Page 49 of The Muse (Beautiful Magic 1)
She lets her voice trail off as her lips zero in on mine. She leans in, pressing lightly at first, grazing my lips, and I let her lead, like she seems to want to. She could take me anywhere, and she has. I push my hands through her soft hair, letting the strands form a waterfall through my fingers. She leans into my touch like a cat, and kisses me back, slow and soft as if we could do this forever. This kind of long, unhurried, luxurious kiss. A kiss that turns you inside out with bliss.
But eventually we pull apart.
“Why don’t you leave the painting for good? Can you escape from the painting? Leave the museum?” I ask, but even if she left, what would she have? Where would—or could—she go? It’s as if she’s traveled through time.
She gives a sad, plaintive smile. “I can. And it’s simple. You don’t need a crazy car chase or knife fight to free me. Nothing violent, nothing dangerous. It’s simple because art is grace. Art is class. You can free me by holding open the door and letting me out.”
My heart soars at the prospect. But not for long.
Because her tone is heavy.
There will be no freeing her easily.
“But . . .?”
“But that won’t change the curse, and besides, I don’t want to go.”
I latch onto the last part of her answer. “Why?”
She strokes my cheek. “Do you want me to just keep saying it over and over? I told you last night. Because of you.”
I laugh. “It doesn’t really get old to hear.” My eyes drift to the green slats of the bridge, and I want to feel them, their realness. I lie down with her there. The overhead sun warms me. “But tell me, why me?”
“We speak each other’s language. We like the same things. We both love art. We love it to the wild depths of our souls.”
I grin. “Why, yes, I do believe you understand me perfectly.”
She touches my wrist as she talks, running a finger across my palm. “I think I do, and do you want to know why?” Her eyes twinkle with secrets about to come undone.
I prop myself up on one elbow, all eager and then some. “Yes. Tell me.”
She trails her fingers up my arm now. “You want to know who I am?”
My bones vibrate with need. “Yes. I’m dying to know.” This is all I want.
“Everything?”
“Yes!” I say desperately. “Tell me.”
“Like, about my family? And where I’m from?”
I make a rolling gesture with my hands, letting her know I’m eager and ready. “Tell me.” I lace my fingers through hers. She squeezes back.
She props herself up on her elbow, mirroring me. “Here’s a hint. I have eight sisters,” she says, like she delights in delivering that detail. “Eight.”
She says the number as if it’s the answer to a riddle, and I have to figure out the question. I picture the digit as a swirling figure, two intertwined circles.
“Eight,” I repeat.
“I’m like you,” she continues, all flirty and sexy. “Only eternal.”
It’s as if there were a few notes playing in my head and then someone turned up the radio and the song is now blasting at full volume, and I know all the lyrics. “Do you have a sister named Calliope?” I ask in a hushed breath.
She nods happily, like she enjoys revealing this secret.
How did I miss this? Of course I know a Clio is one of the nine Muses, but then it never occurred to me that my Clio might be an actual Muse.
That’s how I missed it.
I simply thought she was like any other woman with that name. Cognitive dissonance perhaps. The notion she might be Clio the Muse seemed too preposterous that I never considered it. I always assumed she was simply a woman from many years ago with that name.
“And do you have another sister named Thalia?” I ask.
A grin spreads across her face. “Yes. Though Thalia is more like a mom to me.”
“You’re a Muse. One of the nine Muses. You’re one of the nine actual Muses?”
“One of the nine indeed,” she says, pleased, like she’s just given me a fantastic birthday present, and holy hell, this is another gift. This knowledge. This insight into her. Clio isn’t just a young woman from Montmartre. She’s so much more.
“Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, and . . .” I say, rattling off the names of the other Muses from myth, but I blank on the last one.
“Urania,” she says with a wild grin. “Impressive that you know them. My family.”
I shake my head in astonishment. “You’re a Muse? Like, a real Muse? Not just, like, a human muse? But the Muses from forever and ever?”
She holds up her hand like she’s swearing in court. “As I live and breathe, I’m a Muse. An eternal Muse. Thalia made me. She made all of us.”
