The Painter's Apprentice

Chapter 30

An hour after Morel storms away, servants swarm the painter's studio and gather his personal belongings. I watch silently as they carry away half-finished paintings and elegantly tailored clothes in the style of the Fae. They leave most of his supplies: sheets of sketch paper, paintbrushes, jars of linseed oil, and pigment powders.

A servant addresses me in a meek voice, "The Queen says we should leave you with anything you might need to finish your masterpiece. If there is something else you need, the Steward can get it for you. "

"Thank you," I reply with little emotion. I keep my gaze on the floor, my eyes still stinging with tears.

They march out of the room unceremoniously and I'm alone again. I remove the feathered ball gown and toss it aside, then wander into the adjoining bedchamber. Like Destan and my suite of rooms, there is an adjoining bathing chamber. In the bathing chamber I find a wardrobe that looks similar to the one in our rooms. I half expect to find it empty when I throw open the doors in search of something to wear, but it seems all the wardrobes in this castle are enchanted. An array of flowing silks and cotton in feminine colors are waiting for me. I don't even wonder if they will be in my size. I take the first nightgown I see and throw it over my shivering frame.

I return to the bedchamber and slide into the newly changed sheets and pull the quilt up to my chin. I don't feel like sleep. My mind races, but my legs feel to tired to pace the floor, my thoughts too scattered to sketch. I don't know what else to do so I stare at the exposed rafters of the tower. An ornate mural has been painted throughout the beams of the tower's rounded roof. The paint is faded and chipped. Figures dance through a wild scene that seems to have been painted in a style closer to the medieval period than the styles that are painted today.

I am suddenly struck by the magnitude of where I have ended up. I am in a separate realm with its own history. Its own magic. Its own people. I think perhaps, if I wasn't burdened with a mission, with friends waiting for my return, I could spend an eternity learning everything there is to know about this magical and dangerous and beautiful place. I can understand why Morel wanted to stay, but it doesn't temper the pain of his desertion.

My eyelids grow heavy despite my racing mind and I eventually succumb to sleep. In my dreams, Destan's voice cries out to me from the next room. I leap from my bed, expecting to find him either released or escaped from the dungeons, but he's nowhere to be found. A canvas sits on an easel. "Florette," Destan calls from within. I approach the easel to find a portrait of Destan painted by what looks like my own hand.

He watches me, pleading from behind the bars of a prison cell. Destan glances over his shoulder — to my shock, the painting moves as if I'm watching him through an enchanted window.

"Florette, please. You have to help me," he begs, the pain in his voice audible and heartbreaking.

"I am. I am trying, Destan," I say.

"You have to get me out of here." His tembre grows panicked. "You have to get me out of here!"

My heart races at the fear in his voice, the desperation. I search frantically through the painter studio for something to help me free him from the painting. Among Morel's supplies, I find a pallet knife. I grab it, rush back to the canvas, and slash it open. Instead of freeing Destan from the painting, a swarm of butterflies with blue and black wings fly from the gaping wound in the fabric. They swarm me and I close my eyes as their beating wings flutter against my face. I swat at them in desperation and a strangled cry escapes my lips.

When the brush of their feather-like wings stops, I open my eyes and find myself standing in the castle portrait gallery. The butterflies have landed on a portrait of the queen — Morel's painting. They form the shape of the dress the queen was wearing the night we arrived, fluttering gently in the dark. A sense of eeriness settles on me as I watch their wings open and close on the surface of the painting. The feeling of foreboding increases and suddenly the queen, from within her portrait, winks at me.