creations. Something howls. The scent of burnt flesh hangs in the air. Renoir ignores it.

Four…five…

She drops her arm.

Aline leaves herself entirely exposed for more than five seconds. His wife is too reliant on raw strength, chasing after every stroke of the blade, driving her opponent back—she leaves her flank exposed more often than not, either unaware of the opening in her defenses or too overconfident to care.

Both, he thinks. Overwhelming force would be enough against her contemporaries—artists who knew no more about formal military tactics than she.

Renoir reaches for the chroma still available to him, warping it in much the same manner as Aline. Void-light manifests around him as well, not in the elegant semi-circle his wife favors, but seemingly at random. The Painter hurls one of the missiles towards her.

She feels the chroma coming before she sees it, bringing the palette to bear rather than her sword. The meteor sputters and fades in a wash of red petals.

He sends the rest of them winging in her direction, two arching high above her head, one curving far to the right to strike from behind.

Really, Renoir?

Aline raises her arm, catching each of the meteors without a hint of hesitation.

He surges forward.

Surprised, Aline turns towards him, blade still held above her head. Renoir makes no effort to summon his weapon. He lowers his shoulder instead, crashing directly into the Paintress. He feels the material of her skirts catch around him, the energy licking at the gaps in this body’s shell. The Dessendre patriarch fights the urge to jerk away. Whatever flows through them is a resonant force, unstable on its own and hungry for its complement.

Aline manages to get her feet under her before he drives them to the ground. He’s vaguely aware that she’s tossed her palette aside, left hand curling in the fabric of his cloak, giving one colossal yank and hurling him away from her.

Time feels as if it distorts around them, slowing to a crawl. Her wrist twitches, bent halfway to deliver a stroke before relaxing back to a neutral position. Aline’s posture tightens, grip shifting on the brush, holding it between them.

It looks defensive. Renoir wonders if it's been an effective trick in the past. The brush is too low. She is faster, far, far faster in this place, but the weapon is too large for her frame, too unwieldy for her to wheel about to block.

Renoir makes an idle gesture, shaping raw chroma into a weapon—not the rapier that she has watched him practice with—but a great sabre. He flicks raw energy from the blade.

Her voice resonates within his head. “Is this really what you want?”

“You cannot stay here, Aline. What other choice have you left me?”

He feints to her left. Rather than bring her weapon up to parry, she lifts her hand, open-palmed. Chroma surges around him, the earth seeming to grow liquid beneath his feet, dragging him down. Light hardens into ropes, catching around his arms and yanking him to his hands and knees.

She sounds amused. “Renoir, you are the superior duelist. I have no intention of meeting you on an even playing field.”

“Unsporting of you, chérie.” The bindings tighten, squeezing him and then relaxing. He imagines her hand curving delicately around his throat, tipping his chin up to meet her nonexistent eyes, and fights the absurd urge to groan.

“I am showing you as much leniency as the situation allows,” Aline says flatly. The air shifts around him, superheating, invisible hands pulling at the pieces of his shell. He feels a worrying give in the plate over his heart. “If I wanted you out of this Canvas, you couldn’t stop me.”

Renoir attempts to shake free. For a brief moment, her grip tightens. Then, it goes entirely slack, all her restraints falling away at once. Aline cocks her head to the side, ephemeral and lovely amidst the ruin of his world. He feels the force of her stare on him, tracking his movements as he prowls a slow semi-circle around her.

A coil of something wraps around his calf; it squeezes, gentle enough that he never breaks stride.

If I wanted you out, you couldn’t stop me.

He takes a testing swing, unsurprised when she bats it away, again with her hand. She dispels her blade entirely. Renoir shakes his head. “What do you have to gain from remaining, Aline? You’ve succeeded only in bringing death to the Canvas.”

“Better it than you.” She opens her mouth to speak, the words choked as Aline makes a miserable noise, the fingers of her free hand curling into a fist. She shifts her weight to her back foot to stabilize herself. A quick jab, and she leaps back.

“You are killing yourself,” he pleads. “You will kill our child.”

“Then save us both.” She snaps, staring across the chamber, painted in eternal twilight. “You cannot play the conflicted hero here, Renoir. Live with us or kill us—choose. ”

They continue this dance: he attacks, Aline bats him away. They are caught, he thinks. Renoir cannot, will not, allow her to stay and she will not let go.

There is an inane voice in the back of his mind, at war with his typical reason and control—the voice of an animal backed into a corner, lashing out in a last-ditch effort to break loose. If he can land a blow, stagger Aline, he can break free. He cannot defeat her, but he might outlast her. If he can get away, he can think; he can solve this. Perhaps there is still time.

As if to refute this prayer, Aline lets out another hiss of pain, arm folding across her belly. Her frame seems to flicker, losing some of its stability near the edges. The woman shakes her head in response to some internal question. Chroma surges around them. Renoir traces its current. Aline seems to thread it through the fabric of her soul, binding and holding herself to Canvas.

It is so easy to forget what they are to one another, lost in the rush of adrenaline and panic. His mind divorces the Paintress, alien and untouchable, from his wife entirely. It sees the opportunity and leaps for it without hesitation.

He summons the sabre again, falling back a pace before lunging forward, throwing the entirety of his speed and weight behind the swing.

Renoir stares, horrified, as the Paintress vanishes in a veil of white petals, leaving only Aline behind. His wife peers up at him, beautiful, gray-blue eyes contrasting with her dirt-smeared face. His mind screams for her to move, stop him—she can, he knows this, why hasn’t she stopped him?

A dull realization steals over him.

He is going to hit her. He is going to strike his wife.

He’s too close to cut his momentum properly. Renoir throws the entirety of his weight backwards, skidding across the uneven terrain, blade shimmering out of existence as he fights to get his arms down in time. The damned woman watches him bearing down on her with a grim disinterest, and he’s going to hit Aline.

Live with us or kill us—so simply put.

This body is larger than his own, broken as it is, and he leverages that, hooking his arms around Aline and pulling her to his chest. Renoir turns into the fall, absorbing the brunt of the impact as he curls around his wife. They bounce twice—he feels the effects of it reverberating through this shell, skidding to a stop. Everything around them quiets to a dull hum in the back of his awareness; he focuses on the feel of her weight sprawled across his chest, her breath on his throat, the sound of her heartbeat. He cards a hand over her back and shoulders, searching for breaks.

Renoir allows the Curator to slip away, resuming his form. Her hair spills across his throat and shoulders, some grotesque parody of fire or spilled blood. One of Aline’s hands fists in his shirt, her other arm curling behind his head, drawing him into a loose embrace.

He speaks softly, “No more. You’ve made your point.”

She turns her face into his chest. He’s forgotten what it’s like to hold her, how well she fits against him. Renoir clutches Aline.

He was going to strike her.

Aline touches his face. Tears cut jagged tracks through the dirt, leaving clean streaks of white. She kisses him with the desperation of a dying woman, clumsy and frenetic, breathing the words into his mouth. “Leave this Canvas. Come back to me.”

He inhales a shuddering breath, glancing around them—the ruins of his tomb.

She turns his face back towards her, tracing his nose with hers. “Don’t ask me to live in a world without you.”

Renoir nods. It’s not unlike waking from a dream—that sense of disorientation and wrongness. He turns his face into her hair. Aline seems to convulse in his arms, teeth bared, a soft cry escaping her.

Dying. Aline is dying.

He lifts her head, kissing both of her cheeks. “Go, love. I will follow.” She stares at him with miserable eyes. She’s stayed too long—he knows if he inspects her chroma, he will see it threatening to tear at the seams. “Trust me, please.”

Her tongue flicks out to wet the seam of her lips. She nods.

Renoir watches his wife fade, alone in the Canvas once more.

~~~~~~~~~

Trust him.

She wants to trust him. She has no other choice. Aline feels something in her beginning to tear—ripping between the Canvas and her corporeal form. It does not snap back immediately when she releases her grasp on the chroma, willing herself out of the Painted world. If there is lasting damage, she will contend with it. It will be worthwhile.

If he survives. If he keeps his word.

She allows herself to take a final steadying breath before returning to her body.

The pain is immediate.

And there is that feeling again—as if something in her has started to tear.

Aline screams.

Her brain refuses to accept any higher input—language and its comprehension fade to an afterthought. Sight reduces to blurry streaks of color for the few seconds she manages to open her eyes, but nothing more. She thinks she's been crying.

There are hands on her, holding her arms and legs. She thrashes against them, purely animal fear seizing her. Someone shouts. The hands tighten their grip in response, forcing her down, and her panic redoubles.

“Keep her still.” Someone snarls, and she will not recognize the answering terror in their voice until much later.

Someone dabs her forehead—Gabrielle, it must be Gabrielle, pale as death—and Aline realizes she is burning. Sweat beads on her throat and between her breasts. Every muscle in her body seizes, an impotent attempt to struggle free, rid itself of its parasite, stop, stop, stop hurting.

Someone cuts her—has been cutting her. The cold feeling on her belly is blood. The knife feels distant, but she feels it sink into the soft flesh of her stomach. That howling pain redoubles.

“Chloroform.”

They press a rag over her mouth and nose. “Breathe, Madame, breathe. It will be better soon.”

The physician shakes his head. “Far later than you’d like, my dear. Five minutes—you’ll have to suffer through. We waited too long already.”

Breathing through the rag feels like suffocating, something sweet filling her nose, at odds with the stink of blood. They are cutting again, but the sharpness has gone out of it. It isn’t the chloroform—it’s purely shock. Gabrielle continues to wipe the sweat from her brow.

She wants Renoir. She can’t scream for him; they’re still holding that rag over her face.

Another shock of pain, something tugging, something pulled free. Aline suffers a dull sense of loss. They’ve taken him from her. They’ve taken her boy. She wants to rage against this, thrash, fight—

They have taken her son and she will never see him, never hold him, never…

—but she’s fading. The pain or the chloroform. She’s fading.

The darkness takes her. It is mercifully silent.

~~~~~~~~~

The fragment waits, alone now in the dark.

Aline ordered it to stop painting. It is a fragment of him, and he has never been able to resist her. And so it waits, either for her or its Master, to decide the fate of the Canvas.

It feels the moment she fades, all her light chasing her into the Void, leaving only red in her wake.

Dumb and impotent, the Renoir-fragment grieves, adorning itself in deep blue and black. It paints these colors into the very fabric of its being, calls it memories, calls it her. And when Renoir returns and sets his world right, his creations fading, it will remember her.

It waits. It grieves. There is so little left of the Canvas—they have torn it away to nothing, oceans, forests, mountains—all gone.

Its Master comes to it not long after Aline departs. Deep bags rim his eyes, leaving him looking sallow and haunted—a reflection of the man outside of the Canvas, not the illusion within. Renoir smiles. To the fragment, the color of his smiles matches the color of his eyes—bright and blue, hopeful, if not unburdened.

The Painter closes the distance between them, searching its nonexistent face. He reaches out, adjusting the hang of the fragment’s vest. It watches him with new interest. Since the Canvas’ creation, it has watched the color fade from his soul and chroma, down and down until only gray remained. It tips its head to the side.

Color threads through his aura again. Loving red, loyal blue—there are colors for duty and hope, all faint, but all present.

Its Master eyes the portal a final time, its strange light sharpening the already gaunt angles of his face. Standing this close, the fragment feels an ache in its chest, a need to return, be made whole. Renoir clasps its shoulder.

“Forgive me. I asked too much of you.” It shrugs. His voice softens as he turns towards the entrance to the waking world. So much warmth, all his colors growing brighter. The Renoir-fragment feels peace wash over it as it takes his hand. “Come home. Your work is done.”

The Canvas collapses.

~~~~~~~~~

He's falling.

First out of the Canvas, then in reality. Renoir’s legs give way beneath his weight, every muscle stiff and aching from prolonged inactivity. He is dimly aware of the cotton feeling in his mouth, lips chapped to the point of being bloodied.

There’s a dull ache when he hits the ground—knee or hip, it’s a struggle to tell. All he knows is he feels truly weak for the first time in his life. Renoir manages to lift a hand, staring at the narrowness of his wrists and forearms. His clothes hang off him, excess fabric pooling as he turns onto his side.

He doesn’t hear her.

Panic claws its way into his heart. There are other voices—he recognizes their family’s physician and his mother—but no Aline. Groaning, he struggles to his feet.

The physician has draped a sheet over his wife’s pulled-up knees. Renoir sees what they have shielded from Aline. Blood coats her thighs and belly, a vertical incision stretching from below her navel to the pubic bone. Aline has gone deathly white aside from a feverish flush in her cheeks. His mother leans over her, stroking the hair from her damp forehead.

He moves towards them (someone grabs his arm).

“Aline…”

“Oh, delightful. You’ve decided to join us.” The physician shoots him an arch look. “If you value her life, sit quietly. Are you capable of that?”

His silence is answer enough. The doctor holds out his hand. The nurse places a fine silver thread in his palm.

“Pray that our friends in Germany and America have the right of it, monsieur.”

The minutes pass with arduous slowness. He cannot look away—his Aline cut open and bloodied.

Gabrielle squeezes his shoulder, shifting to make room for him at her side.

Renoir can only watch and wait, fighting the need to lapse into unconsciousness.

~~~~~~~~~

“Where is…”

It hurts to speak, his throat aching from disuse. The physician pauses, hands shaking as he attempts to put away his instruments. With the most immediate danger passed, his prior unearthly calm gives way.

“The baby?” He asks. Renoir nods. “The boy came too early. Too small.” His mouth ticks downwards, dark eyes dropping to a neutral point on the atelier floor. “Monsieur, you would do well to expect the worst—” gently, he adds. “—for both of them.”

“You said the bleeding had stopped.”

“That I can see. Madame Dessendre is still young and hale, but…” he trails off. “In a few days, if the sutures hold and there are no signs of infection, we can revisit the prognosis. Until that point?” He shrugs.

“Does my son live?”

The physician sighs, nodding. “He’s been sent to L'Hôpital Paris Maternité. Again, might I suggest a prayer? Dr. Tarnier’s hypothesis remains untested.”

Renoir inhales sharply, some of the weight sloughing off his shoulders. They both still live. The Dessendre patriarch sways on his feet. “You have the sincere gratitude of the Dessendre family, sir.”

The little man pushes his spectacles up the bridge of his nose, smiling. It is a flat expression, tinged with naked exhaustion and a touch of pity. “Keep your thanks until morning, at the very least, monsieur. I do not believe you are fully cognizant of how dire this situation was—for all of you.” He scans Renoir pointedly.

The Painter nods. “Duly noted.” He opens his mouth to speak, and the physician waves him off.

“If you intend to go on about my silence, save your voice and your energy. Madame Gabrielle reached me first.” He huffs. “Insulting as I find the insinuation, I accepted her generous offer. Paris will know only that Aline went into labor prematurely. None of—” he gestures at Renoir. “—this.”

The physician finishes collecting his tools. He speaks slowly. “If the boy survives the night, they may allow you to see him in the morning. If,” he stresses that word. “For tonight? Rest. Eat something. Hover over your lady wife, if you must. All we can do is wait.”

It comes back, as always, to the question of time.

~~~~~~~~~

Their son survives the first night.

And the next. And the next.

Renoir visits him every morning, dressed in heavy layers to disguise his diminished figure. He is such a little thing, dark fuzz already growing on his head. The child does nothing but sleep, nestled amongst other premature babes, warm air circulating around them. Renoir has never heard him cry. When he asks the nurse, she says nothing on the subject.

He visits the hospital each morning. Some part of him always expects the worst.

Day after day, the boy surprises him.

~~~~~~~~~

Aline survives the first night.

And the next.

She does not wake for more than a full day, and spends the better part of the next week lapsing in and out of consciousness. He notes no signs of fever. The nurses begrudgingly permit him to stay as they change her dressings. The incisions are red, yes, still inflamed, but the swelling has begun to drop. The wound weeps no more than one might expect so early in the healing process.

The pain is bad enough for the physician to administer a dose of morphine when she comes to. Aline sighs, eyes vacant, trailing her fingers along his wrist. The midwives have ceased in their attempts to drive him from her side, grumbling about matters of propriety and leaving the lady to her rest. Aline does not seem to mind, her breathing slow and regular as she listens to him read in the evening.

“You came back.”

Renoir pauses, marking his place in the book. A slow and lilting quality has stolen into Aline's voice. Genuine curiosity glitters in her eyes, sharper than the drugged quality would suggest. “You doubted?”

“Yes.” His heart sinks. Aline frowns, shaking her head. “No. You lied before. Not the last time.” She sighs, plucking at the sheets. “It's hard to focus.”

“But preferable to the pain, I hope?”

“Mm. I feel light.” His wife looks at him again, lips pursing. “Come here, Renoir.”

“I'm uncertain that would be wise.”

“I'm very certain I don't care. Come.”

Renoir chuckles. The bed in the master suite is more than large enough to accommodate them both without making contact. Aline pins him with a look of such withering disapproval when he settles on the opposite side of the mattress, that he nearly laughs. The man holds up his hands for peace, carefully edging nearer. He curves an arm over her ribs, supporting her as she leans back against his chest. Renoir rests his cheek on the crown of her head, breathing in the scent of her. She is blessedly solid, present, in his arms. “Morphine suits you.”

“I quite agree.”

“Though, I fear your nurses will crucify me for this.”

She smiles, eyes drifting shut. “If an old woman kills you after everything I've done, I will be very cross.”

“I'll keep that in mind.” Aline makes some humming noise of agreement, threading their fingers together. The woman traces invisible patterns along the inside of his palm, over his wrist, up his forearm. He attempts to keep track of the design for a time, divining if there is any meaning behind her strokes, before relaxing under her ministrations. It is touch for the sake of it, nothing more. “Chérie?”

She tips her head back to look at him. Renoir swallows, struck, all at once, by the need to touch her, protect her, love her. It threatens to suffocate him. Too pale, too thin, half-dead and he has never seen anything as beautiful. Aline smiles as if she's set eyes on something strange, but not strictly displeasing.

He hooks a finger beneath her chin, leaning down to press a chaste kiss to the corner of her mouth. Her expression softens.

“Thank you,” he murmurs.

Aline noses his cheek, sighing. Silence stretches between them long enough that he wonders if she hasn't fallen asleep. In a softer voice, she asks, “Renoir, our child—?”

“Our son lives.”

Aline turns her face into his shoulder, stifling a sob. “Thank god. Oh.” The unspoken relief hangs between them, mutual: she…no, they have not killed their child. He brushes fingers through her hair until she calms, waiting for her to speak. “Does he have a name?”

He does not tell her what the physician has said, not yet—that it is better to wait another few weeks and make certain the boy will live. In the morning, perhaps. But for now, he indulges the selfish urge to rest, to inhabit this blessedly bright moment.

“No. It felt presumptuous.”

She manages a jerky nod, her hands clenching in his shirt. He ignores the awkwardness of the angle, wrapping his arms around her upper shoulders. Aline swallows thickly, silent tears dampening his neck.

Renoir tells her what he can about their boy. For a moment, the tension bleeds away from him. The world feels right.

~~~~~~~~~

Three more weeks pass. The doctors allow him to hold his son. He is still small and delicate, but less achingly thin. The boy still cannot maintain the necessary core temperature to come home—that is still some time off, but he is stable.

Renoir allows himself to hope.

“Your mother sends her regards, child,” he murmurs, cradling the little bundle in the crook of his arm. His son opens his eyes blearily, staring past him. They are the same pale blue as his grandfather’s eyes and Renoir’s own. “And her apologies.”

He makes no noise in response. Renoir sets his free hand over the child’s chest, revelling in the steady rise and fall as he breathes.

“You have mine as well, should you like them.” The boy squirms in his swaddling, attempting to nuzzle closer to any available warmth. Renoir brings the child up, tucking him beneath his chin. The position has often soothed Clea during her fits. He folds a hand over the boy’s back.

The boy. He hates the callousness, the seeming disinterest, in the term.

Then name him, love. He’s as much yours as mine.

But that still felt wrong.

It’s ridiculous, he recognizes that, but he sketches their son for Aline. Something for her to connect with during her convalescence. She touches it with a nearly foreign reverence. Renoir clears his throat, rotating the charcoal between his thumb and forefinger. “You will forgive the crude quality, ma chérie—I am no realist.”

“Hush,” she chides. Aline swipes irritably at her eyes. “It’s beautiful. He is beautiful.”

“Beautiful and nameless.”

She chuckles, holding his sketch up for inspection. “Come, then. If you’ve done him any degree of justice, we can work from this—what suits him?”

Renoir strokes his son’s back, chuckling as the memory fades away. “Verso.” He holds the child out long enough to scan his little face and repeats the name—Verso Dessendre.

The doctors come to spirit Verso away before he grows too chill. The separation aches—he doubts that it will ever change throughout this process—but it feels good to have a name.

It feels definite, as if he is finally, truly, a part of their little family.

As if he is here to stay.

~~~~~~~~~

Time passes.

Aline remains bedbound, even as she continues to heal. She takes to sketching—by the end of that first month, she has filled sheaves of paper. She reads.

Renoir continues to visit their son. He sees to his rehabilitation. It is a slower process than he likes; his body is lankier than it has been since his early teens. But he improves. They all improve.

Life is never purely joyful—there is bitterness to go alongside the sweet.

The physician assures them Aline will make a full recovery. She’ll live with the scar, but little else in the form of lasting damage. He finishes gently palpating her belly. She still winces, but the pain is dull and entirely manageable. When she asks, quietly, almost hesitantly, if the surgery will impact future pregnancies, he nods his head.

“It would be unwise for you to conceive again, Madame.”

Aline frowns. “But not impossible?”

The older man sighs, taking her hand and squeezing it. “Not impossible, no. Only unlikely. And inadvisable. Were you to kindle, it would place you and the child at no small risk.”

She takes a steadying breath, painting on a smile. “I see.”

That evening, she begs Renoir to send for Clea.

