“And here we are in the clay paint capital of Rhylla.” Sorrow remembered his words back in the North Marches, and Luvian beamed at her.
“Indeed. A place so prestigious, there is a Registry of Colours.”
“OK, now you’ve lost me,” Sorrow confessed.
In reply, Luvian drew a small knife from the pocket of his coat and began to scrape the dark paint from the birthmark on the portrait.
“What are you doing?” Sorrow watched in horrified fascination as he vandalized the painting.
He didn’t reply, continuing until he’d made a small pile of purplish flakes, which he carefully lifted on to the tip of the knife, before tapping them into the centre of a plain silk handkerchief.
“As I was saying, Rhylla takes art so seriously it keeps a Registry of Colours. The Rainbow Clay Mines mostly yield primary colours, which anyone can buy and sell, and mean very little, but every now and then, the pigments in the rocks mix and create pure, naturally occurring secondary and tertiary colours. Of course, that happens very rarely, so the artists buy primaries and mix their own. But they’re required to register the colours, and the paintings they used them on, with the Registry, so that art buyers can’t be cheated. See, an unscrupulous artist could claim the purple they used in your portrait was genuine pure colour from the mines, something they paid a fortune to procure, and therefore have to pass the cost on…”
“I get it,” Sorrow said. “So, we can take those scrapings to the registry and find out who registered them? And that will lead us to the artist, which will hopefully lead us closer to finding out who Mael is, or at least who commissioned the pictures.”
“Got it in one, Sorrow darling.”
A burst of pleasure shot through Sorrow at his approval. “How do you know so much about Rhyllian art?”
Luvian opened his mouth, then closed it. “It’s what I would have liked to do, if I could have. If the option had been there for me,” he said finally. “My grandfather was a great lover of art. He taught me.”
Sorrow had never seen Luvian look sad before. Angry, cheerful, arrogant and annoyed. But never sad. She realized it was the first time he’d ever revealed anything about himself. His time at university was “educational”, his family were “amicably estranged”. He never spoke of friends, save to say he wasn’t popular, nor of lovers or love interests, only focused on his work. All accounts from his time at university said the same. She’d assumed there was a tragic story there, some kind of falling out with his family, or maybe childhood shyness he’d only outgrown after university, because no one could accuse him of it now. To be honest, she’d stopped thinking about him as anything other than part of her, Irris and him, the team she hoped to win the election with. He’d slotted so seamlessly into Sorrow’s life, barely causing a ripple, that she’d almost forgotten he was still mostly a stranger to her.
He seemed to realize he’d let his mask slip as he forced brightness into his voice and continued. “So I used the gift of foresight to become a political maven, with the intent of seating a chancellor who will make it possible for me to indulge my hobbies. And on that note, we have work to do.”
There was no point in pretending they weren’t who they were – the country was abuzz with the news from Rhannon and the fact that both candidates were attending the Naming, even though no one had anticipated them coming to Ceridog.
So they didn’t try to be discreet, instead walking slowly through the town to the central square, Dain shadowing them closely. Though Sorrow felt horribly exposed, she tried to relax, reminding herself no one knew they were there.
She forced herself to pause and look in windows, as Luvian marvelled at the things for sale: books, jewellery, trinkets that could have no real use except to be looked at as they gathered dust, until eventually Sorrow’s curiosity was real, and her enthusiasm too. All around them Rhyllians walked and chattered, sitting on tables outside cafés with small cups of steaming coffee, gossiping in their lilting language, looking happy and relaxed. On a street corner a tall olive-skinned Rhyllian pulled a shining silver flute from a case and began to play, as passers-by flicked silver coins into a hat he’d left on the ground. Two children darted forward to dance, and Sorrow found her mouth curving involuntarily.
There was so much room for pleasure in the world, Sorrow realized, as Luvian handed her a small cake, topped with cream and crystallized petals, that he’d ducked into a bakery to buy after she’d pointed it out in the window. This was what she wanted for Rhannon. For life to feel worth it, not just be toil and misery.
Luvian handed one of the confections to Dain, who stared at the cake as though unable to believe it was real. She ate it in three bites, but there was a reverence to them that Sorrow found oddly charming. She would never have expected one of the Decorum Ward to be so … human. Though she was loath to admit it, after what happened at the bridge, and now this, the woman was beginning to grow on her.
When Sorrow took the first bite of her own cake, she couldn’t stop herself from moaning. She’d thought the feast at the inn was incredible, but it was nothing, nothing, compared to the rapture of sugar and cream that flooded her tongue now. She met Dain’s eyes with a complicit, chocolate-coated grin, as she licked the cream from her fingers greedily, not wanting a single morsel to go to waste. Irris hadn’t said it was like this. Sorrow was right to demand everyone give her cake, she thought giddily. There really ought to be cake every day.
When she glanced at Luvian, he was staring at her, rubbing the back of his neck, his lips parted, and she realized abruptly she wasn’t behaving like a future chancellor. She swallowed the remainder quietly, making sure she appeared composed every time her advisor darted a nervous glance her way.
Though she’d find a way to go back to the bakery before they left.
After they’d spent enough time establishing themselves as curious tourists, and Sorrow had finally recovered from her cake, they headed for the Registry of Colours. It was two streets back from the square, an old-looking, golden-bricked building that dominated the leafy avenue.
Sorrow pulled Luvian away from Dain. “How do we play this?” she whispered.
“Straight. There’s no point in lying, they’ll see right through it. We say we’re trying to trace the artist, and we know this is one of the colours they used.”
“All right.” She returned to Dain. “I’m sorry, but I need to ask you to wait here.” She pointed to a wooden bench, positioned beneath a tree. “This is confidential. You can’t come with us.”