Nothing but paint. No coded message. No reveal of a ghostly image beneath as there had been beneath theDantepainting.
Disappointment nearly choked her and a prowl of impatience began to stir beneath her skin.
It’s okay, she thought, pushing up to pace out some of the energy. When they’d arrived, they’d asked Verin where Elisabetta had gone, but he didn’t know the details of her commission, only that she had been thrilled – as thrilled as the mysterious Italian painter could be.How long will she be gone?It was a commission for an entire royal court; it would take months.
Perhaps she could get Elisabetta’s scent from her rooms and go outsearching for her? The only problem was, Nicole had never tracked anyone over long distances by scent, especially not any scent other than the kill one that allowed Empyreals to transform. She wasn’t like Kyan, she didn’t have centuries of tracking under her belt. She hadnothing. Nothing but her mother’s books, mythological paintings swirling around her mind, her currently useless Seer powers, and an unruly sense of—
Smell.
Nicole breathed in, trying to isolate what had stolen her attention. Now the marine scent of the Finfolk blood was clearing, something else had become more noticeable.
Nicole turned back to the painting and, fighting her every art historian impulse, touched the place the strange perfume originated. Her mother’s lips.
The moment her fingers met the viscous concoction, the worldtilted.
Nicole staggered into an attic at night. A small, shadowed art studio. Distantly she heard the clip-clop of … horse hooves on cobbles? The dusty floorboards beneath her felt loose, and the scent of paints and pigment singed her senses. There were two other women in the room, both dressed in Victorian silk dresses. One a deep burgundy that was so familiar Nicole’s throat dried out.
‘Mum,’ she breathed.
Her mother was sitting before a dark swathe of fabric, while Elisabetta stood opposite behind an easel, her brush moving over the canvas.
There was someone else in her periphery: a third woman in emerald green and white.
But Nicole was riveted by her mother.
‘She’ll figure it out,’ her mother said, with a wry curve of her lips.
It felt so real, emotion cleaved through the vision. She was Seeing her mother with her own face, hearing herownvoice. Nicole hadn’t heard it in the vision she’d had in Lanhydrock, when her mother had approached Kyan to try to convince him not to take the Wake’s new oath. Then, Freya had changed her face to look likehismother.
But this –thiswas her. It was the way Nicole had always imagined her: the wink of life and knowledge in her eyes; the low, captivating voice. The immortal confidence in her preternatural presence thanks to centuries spent honing her hunting power.
The vision tore away, returning Nicole to the Bow Room with a cosmic shove. She stumbled, realising what the scent was. What Elisabetta had been adding to the painting.
Blood.
Nicole darted from the room, warm air rushing over her cheeks as she raced through the midnight manor.
‘Verin,’ she gasped as she burst in to his library.
The sprawling mahogany-panelled room was full of books, but in a portion of each ‘book’ was a vial of blood. Every one of them housed writings on a type of creature or particular person: their histories, lifestyles, even the foods they preferred. And, of course, a vial of their blood.
The Vampire looked up from where he was examining a sample and scrawling a note.
‘Yes, my intrepid little cohabitator?’
She smiled, a weight lifting off her chest. ‘I know why Elisabetta chose to live with you.’
Twenty minutes later, Nicole had set up her mother’s portrait on an easel she had brought from the studio. Her father stood beside her, his eyes glued to the painting.
It was the most treasured thing they owned, so even though she’d done her own little risky experiment on it, when Verin brought over some implements, nerves prowled beneath her skin. He’d washed his hands and gathered a petri dish, but as the scalpel moved closer to the canvas, Nicole tensed.
‘I know what it’s like to only have paintings left,’ Verin said softly. Nicole looked over his shoulder to the portrait of his lost partner, a handsome nobleman the Wake had murdered to keep Verin in line.
‘I’ll take good care of her,’ Verin promised, with a delicacy and understanding that made tears prick her eyes. She nodded and her father rubbed her shoulder.
Verin scraped, the dried paint flaking into dust from the sharpness of the scalpel. He took only the barest amount so Nicole relaxed as it drifted into the petri dish.
She waited as he mixed it with some type of liquid, then inhaled. Nicole watched with a breathless hope as Verin’s eyes dilated. He blinked a few times as if startled, then shook himself and took the sample to a telescope for confirmation.