Aline clings to their daughter like a lifeline, burying her face in the girl’s dark hair.

~~~~~~~~~

Overdramatic as it may sound, the day they bring Verso home feels like a turning point. It is the final page in an overly long and painful story and the start of something new. The boy squirms in his arms the entirety of the carriage ride home, still eerily quiet.

When he finally, finally, places their son in Aline’s arms, she laughs. It is a high, airy sound, exhaustion tinging her relief. His wife shakes her head, auburn hair spilling over her shoulders, longer than he’s ever seen her wear it. “There’s none of me in him at all.”

Renoir smiles. “The mouth, perhaps?”

She scoffs. “Perhaps.” Aline strokes his cheek. “You will still be my Verso. No matter how much you resemble your father.” Verso manages a small grunt. “There. You heard him agree.”

Renoir settles on the edge of the mattress, nodding with mock severity. “As you say, my love.” When he takes her face in his hands to kiss her, she meets him eagerly, sighing against his lips, curling a hand around his tie to keep him near. Renoir lingers, forehead pressed to hers, revelling in the simplicity of sharing air.

Some time later, he brings Clea to their bed to greet her brother.

She is as interested as a child her age can be—that is to say: very little. Clea watches him with a vague curiosity, touching his little hand. When it is clear that the baby does not do anything, she returns to her stuffed toys. His daughter tucks into his side, grumbling in clear disapproval when she cannot rest against Aline in turn. His wife lifts her arm, drawing the girl’s head to her breast.

It is a purely saccharine moment. Renoir commits every detail to memory. Their family is finally, finally whole and healthy. Alive.

He turns his face into Aline’s hair, exhaling a breath he can’t remember holding. Renoir reaches an arm across their daughter to clasp the hand Aline has folded over their son. He looks between their children, the same dark hair and pale eyes, and is struck by their beauty, by their luck—his luck.

Left to his own devices, he would have thrown this all away. The thought stabs at him, halfway maddening, and he clutches his family tighter. Clea glances up at her father, brow furrowed, before relaxing into the embrace.

“Renoir?” Aline ducks her head to look at him.

She makes for an odd savior—too small, too blunt, too exacting. Too stubborn by half, he thinks, not unkindly. His Aline: perfectly willing to drown to drag him back to the surface. Unwilling, or incapable, of existing in a world without him. It is, he thinks, a frightening and terrible love. Renoir smoothes a hand over Verso’s skull before clasping Aline’s wrist again.

“Stop staring,” she grumbles, nudging him with her shoulder.

“You make it difficult.”

Aline arches a brow. “Did you hit your head on the way back from the hospital, mon coeur?” She nestles against him more tightly, a hint of color in her cheeks. The Dessendre matriarch glances between their children, sighing. “Look at them, if anything.” She strokes Clea’s hair. It’s too warm, too safe, and their eldest fails to resist sleep’s allure. “They are so beautiful, Renoir.”

Their Clea. Their Verso.

She has given all of this—given them—back to him. Renoir will never forget it.

If it takes the remainder of this life together and the next, he will see her love and loyalty repaid. She deserves no less.

Chapter Text

It is a period of relative peace in Paris. The Franco-Prussian War fades further into the country’s collective consciousness, the process eased by revitalization projects, good food, good cheer, and a burgeoning artistic scene.

Painters in particular find themselves with no shortage of noble patrons. It’s a welcome change after the past decade, a call back to the Emperor’s grander days. The Salon still plays favorites with its displays, of course, but a larger stage allows for more actors. Renoir takes no small pleasure in observing this surge in fresh talent. He resolves to contact a small number of gentlemen, intent on asking after their brushwork and creative process.

The Council displays a handful of Aline’s pieces from the year prior during her convalescence. She’s too weak to attend, but Renoir takes her place, shaking hands and promising to pass along their well-wishes. It strikes him as strange, but not out of the ordinary. For as little as they appreciate Aline’s outspokenness, there has always been a begrudging acceptance of her talents. It does not occur to him that they may have an ulterior motive until much later.

For the Dessendre family, life borders on idyllic. Not perfect, of course. Those months after Verso’s birth are difficult. Their son seems allergic to sleeping for more than a handful of hours at a time, wailing in those rare moments he is not cradled against a parent’s chest. Renoir has vague memories of exhaustion during Clea’s earliest months, but the poor state of his and Aline’s bodies only compounds upon the matter. It’s melodramatic to say he wonders if they will survive the ordeal but.

Well, there are mornings, staring at his reflection in the vanity mirror, dark bags rimming his eyes, face sallow, where thinks it may not be far from the truth. Espresso no longer manages to touch the bone-deep weariness.

And there is the fact that they are not only adjusting to the addition of their son but making room for each other once again. Love eases the way, but there is a fundamental strangeness in throwing oneself from famine to feast. The first few weeks, Aline looks surprised every time she finds him waiting in bed. Not displeased, but certainly shocked.

By the time Verso can walk, life is comfortable. Aline turns her attention to restoring the grandeur of the manor's grounds, his grandmother’s passion project. The children join her during those halcyon summer months, tottering about and causing largely more harm than good. Clea displays a marked fondness for shoving her baby brother into whatever shrubbery is on hand. Aline’s threats to ground her fall on largely deaf ears.

Renoir doesn’t paint. Not for some time. When he finally returns to the Canvas, Aline goes with him, smiling in a manner that belies her underlying wariness.

“My jailor,” he teases, knowing it isn’t much of a joke at all. He has melted his wings once before; Aline will fly at his side until they are certain it will not happen again. His wife purses her lips, tipping her head to the side, auburn hair spilling across her shoulders.

“Parole,” she corrects. “It’s not my place to punish, mon cher. Only to reintegrate you.”

It is a form of punishment, after a fashion. Time abed, mental and physical exhaustion—they are both deeply diminished. Those initial forays back into the Canvas reflect that. They speak very little during those first trips—there’s a mutual understanding that it will only frustrate them, that they will fight. It feels as though he has somehow severed the muscles in his forearms and wrists; his hands refuse to react as he knows they should. Even Aline’s work has a harshness to it, a clumsiness, an insipidness, he can barely justify with the Paintress.

But it passes. Time passes.

She begins teaching Clea at three and Verso shortly thereafter. He cannot say how much they retain, but, in those earliest of days, both seem to enjoy her lessons. Renoir listens with no less interest.

It is a rare and wondrous thing to witness a soul that has found its true purpose in life, their genuine passion. Aline does not practice art so much as she breathes it, winds it into the fabric of her body and soul. Naked adoration shines across her beautiful face as she explains her process, Verso on her hip, Clea’s hand fisted in her skirts. Seeing his daughter’s pursed expression, Renoir gathers her in his arms, gratified by the way she immediately relaxes. She presses her palm flat against his cheek before letting it slip back to the curve of his shoulder.

Even at such a young age, the children react in markedly different fashions. Clea watches Aline's work, eyes wide and fascinated. Verso watches Aline. Clea wants so badly to learn. Verso longs to please, idly winding a lock of his mother’s hair around his chubby fist, offering an opinion only when directly solicited.

He wonders if Aline notices the distinction. If there is a downside to her passion, he supposes it is that selective blindness. Aline cannot fathom a world without her art. Why should her children feel any different?

Time passes. The world turns. Writers write. Painters paint. Paris thrives, but there is something ugly in the air, something poisonous stretching between the city’s creatives. It’s a low, cold burn, but fire all the same. Renoir hears it in the rhetoric espoused at high-society galas, between the artists at the Salon.

He loses track of the number of times the Painter’s Council finds its way to the Dessendre manor’s gates.

For the better part of five years, Aline turns them away. He never thinks to ask her why.

~~~~~~~~~

The state of Paris, the Painter’s Council, and all these interpersonal conflicts mean nothing to Verso. His concerns are simpler: it is summer. Summers in Paris are unlike any other.

Verso believes he can say this with some degree of certainty. He has spent the entirety of his life—five years, if one were feeling particular—in Paris. That makes him something of an expert. The boy turns his face into the warm breeze, inhaling deeply.

They have left the sweetness of the manor’s flowers behind them. Here, at the Gare de l'Est, there is smoke and steam, the steady roar of train engines, and the bustle of humanity. He finds himself craning his head, trying to take it all in at once: different languages, different faces, so many styles of dress; it leaves him dizzy.

As if sensing this, his father clasps his shoulder, squeezing. There is a grounding weight to the touch, warmth radiating from his papa’s skin. Verso feels the strength in those hands, long fingered and elegant, but it has always been a secondary awareness. His papa represents security and comfort before all else. Renoir offers him a conspiratory wink, pulling the boy against his side. Verso laughs.

Papa promises they will travel by train. Not just any train, either—the Orient Express. Verso has spent these past weeks diligently collecting whatever information he can on the locomotive, poring over newspaper clippings. He recognizes only a handful of the words and can only bribe Clea to read half a dozen more, but it is enough to tantalize. And there are pictures. He doesn't need his sister's help for those.

Fourteen hours riding the world’s finest, most luxurious train, no lessons, no painting. Even Vienna appeals. Maman has promised him a tour of the opera house and, while he is too young for the symphony, new sheet music. Other boys might consider it a poor gift; Verso does not. Sitting at his mother’s side, alternately watching her play or practicing his scales, is one of life’s finer pleasures.

Following family outings and trains.

As they approach the ticketing agent, Verso pauses to regard his family. He likes these moments, all four of them together. Maman tells him to paint them in his head, tucked away on his mental canvas, so he does. Clea holding maman's hand, expression curious but not cutting. Papa and maman with an arm slung around the other, moving in a way Verso adores. He cannot say why precisely, only that it is pleasant, comforting in the same way as when they embrace him. He supposes the answer is love. They move with an easy awareness of the other, fluid—a knowledge born of experience and mutual affection. He tries to capture that on his canvas, but he is very young, and the depth of the concept eludes him.

Verso adds himself last, tucked under papa's arm. The boy believes he has done quite well, especially when he is on holiday and not required to think of these things at all. Perhaps he will mention this to maman. With any luck, Clea will not have been so diligent.

Unlikely, but hope springs eternal.

Verso leans more of his weight into his father’s side. The boy regrets the decision almost immediately. Papa is warm, the day is warm, and maman has insisted they make themselves presentable. He tugs at the lapel of his jacket. Renoir chuckles, squeezing his shoulder. “A little longer, Verso, and you’ll be out of this sun.”

“Will I have to wear a coat the whole time, papa?”

“I expect your mother would prefer it.” Papa lowers his voice to a stage whisper. “Were you to remove it in your cabin? Maman would be none the wiser.”

“My cabin, papa?”

His pale eyes glitter with something Verso cannot place. Papa taps a finger to his lips.

Verso snickers, rocking back on his heels briefly. He has seen pictures of the cabins during his research—there are bunk beds. It sounds tremendous. Clea will take the top bunk, almost assuredly, but there’s a chance she will allow him to climb up. The Orient Express moves at incredible speeds; Verso wants to know precisely what will happen if he leaps from the top bunk while the cabin travels at such a velocity. The notion compels him.

They collect their tickets and board.

The interior of the locomotive is more grand than he could have imagined. Even the common areas are decadent. They stroll through not one but two dining cars and a small library. Far less interesting than the engine room, but he somehow doubts he will be allowed to visit that.

He slots into place beside Clea. Verso tugs on her hand, linking their fingers together.

His sister’s lips curl back in a sneer, preparing to pull away from him, before he shakes his head. The boy indicates their parents with a flick of his eyes. An entire conversation passes between them in the span of that one look.

They will behave. They will play nicely. And in return—

—Maman glances down at the space by her side, flexing her fingers and arching a brow when neither of her children rushes to take her hand. The woman turns, skirts fanning out, a hint of her perfume wafting towards them to contrast the lingering scent of smoke. Clea hugs his arm to her side at the last minute, painting on a more sedate expression as she pretends to stare back towards the platform. Maman inspects them.

The children have learned that she will not look too hard so long as what she finds is to her liking. Verso waves, painting on his most winning smile; she smiles back, winking. With that, she turns away. Maman quickens her pace until she can sidle up to papa, nudging him with her shoulder. The man shakes his head, chuckling, and slides an arm around her waist.

Good. That will buy them some freedom.

“What are you doing?” Clea whispers. With Clea, it’s always nearer to a hiss. Monoco had brought them a scrawny black kitten in the spring, thrashing even as the dog held it softly in its mouth. Clea reminds him of the kitten. She’s every bit as liable to bite. Or scratch.

“We should explore.”

“They’re showing us to our cabin, stupid.”

Verso pins her with a withering sigh. “After.” He squeezes her hand, doing his best to paint on his widest, most miserable eyes. “Please, Clea. I’ll never have this chance again.”

“It’s just a train, Verso.”

“It is the Orient Express. It’d be like. Like—” the boy stutters, searching for an appropriate comparison. You could not ride sculptures, nor were they half so grand. “ —if we could do something you really cared about, Clea. Oh, please. Madame Vachon won’t let me go alone.”

Clea purses her lips, chancing a look over her shoulder towards the woman in question. There have been a handful of nannies over the past year. He remembers one more clearly than the rest, a very pretty young woman with blond hair and bright eyes. Madame Vachon is not that young lady; she is old and heavyset, deep frown lines carved into her face like cracks in stone.

Their parents would never allow them to roam the train unaccompanied. Vachon might.

An uneasy truce exists between the woman and her charges. Vachon has raised six children of her own; all have moved through life with relative success. The boy does not understand that the word he is looking for is ‘perspective.’ Six children have given Vachon a perspective that the Dessendre parents lack.

“You could just take her with you.”

Verso whines, “You can’t sit in the cabin the entire trip. Even you’ll get bored with sketching by the time we reach Vienna!” Her expression suggests that she can, and with that timely little contribution on his part, she will. The group follows the attendant to another car. The man says something to papa that makes him laugh. Verso uses the sound as cover, nudging Clea in the ribs, hard. “I’ll get maman to give us some francs for sweets.”

She opens her mouth to answer, only for the attendant to interrupt. “Madame,” the man says, motioning to their nanny with a broad sweep of the arm. “Your cabin. And for the little mademoiselle and monsieur,” he indicates the little compartment just beside Vachon’s.

Nearly electric excitement courses through him. Clea manages to mutter her thanks, going to step past the man and dragging Verso with her. The boy shakes his arm free, glancing at the attendant and then back to his parents. Papa nods, offering him an encouraging smile.

The first question that tumbles out of his mouth is not any of the ones he hopes to ask. Can he see the engine room? What is the Orient’s exact top speed? Are there any sections of the train he must see? No. Instead, Verso finds himself asking. “Monsieur, will you help us convert the seat? I read there were sleeping berths and—”

The attendant laughs and motions for Verso to follow.

~~~~~~~~~

With their children safely tucked away in their cabin, the attendant leads the Dessendre patriarch and matriarch to their own accommodations. Aline chances a glance back over her shoulder. It’s only when Renoir’s hand slips up to cup the back of her neck, squeezing gently, that she relaxes. The nanny is with them. It is not as if they can abscond from the train.

She leans into her husband’s side. Despite the summer heat, his warmth and solidity are both welcome. For her part, Aline feels worn raw.

Not physically—truly, she feels far better now, years removed from Verso’s birth. Time spent in the garden, sparring with her husband, and accompanying her family as they tend the horses helps to improve her condition immeasurably. It’s a mental malaise, emotional exhaustion.

The Painter’s Council has not been subtle about its wishes. Each of her compatriots has been named a master painter over the course of these five years—it’s a curious change, considering how conservative they’ve been in the past. Aline observes the work of some of these newly appointed painters and cannot help but feel—disillusioned isn’t the word, but something like it.

“It’s reactionary,” Henri had groused one afternoon. It'd been a particularly hot and miserable day. Her friend had swiped a shock of reddish-brown hair from his forehead, glancing up towards the sky. Sweat beads across his face, fair skin already threatening to burn. Still, he doesn’t protest as Aline turns them down another side path through the hedge maze. “Too many damn writers in Paris these days. The Council thinks itself proactive.”

“By inducting underqualified artists?”

“I said proactive, not effective, my darling.” He purses his lips, fixating on a point far off on the horizon rather than looking at her. The note of hesitance plays poorly with his more dramatic nature. He turns her hand over, scratching a bit of dried paint out from beneath her nail. “On that note—”

“Henri.”

He shrugs, “The Council is convinced I am a gateway to your lovely family. They’ve sent me to hunt—apologies, to solicit you.” Aline tugs on his arm, urging them to move. For whatever reason, it is not a conversation she wants to have standing still. “I don’t suppose you’ll reconsider their offer? Join our ranks of underqualified and overpromoted artists?”

She huffs, “Darling, I am overqualified.”

“And so humble.”

She sends Henri away disappointed. The Council relents somewhat until May. Victor Hugo’s death and the subsequent parade through Paris seems to reawaken them to the writers’ influence on the City of Light. They redouble their efforts.

The letter should not surprise her. Her parents have never been subtle about their desires. It doesn’t make it any less galling.

Aline had clenched the piece of paper in her fist, storming into her husband’s study and thrusting it in front of him. She didn’t need to see it. The words are written across her mind’s canvas, a violent, angry red that she cannot seem to blot out.

The Dessendre family has its heir. The children are young, but with a nanny’s assistance, old enough to be self-sufficient.

Aline, understand that we speak from a place of affection. You fulfilled your half of the contract. The boy cannot fault you for seeking mastery. He certainly cannot expect you to play house forever.

“Playing house,” she snaps, arms folded across her chest as she paces the length of his study. Her fingers bite into the flesh of her biceps, digging with enough force that he fears she’ll have bruises come morning. Aline stops in front of his desk, lips curling back, twitching, as if she cannot decide whether to snarl or frown. “Suggesting that you would—what? Cage me? Force me to raise our children?”

She bares her teeth, heels clicking sharply on the tile as she rotates to begin the circuit again. Renoir sets his pen aside. The Dessendre patriarch leans back in his seat, folding his hands over his stomach.

“I considered it,” he says, watching her out of the corner of his eye. Aline stops, brow arching. There is something dangerous in the angle, something that so clearly says, ‘I am not in the mood, absurd man.’ He smiles, shrugging as he says, “Caging you—it would have necessitated clipping those wings of yours. Your feathers were far too lovely to maim.”

She heaves an exasperated sigh. “Renoir.”

“Ma merveille,” he responds, evenly. “If it distresses you—” He plucks the letter from the desk and drops it in the bin. “ —there. As if they never wrote.”

Aline stops herself, bringing a hand up to massage her temple. Her tongue flicks out briefly, wetting her lips.“They’ll have spread this ridiculous nonsense among the Painter’s Guild.”

“Does it matter?”

Aline barely stops herself from rounding on him and snapping. The snarling voice in her head does not care what they think of her—she’s had the entirety of her life to inure herself to their behavior. To see that lens turned on Renoir? The idea that they might slander him? She bites the inside of her cheek hard enough to taste blood.

Renoir crosses the room, setting his hands on her shoulders. He traces the line of her clavicle with his thumb, letting her settle under the weight of his touch. The part of her still thrumming with energy, hungry for a way to set this right, to shield him, considers stepping back. Aline takes a steadying breath, pressing her face into his chest. He folds his arms around her more securely.

Renoir rubs a hand up her back. “Should we respond?”

“They don’t deserve the satisfaction,” she grumbles, voice muffled by his shirt.

“Perhaps,” he agrees. Renoir drags his lips across her forehead. “Tell me what you want, love.”

Aline’s arms come around him, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. “Duel my father for slighting you. Baring that—” she tips her head back to look at him. This close, she sees the thin beginnings of wrinkles near the corner of his eyes. “—run away with me? Venice, Vienna, New Orleans? Anywhere besides Paris.”

And now, here they are. Running away to Vienna. The attendant dips into a low bow before ushering them into the grand suite. She is vaguely aware of the door latching shut once they’ve crossed the threshold.

Grand seems somehow lacking as a descriptor—it borders on gaudy, lacquered wood polished to a shine, inlaid with gold. The en-suite washroom is almost exclusively marble. Aline eyes the small seating area, positioned to more effectively admire the European countryside as it passes by, before flicking her attention to the bed. She lingers here, chewing the inside of her cheek.

Renoir’s hand curves over her hip as he steps into her, bending to nose the underside of her jaw. The smell of smoke from the station still lingers on his clothes, amalgamating with the particular scents of him—tobacco, bergamot, and a hint of floral notes. The latter is her addition. Marking him in such a way pleases her more than she cares to admit. And, really, who will begrudge her these little acts of possession?

No one, she thinks, shivering as she leans back into the warmth of his frame. His breath tickles, fanning down her throat and over her collarbones. Aline inclines her head in invitation. He sweeps her hair aside, smiling as he drags a kiss over her pulse. The scrape of Renoir's teeth makes her inhale sharply.

Too long. It’s been far too long. Between their children, the Council’s hounding, commissions, and Dessendre family business, it feels as though they had only a handful of stolen moments outside the Canvas these past months.

“Do you approve of my choice?” Renoir's voice rumbles through her, rough in a way that makes her instinctively press back against him. “A touch of green to remind you of your gardens.”

Yes, there is green, isn’t there? Accents on the walls, the sofa—

—and the duvet, a luxurious, lofty goose down; that is a particularly rich shade of green. She imagines it will look purely lovely draped across her love’s nude form.

“Aline?” He murmurs, nosing her ear. Her husband pulls the lobe gently between his teeth.

Aline finds it difficult to swallow, let alone think. He cups her cheek, turning her head to lead her in a lazy kiss. “You spoil me.”

“No more than you deserve, ma merveille.”

She sighs, hugging his arms more tightly around her. Outside, pedestrians continue to amble about the platform. Hundreds of families go about their lives, chatting with one another, scattering to the far corners of the earth. Before the train, there are thousands of kilometers of track, all with so much potential. Or at least that’s what their son would have her believe.

Aline turns in the circle of his arms, unbuttoning his vest and pushing it open. Her husband arches a brow at his, chuckling, seemingly puzzled until she nuzzles back into him, no longer separated by layers of fabric.

“How long until we reach Vienna?” She asks, sliding her hands over his sides to link at the small of his back.

“Mmm. You didn’t listen to our little conductor's sermon? Verso will be heartbroken.” He hunches to rest his chin on the top of her head. “Tomorrow morning. If nothing on the train is to your liking, we’ll take breakfast at the Café Central before making our way to the apartment.”

She somehow doubts the culinary experience will leave them wanting, however much the Café appeals. The woman listens to the steady humming of the train’s engine as it roars to life, its shrill whistle a final warning that it would soon lurch into motion. They’ll be on their way in a matter of minutes, Paris an increasingly distant memory.

Renoir tugs on her braid. “Champagne?”

She shakes her head, pressing up on her toes to kiss him. The woman scratches her nails through his hair, breathing the words against his lips. “Later.” More than anything, she wants the comfort of his touch, to lose herself in the feel of him.

Her husband nods, walking them back towards the bed.

The duvet is precisely as comfortable as she imagines. Aline sinks back into it with a sigh, holding out her hands to her husband. He lingers for a moment, staring at her with a look of such naked fondness that her heart aches. She crooks her fingers.

Renoir settles over her, making a soft noise of approval when she winds her arms around his back. Muscle flexes under her touch, bunching as he presses up on his elbows, brushing the hair away from her forehead before kissing her. Aline parts her lips at the press of his tongue, tasting espresso lingering and chocolate, subtly sweet. She reaches between them, fingers catching in the material of her skirt, bumping against Renoir’s hand as they ruck the material up over her hips. He strokes along the outside of her thigh, smiling against her lips. The act of him settling in the cradle of her thighs reminds her of coming home, a rightness that leaves her feeling heavy and aching in the best possible way.

A knock resounds through the suite. Renoir stiffens, turning towards the door.

She grasps his face, turning him back toward her. “Ignore it.”

He’s charmingly glassy-eyed, lips kiss-swollen. Renoir manages a quick, almost boyish, nod, turning his attention back to her. She just about manages to tamp down on her chuckle, the soft hair of his beard tickling her throat.

Their son’s voice resounds through the carriage, high and bright with the uninhibited joy of a child. He knocks again, the cadence uneven, bordering on singsong. “Maman, papa, you must come and see!”

She chews her lips, feeling the heat of the moment cooling. “They may go away…”

Renoir chuckles, nosing her cheek. “We cannot leave our children to roam the carriages like vagabonds.”

“They have a nanny.”

“As if that has stopped them from escaping before.” Renoir presses a final chaste kiss to the corner of her mouth before pulling back. Her husband offers his hand, pulling her to her feet. “Go on, open the door. He’s your Verso, remember?”

Aline snorts, swatting his hand away. “Cheeky.”

The Dessendre matriarch takes a moment to set herself to right, smoothing her hair and dress back into some semblance of order, before crossing to the door.

While she is not surprised the children have made their way to their suite, she is a touch shocked they’ve done it so quickly. Verso had been nothing short of delighted with his cabin. Aline unlatches the lock and ushers their little ones inside, smoothing a hand over their heads as they pass. Verso turns into the touch. Clea pretends to pull away.

The son bounds across the room, pressing his hands to the window to stare out at the passing cityscape. He turns to them with a broad smile, arms held wide, expression open and nakedly pleased. Aline thinks she will never tire of his joy—it is one of the most singularly beautiful things in the world. He is so blindingly bright.

“Papa, maman, your room is much grander. Can't we stay with you tonight?”

Aline kneels. Verso stares at her with his pale, lovely eyes, hair somehow already wild. She takes her son's face in her hands, stroking her thumb over his cheek. “My love, it pains me to deny you anything.”

Verso likely imagines she does not see the way his eyes flick to Clea, narrowing slightly. The corner of his mouth twitches up in a smirk that so clearly reads, ‘and you doubted.’

Aline kisses the tip of his nose. “But you absolutely may not.”

There’s a comical delay as he processes this rejection. “Maman!”

She stands, glancing over at her husband and daughter. Their expression is not so much similar as it is identical—a smirk, smug and all too satisfied. The boy prince’s sweetly sad eyes have failed him, and he will not have his damned way again.

“What was so impressive that you had to come and find us?”

“Nothing, maman,” Clea says, clearly pleased. Their daughter leans into Renoir’s side, glancing up when he sets a hand on her shoulder. “He said he’d get you to give him francs for sweets.”

The entirety of Verso’s expression darkens.

“Extortion, is it, Verso?” Her husband asks, voice grave. The boy stares at his father, finds no refuge, before looking to her for support.

Aline arches a brow. “Wouldn’t you prefer to have pocket money for Vienna?”

He has the decency to look somewhat abashed, digging his toe into the carpet. “Can I not have both, maman?”

“Greedy boy.”

“Not usually,” Verso pleads, throwing his arms around her waist. It is a motion so unsubtle that even Aline, typically willing to overlook these indiscretions in favor of enjoying his closeness, recognizes the blatant attempt at manipulation. “I was going to share, too—like you always say I should.”

She flicks him lightly between the eyes. “You’ll have your sweets with dinner, mon bijou.”

He sighs, forehead thunking against her stomach. “Will you at least come exploring? Clea says she’ll lock herself in the cabin. I’ll be all alone.”

The Paintress glances over at her husband. He shrugs. Aline sighs, squeezing their son’s shoulders. “Heaven forbid you are ever separated from us. Very well, Verso. Lead the way.”

Their boy looks so purely happy that she cannot regret the decision.

