The gallery door opened. I stood like a statue, my breath suspended as Phelan stepped into the chamber.
He was dressed in a black jacket with coattails and a matching top hat, a pheasant feather tucked within its band. His waistcoat was crimson, embroidered with golden flowers, and his boots were spit polished, reaching to his knees. There was no rapier sheathed at his belt this time; the only thing he carried was a book. His dark hair was captured by a ribbon at the nape of his neck.
He took two steps into the chamber and then stopped, his gaze finding me at once.
I felt a bead of perspiration trace down the curve of my back. Why was he looking at me like that? I wondered if he saw through my guise, if he knew it was me. Although how could he? Not even Imonie had recognized me.
“Mr. Vesper?” I asked, pitching my voice deep.
“Yes. Forgive me, I thought . . . I thought you were someone else for a moment.” He gave me a disappointed close-lipped smile and walked to the table and chair. The receptionist hurried to place an inkstand on the desk before departing the chamber, and Phelan sat and opened the book, taking a quill within his hand.
“Do you have any experience? Have you ever fought on a new moon before?” he asked, marking a new entry on the page.
“No, I haven’t,” I lied. “But I’ve always wanted to be a dream warden.”
“Very well,” he said, and leaned back in the chair, looking at me again. Dust motes spun in the air between us. “Prove to me that you would be my perfect accompaniment.”
I had expected more questions from him. His lack of them was telling—he didn’t expect me to last two minutes into this interview. He found me unremarkable, underwhelming, a face that melted into all the others he had beheld that morning.
I turned to hide the emotion that flickered through me. I was fulfilling the very role I wanted, and yet Phelan irritated me so greatly that I wondered how I would be able to work alongside him. How long would it take me to usher his family’s downfall?
I would need to enact a stellar performance, and I thought about all the things I had learned from my mother, who flourished on the stage with metamara spells. Once, I had thought her tricks simple and harmless, mere whimsies to delight a crowd. She turned handkerchiefs into doves, pennies into fireflies, a sapphire bracelet into falling rain. She made it look effortless, and I stopped before a painting of ravens perched in a persimmon tree.
I suddenly knew what I wanted to do, my avertana magic yearning for a spar. I took what I knew best of both threads of magic, and I called the birds to me, coaxed them from the canvas into our realm. They emerged with a thunderous flap of wings, hovering around me like a storm until I whispered Phelan’s name and they dove to him.
Phelan’s eyes widened. He rose in haste, the chair flipping over behind him, and the ravens swarmed him, clawing at his jacket, his hair, his face. I heard him utter a curse of surprise, and I watched as he winced and outstretched his hand, cutting through wings and turning the ravens into feathers. They drifted to the floor in sad spirals.
I had already moved on to my next painting, one that boasted a knight in plated armor, wielding a great sword. I briefly thought of the menacing knight who had haunted Elle Fielding’s dream and summoned this painted one forward. He was tall and slow at first, as if waking from a long sleep, but his footsteps made the floors tremble, and I urged him to Phelan.
The knight did as I wanted. I noticed how Phelan’s handsome face drained white, as if he had seen a ghost. His eyes went wide and dark; his hands quivered as he raised them in a defensive stance.
The knight swung his sword and Phelan leapt back, almost a moment too late as my knight cut the table in half. Wood splintered and cracked. The walls shook, the frames rattling in protest. My heart beat cold and swift as I watched Phelan frantically cast a charm that rebounded off the knight’s breastplate. The knight grunted and attempted another decapitation, unfazed by Phelan’s magic.
Phelan was terrified, uncertain how to fell this knight. And he was no use to me dead or wounded. His fear, though, was intriguing and a touch satisfying.
I curled my fingers and the knight swayed, exposing his neck for a brief moment.
Phelan rushed to meet the weakness, his magic slicing the opponent’s neck clean to the bone. Down my knight went, in chunks of armor, like a crumbling pillar of stone.
I wasn’t finished yet, though. I stepped to the third painting, one that depicted four wolves running in a snowy landscape. The wolves came to me, docile as pups until I whispered Phelan’s name to them. Their coats were thick, each a different shade of gray and glittering with snow, and they stalked to Phelan on silent paws.
He was surrounded, and yet he fought them boldly, even as their claws shredded through his sleeves and pants, and I saw his blood begin to well and drip.
Ease, I told the wolves. I permitted Phelan to vanquish them one by one, his magic radiant, growing in strength and accuracy, as if he at last had learned the steps to my dance. And then it was over. He had slain all four wolves, and they lay as snowdrift at his feet.
Panting and speckled with blood, he looked at me. Between us lay a carnage of magic and charms—black feathers that glistened blue in the light, pieces of armor, an abandoned great sword, icy swaths of snow. Phelan removed his top hat and raked his hand through his hair, and I saw how he bled, how he trembled. He was not badly wounded, his pride and confidence more shaken than anything else.
I gave him a moment, and I called the pieces of the paintings back to me. They returned to their frames, as if they had never seen our realm. Phelan watched as I reversed my charm. When the floor was clean—the poor desk would remain splintered, however—he set his hat back on his head, composed. He studied me closely, a furrow in his brow.
“Who are you?” he asked.
I suddenly was overcome with the urge to leave. How had I thought I could do this? Surely, he sensed it was me beneath the guise.
Before I could stop myself, I strode for the door.
“Please, wait,” he breathed. “What is your name?” He reached the door before me, and he laid his blood-speckled hand on the wood. I stared at the brass handle, just out of my reach.
Reluctantly, I met his gaze. The words caught in my throat, and I reminded myself to keep my voice low. “Excuse me, Mr. Vesper. But I think this was a mistake.”
“A mistake?” He chuckled and glanced at the disrepair of his clothes. And then he looked at me, how immaculate I was. “I think you are rather brilliant. And you’re not here by mistake.”
I remained silent, and he shifted his weight, his hand sliding away from the door.
“I offer the position to you. Take the afternoon to ponder it, but if you need help in deciding, join me for dinner tonight at my town house.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
“Good,” he replied with a smile, as if he already knew I had determined my mind. “I live on Auberon Street, house eleven, in the south quarter of Endellion. About a twenty-minute walk from here. Dinner will be at six.” He opened the door for me. “I only ask one thing of you before you go.”
I stepped over the threshold into the hallway, but I paused to glance back at him. “And what is that, Mr. Vesper?”
“Your name, please.”
“Anna. Anna Neven.” I spoke smoothly, as if I had said such a name endless times before. As if that name had always belonged to these bones, this spirit. The stone half of my heart.