I’m standing in front of the largest piece, a huge landscape painted on rough, inexpensive canvas, when Finn says, “Jessamin?” behind me, confusion coloring his voice.

I don’t turn around. “He dismisses our art.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

I wave the book in my hand without turning around. “My father. He has an entire section on the primitive arts of the Melenese people. He says our finest artists lack technique, lack the ability to translate the real world onto canvas. He can’t see that it’s not about transferring the world exactly how it is, but rather expressing how it feels.”

Finn stands next to me. We look at the painting, a riot of color in green and boldest red, a painting I recognized at once as portraying the fire-petals in full bloom. It is obviously Melenese, though few of our artists ever sell their work. There is no demand for it, no esteem for something so “primitive.”

“I don’t know who painted it,” he says softly. “My mother had it in her sitting room. When I looked at it, it was everything I wanted the world to feel like. It’s the most beautiful thing I have, and I would not change a thing about it.”

I nod, finding myself quite unable to speak for a moment. “It’s a horrible book,” I finally say. “He’s a dreadful writer. Pedantic in the extreme and showing a clear inability to see good in any culture other than his own. Patronizing, too, as though my entire island were filled with precious infants in need of learning how to do everything from caring for the sick to learning world history. Did you know that in the dozen years after Melei was colonized, we lost a third of the population to pox? Two of my aunts, half of my mother’s cousins. And the children are sent to ‘superior’ schools learn the history of a culture that is not theirs and does not want them. Many of us are not even fluent in our own language.” I sigh heavily. “It’s like a song I can’t remember all the words to. This is a terrible, terrible book.”

“To say nothing of the fact that Milton Miller is a dreadful name.”

I snort. “He’s the most horrible sort of man. Even the way he blinks his eyes irritates me. And his class is beyond dull.”

“He’s a fool. Here.” Finn takes the book from me and opens to a random passage. “‘The women of Melei, though too dark of skin to be truly beautiful, are given to great passion and must be trained in the ways of modesty, morality, and decorum.’”

“From the married man who took a lover while there on a research trip.”

“It is an odd training method.”

I look at the fire-petal painting. “I can’t believe someone could come to my island and see only how it could be reshaped as Albion. I don’t think this whole country a waste—”

“How kind.”

“Shush. It has its own peculiar charms, and admittedly does some things much better than we ever did. But why remake Melei in its image? Why not learn from its brightest parts, share knowledge and resources, and allow Melei to continue to exist as fits it best?”

“Because men are silly, prideful things, and what they love they must possess.”

“Not all men,” I say softly.

“No. Not all.”

“How did Lord Downpike know?”

“About what?”

“About how much you loved this painting. How did he know to dress me like a fire-petal on the evening of the gala?”

“Lord Downpike has never seen this painting, nor does he know how much it meant to me. I will allow him no credit for the vision of beauty you were that night.”

I look down, trying to control the smile taking over my face. So be it, Fate, whatever you are. I will stay this course, come what may. “I am deeply sorry. For what I said, and what I assumed about—”

“Never apologize to me. For anything. I’m glad you’re here. Though . . . how did you get in?”

“The bathroom. You really ought to lock your windows, arrogant magician. And don’t be too pleased. I’m merely here to ask you to take on Jacky Boy and Ma’ati immediately. And to visit my bird, of course.”

Finn stands, no trace of the cat in his smile, only sincere and open happiness. “Of course.”

Twenty-four

I SIT IN A SUN-DRENCHED SPOT NEAR THE FLOOR-to-ceiling windows in the library. Finn won’t tell me where it looks out to, and the glass is treated so that outside is nothing but bright blurs of color. This is my favorite room in all of Avebury.

Assuming, of course, that the windows actually look out on Avebury. Which I have found is not a safe assumption. Nothing is a safe assumption in this house, considering one of the doors next to the bathroom opens into my room at the hotel—an addition Finn insists he made while he was staying there.

After much pestering, Finn admitted he inherited most of the house from his parents. They’d taken the time to craft doors and spell them to open onto several residences throughout the city. One room from a house in Kingston neighborhood, another near the palace, another on the outskirts of the city along the river, so on and so forth. I haven’t been in most of them—it makes me nervous to open a door not knowing where it will take me—but it does solve the problem of finding space in a crowded city.

I find myself spending more and more time here. Using a new front door in the park, of course. I made him remove the door that connected to my hotel room. Though it would have been convenient . . .