~~~~~~~~~

The Viennese architecture is a far cry from the Parisian ideal—it's all hard edges, modern to the point of brutalism. Not to Aline's taste at all. Clea, on the other hand? Their daughter stares in naked wonder, making idle gestures with her hands down by her waist. Aline feels a warm swell of pride—even without her tools on hand, Clea is determined to practice and learn.

She means to mention it, but Verso is chattering away at a speed that makes her question his need for oxygen.

Renoir clasps one large hand over the boy's mouth, indicating the building in front of them. If it bothers him, Verso shows no signs of it—his eyes twinkle merrily, even as he clasps his father's wrist in both hands. He proceeds to pull his knees up and hang from the elder Dessendre's forearm.

Vachon had warned them not to let the boy start his morning with so much sugar. Aline avoids making eye contact with the older woman.

“Here we are: your home for these next months.”

“Not a house, papa?” Clea asks. She touches his arm, gently, before proceeding to jab her brother's undefended ribs. Verso makes a muffled noise of protest.

“Would you have preferred one, ma petit?”

She seems to consider this. Clea looks around them, at the bustle of life just outside their windows. The shops and restaurants are only a stone's throw away. She shakes her head. “No. You made a good choice.”

“Verso, release your father,” Aline grumbles, moving to rest a hand on Clea's shoulder. The girl looks up at her with her lovely eyes, a touch grayer than her brother's. Unlike Verso, who is so much his father’s son that one really only noticed the differences upon close inspection; Clea is a fine mix of the pair of them. The jaw and nose are Renoir’s, the mouth and the shapes of her eyes belong to Aline. “Once we've settled in, we’ll go for a walk. There’s a sculpture your father thought you’d enjoy not far from here.”

They know their daughter well enough to know she will take little pleasure in immortalizations of Vienna’s more famous residents. The Plague Column, on the other hand, stands as both beautiful and surreal. Clea traces the uniqueness of its lines with her eyes, little mouth agape.

Aline begins to chide her husband—his knee has grown worse since his stint in the Canvas—but he waves her off. Renoir sets the girl on his shoulder to better observe the column. Cherubs peaked out of the billowy clouds, giving the impression of one living entity, one mass of flesh. Masterful, though Aline is uncertain whether she finds it particularly beautiful.

Clea has no such reservations. On the way back to the apartment, she chatters with nearly the same veracity as her little brother.

~~~~~~~~~

The first week, they spend doing nothing much of anything. They wander the city streets, ducking into shops or museums that might interest them. Verso acquires an impressive array of toy soldiers. Clea has her sketchpad.

All this to say, the time is not particularly memorable. Aline would not trade it for the world.

It’s a state of being fundamentally at odds with her nature. She is not the sort to stagnate, preferring work and the process of creation to relaxation on most days. The last time she allowed herself this level of indulgence might have been her honeymoon. Aline lingers in bed, listening to the sound of the city outside their window, staring up at the ceiling. Renoir slipped from her embrace some time ago. She strains her ears and manages to catch the occasional drift of conversation from the sitting area nearest the balcony. Clea responds, though Aline cannot make out the words.

She envies his ease with their children.

Aline climbs from the bed, gathering her nightgown and robe from the floor. She slips both on and goes to meet her family.

Her daughter has settled near the balcony entrance, a small table and chair moved to facilitate her work. She’s contorted herself at frankly worrisome angles, one leg pulled up, the other curled beneath her, as she hunches over her work, absently reaching for a piece of charcoal. Her brow pinches when she looks up, concentrating, lost in her own thoughts. The surety of her strokes says she’s in full-flow, entirely in her element. Aline leaves her to it.

Renoir has seated himself in one of the armchairs. She crosses to him instead, settling on the nearby sofa. He’s collected their mail. She’ll start the morning with a coffee, see to their correspondence, and then perhaps—

“It’s wrong, papa.”

Clea stalks over, journal in hand. Aline recognizes that scathing look; she’s worn it herself on too many occasions to count.

“What is, my love?”

Her daughter blinks, noticing her for the first time. A smear of charcoal stretches across the bridge of her nose and cheek, giving her the appearance of some wayward child. It suits her windblown hair. “All of it,” she grumbles. “All wrong. Can’t figure out how to fix it.”

“May I see?”

Clea settles wordlessly against her side, depositing the open journal in her lap. Aline hesitates before reaching up to stroke the girl's hair, careful to focus on her work and not her. Her eldest confounds her in a way Verso does not—she is simultaneously steel, unyielding and brutally strong, and brittle, as if she fears any prolonged observation will diminish her.

Aline eyes the sketch. Her lines remain unsteady; her perspective is skewed. But, as Renoir so often reminds her, Clea is only six. She cannot judge her so harshly, does not hold Verso to these same metrics. It is not better, or kinder, to say that she does these things only because Clea's work holds potential, but it is the truth. Their daughter has a natural eye for the arts, even if her skill has yet to match it. She is gifted, with both raw talent and drive, in a way Verso is not.

Aline reaches out, feathering the tip of her index finger over what is so clearly the Venetian city skyline. It is crude. It is beautiful. Clea glances up at her, expectant. Undoubtedly waiting for critique or suggestions. Beyond that, she can feel Renoir's eyes settle on her.

She clasps the back of Clea's head, drawing her in to kiss her forehead. “The skyline, non? I can see the steeple right—” she touches the little scribble. “—here. You're improving.” Renoir reaches for his espresso, taking a small sip to disguise clearing his throat. She corrects herself. “You've done so well. My diligent girl.”

Clea colors, looking down. “I wanted to draw the statues. They were too far away.”

“This was supposed to represent them?” She indicates a vague smudge, poorly defined, but quite effectively blocked in against the backing cityscape. Clea scowls, nodding. “Shall we visit them? Your statues? Would that help?”

A deep longing washes over her face. “Yes, maman.”

Aline glances over at her husband. He’s still watching her out of the corner of his eye, waiting for something. Inspiration strikes her. More gently, Aline says, “We could go just the pair of us, if you liked.” The entirety of the girl’s expression brightens. She nods. Aline cups a hand behind the back of her daughter’s neck, pulling her in for a kiss. “Go wash your face, and we’ll go. We’ll find something for breakfast on the way.”

Clea takes the time to put away her journal and pencils, fastidiously neat, before heading off to her room. It is another marked difference between their two children. The woman shakes her head.

Renoir returns to pretending to read the paper. “Well done.”

“Oh, don't chide me.”

He arches a brow, smirking. “Don't make it necessary. We are on holiday, Aline, all of us. Let them be. Praise them. A few weeks of sweetness will not undo your work.”

Some part of her wishes to protest this as unfair, but she knows it is not. Aline grumbles, crossing to settle across his lap, gratified when he sets the paper aside to loop his arms around her waist. Renoir offers his drink. She peers into the cup dubiously. Inky blackness peers back.

He leans his head against her shoulder. “Shall I send for a car?”

Aline considers this. She shakes her head. “We’re on holiday, as you so rightly said. We’ll walk.”

They spend the day roaming the city. Clea sketches her statues. Aline fights her every instinct, if only for the afternoon, offering suggestions only when solicited. Her daughter leans against her side, the pair sketching together beneath the shade of a tree in the afternoon.

She wishes things could always be so easy between them.

~~~~~~~~~

The Vienna Artists Society stands as a sister branch to the Parisian Painters' Guild, a unified group of painters, sculptors, and engineers. She knows a few of its members by reputation, if not personally. The few artists lingering at the Vienna Künstlerhaus are more than happy to show the family around the building, making introductions where possible.

The head of the Vienna guild is a short man, only slightly taller than Aline, dwarfed when he stands beside Renoir. He has an easy smile and a naturally open face, genial in a way that suggested an unfamiliarity with upper-class politics. A sculptor by trade, Pichler makes the time to show Clea around the gallery. The meeting ends with him extending an invitation to the family to visit his estate the following week.

“Not a true gala,” he promises. “A small get together for the city’s creatives. We would welcome your presence. The children, too, if you like.”

“Do you have children, monsieur?” Verso asks.

The man shakes his head. “No. But, I dare say you’ll find something to entertain you on the grounds.”

The admission kills what little remains of their son’s interest. Verso ambles off to find something new to distract him. Renoir sighs, apologizing for the boy.

They agree to attend (without the children).

What else do they accomplish in that first month? Very little. It’s a chance to breathe. Aline will not begrudge her family that.

In hindsight, she is more than grateful for these moments. There will be no shortage of hurt in the years to come.

Chapter Text

~~~~~~~~~

10

~~~~~~~~~

Clea lies awake in her bed, staring up at the ceiling.

Try as she might, she cannot get back to sleep. It’s the storm’s fault. Or Verso’s. The girl vacillates between who to blame. Rain hammers down on the balcony in thick sheets. Another sharp crack of thunder decides her—tonight, she’ll take pity on her baby brother. She turns onto her side, comes nose to nose with the boy in question, and turns over again. Pity doesn’t mean she wants to look at him.

She misses Paris. She misses the manor and being home. Paris rarely ever got so hot. Even if it did, something about the Dessendre family home ran much cooler. She could lie downstairs, stretched out on the marble tiles, and find some relief. The apartment affords no such luxury—they are stuck here on the third floor, all stale, stagnant air.

It’s too hot. Clea's nightdress sticks to her tacky skin. Her hair is damp. The sheets feel damp. Her already sour mood is only made worse with Verso’s monopolizing half the bed, feverish heat radiating off her brother’s body. The worst part is she can’t even kick him out. The dark frightens him. Storms frighten him. He’s a big stupid baby, but—well, he’d come to her with his huge teary eyes, thumb in his mouth. What was she supposed to do? Send him back to his room to cry? Papa and maman would never let her hear the end of it. She wants to scream.

As if in response to her temper, lightning flashes across the sky, thunder quick on its heels.

She screws her eyes shut.

Time passes. The storm quiets to a pleasant trickle of rain. Clea is no closer to sleeping.

She looks over at Verso, lips pursed. He continues to sleep, snuffling lightly, all her blankets clutched to his chest like a makeshift doll. The lines have smoothed away from his forehead, hair falling in lank, sweaty strands across his face. The whole situation is so very him. Verso breaks into her room. Verso wakes her. Verso slips off the sleep. Clea stares at the ceiling.

The girl climbs from the bed without jostling the mattress. He grumbles something before rolling over to sprawl across the spaces she’s vacated, burying the entirety of his face in her pillow. She suffers another stab of irritation. Clea shoves it down.

It’s not as if she’s going to sleep anyway.

The elder Dessendre moves to the door, slipping out without making a sound. The apartment is dead. Clea navigates by silvery moonlight, unsure where her feet will take her. Not her parents’ room—that will only be worse. Vachon can’t help. She isn’t hungry. The only thing she can think to do is wander, listening to the soft sound of the rain and her feet padding across the floor, passing dark room after dark room.

Clea turns the corner towards the central living area, brow furrowing. Flickering candlelight colors the night. She pauses, listening, but there’s no conversation, only the rain. The little girl continues forward, crossing her arms over her chest. If someone is awake, the worst they can do is send her back to bed.

Papa has settled in one corner of the sofa. He is a big man, and the girl is always amused at the different ways he tries to make himself look small, even when he’s alone. A snifter of cognac rests on the little end table. Papa turns a page in his book before reaching for it, taking a small sip. Clea lingers in the doorway, watching him.

He lifts his head to smile at her. Clea smiles back. It makes her heart hurt in the best way.

“Trouble sleeping?” The low rumble of his voice is so different compared to the thunder. She nods. Papa lips twitch up again. He closes his book, holding his arm out. “Come here, then, my little insomniac.”

“You won’t send me back to bed?”

He chuckles. Something in the sound feels heavy, sounds like Papa needs sleep. “Do you think it would help? Or would you go back to tossing and turning?” She doesn’t answer. Renoir nods. “I could use the company.”

The girl chuckles, padding across the room. “Are you lonely, papa?”

“It is a lonely time. Perhaps I am. Come and sit.”

The girl has been called obstinate in the past—frequently by maman—but she would sooner cut off her hands at the wrist than deny her Papa. Clea steps into his chest, grinning when the man’s arm folds around her, surrounding her with his vaguely spicy, gently floral scent. She tucks her face in the curve of his neck, snickering a little when the fine hairs of his beard tickle her cheek. Papa makes an exaggerated grunt of effort before pulling her to rest beside him on the sofa.

“Now what?”

He chuckles, passing a hand over her hair. “You sound like your brother. Is it not enough to sit together for a time? There is merit to silence.”

“I suppose.” Clea eyes him uncertainly, touching the spine of the book he’s been reading—La Divina Commedia. She drags her fingers over the text, reveling in the pleasant texture, as the hard leather contrasts with the smoothness of the depressed lettering. In many ways, the cover is a work of art.

Papa sets his much larger hand over hers, warm and callused, guiding her to open the book. There are pictures inside, too, beautiful, seemingly drawn in ink, wonderfully detailed. Clea glances up at him, wordlessly requesting permission. Papa nods. She traces the swirling lines reverently.

Clea thumbs through the novel, morbidly fascinated. The artist has done so much in greyscale. Horrible, monstrous creatures prowl across the pages, some devoid of all humanoid characteristics. Others, and it is these she gravitates to, seem to marry the human figure to the bestial—there are women with too-sharp features and feathered wings and bodies. Men and women protrude from trees and rock faces, miserable additions to the terrain. Macabre and beautiful.

“It’s a favorite of mine,” Papa murmurs, turning to another page. Clea marvels at the scope of the piece—there are no fewer than a hundred bodies, some emerging from the clouds, others plummeting towards the earth. At its center? A lone figure, radiant and lovely, devoid of the monstrousness that has characterized so many of the illustrations.

Clea leans her head back against his shoulder, settling in that crook between his chest and the back of the sofa. The heat radiating off him is different from the ambient summer air, more pleasant in a way the child struggles to quantify. She supposes it has something to do with safety, but it is too late and she is too young to linger on the concept. “Maman never shows us things like this.”

“Your mother has particular tastes—she is not averse, but they will never be the focal point of her lessons.” Papa’s pale eyes glitter in the lamplight. “It is one of our craft’s greatest beauties—we are free to love art equally and distinctly. Your mother’s preferences differ from my own. Your approach to painting will likewise deviate.” He kisses her forehead. “That is no negative, ma petit.”

Papa would say as much. His style confounds and fascinates Clea. She supposes he is also correct—Maman does approve of his technique, adores his pieces. The girl touches one of the illustrations a final time before sagging back against him. “It’s a good style.”

“Would you like to hear the story these pieces originate from?”

Clea shrugs. Papa pulls the blanket from the back of the couch, draping it over her before he turns back to the poem’s beginning. Clea closes her eyes, listening to the soothing timbre of his voice.

“Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark,” he begins, stroking fingers through her hair. “For the straightforward pathway had been lost—”

She listens, painting fantastical images across her mind’s canvas. Eventually, Papa’s voice lulls her to sleep.

~~~~~~~~~

Morning arrives all too soon, the air muggy with residual moisture.

Renoir scrubs a hand over his face. Not for the first time, he’s left to contend with the fact that he is not as young as he once was—his back and hips ache from spending the prior few hours curled with Clea on the sofa. The dull throbbing in his knee grows sharper when he moves to turn onto his side. He hisses in air, instinctively pulling the limb up to massage the aching tissue.

Someone touches his shoulders, pushing him back. A far smaller hand curves over his thigh, touch cool as it kneads the stiff tissue.

The mattress dips as Aline seats herself on the edge. Her hair remains damp from the bath, artificially darker as it hangs around her shoulders, wetting the robe’s collar. She smiles.

He’s missed seeing her smile so freely.

“You look well,” he says, voice still gravelly with sleep. Something in the sound must amuse her; Aline tosses her head, grey eyes soft in the morning light.

“Better than you,” she replies, without a hint of sourness. She stands long enough to pull the sheet away from his leg. Aline runs her thumbs along the mass of scar tissue, an ugly puckered thing that has long-since healed. His wife seems to consider her next course of action before bending to press her lips to the mark. She leans back and resumes her work, stripping the tissue up to the midthigh. It burns, leaves him wincing. Her thumb sinks deeper, down below the superficial tissue and into the muscle belly. “Honestly, Renoir, the things you put your body through.”

“If reading becomes too laborious a task, take it upon yourself to shuffle me off this mortal coil.”

Aline chuckles. “I’ll take this under consideration.” The woman pauses. “After the better part of a decade, I hope you realize you can wake me during those sleepless nights.”

“Aline,” he says, soothing. “What good would come from both of us being run ragged? This is nothing new.” The answer does little to placate her. Renoir reaches out to touch the curve of her arm. “And I was not alone. Clea joined me.”

Her expression softens. “That will explain why she was dead on her feet this morning.” Renoir winces as she works into a particularly stubborn knot. Blessedly, the thing gives way. All the tension seems to bleed out of the leg as the surrounding muscles relax, taking the worst of the pain with it. “She’s a touch young for Dante, Renoir—though I will admit, it seems to her taste.”

“You saw the book, then?”

She hums in acknowledgement. “It’s beautiful. How far did you get?”

“Not far. Not to Beatrice, certainly.” Renoir reaches out to trace the bones in her wrist, turning her palm over. Unmarred flesh stares back at him, a far cry from the mated scars they wear across their palms while walking within the Canvas.

“My countenance sustained him for a while,” she recites, one corner of her mouth curving upwards. “What is the rest? He took himself away from me and followed after another.”

“There is more to it, though I suppose that is the crux. He was certainly flawed.”

“Aren’t we all?” Aline squeezes his thigh. She pulls the sheet back over him. “Better?”

Renoir nods, shifting to sit up against the headboard. Perhaps the most surreal part of this trip, the aspect he has yet to adjust to after just over a month, is the lack of responsibility. Oh, there are correspondences he will have to keep, of course, calls he will have to field. Little things in the grand scheme. His days feel largely empty, quite similar to the earliest stretches of youth. Before war, before marriage, or children, or—well, life.

The Dessendre patriarch stretches, easing his legs over the side of the bed. When it is clear the muscle will not cramp, he climbs to his feet, reaching for his robe.

Renoir listens for sounds of Clea and Verso; only a semi-surreal silence greets him. “The children—?”

“Vachon took them to the park.” Aline says by way of explanation, seating herself at her vanity. She plucks a hairbrush from its surface, glancing at him as she drags it through her hair. There’s something blissfully mundane in the image, something that compels his artistic sensibilities. He struck all at one by the need to paint her, to capture the way the morning light catches her profile, the way her nightdress drapes around her figure. “Verso wished to play swords.”

“Clea agreed to this?”

“Oh, not happily.” Aline rests her chin in the palm of her hand. “But I am not above bribery.”

Renoir huffs out a laugh, “You’ll teach our children all the wrong lessons, ma cher.”

“Would you prefer to answer our correspondence with the children tearing through the apartment?”

He has no counterargument to that point. Renoir bows his head in concession, moving through the central living area. It is primarily unchanged from the night prior, though the blanket has since been folded. The copy of La Divina Commedia has been relocated from the low coffee table to a much safer height, well above Verso’s reach. A preventive measure—while their son lacked much, if anything, in the way of malicious intent, he was equal parts too curious, too quick, and too clumsy for his own good, hands never properly clean.

By the time he returns from fetching the mail, Aline has settled at the table, pen readied. A steaming cup of tea sits in front of her, its scent more delicate than the more acerbic coffee she’s prepared for him. He settles in the seat beside hers.

As with painting, there is a degree of comfort in working at his wife’s side. For the most part, answering their correspondence is a singular task—the Painters defer to her, the Dessendre partners come to him. A letter from Gabrielle assures him all remains well at the manor (though Monoco misses them terribly). Aline eyes the letter from her parents with markedly more caution, tossing it to the center of the table for later. He smirks at this, bringing her left hand to his lips.

He is halfway through penning a response to one of their suppliers in London when Aline finally picks it up again. Her brow furrows, lips pinching to a thin line. Eventually, she turns the paper facedown and leans back in her seat.

“What future are you neglecting today, ma cher?” Renoir asks, not looking up from his work.

“Mm, only familial duty.” Aline pours herself another cup of tea, staring into the steaming liquid with a pensive expression sketched across her face.

“An improvement.”

She makes a noncommittal noise in response.

Renoir sets the pen aside, regarding his wife more carefully. In truth, he cannot say he understands her reservations. He does not, will never, doubt her affection for him, but recognizes their love as a fortuitous byproduct of their union, not the marriage's impetus. Renoir had wished to paint. Aline had required the political backing of a younger, more illustrious family to progress within the Painters’ ranks.

She has never been shy about her ambitions. Renoir has been clear in his support.

He reaches out to trace the curve of her wrist, setting his palm face up besides her on the table in wordless invitation. Aline takes it without hesitation, squeezing once before she reaches for another letter with her opposite hand.

“Would you indulge your husband for a moment?”

“Mm. Perhaps even multiple moments, should he prove compelling.” Aline eyes him. “Go on. Ask your questions, Renoir.”

There is a slightly acidic underpinning to her tone that he’s learned to recognize over the years. He’s reminded, and knows she would loathe the comparison, of Monoco—not yet pushed to growling, only curling his lips back as a precursor. Carefully, he begins with, “Once you took the Dessendre family name, the Painters would have designated you a master without a word of protest.”

“Teaching you to Paint was my priority.”

“And for that, you have my gratitude.” Renoir says, voice soothing. “You made the sacrifice again for our children. I will admit, I do not know the specifics of what the rank entails, but—” he hesitates, glancing down. When he looks up again, his wife’s expression has softened.

“Renoir,” she murmurs, sighing. She cups his cheek, scratching her nails gently through his beard. “Mon cher, it is something I desire. But not now. Not yet.” Aline purses her lips, continuing in a more measured voice, as if still struggling to understand, or perhaps give voice, to the words. “My uncle was named a master painter, even if my father was not. It is—” she frowns, chewing her lower lip. “—as with all aristocracy, a trade. They will own me. Then, you. After that, Clea.” She makes an on-and-on gesture with her hand. After Clea, Verso. “For the first time in my life, I belong only to you and our children.”

“It won’t last,” she continues, leaning against his side. He strokes the back of her hand, up along her forearm to the curve of her elbow. “But I am enjoying this brief interlude.”

“That is all that matters.” Renoir turns his noise into her hair, voice soft. “What the Council wants, what your family wants, means nothing to me. If this is something you desire—as it was before our marriage —I will do everything in my and the Dessendre family’s power to make it so.”

She says nothing. Aline hugs his arms around her. The pair sit in silence for a little while longer before returning to their work.

