Page 17 of The Muse (Beautiful Magic 1)
“You better hope they don’t know ‘poulain,’ or I’ve lost ten euros,” he says, but he’s laughing.
I laugh too, and go on my way with a parting promise: “I’ll cover you if they turn out to be bilingual equestrians.”
Wild horses couldn’t drag me into the Louvre after dark.
At the Musée d’Orsay, we only have art painted after 1848—relatively modern in artistic terms. But our sister museum is full of medieval and Renaissance works, from periods that mainly drew from the Bible or other Classical sources. I don’t want to run into Salome walking around with John the Baptist’s head on a tray, or Prometheus with his liver half-eaten by crows.
The piece I’m studying is a seventeenth-century Georges de La Tour depicting Joseph in his workshop with a young Jesus. It’s pleasantly domestic, but they can stay in their frame, thank you very much.
“It’s an ironic inclusion as an interior scene, don’t you think?”
The slightly smug question tells me Claire picked it for the exhibit—Interiors through the Ages—herself. The assistant curator has the carefully manicured look of a news anchor—sharp skirt, heels, proper blouse, and straight brown hair that falls just so—and she’s giving me a preview of the exhibit before we get to the task at hand. When Claire offered to let me take a peek, I couldn’t resist.
“It definitely makes me think,” I say, though it’s more like I’m hoping this painting doesn’t come alive, since I’d rather avoid a religious experience in the museum.
In the La Tour, Jesus holds a lit candle for his earthly father, and I peer at it closely, as if the painting could reveal its nighttime secrets to me.
“Well, what does it make you think about?” Claire asks, as if quizzing me.
Before I can form a reply, a sharp, hot pain sears my hand. I gasp and look at my palm, expecting . . . I don’t know what I’m expecting, but it’s not this.
There, dancing in my cupped hand, is a single flame. A candle flame, like in the painting, as if the fire has jumped from the canvas to . . . me.
My chest seizes tight. Nothing like this has ever happened during daylight hours.
I’ve just wrapped my head around art coming to life at night and now it can ambush me anytime?
I’d wondered whether something from a painted world could harm me.
Well, now I know—it can hurt like a son of a bitch.
I close my fist around the flame, snuffing it out. Then I slowly uncurl my fingers again, and find my palm is the reddish pink of a bad sunburn.
Claire’s gaze drops to my turned-up palm. “Oh, dear. Did you burn yourself?”
Surprise rocks me back a step. “You can see that?”
Her perfectly arched eyebrows knit in a frown. “Your burned hand. What happened? What do you mean?”
Those are both excellent questions. I raise my gaze to the painting, and a fist of shock hits me in the gut. On the canvas, the candle in Joseph’s workshop is almost burned out. The flame is now only a guttering spark in the well of wax.
Is that because I put out the flame? Should I have returned it to the canvas like I do with Cézanne’s peaches and Olympia’s cat?
Did I cause permanent damage to a work of art?
I point to the painting. “The candle flame in the La Tour. It’s gone.”
Claire glances from the canvas back to me. “Is that a joke? The painting looks the same as ever.”
So, Claire can’t see the blackened spot, even though she saw the effect of the flame on my hand.
But what the hell does that mean?
I recover the best I can, considering my upside-down world has made another spin. “My apologies, Claire,” I say more formally. “I must have confused this with another painting for a moment. How embarrassing.”
Humbling myself a little was the right call—she thaws from blast freezer to merely subarctic. “Well, things happen.”
“They do. I’ll just have a look at the Young Girls at the Piano and then be out of your way.”
She leads me to the Renoir of two girls sitting at a piano, featured on another wall of the gallery. “I think it looks amazing here.”
I smile politely and agree it does. The repairs are seamless and undetectable. Except . . . when I peer closer, I see one of the piano keys is already fading again.
Adaline is not going to be happy. I glance warily at Claire, ready to assure her the piece had been in pristine condition when we packed it up for transport. But she smiles dreamily as she gazes at the scene. “I love this one. Perfectly on theme. Do tell your sister I’m so grateful for the loan.”
Merde.
Claire can’t see this new sun damage, just like she couldn’t see the extinguished flame on the La Tour. Which leads me to think the damage to both paintings must be related somehow. Or am I the only one seeing this new damage?
