The Painter's Apprentice

Chapter 21

I resolve to avoid Destan if at all possible, but it's easier than I expect. He seems to be the busiest man in Versailles and I am met with an influx of curious visitors after my tumble into the canal. Most seem to be looking for gossip about Destan and me. Rumors have flown through the halls of Versailles ever since he pulled me from the water.

The queen's inner circle seems largely disinterested, my usefulness and novelty already exhausted. Few of her cadre send notes of sympathy and even fewer follow up on their requests for my commissions. To my surprise, Charlotte is the first and only courtier of her set to pay me a visit.

She enters my studio with a demure smile on her face. Her eyes dart around the room curiously and she blushes like she has stumbled on an intimate memory.

"Good morning, Mademoiselle." I greet her with a deep curtsey. "What brings you to my chambers?"

She pauses dreamily in front of a sketch of a landscape on my easel. "I wanted to express my sympathies about what happened at my sister's party."

"Thank you," is all I dare to say in reply.

"I know my sister's friends can be... rather pushy," she says, dancing around their abilities, though she throws me a meaningful smirk.

"I was told I would need to keep my wits about me at Versailles," I say with a breathless laugh.

Charlotte's face lights up. "Did Morel tell you that?" Again, she doesn't hide her eagerness to hear about Morel.

"Morel and other members of court," I reply.

Charlotte smiles. "Yes, Morel was very... perceptive." She pics up a palette knife and examines it with a wrinkled brow. "He could see things most people can't," she adds with a weighted glance at me.

"Ah." I understand her meaning and my curiosity is piqued. She is on the verge of confirming what I have long wondered: could Morel see through the glamours of the Fae? "Artists have a well-trained eye. There are very few details that escape our notice." What would the queen would think if she heard this conversation?

Charlotte's cheeks blush rose-petal pink as her confession calls up a memory. "He was discreet, of course, but he was so desperate to paint me without a glamour after I let him see my true form."

The look on her face makes my heart ache. There is something intimate in seeing behind a faerie's glamour, and Charlotte had shared that intimacy with Morel.

"I refused to let him, of course," Charlotte says and sweeps a dangling, blonde curl off of her shoulder. "He knew my friends and I had to maintain a certain level of secrecy, but he was desperate." She sinks into an armchair with a wistful sigh and presses a hand to her cheek as if to cool the heat there.

"You would make a lovely subject for a portrait." It's true; Charlotte's face has all the softness and symmetry to set hearts fluttering, but the words sound forced to my ears. The memory of longing blossoms in my breast as I remember my desire to be Morel's muse. To be painted by him again. To have his clear blue eyes press against me as he rendered me with brush and canvas and oils. The thought of being pursued for a portrait so makes my lungs forget how to draw air.

"Oh!" Charlotte stands abruptly. "I see you have a visitor." She presses her lips together to hide a smile.

Destan stands in the open door to my apartment with a large package in his hands.

"I will get out of your way," Charlotte says as she moves to leave in a shush of satin. She throws a pointed glance my way and saunters past Destan.

"The door was open. I didn't mean to interrupt." He places the box on the chair Charlotte had vacated. To my surprise, he is dressed in peasant clothes, or at least a very expensive costumer's impression of them. No matter how simple, I'd never seen farmers wear blue satin breeches and silk velvet fracs when they went to market. He wears the ensemble remarkably well; the warm brown of the coat offsets the blue in his eyes. Someone chose the color palette well for him.