~~~~~~~~~

Even without the promise of a reward for indulging Verso, Clea has to admit it is a charming evening. Her baby brother tires of playing swords less than an hour into their outing. She doesn’t bother hiding her smirk—it’s all gone precisely as she expected.

Once Verso made up his mind about something, it was impossible to change it. It’s a familial trait—they are all stiff-necked and stubborn—but with Verso, it is worse.

With her baby brother, always so hell-bent on pleasing others, his bull-headedness stood out more starkly. Clea has learned it’s best to indulge him. Usually, his attention was liable to shift. A new activity would call to him, and off he’d go.

Now, he walks the length of the pond, pants caked with mud almost to the knee. A handful of flowers protrude from his breast pocket, the leaves mangled beyond telling—gifts for maman, he said, voice grave. When Clea pointed out that he had more than enough flowers already, he waved Clea off and returned to his pacing.

The point being, it is a perfectly serviceable afternoon, even if a little dull.

Clea stretches, climbing to her feet. She feels the warmth of the sun on her skin. The rest of the world feels further away, less real, as she rotates fantastical images across the Canvas in her mind. The space is full of beasts from Dante's fantastical tales, or creatures inspired by them. She takes note of changes she would make to the designs, based purely on instinct rather than any true philosophy, entertaining herself by mocking up beasts of her own creation. Clea glances towards her sketchbook, left forgotten beside Vachon, and shakes her head.

No. There will be time to work later. For right now, all Clea wants is to run, move, feel the wind tugging in her hair. She dips her head in a wordless salute to their nanny before moving after Verso.

Her brother pauses at her approach, hand still extended towards some weed or other. Verso's eyes narrow. He stands back up sharply, stepping away from the pond’s edge.

“Oh, don’t be a baby, Verso. Don’t you trust me?”

Verso scowls at her, jutting out his chin. “Sometimes. Not now. You have that—” he makes a vague gesture towards her. “—Look in your eyes.”

She wants to tease him, saying it’s just a flicker of intelligence. Of course, he doesn’t recognize it. Only the sunlight has done wonders for her mood. Clea shrugs, stuffing her hand in her skirt pockets. The elder child makes sure she remains out of arm’s reach as she moves towards the pond. “Still picking flowers?”

He sighs. “Papa always brings bouquets home. He makes it seem easy.”

“Papa buys the bouquets, stupid. You could buy one.”

Her baby brother’s expression takes on a mournful quality. Verso reaches up to brush a dark curl of hair from his forehead, succeeding only in smearing a generous helping of dirt across his sweaty skin. “But, Clea—”

“Maman isn’t worth your pocket change?”

His pale eyes, brighter than Clea’s own, look purely miserable. “You’re mean. And for no reason.” The boy leans out again, managing to catch the bloom. The victory is short-lived—his right foot slips in the mud, leaving him to windmill his free arm to maintain equilibrium. Clea grabs him by the elbow to haul him back to safety. He exhales a shuddering breath, adding the flower to his collection instead of looking at it. “It's not as if you're in a rush to find anything for Papa.”

“He can buy adult things, not the refuse we can afford.”

“It's the thought that counts.”

She rolls her eyes, shoving his shoulder. Verso grunts in response, falling back with the motion. For as clumsy a galoot as he sometimes came across, he possesses a healthy portion of their maman's grace. Verso rolls his weight onto the heel of his foot, seeming to flow through the movement to displace the excess energy. He grins.

The boy lunges forward, catches a handful of her hair, yanking before she has time to process the maneuver. Clea snarls, hooking her fingers and lashing out to snatch handfuls of his vest. He's too fast, too agile, and she's left overbalanced, staggering forward as Verso dances away, snickering.

“Verso!” She bares her teeth, tearing after him. The year between them isn’t much, but she’s still a good deal taller. That she cannot seem to catch him, that he consistently outpaces her, is a constant sore point. Verso knows it, too. He courts disaster, lingering closer to her than necessary to give the illusion of chance, before darting away again, beaming. Clea nearly manages to catch the tail of his jacket, and then the boy twists his body at the waist, kicking off with his right foot in a semi-hopping motion.

She is not so lucky; Clea feels herself begin to fall.

Verso catches her wrist, giving one colossal yank to pull her toward him. She crashes into her brother. Clea slams her elbow square into his chest, listening to his sharp ‘oof’ of discomfort as she drives the air from his lungs.

“Clea, I was helping.”

“I wouldn’t have fallen in the first place if you hadn’t—”

Vachon’s shadow falls over them.

Asked to explain the sudden and stark change in tone coloring their interactions, Clea would only shrug. The truth is, Verso has always been there, a part of her life for as long as she can remember living. Their little oddities feel similarly natural. Have they been squabbling? Yes. Would she just have happily dragged her brother out into the pond to drown him? Yes.

An adult’s intercession changed all of that. Verso glances at her, rolls his eyes, and then squeezes her hand. Truce, it says. She squeezes back.

“All the good breeding in the world and look at the pair of you,” Vachon grumbles, reaching out to scrub her thumb across Verso’s cheek. The boy pulls a face, but knows better than to resist. “We’ll have to smuggle you back into the apartment at this rate.”

“It’s only a little mud.”

“Only.” She shakes her head, motioning back towards the apartment. “Come along, then. You’ve had enough air for now.”

In a rare fit of deference, neither argues this point. Verso stares mournfully at his pitiful little bouquet, only to shrug.

On the way back, they stroll through an assembly of street vendors. Everything is fine until Verso’s eyes flit over a man sitting cross-legged, a small collection of wooden animals set out in front of him on a tarp.

Her brother stops to regard the man, pale eyes wide and fascinated. After hours of movement, it’s fundamentally strange to watch Verso go completely still, expression reverent. He reaches out before he manages to catch himself, fingers almost brushing the ashwood carving. Clea is not yet old enough to recognize the enormity of the work. She does notice the beauty and skill. The detail on the horse's mane and bridle catches her eye.

“Ah, you are a man of taste, I see,” the man says, setting his knife aside. He scrubs his hands down the front of his trousers to clear away any residual dust before offering his hand to Verso. Her baby brother takes it eagerly.

“The horse is beautiful, monsieur.”

“Do you think so? That is gratifying to hear. I know it is my favorite, but it is hard to say if the world will think the same.” He pats Verso’s hand a final time before releasing it. The man pulls his cap off, wiping the sweat from his brow. A mop of blond curls hangs limply around his face, contrasting the lively quality of his green eyes.

“How much?”

“How much?” The man repeats. He smiles. It is an easy smile, almost lazy. Inexplicably, Clea feels the need to pull Verso away, to insist they take their leave. “Do you know, I’ve never considered it. Wood carving is a hobby of mine, not my trade—a labor of love. I wouldn't dream of charging for this piece.”

Verso's expression falls. “Then it is not for sale?”

“No, my boy. It is a gift.”

Her brother brightens. “Thank you. Oh!”

Vachon steps forward. “They are not paupers, monsieur. Tell him the cost. Take your payment, and we will be off.”

“The boy’s happiness is enough, madame.” The man stands. “Only, let me sign it first. Perhaps if something does come of my abilities later in life, this will be a collector’s piece. Is that acceptable—”

“Verso,” her idiot sibling offers. “Dessendre.”

“An important-sounding name.” The woodworker pulls a delicate pen chisel from his pocket and sets to work. He carves something far longer than his name before handing the horse over. “There. A piece just for you, Verso Dessendre.”

Clea leans over her brother’s shoulder to inspect the carving. She does not recognize the language. By the time they’ve finally climbed the apartment stairs, she’s forgotten about the silly horse entirely.

~~~~~~~~~

Pichler has come into his wealth via marriage. The head of the Viennese council makes no secret of this—the sprawling grounds belong entirely to his wife and her family.

“In many ways, I am as much a stranger as you,” he says, jovial, nudging Renoir with his shoulder. The vast disparity in the two men's height leaves Aline chuckling. “A word of warning—not everyone will make you feel welcome tonight.”

Renoir arches a brow. “Oh?”

“While we admire all that Paris—and France at large—has done for the arts, it is difficult to deny that matters have been—” Pichler frowned, pursing already thin lips to a nearly nonexistent line. “—strained between certain branches. It has left a poor taste in certain mouths.”

“Has it?” Aline clenches her jaw until it aches. “And you, monsieur? Sculptors and Painters have always stood side-by-side. Have the Writers made such a fine offer that you would neglect that bond?”

“Peace, madame. At the end of the day, we are all creatives. Some believe we are stronger together than apart.” Pichler pauses, folding his hands at the small of his back. He looks oddly severe. “I cannot, and will not, ask you to befriend any Writers present tonight.” He holds up a hand before Aline can protest their involvement at all. “Only that you remain civil with one another. I have made the same point clear to them.”

Renoir’s arm folds around her shoulders. She glances up to inspect her husband’s face. After so many years together, he should be easier to read. All she finds is the familiar cold civility he so often wears at these engagements. “You have our word, Monsieur.”

The other man visibly relaxes, reaching out to clasp Renoir’s forearm. “Most honorable Dessendres, you have made my life vastly simpler. My thanks.”

The party begins in the garden rather than the manor proper. It is a fantastical collection of pieces. Some are undoubtedly Pilcher’s design—great statues that flank the entrances to the gardens and the stairs towards the house. Someone is playing music. A piano concerto that she doesn’t recognize but really is quite good. Well over a dozen easels dot the grounds, set with canvases of various sizes—all beautiful, all stagnant.

The living works of art, she recognizes, will be inside.

Aline spends the carriage ride warning Renoir about these things. Her family had largely fallen out of favor with Paris’ current nobility, but an old name still mattered amongst the Painters guild. They had rarely been excluded from these affairs.

He'd squeezed her forearm. “I am familiar with the aristocracy, ma cher.”

More familiar than she could ever dream of being, and she could admit that freely. She’d taken Renoir's hand. “Renoir, it’s—well, perhaps redundant to ask you to be cautious, but…be cautious?

These events had a way of spiraling. The last soiree had twenty unique Canvases, each with its own theme—Canvases for pleasure, for drink, for smoke, for pain. Moderation had no place in such affairs. The gods of Olympus had no use for such things.

They stop to admire a few of the paintings—Renoir is quite taken with a surrealist piece, before heading inside. A voice stops them.

Aline cannot say she recognizes it, but the accent is quite plainly French. Her husband glances towards the source of the disturbance, brow furrowed. A gentleman of their age angles towards them, hair a mess of blond curls, a particularly striking and tall woman on his arm. The stranger holds his hand up in greeting, grinning. “You are the Dessendres, are you not? Pilcher warned me you might be skulking about.”

“Warned you?” Renoir asks.

He shrugs as if to say, ‘Some liberties have been taken, perhaps.’ “You cannot be so dour, brother—not in a sea of Austrians. Strolling, wandering—do these words appeal to your finer sensibilities? They are certainly less evocative.”

Aline eyes him. “Do we know you, monsieur?”

“Of me, perhaps. As I know of you, madame. It may be enough to say that I am the Writer that our friend Pilcher has no doubt warned you about.”

Renoir’s fingers press into her bicep. It’s difficult to tell if it is a warning to remain civil or distance herself from the situation. Aline chews the inside of her cheek. “Is there a reason you’ve approached us?”

“Curiosity? Come, Madame. This is Vienna, no? Why should we be bound by Parisian sensibilities? Parisian grudges?” He flashes her a bright smile. The evening sun catches in his green eyes in a way that strikes her as both pretty and disconcerting, lending him an almost fae air. “Tonight, let us meet as complete strangers.”

“And tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow is tomorrow's problem.” The writer holds out his hand, dipping into the start of a bow.

There are more than a dozen sets of eyes on them. It is not a figment of her imagination—the air grows thicker, charged, as the other guests wait to see which one of the Parisians will act first. No, that is not strictly correct. They want to know which fool will break.

Aline sets her hand in his, stepping nearer when his other moves to grasp the curve of her arm. “We both dabble in fiction. We can manage one night of civility.”

“I will think less of us otherwise,” he says, chuckling. “To you, tonight, I am Emilien.”

She raises her hand in invitation. “Aline. For tonight? A pleasure.”

Emilien kisses her knuckles, bowing low. “Look at us—Paris would benefit from our example.” He does not relinquish her hand, glancing towards the main house. In profile, she’s struck by the delicacy of his features, a curl of pale hair falling across his forehead. Emilien flashes her a conspiratory smile, stepping nearer, until they are standing flush, side-to-side. Renoir shifts her away. “Might I entice you to enter an accord with me, Madame Dessendre?”

They are still being watched. “Go on.”

He glances up at Renoir, back at his own partner. “A trade? Something precious for something precious? Allow me to see you inside. As a show of good faith, I will entrust my wife to your husband’s keeping.” Emilien lowers his voice. “They may play civil, but these Austrians wait for us to tear each other apart. I would take savage pleasure in denying them. Wouldn’t you?”

Despite herself, Aline laughs. When the Writer offers his arm, she takes it.

~~~~~~~~~

It takes a moment for the surrealness of the situation to wash over her.

The music from outside drifts through the double doors, but the interior atmosphere remains more sedate. The central hall glitters, lit by a handful of glittery crystal chandeliers. Conversation remains present, but held in hushed tones, pockets of creatives circling the outer perimeter of the hall. The Canvases are the most impressive draw. Dozens of partygoers stand unmoving in front of them, eyes swirling with chroma. There are sitting areas with open books where Writers congregate to dip into their Manuscripts.

The crier announces their entrance. “Emilien de Bordeaux and Aline Dessendre. Renoir Dessendre and Joséphine de Bordeaux.”

A few heads raise at the mixed pairing, but no one comments. Aline barely notices. The Writer drops his voice low enough that she has to focus to make out the words over the ambient noise. “Have you ever walked within a Manuscript, madame?”

She flicks a glance over her shoulder. Renoir's countenance remains easy enough—if nothing else, it relaxes her. Aline shakes her head. “No more than you have entered a Canvas, I expect.”

“It seems an oversight, don't you think?”

Aline smirks. “Shall we learn from one another, Emilien? Trade secrets like schoolgirls/p>

“And use our ill-gotten knowledge to butcher the other's compatriots. A foolproof scheme.”

“You jump to violence so quickly.”

“Violence makes for an uglier painting, but a more interesting story." The man pats her hand. “I fear I am conditioned for it.”

“How tragic.” Aline holds her free arm out for Renoir, pleased when he resumes his place at her side. She extricates herself from the Writer’s grasp, melting into her beloved’s hold. “I am certain you will find no shortage of Painters willing to escort you into their Canvas tonight.”

“Perhaps. But we have already entered an accord, noble Dessendre. What use do I have for others of your ilk?”

Renoir intercedes with the practiced ease and smoothness of a noble’s son. He takes the other lady’s hand, bowing low over it. “It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, madame. May your evening be as pleasant as you’ve hoped.”

Color flares in the woman’s cheeks. She grins broadly. “You are generous, Monsieur Dessendre. I hold out the same hope for you.”

Emilien cannot rightly stop them from leaving. The man holds up his hands in wordless surrender, shrugging and turning his attention elsewhere. Renoir’s fingers track down the length of her spine, pressing at the small of her back. It is a gentle enough touch, a hint of warmth, a weight that assures her that he is present. She smiles, tipping her head against his shoulder, reaching out to absently straighten his tie.

“A curious gentleman,” he says, voice a low rumble.

She chuckles, reaching up to cup the back of his skull. Her husband bows his head as she presses nearer, speaking against the shell of his ear. “The word you’re looking for is ‘fop,’ mon amour. The Writer is a fop.”

“I’m certain he’d ache at hearing you say that.” Renoir’s pale eyes glitter with something she cannot place. “That fop was desperate for your attention.”

She steps back, drumming her fingers against his chest. He catches her hand, bringing it to his lips. Aline suffers a momentary surge of inner irritation, feeling herself color. After nearly a decade, it is patently absurd that he should have such a continued effect on her. “He’d have more success catching a cloud. Honestly, Renoir, look at you.”

Her love chuckles, winding an arm around her waist. Whatever grim pall has settled over him slips away. One of the staff members circles by to offer champagne. They share a brief toast before turning themselves over to the spirit of the evening.

~~~~~~~~~

What is there to say about these evenings?

They are creatives, all, and with that came a degree of hedonism, she supposes, manifested in a love of beauty and raw creation. They pause in front of a Canvas, staring into its depths to see a beautiful grove, the righteous copse of trees growing around a series of waterfalls, flowing with wine rather than water. The design evokes the ancient myths of Dionysus, all revelry and excess. The Painters take to it as easily as breathing, dead-eyed and polite as they stand motionless in the manor hall. Within the Canvas is a more raucous affair.

Renoir frowns.

She squeezes his arm. “What’s wrong?”

“It never occurred to me just how helpless we are when we enter the Canvas.” As if to illustrate his point, Renoir reaches out to squeeze another gentleman’s arm. The Painter does not react. She doubts he’s felt anything at all. “With so many Painters gathered together, it would not be difficult to—”

“Renoir! Aline!”

Renoir cuts off his thought so quickly, she imagines she hears his jaw click. The entirety of his posture seems to change all at once, tightening; he stands taller, the muscle beneath her hand pulling taut as he dips into a formal bow. He looks every bit the imposing patriarch. Her eyes linger on the fineness of his form rather than flicking to their guest.

He must notice. The corner of his lips quirked up in a self-satisfied little grin.

“Not inclined to join your fellows?” Emilien asks. The Writer carries a glass of wine in each hand. He offers the first to Renoir and the other to Aline.

“We could ask the same.” Renoir tips his head to the assembly of Writers, all equally dead to the world. He holds up his glass. “Thank you.”

“It’s Pilcher’s wine—you’d do well to taste it before thanking me.” The lady de Bordeaux settles at his side with more wine. “As for joining the other Writers?” He shrugs. “I rarely exhibit at these affairs.”

“But you do make exceptions?”

His green eyes twinkle. “In exceptional cases. Are you asking?”

Aline snorts, instinctively shifting to stand in front of her husband. “We are not.”

“Shame.” Emilien salutes with his glass before taking a sip.

The pair lingers beside them, making the occasional bout of polite conversation. It is less awkward than Aline fears, even as she suffers the near certainty that the de Bordeauxs want something from them. More guests cycle into the manor’s main hall. More Painters join the Canvases. A handful of Writers slink into the little sitting area, throwing furtive glances over their shoulders as they go.

The Manuscripts roil with chroma. Aline has never stopped to consider the Writer’s medium of choice—it strikes her now as a small, limiting thing. A young woman settles beside the others on the sofa, reaching out to brush the tips of her fingers over the vellum.

It is striking, Aline thinks. From what she can observe, there is no physical difference between the appearance of those walking in Canvas or Manuscript. Chroma swirls across their eyes, perhaps a deeper black for the Writers, reflective of ink, but otherwise—

—The mediums are similar enough to pass for cousins.

The notion disquiets her.

“What are they seeing?” She asks, tipping her head towards the Writers.

Emilien frowns, glancing towards the group. “You must forgive the irony, Aline, but it is difficult to put into words.” He sets his glass aside, holding up a hand. “A moment.” He strides to the group, leaning over the Manuscript. The man snorts, pinching the bridge of his nose before returning to the group. The creature recites the words with an exaggerated low drawl, “Where better to drown than amidst a sea of pleasures? Only, let the sea be sand, warm beneath our feet.”

The Dessendre matriarch laughs. “That borders on nonsensical.”

“‘Borders’ is generous, Paintress. I suppose they did not set out to create a literary masterpiece.”

Renoir hums. “Is it disconcerting for so many Writers to walk together?” Aline glances up at him, quizzical. “Perhaps I am wrong, but the written word strikes me as more ephemeral—more room to interject variance in perceptions.”

The Writer cocks his head to the side. “How astute.” Emilien drags a hand through his hair, attention flicking from Renoir to Aline. Finally, he says. “In the spirit of our truce, I am once again offering a trade: a walk in your Canvas, a walk in my Manuscript.”

“Why?”

He shrugs. “Because you are young. Because the Painter’s Council wants you. Because I would one day like a seat within the Writers’ Guild, and it is easier with powerful friends. Give me time and I’ll produce a hundred different reasons, Dessendre.”

There is an inexorable logic to the suggestion, no matter how distasteful she finds it. Even during stretches of relative peace between their factions, they had precious little by way of overlap. Any details the Painters had about their rivals' abilities revolved around outdated hearsay.

Knowing them more intimately could be helpful, even if it required trading information.

Aline glances up at her husband only to find him already watching her, keenly intelligent eyes narrowed. Renoir nods his head infinitesimally.

“Emilien, I accept your offer.”

The Writer beams. “I prayed to find matching ambition in you, madame. Bless.”

In short order, they manage to find Pilcher and request a blank Canvas. Aline will demonstrate first. Emilien will follow. When asked if Renoir would walk with her, he shakes his head.

“Not tonight. I will keep watch.”

Pilcher frowns. “Monsieur, my guest's safety reflects on my reputation. I assure you, no harm will come to the lady.”

Aline has never had cause to fear her husband—he has always struck her as a warm man, disinclined towards violence or aggression. She will not say he is incapable—Renoir remained as human as the rest of them, only less predisposed to those states. He smiles, the light failing to reach his eyes, the pale color looking cold. “It is a husband’s paranoia, nothing more.”

She squeezes his hand. Renoir sits on the couch. The Paintress settles beside him, closing her eyes, focusing on centering herself. She fixates on the blank Canvas set beside them and lets her mind drift, turning her attention inwards. She finds the gentle spider-webbing in her own soul, feeling along its surface until she finds the splinter of energy willing to come free. It suffuses her with a familiar warmth as she presses it outwards, spreading it along the Canvas with a lover’s care.

“What is the theme?”

“Give us ‘indulgence,’ Paintress. Give us excess.”

Aline nods. She reaches out towards the Painting and allows herself to drift.

~~~~~~~~~

There is a feeling that comes with entering a purely blank Canvas.

