Jane checked on Dorie—still sleeping, exhausted—descended to the foyer, and slipped through the forest green curtains. The landing she had stood on a week ago should be in sight—yes, there it was. She flew up the stairs to Mr. Rochart’s studio and slipped trhough his open door, knocking on it as she entered.
He was just closing the far door behind him, entering the main studio. “Jane,” he said, surprise in his voice. “You—” He stopped. “You look different in colors.”
“Black is a color,” said Jane. “So is grey.”
Mr. Rochart snorted. “You’re laughing at me, and I’m the artist. You might show your elders some respect.”
“Indeed I had forgotten you must be almost thirty,” said Jane, and then added, laughing, “I will call you Grandfather Rochart henceforth.”
“Grandfather Edward,” he replied. He crossed to her and then the worry was back in his amber eyes. He touched her arm. “You look too cheerful to be up here with bad news—but tell me. How did your day go with Dorie?”
“It wasn’t entirely perfect,” Jane admitted, “but I think I have a way to reach her.” Briefly she explained the iron paste, and concluded, “It seems to stop her from using her fey abilities.” And that one tremendous success could offset even such a day as she had.
“Just like the iron on your cheek,” he said. He shook his head in wonder. “So simple, and yet it never occurred to me.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” she said, and daringly she touched his shoulder. She was unprepared for the tremor that ran through him, as if he was as unused to touch as she, as if a mere friendly gesture was enough to undo him. His hand rose even as she withdrew hers, and she didn’t know what to do with any of her limbs anymore. So she smoothed down the skirt of her sister’s dress, feeling the embroidered dots slide underneath her palms. That fluttering happiness went sharply through her chest. “She did not want to use her hands, of course,” Jane said, trying to sound casual. “She was quite frustrated.”
“I imagine.” He was not polished like the gentlemen at Helen’s wedding, but that did not matter to Jane. He was arresting, with those strange deep-set eyes that stayed in shadow, those amber eyes whose meaning she could rarely catch. “I will have a talk with her after dinner.”
“That would be helpful,” said Jane. “I believe the tar is a tool we can use to catch her up to where she should be. But she will still have to do the work.” She remembered the rest of her purpose and added, “And I need to get into the north attic. Martha said there might be some gloves I could use for Dorie. So she doesn’t get tar on everything. I also need some linen, and linseed oil to waterproof it.”
A shadow of pain drew across his face. “Yes, I believe Grace had some gloves. She always liked parties more than I did. Tell Martha I said you might look in her trunks. Have Poule find you everything else.”
Jane nodded. “Thank you.” To distract him from the memory of his deceased wife she said, “I didn’t like Helen and Alistair’s party very much either.”
“Nasty things,” said Mr. Rochart. “Parties, that is, not your sister and her husband.”
He smiled at her and she laughed, her heart warming. She realized that she was still poised on the threshold of the studio, and she let her laughter carry her boldly past him, into the studio where the natural light poured over the golden floors, the rough working table, the mounds of white clay. Her blue skirts floated around her, the fine linen weave brushing against her legs, the legs of the table.
Her momentum carried her all the way to the window and there she stood, the afternoon sun bathing the lines of her dress as she looked away from him. Alistair’s pointed comment about her figure flickered into her mind, and then she banished it. She was not trying to seduce Edward, not trying some ploy to entrap him in the night. No, it was more the thought that with her face turned away perhaps he would see her as she should’ve been, a girl in a blue dress with embroidered dots like stars. A glimmer of her metal reflection danced in the window, but she looked past it, out into the black woods.
“I used to paint back there,” Edward said. “In the woods.” The intimacy of his words lapped her ears, like he was spilling secrets meant for her alone.
“Wasn’t that dangerous?” Even before the Great War there had always been the stories. Don’t go into the woods past the last ray of sunlight. There was always someone’s cousin’s friend who knew a girl who chased a blue will o’ the wisp past the edge of sun and never was seen again.