Page 57 of The Muse (Beautiful Magic 1)
Sighing sadly, I tell her, “It’s as if all the colors are bleeding away. I can’t figure it out. Maybe it’s related to your curse, maybe not. It seems like Renoir is as worried as any of us.”
“Of course,” says Clio. “His art is what he prizes above all other things.”
“Here’s my thought—you said Muse dust is very powerful, potent enough to trap you. Could it also have been used to put a curse on Renoir’s paintings?”
We float lazily over exaggerated ultramarine as she strokes my hair. “I suppose it’s possible. But art magic is highly specific. It’s for inspiration and creation. But it’s also the only thing powerful enough to change art—transform kernels of ideas into fully realized masterpieces.”
“Okay, hear me out on this, but I have an idea.” I twist around to look up at her. “You don’t owe him any favors, but maybe you can fix the Renoirs with your Muse dust.”
She tilts her head, then nods. “I can try it. I’m not fond of him. Clearly.” She shakes her head with a guilty sigh. “But despite everything, I do still love his paintings. Is that awful, to love the art of someone like that?”
“The paintings contain the beauty he saw, and that’s what you love. That’s what has outlived him.”
“So when we leave this painting, we’ll try.”
I toss out another theory, one that’s been tugging at my mind. “Do you think the other Muses could have cursed his art?”
Her mouth drops open in unmistakable horror. She holds up her hands. “Absolutely not. It goes against what we are. We love the art, not the artist. The job of an eternal Muse is to coax out the idea, and our magic and our love keep the art and literature and beauty alive through the years.”
“So how does it work? Being a Muse?” I ask. The golden stars bathe the night around us in a warm glow as shimmery water laps the boat. The sound of the sweet waves is as gentle as Clio’s hands in my hair.
“Do you know the opening of Homer’s Odyssey?” She quotes the first line of the epic poem. “Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story.” She taps her chest. “My specialty is painting, as you know. From our home, we can go anywhere in the world. Poets, writers, painters, dancers, actors, musicians—we sense they need us, and we travel.”
“That’s fantastic, like inspiration on call. I want to know more. Tell me who else you’ve inspired. Who are your favorites?”
“J. M. W. Turner. I loved helping him with his seascapes. I also adored working with Ingres. And Géricault—I’m especially proud of him for The Raft of the Medusa. He struggled so hard with that one, the depth of emotion in it. I put so much love into that painting to help him realize its potential.” I love hearing her talk like this. She’s even more enchanting than usual, especially as she runs her finger along the neck of my T-shirt. I relax into her touch. “Vermeer and Rembrandt too.”
“If you inspire all these artists, you must be able to speak every language. So you can talk to them, right? That’s why you speak perfect French, but you don’t have the accent of someone who was born here.”
“It’s true. Are you impressed?”
“Everything about you impresses me,” I say, and she rewards me by leaning in for a kiss. “So how do you say in Dutch, ‘Oh, Mr. Rembrandt, I think you need a bit more brown in this self-portrait’?”
She answers immediately.
“You know I have no idea what you really said.”
“I said exactly what you asked.”
“How do you say in Italian, ‘Leonardo, I think the Mona Lisa is lame’?”
She laughs and rattles off a quick Italian phrase.
“All right, I have a good one. How do you say in Spanish, ‘Mr. Goya, your paintings are so beautiful they remind me of the most amazing woman I’ve ever met’?”
She blushes and lowers her face, then repeats Spanish words back to me.
Headache gone, I sit up in the boat so I’m facing her, my heart thundering in my head. “How do you say in English, ‘I can’t imagine being without her’?”
She looks at me, her eyes brimming with passion. “I feel the same.”
I take her hand. Run my index finger along hers. Feel her skin warm to my touch. “Clio.” I breathe her name into the painted world we’re floating in. I cup her face in my hands, my palms on her cheeks, holding her soft and close as golden starlight streaks across the night. All my nerves fly into my throat as I ask the next question. “How do you say in French, ‘Clio, I’m falling in love with you’?”
She loops her fingers through mine, lacing them tightly. “Julien, I’m falling in love with you too.”