Potential, change, energy—it is breathing in pure oxygen, it is the moment before freefall. So many things, all of them wonderful. Aline rotates her wrists. Chroma breaks around her like a wave, oily and thick. It waits, coiled like a snake, ready for her to disperse it and see her vision made manifest.

Emilien’s words echo through her head—it defeats the purpose if I cannot watch you work, Paintress.

And where will you stand, Writer? You’ll drown.

He’d pulled a face at that, but had not protested further.

Aline takes a deep breath and sets to painting.

They desire indulgence. The concept is simple enough, and served by each of the Canvases in the manor. Wine could be indulgent. Sex was indulgent. But translating those concepts beyond their most shallow aspects proved difficult for many.

Aline looks inward first, finding memories that manage to encapsulate the feeling she desires to emulate: syrupy, thick—the sensation of being too warm, sweat tracking down one’s back, your skin feeling too tight, being bound in the most perfect way. She isolates that sensation, pulls from it, and lets it bleed into the ambient chroma.

Color comes next—deep reds and oranges. The color of summer sunsets, evenings spent curled with loved ones, perhaps a touch wine soaked. She plucks these disparate sources from experiences and imagination alike, channeling them into one coherent image.

The world she creates summons all those sweet little sensations—it is the feeling of losing oneself in a lover, curling together, sweat-slick and satiated. The air smells sweet. The waters are warm and clear. The air itself is suffused with contentment, lackadaisical—the sensation that there is nowhere you must be.

Aline steps out of the Canvas to collect the Writer. It is not as challenging as she fears. She still feels the chroma interwoven through his body—the difference is only in accessing it. The Paintress pulls him alongside her, weaving her energy over him like a shield to keep him from being swept away in the sea of her energy. When they push through to the other side, Emilien eyes her.

She smirks. “I warned you that you might drown, Writer.”

“I did not think you meant it so literally, Paintress. What if you’d left me to drift?”

“You’d lose yourself.”

Emilien snorts. “How vague. What happened to trading secrets?”

The Dessendre matriarch shrugs. Aline offers him her hand.

The Writer inspects the world with a mixture of wonder and discomfort. When she asks him what he thinks, he purses his lips. “Beautiful. It feels…realized.”

“You dislike it.”

No, that isn’t accurate. Aline thinks it disquiets or frightens him.

Her world is indulgence. It can be nothing else. It is set.

~~~~~~~~~

They rememerge. Emilien continues to shiver, chroma dripping from his eyes and mouth.

Renoir’s arm tightens around her. He looks tired. They cannot have lingered within the Canvas for long, but he looks so tired. She wonders what conversations he has had to field, what toll the evening has taken on him. Aline squeezes his hand.

“Knowledge for knowledge,” Emilien groans, standing on unsteady legs. Joséphine supports the bulk of his weight as he staggers towards one of the other tables. He collects an empty journal from the assembly there. The Writer reaches into his vest and withdraws a quill, scrawling a handful of words. When those are complete, he sets the book on his lap, then holds out his hand to Aline.

Scholastic curiosity overwhelms her fear. She follows Emilien into the Manuscript.

~~~~~~~~~

These four words linger, sketched in a flowing script behind her eyes.

We were well met.

The familiar sensation of coming untethered washes over her as her soul comes unstitched from its body. Aline turns herself over to the feeling, letting the current drag her under.

I say this, writing from my seat beneath the willow’s bows, hidden from the worst of the summer sun, the scent of her perfume still lingering on my skin—

Emilien’s fingers close around her wrist, pressing her hand flat to the page. Its surface swirls in a manner eerily reminiscent of a Painter’s Canvas. Instead of a swirl of colors, the ink-slick exists in two shades—black and white.

It is not a wholly disparate experience from sinking into a Canvas. Emilien’s chroma settles around her, guiding her through blank swathes of the Manuscript until they settle into the scene. At a push—and it is something she struggles to express—she would say the difference between the mediums is a matter of verticality. A Canvas operated on a horizontal axis—wide, vast, her chroma spreading over it like a veil. Emilien’s Manuscript feels condensed, for lack of a better word. It is less a breathing world and more akin to scenes set on top of one another—linear progression versus simultaneous occurrences.

Aline opens her eyes. The Paintress’s instinctual reaction is to groan and screw them shut again.

In the Canvas, all details were fixed, immutable. The Manuscript existed in a state of flux. Her mind struggles to make sense of the excess stimuli. Every image is doubled. Emilien writes of a willow tree. She sees it twice. Once, outlined in white chroma, an image supplied by her mind’s eye, and again in green, Emilien’s projection. The two images bleed over one another. Her mind supplies wild flowers in the grass, a smear of white chroma. He imagines birds in the sky, green. The cottage on the hill is a hideous, cacophonic thing.

Emilien describes it as comfortable, nothing more. The fundamental differences in their understanding of the words show. No one detail they summon is the same. The building is an ugly smear of white and green chroma, its disparate design ugly, its details poorly mated. Everything seems to shimmer, ghostly and incorporeal.

“You look green, Paintress,” Emilien says, head cocked to the side.

Aline swallows against the lump in her throat. A stabbing pain settles behind her eyes as she scans the remainder of the scene. Looking at Emilien is a relief. He, at least, remains stable.

The Writer clasps her arm. Aline nearly jerks away, shivering. The feeling of his chroma brushing against hers is fundamentally strange. It is lighter than sharing the Canvas with a fellow Painter—whisper-soft, the suggestion of a touch.

“Allow me to ease the way somewhat,” he continues, voice soothing. Emilien makes a lazy gesture with his wrist, chroma solidifying into a quill. She’s so accustomed to gesturing with her brush that it is odd to hear him speak instead, the words drifting on the air, chroma seeming to caress them.

The rolling plains stretch for miles, devoid of any landmarks at all. Nothing but a sea of golden wheat, the monotony of color disrupted by a smattering of wildflowers.

Aline watches, fascinated, as the scene shifts to accommodate this new vision. The willow tree and cottage both fade in a shower of shimmering gold motes. In the absence of incongruous imaginings, she relaxes. The Paintress glances up at her host.

Emilien nudges her shoulder. “You seemed quite fond of flowers in our initial draft. I hope you appreciate the addition.”

“Our draft?”

“You've touched this place, haven't you, chérie?” He hums, rocking back on his heels, green eyes glittering. “Were I to finish this Manuscript, I’d have no choice but to name you as a contributor.”

Aline chews the inside of her cheek, chuckling. “And have both the Councils burn us at the stake?”

Emilien snickers. It’s surreal to laugh with a Writer. It’s stranger still to watch the world alter itself to accommodate their shared mirth—the sunlight grows brighter, the air warmer. “It might be worthwhile to see the old goats seethe.”

He offers his arm. This time, she is prepared for the strangeness of the contact. She wonders what she feels like to him—if there is a weight to her touch, dragging him down, making him more corporeal.

“Your Canvas’ are suffocating,” the Writer says, scrawling a handful of lines in the air. The words hung there momentarily before taking shape. A meandering cobblestone path weaves its way through the empty world—the shape, she notes, is unchanging, through its direction diverts, splitting into green or white chroma pathways. She finds it magnificent. Flowers blossom around them, most of them variations of her favorite species. She wonders if they are her contributions or if the Writer has somehow plucked them from the surface of her mind. “I could not live in a world with one truth.”

“Mm, however do you manage in your day-to-day life?”

“You are too fascinating a creature to have such a reductionist’s view of the world.”

Aline hums. She reaches out with her hand, flexing her fingers. The chroma feels further away in this place, as if she’s pulling from the depths of a nearly empty well. The energy swimming around her feels different in a way she cannot place, a cousin to her medium of choice. It breaks around her touch like water, refusing to let her catch hold.

“Tell me, Aline—how do you find the Manuscript?”

“Limiting? Liberating?” She says, closing her eyes. “Which would you prefer to hear?”

“I will always welcome baseless flattery.” He offers his arm again.

~~~~~~~~~

They pause within a ghostly copse of trees.

“I am curious, Paintress. Will you indulge me?

He asks her to describe a scene.

Aline frowns. There is a difference between plucking the images from her mind and transferring them to Canvas, giving them shape and making them real. Both forms were purely visual. Putting it into words? That required an entirely separate set of skills. It strikes her as clumsy and inelegant.

When she speaks, the chroma has a taste on her tongue, a little like burnt sugar. Aline thinks back to her childhood home, its grounds as familiar as breathing, and attempts to give voice to that image. Her mind rushes to fill in the gaps left by her subpar descriptions, warring with Emilien’s perception of the scene. The sense of nausea reasserts itself alongside her doubled vision.

Aline eyes the green stripes of his chroma in distaste. “Does it bother you?” He tips his head to the side, the pale curtain of his hair falling loose around his shoulders. “Perhaps concern is a better word—that your vision might be misinterpreted? Or missed?”

The Writer grins, eyes bright with mischief, as he plucks her words from the air, altering and rearranging them as he pleases. The edit takes no more than a span of seconds, the world twisting itself to accommodate the changes to her vision.

“Malleability is the beauty and strength of my craft, Madame.” He tips his head to the side. “You work with a brush? Can you call it to you?”

A morbid curiosity coils in her stomach. Aline eyes his creation. The chroma feels further away, but it is still there, still the medium she’s so accustomed to channeling. And the energy within her soul remains. She flicks her wrists in the familiar gesture she uses to summon her brush within the Canvas.

The light is duller, but the brush arrives.

She eyes the manor. “May I?”

The Writer steps aside to make room for her, falling into place on her right. Painting in this place feels strange, like moving one’s arms through water, or breathing through a wet towel. White petals flutter around her. It’s…she supposes it is the difference between ink paint, similar mediums, but different sensations. She can work with the ink, however strange it feels.

Aline paints the manor. It stands there, starkly real amongst a sea of immaterial shapes. She paints the manor door a too-bright red. The Dessendre matriarch tips her head at it, lips pursed.

“Indulge me, Writer?” She asks. Emilien smirks, holding his hands out wide in concession. “The door? Make it blue?”

But when he tries, it remains red. The image is set.

Aline cannot imagine why he should look pleased.

~~~~~~~~~

We were well met.

The words linger in her head on the ride back to the apartment. They continue to echo when Aline and Renoir duck into the children’s room to wish them goodnight. Clea stirs momentarily when they kiss her goodnight. Verso sleeps like the dead.

Neither thinks much of the little wooden horse on his nightstand. It is a minor set dressing in the chaos of the little boy’s room. Aline passes a hand over her son’s hair, murmuring against his forehead. He smiles in his sleep.

We were well met.

Perhaps they were. But for now, Aline is exhausted. The party seems like a hazy dream, lingering on the edge of her consciousness. The Dessendre matriarch toes off her heels, sighing in relief when Renoir closes their bedroom door. It locks with a satisfying click. She moves towards him without thinking, wordlessly helping him out of his jacket when he moves to slip the garment from his shoulders.

He takes her in his arms, folds himself around her like a cloak. Aline buries her face in the crook of his neck, inhaling the scent of him, losing herself in his warmth. After an evening walking within the Canvas and the Manuscript, all those fleeting unrealities, Renoir is blessedly real. He is an anchor. He is her harbor.

Aline lets that thought usher her into a dreamless sleep.

Chapter Text

~~~~~~~~~

11

~~~~~~~~~

It’s strange.

There is no great impetus, no change in home life, no dissatisfaction, no exaggerated squabble with the Writers that drives her ultimate decision. One day, the Council requests her application for Master status. And one day, Aline accepts.

Master Paintress Aline Dessendre.

She receives a letter of commendation from her parent’s—commendation and prodding. It is a fine first step, and they have every reason to hope—no, to believe, she is too reasonable for anything less—that a position on the Painter’s Council will soon follow. It is a sentiment they reiterate when they next meet at the celebration gala Renoir insists they host. She paints on a perfectly genial smile, thanks them for their wishes and their support, and ignores the rest of their prodding wholesale.

Renoir stands at her side, a second shadow as other Painters gather around Aline to offer their congratulations. What strikes him, above all else, is the hunger—on their faces, in their voices, in the questions they ask. Moments after the ink has dried on her new rank, there are low whispers—will she aim for a Council seat? Will Madame Dessendre take on apprentices?

He plays his part well, stoic and cold by alternating measures, towering over the skittish artists who would seek to ingratiate themselves in their family’s graces. Aline glances up at him, chewing the inside of her cheek in naked amusement, as another young fool quails beneath the force of his stare, slinking off to seek easier marks.

“Do you think they will be so bold when they name you a Master?” Aline murmurs, raising one hand to cover her mouth when she speaks.

Renoir chuckles. The Dessendre patriarch is left to fold himself over his bride, turning his nose against her ear to disguise the words. “The everyman comes to you, ma chérie.”

“Mm. It will be the Council courting you.”

“And I will quite happily direct them to you, love.”

Both smile, but neither laughs. There’s an uncomfortable truth to both sentiments, that feeling that they are staring down the incoming tide. Aline puts the thought from her head, smiling and greeting another well-wisher.

They return home to congratulatory flowers from the de Bordeaux, the card signed in the Writer’s own fine script.

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter. A strange calm descends over Paris in the coming year, divorced from the violent tempers that have characterized the Painters and Writers' interactions. For a time, it feels as though the city sleeps.

~~~~~~~~~

The boy stands immobile before the Canvas.

“Verso, you must try.”

Papa’s grave voice does little to improve his mood. Verso clenches his fist. He hates this, hates all of this. The boy can feel the tears threatening to assert themselves, that sense of powerlessness desperate to overcome him. It’s stupid, all of it. Clea stands just off to their left, hands folded at the small of her back, tall and perfect.

Perfect Clea, the reason everything is so awful.

“Your sister started her first Canvas a year younger than you are now.” Papa continues, kneeling in front of him. The change in positioning does nothing to diminish his presence. If anything, the room feels more suffocating. They are still not quite at eye level, even when his father kneels. Papa reaches out, clasping a hand over his shoulder. “My son, you cannot keep running.”

“Why?” Verso snaps, knowing how petulant he sounds. “Why can’t I?”

“Clea—“

“Clea,” Verso repeats, tone acidic. He shoots his sister a dark look. “Clea is perfect, Papa. I’m not Clea.”

“You’re a coward,” his sister offers, beaming.

Papa scrubs a hand over his face. “Ma petite, this is not the time for your involvement.”

“Why not? You insisted I be here. And he is being a coward.”

“I am not.”

“Enough,” Papa demands, voice pitching lower. Both children go silent. They know that tone well enough—not the comforting octave that might accompany his reading them a story before bed, but the growling that preceded genuine frustration. “I had hoped you might offer encouragement, Clea, as you have firsthand experience. If you are incapable of being civil, return to your room.”

“Papa, I—“ The sentence drifts off. Clea clamps her jaw shut, nodding. The girl drops her eyes, seeming to deflate. “Yes, Papa. I’ll behave.”

The genuine contrition softens him. Papa bows his head in acceptance. “You may return to your studies if you prefer.”

She seems to weigh this, eyes narrowed. Finally, she nods, turning on her heel. Clea crosses to the children’s section of the atelier, full of smaller easels suited to their height. Verso does not miss the twitch of muscle in her jaw or the brightness of her eyes. He feels a sudden and violent stab of pleasure—perfect Clea, so unaccustomed to being on the receiving end of their parents’ frustrations, on the verge of tears from nothing but a dismissal. The feeling fades as rapidly as it comes. He hates seeing her pain.

Verso sighs, bowing his head. The boy speaks in a voice just above a whisper. “You hurt Clea’s feelings.”

“She hurts yours.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. The boy reaches out, absently fiddling with the chain on his father’s vest. “But that doesn’t make it better.”

The man seems to consider this, cocking his head to the side, a wisp of dark hair falling across his forehead. He shakes his head, expression softening. Papa cups the back of his neck, squeezing gently. “It was wrong of me to be harsh with her—with both of you. I will apologize to your sister shortly.”

“Thank you,” Verso mumbles.

“But you understand, the situation remains unchanged. Verso, we have delayed for over a year in the name of your comfort. It can be put off no longer.”

The boy throws a miserable look at the Canvas, blank and terrifying. It is a massive pale monster, some looming thing eager to devour him. With age has come a degree of wisdom, meager though it might be—Verso has learned when and where to trust his sister. It is not always easy to determine what is true when it comes to his sibling, or when she is playing one of her tricks. He believes every word she tells him about the Canvas.

It burns, she’d said, lips pursing to a tight line. Clea held herself stiffly, with the prim elegance he’s determined is innate to firstborn children, dutiful and stoic. She tossed her head in the way she only performed when properly disquieted, no play at irritation. Try as he might, Clea refused to meet his eyes. They tell you it will feel strange, but it burns, Verso.

He’d asked her why, and she’d shrugged. Maybe there were no good answers to those questions. Perhaps it required an adult to articulate those hurts.

“Verso?” Papa asks, scrubbing his hands up his arms.

The boy’s mouth feels dry and cottony. He shakes his head. “Papa, please.”

Papa thinks he doesn’t see, but Verso does—disappointment flashes across the man’s face. He sighs, ruffling Verso’s hair, leaning in to press a kiss to the boy’s forehead. Tears burn in his eyes. A lump forms in his throat that threatens to choke him. Verso wants to clutch at his father, panicky, promising he’ll do better, try harder, anything that makes that look leave his eyes. He can’t. The words refuse to come. All he can do is stare at his stupid feet, feeling small, feeling so much less than Clea.

“We’ll try again when your mother arrives.”

Papa squeezes his arm once more before standing and crossing to Clea’s side. She looks up at him with huge eyes, adoring despite it all. Verso sees the hunger on her face, the omnipresent need to please. It makes her look desperate and a little stupid, but he never judges. He knows he wears the same expression around their parents. The boy doesn’t understand the empty, hollow place between his ribs, why it should hunger for them in such a way. Neither Papa nor Maman has ever made them feel anything less than adored, nor have they ever treated them poorly.

It’s just there. The ache, the void—always hungry, never satiated. Papa strokes Clea’s hair, pulling the girl into a tight embrace. Verso envies it. The pair linger for a moment, Clea’s lips moving, framing words too quiet for him to hear. Papa chuckles, kissing the crown of her skull before he steps away. He moves towards his canvas—only a regular painting, not a living work of art—with Clea in tow.

If he were a good son, a good Painter, he would join them. The truth is, while he enjoys watching the man work, he doesn’t have much interest this afternoon. His tongue still feels thick, that dusty, sandy taste lingering. He associates it with negative stimuli—later in life, he will put a name to the sensation: stress. He spares his family a final glance before crossing the atelier to the dog’s bed. The old hound naps in a sunbeam, gray, gray, gray these days, sleeping more and more. Monoco lifts his head as the boy approaches, tail wagging in a lazy arc. He rolls onto his side, making room. Verso crawls into the vacated space, letting the warmth wash over him, soothing. Even the slightly musty scent of dog is not unpleasant; he associates it with comfort.

Verso must doze. The next thing he’s aware of is the steady click of Maman’s heels on the manor floor, their rhythm steady and light. It says everything has gone well for once. She’s returning to them in the same good mood as when she left. The boy tries to lift his head, failing on the first attempt. Somewhere along the line, Monoco has moved to rest his muzzle on Verso’s cheek. A thick trail of drool warms his skin.

Maman pauses in the atelier’s doorway, gaze flicking to Papa and Clea first and then to Verso. Sunlight cuts through the bay windows at precisely the right angle to bathe her in warm evening shades of red and gold. It matches her hair, he thinks. The corner of her mouth quirks up in an indulgent smile, softening the entirety of her sharp features. She’s beautiful, Verso thinks, suffused with a love for his Maman so sudden and intense it threatens to suffocate him. He wants to go to her, throw his arms around her waist, and find comfort, but knows what must come first.

Papa crosses to her side. They reach for each other as one, his left hand folding over her ribs as her right touches his hip. Verso glances away. It is too intimate a moment. Worse, he knows the direction their conversation will take.

Verso, too cowardly to start his Canvas. Again.

He frowns, plucking dog hair from the bed. The sound of Maman’s heels sounds through the atelier again, their staccato beat unchanged. She’s not furious, at least. There’s a pause that makes him look up. Verso smiles. Something about both his parents is slightly larger than life, slightly more than human. It’s gratifying, then, to catch that brief flash of pure humanity—Maman’s face screwing up in concentration, balancing the entirety of her weight on one foot as she brings the other leg up, fumbling off one shoe, then the other.

Maman catches him staring. She winks, dropping into a low crouch beside the dog’s bed. Monoco grumbles in disapproval, shambling to make room as she lifts the canine’s head, wiping drool from Verso’s cheek. The boy purses his lips, trying to maintain his gloomy demeanor as she worries her thumb over his skin.

“My Verso, hard at work, as ever.”

“Papa told you what happened.”

She snorts. He likes the sounds—much like stripping off her heels, it’s human. Entirely unbecoming of the Dessendre Matriarch. Maman settles on the floor, tugging her skirts into some haphazard approximation of order. “Yes. Though I might have reached that conclusion on my own, seeing as the Canvas is there, and you are here.”

Maman jabs him lightly in the ribs. An old, but still effective tactic. He is horrifically ticklish. The boy twists, snickering, trying to get away from the touch. It leaves him flailing his arms away from his chest, creating enough space for her to slip her hands under his elbows and tug him up into a seated position.

Verso grumbles. He’s not unconvinced that his Maman has never fought a fair fight in her life. She plucks strands of Monoco’s fur from his hair, her voice soft. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Has lying ever helped your suit, my love?” She sighs, tipping her head to rest against the top of his. He’s too old for this, objectively he knows this—boys of eight did not go running to their mother for comfort—but there is something soothing and familiar in her hold. Maman is summer flowers and sunlight. Verso curls into her. “Your father believes you’re frightened.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Verso,” she murmurs, a note of caution in her tone.

The boy deflates, sagging back against her shoulder. “It is.” Maman arches a brow. He sags further, well aware that he’s pouting. “Mostly.”

“There, you can be honest.” She nudges his shoulder. “Now. Try for a little more—what about the Canvas frightens you?”

The voice in his head still wants to rail against the accusation. It hurts less coming from Maman than Papa—Papa, who was always brave, always stood guard—but it stung. Verso sighs. He plucks his mother’s free hand from her lap, absently tracing her wedding band. “Clea says it hurts.”

She frowns, forehead creasing. “Did she, now? She never mentioned this to me.”

“She wouldn’t,” he mumbles. “She thinks you’d be disappointed.”

The woman looks almost hurt, features briefly contorting before she schools them back into a mask of indifference. “Ah.”

“Does it hurt, Maman? Did it hurt you?”

She purses her lips. There’s a universally adult look that passes over her face in that moment—the compulsion to lie to a child, to mitigate any potential fallout with pretty words. She pushes it aside, opting for the truth. “The first time, yes. I was Clea’s age.” He scowls at that—of course. “Don’t pull that face, Verso. Your father was a grown man when he took up painting. Age is not necessarily correlated to skill.” She taps one finger directly between his eyes. “And it doesn't hurt, it’s only strange.”

“How?”

Maman sighs. “Painting is giving something of yourself, my love. When you are very small, you are only accustomed to receiving. It is not a negative, only a fact. It hurts to pry a piece of yourself loose. It’s strange to leave it behind. As you get older, you grow more accustomed to both acts.” She tips her head towards Clea and Papa. “Your father struggled with his first Canvas, but it never hurt him.”

Verso smirks, lowering his voice to a conspiratory whisper. “Papa struggled?”

“Mmm, for weeks. He was very cross.” Mother and son snicker together. Verso melts into her side, relaxing further as she cards fingers through his dark hair, nails scratching across his scalp. Her voice retains that conspiratory note when she finally speaks. “There is nothing to fear, my love. You are more than capable.”

“You will be there with me?”

“Not at first,” she murmurs, soothing. “Only you can take the initial plunge. Every step after?” Maman nods.

Even as a boy, there are things he does not like about himself. The scale in his head is chief among them. He places his fear of the Canvas, of potential pain, on one end. On the other? Clea’s mockery. Papa’s disappointment. And worst of all, letting down Maman. Verso swallows thickly, wanting to run and hide again. Only he can’t. The scale is tipped too far to the side, the potential to disappoint the ones he loves is too severe.

He leans his head against her shoulder. “I’ll try again, Maman.”

She beams at him, bright as the summer sun. Maman presses a kiss to his forehead, the words tickling against his skin. “My brave Verso.”

Funny, he feels anything but. The boy rises on trembling legs, crossing back to the Canvas, aware of Maman’s hand on his shoulder with each hesitant step. The voice in his head grows deafening; he pushes it down and away.

The Canvas remains monstrously huge, looming over him like some grim herald. Verso closes his eyes, reaching out towards it.

~~~~~~~~~

For Verso, slipping into the Canvas is reminiscent of joining a piano concerto in media res.

It doesn’t hurt. Maman is correct. There’s only a dull ache, a hollowness, that comes from turning his attention inwards, prying some piece of himself loose. Verso frowns, blinking back against the cavernous feels as he shifts his attention to the Canvas, throwing himself into the chroma’s current, allowing it to carry him along to the heart of the Canvas. The boy stands at the heart of the void, feeling small. He stares around the antechambers at the wash of paint, swathes of inky-black and sunset red and gold. He reaches out to drag his fingers across the surface, smiling at the way it smears across the nothingness of the void.

Maman’s words echo in his head—intention is key. Vision is key. Clea’s initial Canvas had been a quasi-gothic manor, full of all her horrible little creations. Verso loved and loathed them in equal measure. His sister could be whimsical when she set her mind to it. It was just a question of whether she’d set her mind to it. The vast majority of her beasts were monstrous horrors, seemingly designed to haunt his already tenuous ability to sleep.

None of that mattered; he’s digressing.

Intention. Vision.

Verso chews the inside of his cheek, shifting from his left foot to the right. The task suddenly feels enormous, though he knows this is ridiculous. His parents are not asking him to create one of their sprawling worlds. He forces his vision to narrow to the size of a pinhead. Not a world, no, only a cave. One cave he can manage, though he fears the dark and all it entails. The boy focuses on the image, colored not with inky blacks but elegant purples and silvery motes of sunlight or starlight. He does not know which, does not care, only knows it is a brilliant and beautiful place, fantastical and impossible light catching in shallow pools of water, coloring them as if with luminescent life. The ground seems too cold, the stone too harsh, and so Verso over it with lavender petals.

He steps through the paintslick and into his creation. Verso tips his head up, puzzled and delighted by the inherent strangeness of the space. The temperature is absent. Not warm or cold, or even tolerable—it’s an empty void in his mind, a humming note when some stimuli should register. No wind, only stagnant, empty air. In truth, it drives him a little mad. With a flick of his wrist, the boy adds additional details to his piece—a sea breeze, a hint of humidity in the air. The itching sensation in the back of his skull subsides—the surreal note that this place was wrong, fake.

He chews the inside of his cheek, hugging his arms around himself. The cave still feels too dark. Verso has no more than a moment to dwell on this thought before he feels a surge of chroma. The boy throws his arms up to shield himself without thinking. Maman’s chroma folds around him with the same warmth and strength as if she’d shielded his body with hers. It does not stop the entirety of the dull ache when she steps into the Canvas. He feels tendrils of her chroma reaching for him, testing the boundaries of the protection she's set. It is a hungry thing, eager to paint over him. Verso shivers, remaining motionless until that sensation of drifting on a storming sea subsides and he can breathe again.

Maman’s voice echoes in the cave, chasing down passageways he has only just begun to hew from the purple stones. “You surprise me—a cave, Verso?”

“I can try again if it’s wrong,” he insists.

She cocks her head to the side, brow furrowing. “Surprised, Verso, not displeased.” Maman holds out her hand. The boy rushes to take it, falling into step with her with plain relief when she begins to tour his work. The sea-breeze tugs at their hair, and Verso thinks—it will never storm here. Nearby, but never here.

This place is safe.

“It’s still too dark,” he grumbles, tipping his head up to inspect the cavernous ceiling above them.

“How would you fix this, mon ange?”

Verso shrugs. “Lights.”

Maman snorts. The woman ruffles his hair before smoothing it back into place—or trying. The dark mass is every bit as unruly as his father’s. Verso takes great pride in this fact. “An elegant solution.”

She’s expecting more. Verso thinks of the great chandeliers that hang in the manor’s main hall, gaudy, alive with scintillating light. He considers painting them for a brief moment before abandoning the thought. They’re all wrong—too gold, too much his parents' style. Instead, the boy summons more pleasant memories. The forts he made with friends at school, draping sheets and long swathes of fabric from the backs of chairs. He wraps rich hanging drapes around spindly chains that seem to extend into the infinite vastness of the cave's ceiling, hanging lanterns from the chains. Verso sets dozens of his creations seemingly at random throughout the caves, puffing out his little chest in satisfaction as the darkness fled in the face of the violet light.

Maman laughs. “You have a touch of the Bohemian to you. How lovely.”

The hunger feeling in his chest stretches outwards, sinking spindly fingers into his bones’ marrow. “Do you mean it?”

“Verso.” A hint of irritation bleeds into her voice. Maman sinks to her knees, holding his arms. “I would not lie to you. Yes. It is beautiful. It is a fine first attempt.”

“But not perfect.”

She sighs, cupping his cheek. “Oh, Verso. No.” He grits his teeth against that. Maman worries her thumb over a wrinkle near the corner of his mouth. “Nothing is.”

“I’ll improve it. I will.” He puffs out his chest even further, painting on a grin.

Something in Maman’s expression says this is the wrong response.

Something about that makes it hurt worse.

~~~~~~~~~

The Writers and Painters Councils insist there will be peace between them.

Renoir has no reason to doubt this—perhaps the Councils even believe as much. At his core, he is an aristocrat and soldier first, a Painter second, and thus struggles to accept these lovely platitudes. It is in his nature to prepare.

You think me paranoid? He asked Aline.

His wife shook her head, her smile soft as she flicked her attention from his face back to the canvas. You protect us. You will always protect us, mon coeur—I know that above all else.

He has spent the past year expanding the Dessendre family’s trade partnerships. Before their trip to Vienna, Renoir had secured access to artisans to see to the production of their Canvases and paint. After Vienna? After Emilien expressed his interests? Renoir turns his attention to finding the artisans responsible for producing the vellum and the ink necessary for their Manuscripts.

If it is ever to come to war between their two factions, Renoir will not have them caught unaware.

It is not the sort of thing Aline considers, because it is not something she has had to consider. The daughter of a diminished family might manage social ties. But her father had never taken her under his wing for more practical education. For his part, Renoir has no intention of forcing his suit on either of their children so early. It’s Clea who shows interest, loitering by his desk and poring over their ledgers with a furrowed brow.

Their daughter does not ask questions, only stares. Renoir leans back in his seat, steepling his fingers over his stomach. “Can I be of service?”

Clea’s head jerks up, as if his voice surprises her. Watching emotion flicker across the child’s face fascinates him. So many of her features are his—the strong jawline, her nose, the color of her eyes. But the pursed set of her mouth and the glint in her eyes—all her expressions, truly—are so blatantly Aline it’s uncanny. “Maman said you were going to Paris?”

“Soon,” he agrees. Aline had gone ahead of him, summoned by the Council. He has no idea what need they could have of her so frequently or at such an hour.

“For business?”

“Yes, ma petite.”

Clea folds her hands primly at the small of her back, holding her head high. “May I accompany you, Papa?”

Renoir hides a smile behind his hand, humming. “What of your lessons?”

Her expression falls briefly before she manages to school her face back into a mask of indifference. The need to appear mature wars against the girlishness of her features. “They’ll be done, Papa. You know they will. I’m not Verso.”

“Clea,” he chides, unable to keep from chuckling. The Dessendre patriarch climbs to his feet, rounding the desk. His daughter’s expression brightens, a touch of smug satisfaction stealing into her little grin. “Very well. I intended to ride rather than call a carriage.” She looks more hesitant at this. While she could ride with perfectly serviceable skill, she lacked her brother’s grace. Renoir squeezes her shoulder. “Go and change.”

He should call the carriage. It’s all too easy to summon the image of his own mother rolling her eyes—you are the Master of the Dessendre family, Renoir. Act it.

But the day is altogether too fine, and it’s been too long since he visited the stables. Clea follows after him, taking his hand when he offers it. The horses nicker in greeting. One of the stablehands offers him the reins to the huge dark gelding, a handsome beast with an easy-going temperament, perfect for riding double with a less experienced companion. Renoir swings up into the saddle with practiced ease. He leans over to catch Clea under her arms, hauling her up in front of him. The girl takes a few moments to adjust herself, then nods.

He folds one arm more securely around her midsection before nudging the gelding into motion, delighting at the feel of the wind and the warmth of the sun on his skin. His daughter relaxes back into his hold, dark hair fluttering out behind them like streamers. Renoir glances down to find Clea smiling, purely content.

What more could a father ask?

~~~~~~~~~

Paris bustles with life. Primitive automobiles amble down its roads, mixing with the more prevalent carriages. Renoir wheels the gelding around, weaving through the throng of humanity with all the deftness of a former cavalryman. Clea hisses in a breath as one of those carriages moves in front of them. He nudges the horse with his knees, angling to the right, picking up speed and weaving through the gap.

“Papa,” Clea grumbles. “Please be careful.”

The man chuckles, adrenaline coursing through his blood. He tucks his chin, nosing the crown of Clea’s skull in apology. Her grip on his sleeve tightens as he slows them to a more comfortable pace, turning down a series of alleyways until they reach the warehouse.

He could just as easily have sent an envoy to receive the shipment.

But this is a point of pride. It has taken the better part of the year for him to finalize this deal. In some ways, it does mark a failure—despite his best efforts, cornering the market on Herbin’s ink has proven impossible. The French ink is too entrenched in both creative circles, too old, for the Dessendre family to purchase a majority stake in the company. The best Herbin will do for them is aside a stockpile of ink—it isn’t enough to suit his needs.

He turns his attention westward, towards the Americans. Renoir raps his knuckles on the crate, tracing the letters emblazoned across the lid—Higgins. The company’s relative newness on the scene has done little to diminish its popularity in the printing community. It has taken them a handful of years to dominate the press in the States. He is not, by nature, a betting man; on this one count, he makes a gamble. Higgins will become a premier ink distributor.

And now? Their Eternal Ink will be distributed across Europe courtesy of the Dessendre family and their contacts. He plucks a bottle from the crate, passing it to Clea for her inspection. His daughter turns it over delicately, brow furrowing as she holds it up to the light.

“You will have to create a masterpiece with that, ma petite,” Renoir says, scanning the ledger. Everything is accounted for—the ink has arrived, as well as the more mundane imports from the Americas, cotton and cotton blends chief among them. The majority of the stock will go towards the production of additional canvases. The rest they will sell to textile workers or distribute to their partners throughout Paris. He smiles at his daughter. “Few artists in Paris have had the opportunity to work with this ink—you will be a pioneer.”

He flicks his attention back to the logbooks. Their more local artisans have begun delivering the vellum necessary to produce additional journals and manuscripts. He makes a note beside these products in the ledger. Some, they will ration. Others will sell at a markedly higher price point. Renoir does not expect they will move the entirety of their stock as rapidly as some of their partners would prefer; he doesn’t much care. They will gauge the level of interest. They will better estimate the Writers demand in Paris.

Clea follows after him, silent as the grave, as he speaks with their contacts. His daughter listens, neatly cataloguing these interactions for reference. Renoir knows if he asks for a name later this evening, she will be quite capable of providing it with minimal prompting. Their Clea is a clever thing. He watches her out of the corner of his eye, hand set on her shoulder. To say he is proud is an understatement.

“Monsieur,” the warehouseman approaches them, voice lowered. He reaches for Renoir’s arm before seeming to reconsider. The Dessendre patriarch huffs. He recognizes the man—an older gentleman who worked beneath his father for the better part of two decades. “There are always undesirables around these parts, always—they’re not the sort you remember.” The man purses his lips. “The noble sorts? Those you remember. He arrived not long after the shipment from the Americas.”

He frowns. “Have you seen him before?”

“Once or twice, Monsieur Dessendre. Today, he lingered.”

Renoir folds his hands at the small of his back. The warehouseman smiles. He realizes the reason why, later—Clea mirrors his posture, his grim little shadow. “If you notice him again, send for me immediately—the hour does not matter. I would welcome any details you can recall regarding his appearance, as well.”

The man nods, taking his leave.

Renoir purses his lips, staring out towards the docks. It was as the other man had said—a commoner would never draw any attention in this part of town. Workers came and went. For another noble to linger around the warehouse? It suggested either supreme stupidity or a desire to be noticed.

We see you, Dessendre, it says.

~~~~~~~~~

The lilting sound of the piano fills the manor halls. Renoir pauses in the foyer to listen, struck by its loveliness even now. How odd, he thinks, to have so many disparate sensations associated with one instrument. It is all at once the warmth of coming home and mornings spent in the chateau, Clea perched between them on the piano bench. It is the warmth of Aline’s skin as he turns his nose into her throat, inhaling the scent of her hair, and the scratch of her nails over his scalp as he approaches her. Renoir associates the instrument with calm, with love, with peace.

Piano songs fill the halls, and everything is still alright.

Clea lingers by his side. He does not miss the way their daughter keeps glancing back, flicking her gaze from him towards the central hall. She wants to run towards their family, held fast only by her more decorous nature and her need to please him. Renoir squeezes her shoulder. She turns her face up, the corner of her mouth turning in a purely radiant smile, girlish, unburdened. Their eldest’s nature is tied more closely to Renoir’s disposition, grim and serious—he watches her shed that weight, all the Dessendre severity, and exist purely as herself, as Clea, beautiful, untethered, and strong.

The song pauses. Someone turns a page, and then it begins again, more stilted, but no less beautiful. There is a rawness to this second performance, a purity, that makes his heart ache. Renoir lingers, letting it wash over him. Even Clea seems loath to disturb the peace, hesitating as they step into the room. Aline and Verso huddle together on the bench, swaying to the sound of the music. His wife hums the tune, keeping time, as Verso makes his way through the piece. He watches the muscles in the back of her hand flex. Aline does not correct him here, not as she might in the atelier. Verso does not need it.

He blends the missteps into the song, purely natural, an almost living work of art. He keeps time via the sound of his mother’s voice, the feeling of them swaying, and uses it as a guide as much as the sheet music. When the song ends, Aline laughs. Their son turns to her with a radiant smile, pale eyes wide and adoring. He is so purely alive. She takes Verso’s face in her hands, painting it with featherlight kisses even as the boy cackles, fighting to pull away.

Renoir claps.

Verso’s laughter settles to airy little giggles, still tucked under his mother’s arm. The world will believe Verso resembles him most strongly—and perhaps he does. But with mother and son sitting cheek-to-cheek, it’s impossible to deny the similarities, the same delicate features and the same smile. Love for them fills the man’s chest. Renoir glances between the pair and Clea, reaching out to hug their eldest to his side before pushing her towards the others. She goes with a snicker, holding the bottle of ink ahead of her like a prize.

“I wondered where you’d gotten off to,” Aline says, reaching out to tug on a strand of Clea’s hair. The girl dips her head as if to avoid the touch, making no real effort to go far. Renoir doesn’t miss the way she shifts her body to compensate for the distance, moving nearer to her mother and brother. Aline extends her arm and Clea moves to stand against her side—not embracing her, but permitting herself to be embraced. His wife plucks something from the girl’s hair. “You smell like horse, my love.”

“Papa took me riding.”

“You smell like the docks, too.”

Clea smirks at her family. “We went to the warehouse on business.”

“Ah,” Aline says, looping an arm around her waist. “My industrious pair. And what’s this?”

She places the ink in her mother’s palm with a careful grace, turning it over so she can better read the label. An unmistakable note of pride colors her voice. “Papa says I will be one of the first Painters in Paris to use this ink.”

“And what will you create, ma petite?”

Clea rolls her eyes. “I haven’t had time to think about it. It has to be right.”

Aline tucks the girl’s head against her shoulder, meeting Renoir’s eyes over the crown of her head. His wife also rolls her eyes. He chuckles, closing the distance, feeling the tension in him ebb. It’s like taut strings finally going slack. He sets one hand on each of his children’s shoulders, squeezing, pulling them against his side.

“Our Clea is nothing if not studious,” he murmurs, bending to kiss his wife. Clea grumbles, squirming to get away from them, and Verso snickers, pushing at his father’s chest. “Good evening, mon amour.”

She curls her fingers in his breast pocket, speaking against his lips. “Welcome home, mon coeur."

Verso tries to shove them apart, “Papa, did you bring me a gift…?”

“It’s not a gift, I earned it!”

It’s Renoir’s turn to sigh, soothed by Aline chuckling into another kiss. He shakes his head, turning to address the boy. “Clea is correct. The ink was well earned.”

“I could have earned it.”

“Verso,” Aline chides, flicking his ear. The motion pleases their daughter immeasurably, even as their son stares at Aline in abject betrayal. “If you wish to accompany your father on business, I’m certain it can be arranged.”

“Must I…?”

Renoir rolls his eyes. He scoops the boy up in his arms, draping him over his shoulder. Verso makes some howling noise of protest, thrashing, and laughing. Clea continues to beam, pleased with her parents’ pleasure and that she will not have to share her new treasure. Aline touches the bottle a final time, lowering her voice to discuss Clea’s ideas. It jars against Verso’s melodramatics. He sets the boy back on his feet. Verso dances back a step, grinning.

Eventually, the children wander off, leaving the pair of them. Renoir resumes Verso’s place on the bench. He flexes his hands, stretching his fingers out over the keys. Aline leans her head against his shoulder, voice fondly teasing. “It always surprised me that you didn’t play—you have elegant hands.”

“I have other talents.”

“I don’t recall ever calling that into question, Renoir,” she says, resting her chin in her palm, eyes glittering. “How was your trip?”

“Later,” he murmurs, bringing her hands to his lips. “You will tell me of Council affairs, and I will answer any questions you may have regarding our business. For now? I’d prefer you play me a song.”

Aline eyes him, arching a brow. “Should I be immediately concerned?” He shakes his head. There is something gratifying in the fact that, after everything, she still trusts him. She searches his face. Aline sighs, shaking her head and flicking her attention back to the piano. “What would you prefer?”

The song hardly matters, only her closeness.

~~~~~~~~~

Well after he is meant to be sleeping, Verso slips from his bed. He cannot seem to drift off, and when he does, his dreams are fitful. They have worsened since his trip to the Canvas, though the boy does not associate one event with the other. Verso only knows he cannot stomach another fitful moment tangled up in his sheets. He feels claustrophobic.

The boy paces the length of his room, eyeing his books and his toys. The piano is clearly out of the question, and he has no desire to rearrange his trains. The fire has long since burned down to embers, leaving a chill in the air. He eyes his bed, eyes his books, and then glances towards the door.

Verso makes a decision. The boy creeps from his room, padding across the upper level towards the stairs. He slips undetected past Monoco, the dog only just lifting his head as he passes.

He tries the atelier door, half expecting to find it locked. It isn’t. Another part of him expects to see Papa, lost to another one of his fits of insomnia. The room is dark aside from the silvery swathes of moonlight, empty.

He can count the number of times he’s frequented the atelier on his own. One of his parents has always been present. Alone, the room feels cavernous and oppressive. The drapes are pulled shut over half the windows. There are dozens of canvases stacked against the walls, a few of Papa’s sculptures and a handful of Clea’s, tucked away in one corner. Maman preferred to work in her glasshouse, but even she has some pieces stored in Papa’s atelier, including her newest living Canvas. Those she keeps below, preferring not to stray far from family.

The variety of art is dazzling. Papa’s monstrous creatures war against the seeming simplicity of Maman’s commissioned portraits or landscapes. Verso lingers before one of her more fantastical pieces, an overcast gray sky near a pitch-dark sea. The image should appear oppressive, but it has proven one of the boy’s favorites. An ocean of flowers with silvery leaves grow along the shore. The light originates from their brilliant blooms, glowing cerulean blue and lovely. He adores them—loves the way they seemingly manifest their own light, how they create ephemeral and surreal notes within the painting. It seems divorced from reality in a way he likes. Not frightening or dark as Clea and Papa prefer, but pretty and bright.

He thinks he would like to create something like this for himself.

Verso tucks the image away in the back of his mind, hands linked at the small of his back as he continues his impromptu tour of his family’s work. Finally, he ends up in front of his own Canvas. The boy cocks his head to the side, inspecting its swirling dark surface. He imagines he can see glimpses of the cave beneath, but it is only that—his imagination.

His work needs more color. He thinks he will follow Maman’s example—more mosses, more mushrooms. And why shouldn’t they be able to glow like Maman's cerulean flowers? If she can do it, why can’t he?

He takes a steadying breath, pushing up onto his toes, rocking back onto his heels. Perhaps if he works for a time, he will feel better and can slip back to bed. Verso has been thinking about ways to improve his piece, to build upon it, to make it something impressive and—

“Are you going to stand there all night?”

Verso jumps, clasping a hand over his mouth to keep from shouting. He rounds on Clea, lips pulled back in a sneer. His sister lingers in her nightdress and robe. Her smile tries for amused, not quite reaching it—the notes of exhaustion are too prevalent.

“You scared me!”

“You’re easy to frighten—honestly, I don’t see how that’s my fault,” Clea says, archly.

“Because you followed me.”

“If you’d have broken something, Papa and Maman would hold me responsible.” She grumbles. The girl steps past him to inspect the Canvas. She reaches out, smoothing the tips of her fingers across the surface. She cocks her head to the side. “What were you doing sneaking around the atelier anyway?”

Verso digs the tip of his toe into the tile, shrugging. “Couldn’t sleep. And I had—” he purses his lips, glancing back towards the door. A part of him expects Maman and Papa to come striding down the stairs, voice echoing through the manor halls, ordering them back to bed. “—ideas for the Canvas. I thought if I could add them before morning—”

“Maman loves your stupid cave, Verso.”

“It could be better.”

She rolls her eyes as if to say, Of course it could. Clea’s expression never hardens in the way he expects. Instead, her attention flicks from the Canvas to his face.

Very quietly, Verso says, “You could help. If you can’t sleep—you could come along.” He rushes forward before she can make her Clea comments, clutching at her arms. “We could work together. It will go twice as fast with both of us working.”

She snorts. “On what?”

He shrugs, beaming. “I don’t know yet. Something fun.” The boy tugs on his sister’s hand. “C’mon, Clea. Just once. I won’t ask for help again.”

They both recognize the lie. It is as much a farce as Clea pretending to consider his offer. His older sister moves to stand at his side, allowing him to take her hand.

He tells her his ideas. The two slip into the Canvas and set to work.

Chapter Text

~~~~~~~~~

12

~~~~~~~~

Of their children, Clea is the more technically skilled. At eleven, her daughter understands the inner workings of the Canvas in a way most Painters could only dream. Aline looks upon her daughter’s creations with nothing short of wonder. She is, as ever, the most perfect mix of her parents—Renoir’s surrealism and creativity stitched to Aline’s technical prowess. In many ways, her capacity for pure creation, for working purely from her imagination, exceeds even the Paintress’s capacity.

But there is a distinction between technical skill and feeling.

Aline stares, eyes wide. The Sacred River is unlike anything her children have ever created. So much of Verso’s Canvas has been a collaborative endeavor, almost entirely by the boy’s choice. His spirit had a way of flagging in isolation—her Verso was at his finest when creation was a performative act, done in conjunction with others or for their observation. He shapes the Canvas with Clea at his side, crafting Esquie with her assistance. He gives the Grandis and the Gestrals shape under Aline and Renoir’s watchful gaze, the pair guiding and interceding where necessary.

The Sacred River belongs to Verso alone.

Strings of ghostly bells drift in the air. The River exists at the base of a great caldera or valley, its walls alternating mountains and waterfalls, all impossibly high. The scene exists in an eternal twilight, stars glittering overhead, lost in a blue-green aurora borealis. There are trees in this place, some with lovely pink leaves, others glowing with a bioluminescence her son adores. The groundcover echoes this—pink flowers, glowing, lovely, weaving a trail towards the River itself. It winds through the valley, illuminated with whites, purples, and blues. Some part of her longs to sit by its banks, drag her fingers across its surface.

It is melancholy. It is warm. It is the boy’s love. The River is Verso’s grief and his hope, the childish need for life to continue, and the adult understanding that stories, to some extent, must end before beginning anew.

Grief and love—

The concepts are married here, Aline thinks, bringing a hand up to catch a ghostly wisp of light. It slips between her fingers, drifting on the breeze until it finds the water’s surface. The Paintress cocks her head to the side, observing the spectral forms of Verso’s creations—Gestrals, who will reenter the River’s flow and be born again. Shadows of what they were, but irrevocably different.

“They do not have to change, my love.” She remembers holding her son’s face, brushing the tears from his cheeks. Her children’s pain has a way of hooking into her heart and tearing, a breathless hurt she struggles to quantify because it cannot be solved, only observed. In the Canvas, they stand as gods, and still she cannot protect them. Aline kneels before him. “Your friends do not have to go.”

“Maman, they are gone.”

“Why not bring them back?”

Verso stares at her, puzzled. The boy says nothing as he steps into his mother's embrace, sighing and winding his arms around her neck. He tucks his face against her chest, tears wetting the fabric of her blouse. Why, indeed?

Because time’s flow, like a river, is ceaseless. Because life, by its very nature, is incapable of stagnation.

He disappears into the Canvas to paint the River the night they bury Monoco. It is a task Renoir insists on seeing to himself. Verso, grim-faced, demands to help. The dog has been there since his birth, since Clea’s birth—God, since the start of their marriage, barely more than a pup at the time. Aline cradles her daughter. Tears track silently down Clea’s cheeks as they see to the task. Her daughter is worn emotionally raw, uncustomarily hungry for comfort in the face of death.

Because death is so final, maman, Clea says, miserable, staring up at her in a way that is so small, so lost and unlike her typical strength, that Aline feels unmoored. It's wrong. For there to be so much and then nothing.

Death is the loss of potential.

Verso does not come to them. He lingers by the hound’s grave, sitting crosslegged in the dirt until Renoir fetches him at sundown. He says nothing at dinner, nothing when they tuck him into bed, only clutches Esquie more tightly to his chest. Renoir offers to stay.

Because the bed is too big, too lonely, and Verso has not slept alone since he was large enough to move from his crib. Monoco has always been there, crowding the boy against the edge of the mattress. Now, there is only empty space.

Verso turns onto his side, away from them. Aline remembers the swell of panic, the need to rush to him, hold him. To beg him to talk, not shut them out. This silence feels adult, and she is not ready for it.

Time marches ever on. Verso paints his River. Now, he asks for Aline.

The Paintress follows the trail of pink flowers along the riverbank, nearer to a copse of trees. The remains of massive Gestrals dot the shore, macabre guardians. She does not believe these creatures have ever lived. They are setpieces, ancient sentinels erected to comfort the Gestrals in that moment of confusion between death and rebirth.

Verso had said he would want to see a familiar face. Why wouldn’t the Gestral?

Her lips curve up in a smile. She moves towards the heart of this place. Her son stands alone by the river’s edge, and her heart clenches again. Aline wants to chide him—step back, you’ll fall in. She forces herself to remain silent. Verso turns to look at her, no doubt feeling the shift in the ambient chroma as she nears. He holds up a hand in greeting, cheeks flushed. The high color suggests joy rather than sorrow. She feels lighter in the face of it.

Aline folds her hands in front of her belly. “You wished to show me something, Verso?”

He brightens further, pale eyes glittering. The boy beckons her over, always eager to share his work. A large body rests near his feet, drifting in the river. Unlike many of the Gestrals, who—bless the boy and his creativity—were little more than mannequins with brushes attached to their heads, this creature is slightly different. The form is wider, the mask more defined. The white fur around its chest and collar reminds her implicitly of—

“Monoco,” Verso finishes, his hand slipping into hers.

“Is it?”

“Clea isn’t always around. And Esqiue is too big for exploring most places,” he chatters, crouching to brush a hand over the damp fur. “Monoco will keep me company.”

Aline kneels beside him, head tipped to the side. She sets her hand on the Gestral’s chest, inspecting the work Verso has put into his creation, sifting through the layers of Chroma. She sees the echoes of their hound woven into this new being—brave/cowardly, loyal, friendly, cuddles/wrestles. The last addition makes her laugh. She presses deeper to find additional notes, drawn from Verso’s memories, saturated with the boy’s love and hopes.

We’ll go on adventures forever—my best friend.

It is significantly more advanced work than his other creations. In contrast to Clea’s meticulous approach, sculpting her monsters before fully realizing them within the Canvas, Verso’s stylings are slipshod. Monoco is already more than the other Gestrals or the Grandis.

It’s a testament to what he can accomplish when he applies himself.

“Will he work?” Verso asks, a touch of hesitance in his voice. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, brow furrowed. “He won’t—?”

Go mad? It hangs in the air, the omnipresent threat that haunts their acts of creation. Aline shakes her head. “Not that I can see. You did well, Verso.”

He beams, still so young. Still young enough to come to his maman for reassurance, even as he strikes out on his own. The invisible weight on her chest eases as he tugs her nearer to the river’s edge. “Will you help me paint him, maman?”

She makes one addition to the Gestral, threading her chroma through its form.

Protect him. Look after my Verso.

~~~~~~~~~

Clea paints forests trapped in eternal autumn into the Canvas, golden leaves falling like lazy snowflurries.

The girl feels freer here than when working on her own Paintings, relieved from the burden of expectation. Her Canvases are exploratory works of art, meant to test Clea's skills and expand them.

Verso’s Canvas is baby nonsense. She creates for the joy of it, adding the occasional sobering touch. The Yellow Forest is one of them—autumn is purgatorial, Papa says, nodding approvingly at her design choices. Clea lets him think what he likes. She doesn’t have the heart to admit that—this once, at least—she’s made the choice purely for aesthetic value. The gold is pretty, contrasting nicely with the vivid reds and purples her brother prefers.

It is a less impressive affair than when they have the opportunity to visit their parents’ Canvases—Maman and her grandiose and gorgeous creations, Papa and his strange and fantastical works. They create entire worlds, sprawling empires, vast histories that lead to ever-evolving narratives. One afternoon, she is a princess in the Underworld—Renoir attempting to teach her the value of life or the surety of death; she isn’t entirely sure. Those hours in reality translate to years within the Canvas—years spent practicing, debating Renoir’s other creations, watching her mother fill the grim caverns of the Underworld with raucous plantlife.

Maman paints a more grounded portrait of some fictitious kingdom. She teaches Clea to create and govern life, to hone her abilities, and efficiently harness chroma within the Canvas. At eleven, Aline is already instructing her how to wrest control of energy from other Painters—and Writers. The latter, Clea knows, is something she is not to mention. And where Verso might ask for an explanation, Clea does not. It is their secret, a point of trust, and she guards it zealously.

The concept of responsibility and familial duty has only just begun to take on weight. In those halcyon days, Clea, already a serious, studious child, knows only that she enjoys her parents’ approval and withers under their disappointment. She will grow out of it in the next decade. For now, it casts an omnipresent pall over every decision, every act of creation.

With all this work in mind, her brother’s Canvas is a reprieve. In Verso’s Canvas, there are rarely any lessons. There is something sweetly satisfying in enjoying the fruits of their labor, nothing more. They go on adventures. Sometimes it’s just the two of them with Esquie and Francois. Sometimes Papa and Maman come along as well.

It is perhaps silly or cloying to say that she loves creating for her brother. His reactions are blessedly genuine. Verso has no interest in what techniques she’s utilizing. He couldn’t care less what she’s learned. He cares for whatever manages to hold his attention—things like the Forgotten Battlefield where they may play out epic struggles. He cares for the Lamp Master, a personal favorite of her creations, because it haunts and frightens him, a boogeyman darkening his otherwise saccharine and idyllic world.

Clea adds another bit of detritus to the battlefield—a catapult, yes. They have the barebones of a fortress tucked up against the mountainside. It makes some degree of sense that an army might have brought a siege weapon along with them. When she asks Verso if he agrees with the decision, the boy waves her off.

Her brother reclines atop one of the palisades, arms looped behind his head to form a makeshift pillow. Monoco curls beside him. She will never understand how a creature made entirely of wood can snore, but she supposes there is no point applying logic to the Canvas. Particularly Verso’s Canvas.

“We could put another barricade here. If we say that—”

“Papa and Maman said they’d visit today.”

She fights the urge to roll her eyes. “Ah, I’d wondered about the silence. Now, I understand; you’re sulking.”

Verso pulls a face. “They didn’t have to say they’d come and play. Monoco was looking forward to it.” Monoco continues to snore. Clea raises a brow. Grumbling, her brother says, “He hides it well, but I promise, it bothers him.”

“It bothers you.”

“Two things can be true, Clea.” He sighs, lifting his right hand. He makes a languid gesture with his wrist, pale blue chroma petals drifting in his wake. Verso catches one, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger before releasing it to flutter in the breeze. He lapses back into silence.

The elder Dessendre purses her lips. In much the same vein as Papa, idle chitchat has never been her preference. The girl is streamlined—no room for excess or waste, be it movement, thoughts, or energy. Verso is different. Verso babbles endlessly. The vastness of silence and the emptiness of those lapses in conversation seemed to frighten him.

Clea prefers silence. She hates it, fears it, for him. She lets the chroma she’s manipulating fizzle out, drifting harmlessly away in flickering motes. It’d be better if Esquie and Francois were here. One of them could drag Verso out of this fugue. Or their parents, because they had promised. She strides across the battlefield to lean against the palisade.

He cracks open one eye to look at her. “You don’t have to say anything. In fact, if you’re going to say something nasty, I’d prefer you didn’t.”

“What’s there to say? They’re busy.”

“They’re always busy these days.” He shifts to make room for her, folding his hands over his belly. “It’s been months since Maman came along with us.”

Two or three months, Clea thinks, frowning. It’s a stark shift, one she cannot say she understands. Maman will take her along on Council business from time to time, if she’s finished her coursework and the manor is empty. It’s good for her to learn, the Paintress says. All Clea knows is that there have been more and more of those outings in recent months. There are always missives and calls from the Council. When Maman paints, it is only through traditional methods, in stolen moments early in the mornings or late in the evenings.

Clea climbs up to sit beside him, snatching her arm free when Verso tries to tug her down. She leans against Monoco instead, swiping her hair back and draping it across the Gestral rather than the dusty earth.

He sighs. “You’re right—I’m sulking.” Verso turns his face to look at her, hair and face smeared with dust. “Another barricade, sure. It makes sense.”

She ignores the clumsy attempt to direct the conversation back to neutral ground. “Papa still visits. And if you spoke with Maman—”

“I can’t just ask our mother to come play with toys. Papa, too. They’re adults. They’re busy. You were right.” The boy claps both his hands down on his knees, sitting upright in one fluid motion. Verso climbs to his feet, walking the length of the palisade. He refuses to look in her direction. The desiccated scene is a far cry from the vast majority of his Canvas, teaming with life and vibrant colors. It is an ugly scar on the face of his work, she thinks, clearly a concession to her preferences. Verso doesn’t protest. He’s happy to play war, even if he looks desperately out of place as a soldier.

Verso claps his hands, chroma swirling around him. “You know what it needs? Bodies. Too empty. Whoever heard of an empty battlefield?”

All of Maman's lessons about building systems, about the internal logic of these places, about the gravity of their role as creators, twinge in her head. “Where would they have come from? It’s not like there are any cities. Or people.”

“There had to have been people, Clea. There was a battle.”

“Where did they come from?”

“Their homes.”

She knows better than to ask where these homes might be. Or who the people in question are—Verso is deflecting. Her brother beams at her, pale eyes glittering with that oddly hard light, a challenge that makes her think twice. He smiles with too many teeth. She shoves her other questions, the real ones—why does it bother you, why won’t you tell them it bothers you—down. Instead, Clea sighs. She climbs back to her feet, brushing the dust from her skirt. “Fine. Very well. Their homes. What brought them here?”

He rolls his eyes. “The war.”

“What war, Verso?”

“The big one.”

No, engaging with him isn’t worth it. She shoves him off the palisade.

~~~~~~~~

The city passes by the carriage window in a wash of grays and browns. A chill kisses the air. The clouds overheard whispers of a more pressing threat—rain. As if to make good on this threat, a fine, light mist begins to fall.

Aline watches a young couple scurry away from the road to take shelter under a nearby awning. The boy cannot be a day over seventeen, gawky, his face still soft with the last traces of baby fat and youthful acne. He shrugs out of a jacket two sizes too large, holding it awkwardly on his paramour’s head. She looks up at him, an equally coltish girl. In that moment, she is strikingly pretty with her cheeks flushed and skin damp. She feels compelled to paint them, these young lovers flourishing amongst the detritus.

“They've disrespected you.”

Renoir’s voice rumbles through the carriage. She glances over to see his lips set in a hard line. The Paintress smiles.

Aline tips her head against his shoulder, taking his hand in both of hers. She turns his wedding band so that it glistens just so, catching the remnants of afternoon light. “To the contrary, Renoir—few master painters are called on to do more than paint—this is Council work.”

“Without the benefit of the title, or its recognition.” Renoir inclines his head, watching her out of the corner of his eyes. “You are free labor, ma cher.”

“Free labor with an eminently recognizable name.”

“Yes, that too.” He sighs, bringing their joined hands to his lips. “You should not be here.”

“Renoir, it is the Montmartre.” He raises a brow, giving her that look he sometimes manages—as if he cannot quite decide if he is questioning her powers of reason or his own for indulging her. Aline shrugs in concession. “Nearly.”

It’s a flat lie. The carriage has ventured well away from the nightclubs, the cafes, the glitziness, and the life. The coachman angles the carriage towards the heart of the arrondissement—where the idealized Paris gave way somewhat to the city’s realities. The stark disparity between even those few city blocks never ceases to amaze her.

Aline turns her attention back to the street, searching the facade of their quarry’s apartment. “While we are on the topic, mon amour, you are also free labor.” She flashes him a lightly edged smile. “The Council feels emboldened sending me to places like this because they know you will follow.”

“My apologies,” he responds, dryly.

She imagines he has never meant anything less.

The carriage lurches over a particularly uneven stretch of road. Aline’s stomach threatens to upend what little food she’s managed since the morning. A low noise escapes her. Renoir touches her elbow. She swallows, willing that sea-sick feeling away. “It’s nothing.”

He trusts or respects her enough not to push the matter. Renoir pulls her more fully against his side instead, arm folding around her to hold her steady. She murmurs her gratitude.

It takes another fifteen minutes before they reach the Painter’s apartment, a small unit tucked away down a side alley. Renoir’s expression darkens again as he surveys their surroundings. Heavy wear characterizes the building, a handful of windows boarded over. The scent of old refuse hangs in the stagnant air, made worse by the closeness of the tenements. A rat scurries across their path, startling one of the horses.

It’s far from the worst Aline has seen, but she will admit to a touch of disquiet. She’s not wandered far from the richer center of the city since her marriage, never further afield than the Montmartre. She is out of touch with this element of the arts.

Renoir disembarks first, helping her out of the carriage. His touch lingers on the curve of her waist, giving her a moment to steady herself and adjust the hang of her cloak. They have both dressed more simply for the occasion. The rented carriage is plain enough not to appear out of place in this section of the city. By all accounts, they should not draw any undue attention.

Only, when they go to knock on the apartment door, a familiar voice causes them to pause.

“Monsieur! Madame!”

Renoir stiffens beside her as Emilien de Bordeaux steps out of one of the nearby alcoves, hands tucked in his pockets. The Writer looks thoroughly out of place in simplistic apparel, hair hanging in loose waves around his shoulders. He tips his head in greeting.

“At least you had the presence of mind not to use our names,” Renoir says, voice flat.

The other man scoffs. “This is the difference between us on a fundamental level, Painter. A Writer sees this—” he gestures around them, lingering on a nearby stack of palettes and assorted waste. “—a chance to shed our noble titles for the first time in years, and delights. Yet here you are, grim as ever.”

“This is business.”

“It’s always absolutes with you.” Emilien sighs, extending his arm to Aline. “Good afternoon, ma belle—”

She folds her hands at the small of her back. “Writer.”

Emilien purses his lips, eyeing her. He mirrors her posture, nodding. “As you like, Paintress. The Guild said the Painters might send an envoy—you never struck me as an errand girl.”

“Need I remind you, we are both here.”

“I lack your pride.” The corner of his mouth pulls up in a smile too subdued for his naturally expressive face. It’s only a different mask, she thinks, hastily pulled into place to placate Renoir’s more serious nature. “Business then—I am here for the Writer; you want the Painter, no? I see no reason we cannot handle our tasks as one. Unless you prefer loitering in alleyways?”

Aline answers before Renoir can protest. “We were civil before. I see no reason we cannot be civil again.”

The Writer glances between them, searching Renoir’s face. If nothing else, he has the decency to remain quiet, falling into place on Aline’s other side, motioning to the door.

She shakes her head, bringing a hand up to knock on the door.

It was not strictly uncommon for Writers or Painters to operate outside the Guild or Council’s jurisdictions, particularly in the poorer arrondissements. They could not purchase sanctioned materials. Few were classically trained and were certainly never invited to the Salons or proper Readings. As far as Aline could tell, this poor fool Painted, but was no Painter himself. He had made no pledge, sworn to none of their laws. The Council found those sorts unsavory at the best of times, dangerous at the worst. In this case, they feared the latter. Seditionary behavior, they called it.

Partnering with a writer is the truth of it.

She knocks again.

A man with brilliantly red hair opens the door, blinking, glancing between the three of them. He licks his lips, glancing over his shoulder. Aline smiles. “Jean Allard?”

“Yes, Madame. How may I—” His gaze flicks from Emilien to Renoir, lingering on the latter.

“A mutual friend spoke highly of your work.” She keeps her voice low, gentle. “Monsieur Durand?” His shoulders slacken. Jean opens the door a fraction more. “We have francs, of course."

Allard weighs the prospect of payment and the three strangers at his door. Wincing, he opens the door the remainder of the way, stepping aside to make room. The small apartment, poorly ventilated, stinks of ink and damp rags. The lone bed in the corner has clearly seen better days; the sheets have taken on a mottled color. The Painter scrubs the back of his neck, waiting for them to pass before shutting and locking the door.

Another man, younger, already in the process of balding, sits at a sparse desk. Loose papers cover its surface. Ink stains his fingers. She glances towards Emilien. The Writer nods—his man, then.

“We never tried to accommodate three before,” Allard stammers, color flaring in his cheeks. “And it may not—for the mademoiselle…” his color deepens.

Aline speaks to him while inspecting the apartment. Cluttered as it is, she doubts she could find anything damning at a glance. No paintings adorned the walls, no Canvases of any sort. The lone canvas struck her as an ungainly thing, coarse, its weave too thick. “Perhaps we could choose something to our liking?”

The other man—he will later introduce himself, stammering, as Denis— clears his throat. “There is only one piece for now, mademoiselle. My apologies. We could—some adjustments might—”

“I trust Monsieur Durand’s judgement. If he says it is worthwhile, I’m certain it will be to our tastes.”

Emilien nods. “You make copies, yes? How much for two?”

“We have only the one on hand at the moment, Monsieur,” Durand says, laughing. He looks younger when he laughs—far younger. Just a boy trying to survive on what talent he has. “We never expected this to be so popular.”

“Suffering from success, eh? There are far worse things. One will do. I’m certain we can work something out amongst ourselves.”

The Painter shakes his head. “You misunderstand me, Monsieur. We only have the one.” He scrubs the back of his neck. “You could…sit. We would never charge full price, of course. But we cannot part with the original draft.”

“The quality is finer, too,” Denis adds. “Something about the original you never get in copies.”

“Can you live with that?” Emilien murmurs, glancing between herself and Renoir.

Her husband nods, adopting an easy smile. His hand settles between her shoulders, his fingers pressing into her muscles. “Madame?”

Aline fights the urge to touch his cheek. She smiles instead, chewing her lower lip in a way she hopes speaks to excitement and trepidation rather than distaste. She plucks the francs—too many, by any metric—from her pocket and holds them out to Allard. The man blanches.

“If you’ll have a seat, Madame, we’ll fetch the page. Unless the gentlemen…?”

“I’m more interested in picking your brains, Monsieurs,” Renoir says, voice too jovial and bright. His touch falls to the small of her back, pressing. Some invisible pressure eases. She has never been uncomfortable entering others' work, finding it liberating even. Still, something is reassuring in knowing he will look after her form while she is away.

Emilien flashes her a smile that is nearly lupine, green eyes glittering. “Ladies first.”

Aline sits. Allard places a single page in her hand, stapled to a stiff backing. There are three lines of text at the top of the page, written in a clumsy script she can only barely read. Her eyes pass over them without interest. The room below is quite good, clearly a recreation of what the boy imagines passes for luxury. It’s the image which shimmers, a muddy watercolor, its lines somewhat smudged. Aline focuses on this, searching for the opening in the bastardized sketch and manuscript. She feeds her chroma into it.

~~~~~~~~

The nausea hits her first.

The page—whatever it was, some fragment torn from a larger manuscript—is profoundly different from the one she’d entered prior, or the Canvases she’s utilized in the past. Entering it feels like the aftereffect of too many cups of cheap wine, her head throbbing. She brings a hand up, pressing it to her forehead, feeling suddenly overheated.

The second feeling, hot on the nausea’s heels, is a dueling sensation of wanting, needing, so desperately she’s nearly sick with it. It floods her system, drowning out the capacity for higher thought. She’s reminded of wine again, the current drunkenness masking the subsequent regret. Aline feels dizzy, skin too tight. She’s burning. Her stomach clenches. It is a two-toned pain—one has depth to it, diffusing like colored dye through water, through her flesh and into her soul. The other is emptiness, going too long without a meal, a surface level discomfort. She sucks air into her burning lungs.

Fingers stroke across her cheek. They are blissfully cool, dragging down the length of her throat. She shivers, turning her head to look at the newcomer. A woman stares down at her, statuesque, midnight dark hair hanging around her shoulders. She flashes a lazy smile, superior, bordering on dismissive, her eyes a pale shade of blue as familiar to Aline as her own reflection. The creature is simultaneously pale, dark, and lovely. Calling her beautiful feels insulting—she’s perfect.

Aline frowns, puzzled, reaching out to sweep her fingers across the swell of the woman’s hip. Her bare skin is cool, flawless (but feels wrong, doesn’t it? Like caressing a book’s pages, not flesh). The Paintress shivers as her host’s touch dips lower, trailing along the line of her clavicle, down and over the rise of her breast, pressing over her heart.

She wears the same empty smile as she presses her thumb to the Paintress’ lower lip. The blue of Renoir’s eyes stares down at her with none of his life or feeling. She curls a finger under her chin.

There’s no moment to consider. Or breathe. The woman bends and kisses her, her other arm winding around the Paintress to pull her near. That feeling of want flares until it is unbearable. Touching the woman is the only relief, offering momentary clarity as she instinctively parts her lips. Nails scrape over her cheek, back into her hair, tugging, and Aline hisses. She tastes like wine—

—no, that’s only the superficial flavor. Beneath that? The bitterness of ink and a more acerbic note of turpentine. Aline pushes her away.

It is jarring, somehow horrible, that her expression remains unchanged. She is achingly beautiful and equally dead—nothing more than a pretty doll, her features permanently set with a vague hunger. The written thing holds out a hand for her again.

Aline pulls her chroma around herself. That desperate wanting grows distant before fading entirely. She closes her eyes, feeling the shape of the room around her, reaching out to find the Written component. There are only three lines, simple, but effective. The clumsiness of the man’s penmanship jars against the sheer saturation of chroma, dangerously concentrated across the handful of words.

You enter a room, overcome with desire.

The most beautiful woman you can imagine greets you with a kiss.

The third—well, it followed the natural progression, didn’t it? Aline slips back to herself. The woman has closed the distance in the interim, hands skating over her body, mouthing at her throat. Without the first stipulation—overcome with desire—Aline finds it impossible to ignore the creature's inherent otherness, its thinness. It feels less akin to a physical touch and more like another creative’s chroma crawling over her body, oily.

She steps back, stomach clenching. The spark of pain is too sharp for her liking. She pushes it down and out of her mind.

Aline feels the chroma shift when Emilien enters, the page straining to accommodate the presence of the Paintress and a Writer. The creature pauses, her image shifting in response to a second host. It cannot seem to settle, the features of two women bleeding awkwardly together, overlapping. Joséphine de Bordeaux flickers in and out of focus, her expression flat and lifeless.

Emilien’s expression is drawn as he brings the quill up. The moment passes. Your desire cools. The woman takes a seat.

The creature turns, striding towards the bed. It shows no other signs of awareness. Aline searches her chroma and finds little more than a shell, a loose approximation of the female form—the most beautiful woman you could imagine, nothing more. Emilien glances towards her, now sitting, staring sightlessly forward, and frowns. The Writer slips out of his jacket. He drapes the material over her with a fastidiousness Aline would find charming in better circumstances.

Now, all she manages is to scrub at her mouth, the taste of turpentine lingering on her tongue. “Renoir let you follow me?”

“Your husband’s unfounded dislike for me finds it’s equal only in his concern for you, Aline.” Emilien swipes the hair out of his eyes, eyeing the room in distaste. “He read the note. He knew what was waiting.”

“Caution has never been a necessity before,” she says, a touch petulantly. Aline folds her hands in front of her stomach, turning her nose up. “I—did not expect how heavily saturated with chroma the page would be. Your Writer has talent, Emilien.”

“He has chroma, ma chérie. Not talent. We are both well aware of the difference.” He takes a moment to pace the length of the room. “Is this all? One shoddy room and a girl? What in God's name did the Council expect you to gain from these flesh-peddlers?”

“The same things Guild wanted you to determine, I expect—proof of sedition against our orders, inflammatory rhetoric.”

“Unless it’s hidden between the lady’s thighs,” he says, voice dry, “I believe we can put that suspicion to rest.”

Aline waves him off, searching the page’s chroma. The sketched aspects feel perfectly familiar, if rudimentary. She feels along its edges, searching for any hidden compartments. She somehow doubts either Allard or Denis have had the presence of mind for such an act. She crosses the room, feeling along the far wall. There is a seam there, sharper, but there’s nothing behind it—only a jagged line, the result of an amateur artist.

“There’s nothing here,” she agrees.

“You knew that when you spoke to them—they’re young artists trying to make their way in the world. Not everyone has the luxury of our birth.” Emilien sighs, eyeing the woman again. “Any act of camaraderie between a Painter and Writer borders on treason these days. That is the plain truth.”

He isn’t wrong.

Aline touches his arm. “Come along, Emilien.”

Severity looks so out of place on him. He opens his mouth to say something.

Whatever it is, he seems to think better of it.

~~~~~~~~~

Emilien asks what she intends to tell the Painters Council.

She says the truth. Whatever negatives she might feel about the Writers on the whole, those fools were only tangentially related to their Orders. They had no place in the great game. Their sole focus and goal was survival.

“Careful, Madame. You’ll be taken for a sympathizer.”

She scoffs, leaning into her husband’s side. “Fools will say as much. Good evening, Monsieur.”

“A moment, please.” The genuine note of entreaty causes them to pause. Emilien reaches into his jacket pocket, withdrawing a sealed letter. He holds it out. “My Joséphine requested I pass it along.”

“One encounter with a Writer’s ilk was enough for the day,” Renoir states. The Paintress still feels unwell enough to defer to him. Her head continues to swim, body aching. The Writer looks no better off, unnaturally pale. Once or twice, he sways badly enough that he’s left to catch himself on the wall. Renoir takes a degree of pity on him, reaching out to grab the other man’s arm.

“It is ordinary paper, my paranoid friend.” He looks moments away from pinching the bridge of his nose. “Would you prefer I read it to you? Would that set your mind at ease?”

She doesn’t need to look up at her love to know he’s smirking. He inclines his head. “Perhaps.”

Emilien snaps the seal with an exaggerated flourish. There’s no spill of chroma or any great happening. The wax splits, scattering about the alley. With exaggerated gravitas, he reads the first line, “Emilien, if you are reading this, I am disappointed, but not surprised, you…nosy, impertinent creature—” Aline chews the inside of her cheek, fighting the urge to chuckle. The man colors, refolding the letter before extending it to Renoir. He clears his throat. “Well, there you are. At her behest.”

Renoir takes a moment to scan the page. The fool laughs, placing it in Aline’s waiting hand.

Sure enough, the lady’s letter begins precisely as read.

It goes forgotten for a time, set on her vanity alongside the rest of her unanswered correspondence. There are more pressing things to concern herself with. The thin trickle of dried blood on her thighs chief among them.

~~~~~~~~~

The morning is particularly miserable.

He does not consider himself an authority—to the boy, most mornings are miserable. They are subdued affairs, usually rushed, and end with him either rushing off to class or one of his parents’ lessons. It is not the instruction he dislikes; Verso is not a perfect student by any means, but he is not stupid, and he does enjoy learning. It’s just that he’s never properly awake at the times adults seem to demand his attention.

Not that any of that mattered. Today is a Saturday. Verso has no place to go. If he paints, it will only be for pleasure. No, the misery is a unique affair. The boy throws open the side door to the garden and scowls.

Rain. Rain, rain, rain, and more rain. The clouds overhead have a particularly menacing look, drowning all residual traces of sunlight. They will have no reprieve. Verso will have to remain indoors.

It is not always the worst thing, but he is still unaccustomed to the emptiness. He misses roaming the halls with Monoco at his heels, the clicking of his nails on the tile. The sharpness of the hurt has dulled somewhat, but it still aches. The boy closes the door, turning back to the house, feeling its vastness and its solitude all too fiercely.

It is too early. Verso should really return to his room. He can putter with toys by the fire or curl up with one of his books. Clea will be asleep for some time yet, so he cannot play his games too loudly.

And truth be told, he’s not much interested in playing trains, anyway. Verso folds his hands at the small of his back, pacing the length of the great dining hall twice, trying not to fixate on the silence. His footsteps echo. He walks the outer perimeter until he reaches Papa’s atelier, the door thrown open wide. Most of the easels have been moved to the back of the room to make way for Papa’s newest creation. It is frankly massive. Verso lacks the faintest idea of what it is supposed to be—so far as he can tell, it’s just a bunch of humped shapes and dark colors— but Papa seems satisfied. And Clea and Maman are intrigued, so there must be something of value there.

The boy eyes it once more, shrugs, and turns on his heel, marching back towards the hall.

During his solitary vigil, he encounters three members of the staff. Each greets him with perfect civility. They have no interest in engaging in conversation. One offers to fetch him tea. He politely declines.

It continues to rain.

Maman and Papa will be awake by now. He could join them. He angles towards the library instead. They will be his last resort.

For as frequently and often as his parents like to complain about the Writers, they’ve no shortage of books in the house. The manor’s library put most collections to shame. Clea has dozens. Verso has his little pile. The main wall of Papa and Maman’s room is stocked, floor to ceiling, with rare tomes gathered over the course of their adventures. A healthy number of them are written in languages he cannot recognize, let alone read. Those tended to have the finest pictures. And now that he is old enough to move the ladder on his own (not use the ladder, mind you—maman would ground him till the end of time if she knew he’d been climbing about unsupervised), he knows that most of the interesting books are kept up high. Out of Verso's reach, as Clea liked to say.

He will find something exciting, preferably bloody, perhaps gory, to read for a few hours, and then see if he can’t persuade someone to take him into Paris.

The first thing he notices is the fire burning in the hearth. The room is far enough from the heart of the manor that they only occasionally heat it outside of colder winter days. He steps in, sees no one, and moves towards the ladder.

It isn’t until he’s ascended the first three rungs that his father chooses to speak.

“For both our sakes, I hope this is not a habit you’ve fallen into, my son.”

Surprised, Verso's foot slips. He manages to catch himself, but not before he sees the brief flash of panic on Papa’s face. The man emerges from the small alcove where he’s been taking his coffee to lunge across the room. A warm hand settles between Verso’s shoulder blades, steadying him.

Verso shoots him a dark look, lips pursing. It does not have the intended effect. The right corner of his father’s mouth twitches up in a smile before he can steel himself. “Of course not, Papa. I would never.”

“A bold proclamation, seeing as you were caught in the act.” Papa ruffles his hair. “Come down. No harm’s done.”

The boy takes another look at the books before doing as instructed. Verso struggles to imagine a worse outcome. He’s caught, for starters, which means Papa and the staff will be looking for this behavior going forward, and he’s come away with nothing to show for it. The disappointment must show on his face. Papa cups the back of his neck, leading him into a loose embrace.

“You’ve been in poor spirits, Verso. The rain?”

He sighs, turning his face into the man’s jacket. The library suits him as well as the atelier—the lingering scent of his cologne mixes with the slightly spicy smell of old books. The boy associates both smells with warmth and comfort. Papa passes a hand over the top of his head, tipping Verso’s head back to look up at him. “Yes.”

“Only ‘yes’?” He shrugs. Papa leads him to one of the wingback chairs, motioning for Verso to take a seat. The man waits for him to settle before taking his own seat. Verso notes the book on the end table for the first time, face down to display the cover—A Study in Scarlet. He resolves to ask about it later. It sounds interesting, at least.

Verso picks at the armrest. “You and Maman have been away. And no one can play outdoors in the rain. And Monoco—” He swallows his pride enough to speak the truth. “It's lonely.” He does not say, I'm lonely. That is…too much truth.

“Ah.”

“The house is big,” Verso finishes lamely.

Papa leans back in his seat, seeming to consider this. The pursed expression always makes him look older. Always makes Verso feel younger, too. The boy frowns, cocking his head to the side, leaning forward to get a better look at the older man’s hands. Old scars mar the flesh, crisscrossing his knuckles. Paint and ink color his fingertips, wind up and over his wrists. He’s usually so neat. The thought occurs to him that he’s just come from the atelier, but Verso has already visited.

But sometimes Papa struggled to sleep. Clea, too. Verso wonders if they are ever lonely, too.

They must be.

Papa’s voice is gentle. “I felt much the same as a boy.”

Verso’s head jerks up. “You did?”

He can’t visualize it. His father is strength. It’s hard enough for him to think about Papa as a boy, let alone a boy who felt like him. He nods, lips curving in a smile that is simultaneously warm and distant. “Is that so surprising? No, I remember the lack.” Papa seems to taste the word, brow furrowing. It is not entirely correct, perhaps, only the best they can manage. “Your grandfather was solitary by nature—it never occurred to him that others might feel differently.”

“How did you…deal with it?”

“Something tells me it would be unwise to give you ideas.”

Verso snickers, chewing his lip. Slyly, he adds, “I promise not to tell mémé.”

“I shall keep any incriminating secrets to myself a while longer,” he drawls.

He loves making his father laugh. Even the dry chuckle is a victory well earned. The flickering firelight paints his face strangely—softer when highlighted by golds and oranges, too sharp where shadow touches. Artistically compelling, but something Verso would rather forget than immortalize. He likes Papa better lit by sunlight.

Comfortable silence stretches between them until his father says, “Your mother and I have been absent recently—for that I apologize.”

He parrots Clea’s words. “You’ve been busy.”

Papa’s voice remains gentle. “That does not make the hurt any less real, Verso.” He continues in that same soothing drone. “The Council promises it will have less need of your mother in the coming months and, by extension, myself. You’ll be tired of us by Spring.”

Verso doubts that very much. The boy grins, climbing from his seat. He crosses the room to collect his father’s coffee and brings it to him. Papa takes a sip before setting it aside. He does precisely what Verso has hoped—wraps an arm around him and pulls him close, shoulder pinned against the man’s chest as he presses a kiss to his forehead.

“There is no inherent strength in solitude, my son. Honesty is often the braver course,” Papa murmurs, his breath warm against Verso’s skin. Verso nods, melting into his hold. Age has done little to diminish his father. The familiar thought echoes—Papa is strength. “Do not feel you must hide these concerns from your mother or me. You are never alone.”

“Yes, Papa.”

The two settle again. Papa helps him fetch a book from one of the higher shelves. Verso opens the book, but does not read. These moments—uninterupted time with his father, outside the atelier and outside of lessons—came too rarely to squander. They chatter about nothing—venturing into Paris, Monoco. Papa promises they will have another hound the moment Verso is ready.

It is good. It is warm.

Bathed in the warmth of the library and his father’s company, Verso feels less alone.

The world is a scale. The world seeks balance.

Upstairs, his maman has never felt so isolated.

~~~~~~~~~

There is no more blood.

She clings to this, five words repeated ad nauseam in the days following their foray into Paris and the Writer’s work. She has not been herself, out of spirits enough for Renoir to comment, taking her arm and asking her, with all the heartbreaking sincerity she’s come to love him for, if she is well.

She doesn’t have an answer to that question.

Aline lifts her head, wincing. The taste of bile still lingers on her tongue, borderline acidic. Her stomach does a second dizzying spin as she stares down into the washbasin. She flicks the water on before it makes her sick again, closing her eyes and performing a mental ten count until the feeling passes. When it does, she meets her reflection’s gaze in the mirror. The Dessendre matriarch scrubs a shaking hand across her mouth.

She’s gone pale—her cheeks, her lips. At that moment, she is a ghost or a corpse, and her hands will not stop shaking. Aline clutches the vanity countertop as if she can will the muscles into submission.

Instead, she vomits again.

The Paintress makes her way to the chair on unsteady legs, hugging her robe about herself. Sunlight streams through the massive window, leaving the bathroom preternaturally bright. The room tended to run warmer as a result. Aline remains cold. She crosses her arms over her chest, posture rigid, staring sightlessly towards the bath. She brings her left hand up without thinking, feeling the cool press of her wedding band against her cheek, fighting the urge to chew her nails down to the quick. A habit she’s chided Clea for all too frequently over the course of the years, and yet slips back into so easily herself—such delightful hypocrisy.

It’s only an illness—dinner did not agree with you, the voice in Aline's head whispers, haughty—it is the sound of an eminently reasonable woman, just this side of irritable. You are being paranoid. Aline purses her lips, a muscle in her jaw twitching as she clenches it shut. She has never found her inner monologue as patently ridiculous as she does now. It is her voice; who does she think she’s convincing? She hears the underlying quavering note, the desperation that threatens to erupt into panic.

She is not ill. She is not paranoid.

She’s pregnant.

She'd thrown herself into a fucking Manuscript pregnant.

Instinctively, the woman pulls her legs up, pulls them to her chest like a frightened girl. She worries her thumb between her teeth, biting down just hard enough to feel the flat pressure spread across the nail bed. The Paintress lets her touch fall, spreading her fingers across the still-flat plain of her stomach. She traces the line of scar tissue, lips pursing—a testament to her love and hubris. Aline closes her eyes.

There have been other pregnancies in the intervening years since Verso’s birth. One is pure chance, the result of shoddy planning and sudden desperation. The other two are intentional. Ill-advised, but intentional. She hugs her knees to her chest.

She’d known better—knows better— and that it has happened again is—

Aline chews the inside of her cheek, pushing the thought away. She wants so badly to feel angry—at the situation, herself, everything, anything. Anger is familiar. Anger—

—won’t come. The hollow feeling reasserts itself.

The voice in her head—the reasonable voice—gives way to its panic and its hurt, fighting to assert itself as it fills her head with babbling protestations. Not again. No, she cannot live through this again—the expectation turning to hurt, waking to bloodied sheets, to Renoir frantically clutching at her. She cannot—

—breathe.

The Paintress wraps her arms around her knees, pressing her forehead against them. Aline reaches out for all her typical strength, the single-minded drive that has allowed her to distinguish herself in Paris, and cannot lay hold of it. Her triumphs seem pale and hollow in the face of her failures. Renoir’s face manifests in the darkness behind her eyes, heartbroken, and she knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that seeing it again, failing him—them—again will kill her.

She can’t.

Then throw yourself into a Canvas and be done with it. Something in her snaps at the chastisement, infuriated. How dare it. If the prospect of failure is too much, make it a certainty, Paintress.

Stop. Aline shivers. Breathe—in, out, in.

The numbness returns.

No. Aline cannot do that either. She's too stubborn, too prideful. And if she has not already killed the little thing growing in her womb, then nothing is certain. Nothing is ever certain.

Breathe.

The only thing she knows is there can be no more risks—no more Canvases, no Manuscripts—not until she is certain, one way or the other. Aline wills her limbs to unlock. The muscles refuse to go slack all at once—it is a gradual process, beginning in her upper arms, down through the wrists, unclenching fingers curled so tightly she’s left little crescents of blood across her palm. Renoir will have questions.

Later, she thinks, forcing the air out of her lungs, swallowing it again. A problem for later.

She rises on unsteady legs, holding onto the arm of the chair until she’s certain she will not fall. The best thing she can do, the only thing, is put it from her mind. Aline tucks all of it away in a box in the back of her mind, buried beneath more pressing concerns—duty to the Council, to her husband, to her living children.

Aline squares her posture, jaw set—Paintress and Matriarch once more. For now, her condition is nothing. Certainly not worthy of concerning others.

She thinks of the letter from Joséphine for the first time in days.

The Paintress unlocks the bathroom door, stepping out into their bedroom. She has rarely felt so grateful for her husband’s absence. She catches her reflection in the vanity mirror and scowls. Her face is blotchy and red, streaked with drying tracks of tears. She scrubs them away.

Aline settles with the letter. It takes a moment for her mind to parse the words; there’s still too much adrenaline flooding her system, hands shaking. She skips over the initial chastisement to find the portion addressed to herself.

It says precious little. Madame de Bordeaux congratulates her on the debut of her latest collection. It asks about the health of her family. The de Bordeaux eldest child is Clea’s age, and would it not be charming if they arranged for their heirs to socialize? Perfectly banal conversations, entirely in line with what one might have expected from a fellow noblewoman. It is the final paragraph that gives her pause.

There are things I would ask you, Aline. And things I would ask of you, should you prove amenable. They would be more easily communicated in person. Words are my husband’s purview—it is a skill I have never mastered. I imagine I never will.

If you find this agreeable, kindly respond to this letter with a time and location of your choice.

I write to you as one noblewoman to another, no more than that. You have my gratitude, Madame.

And my sincere apologies for any inconvenience my husband (undoubtedly) caused.

Yours,

Joséphine de Bordeaux

The warning bell rings in her head. There is a sweet irony that it is Emilien’s words on repeat, now opined as a genuine warning—careful, Madame. You will be taken as a sympathizer.

She frowns, resting the letter in her lap. The Writer’s expression in the moment had struck her as more than passing strange. And while it might have been a clever ruse, he had not known the contents of the letter itself.

Aline crosses to her vanity, plucking up the pen to draft a response.

If nothing else, it will keep her mind from other concerns.

~~~~~~~~~

The Louvre is neutral ground.

It is the domain of Painters and Sculptors both. It is the Heart of Parisian art, or perhaps its soul, ancient.

Not even the Council would question Joséphine’s presence, if they noticed at all.

Aline tightens her hold on Clea’s shoulder, hugging the girl back against her. Her daughter turns her face up to look at her, brow raised, expressions colored with an uncharacteristically gentle curiosity. The muscles beneath her hand slacken; she leans into the hold, seeming to recognize the older woman’s need. She smooths her thumb over her eldest’s cheek, heart twinging in her chest.

Clea smiles.

Verso had declined to come along. The Louvre did not interest him, certainly not on one of his precious free days. And while she had anticipated needing to bribe Clea, her daughter surprised her, volunteering. Experience, she’d called it.

Something about the word tastes bitter on her tongue. She stares down into her child’s lovely face, eyes gray, soft, and lovely, and wonders at the phrasing—not socializing, not even an afternoon out with her mother—experience.

She is too young to see the world so clinically.

(Some voice in her head whispers that she was no different—the world is cyclical.)

The pair make their way through the gallery.

The museum is strikingly empty. The few guests whisper together as if afraid to shatter the silence. Aline angles them towards one of the less popular exhibits. This room is entirely empty aside from two figures. A tall woman and a coltish boy of Clea’s age. The Dessendre matriarch clears her throat.

Joséphine raises her head. A smile tugs at her too wide mouth, equal parts pleased and hesitant. The woman stands. She holds her hands out to Aline, taking three steps towards them, closing the majority of the distance. The Paintress clasps her wrist, blinking when the other woman pulls her into an embrace.

“You came.” The de Bordeaux matriarch chuckles, leaning in to press a kiss to both of her cheeks. “Emilien doubted.”

Aline chuckles. “And Renoir advised against coming.”

“I cannot fault his caution.” Joséphine’s attention flicks to Clea. “Your daughter?”

“My Clea, yes.”

“Madame,” Clea says, a touch stiffly.

“She’s beautiful.” Joséphine motions to the boy at her side. He folds his hands at the small of his back—tall for his age, looking too much like his mother. “My son, Simon.” He bows his head, perfectly austere aside from the twinkle in his eyes. He wants so badly to look presentable and adult, but cannot seem to help the way he rocks from his heels to the balls of his feet. Joséphine clears her throat. “Come, Madame. Walk with me.”