Page 55

Trieste is beautiful, even in the heart of winter.

The sun cuts through the sylphlike clouds, dazzling against the icy air, and covers the city in dreamlike stillness.

On the outskirts, the more populous areas give way to a parkland, bordered by the river flowing in from the distant sea.

Here is the cultural district: a charcoal sketch of gray pavement, glass-still water, the trees bare silhouettes against the sky.

Lark walks slowly along the path that follows the riverbank, bundled in Henry’s old coat.

She has a new woolen scarf wound snugly around her throat, but her hands are bare.

When a brisk rise of wind casts through the leafless branches, she snuggles closer to Alastair, slipping her hands into his pocket.

He winces at the brush of her chilled fingers, and she laughs, unapologetic. “I forgot my gloves!”

“I did warn you it would be cold,” he says, but he folds his warmer hands around her own, rubbing the woolen edge of his gloved thumb across her knuckles.

Camille turns to walk backward so she can look at them. She’s completely unbothered by the raw weather, and has neither gloves nor a scarf, only a thin overcoat. Between the hem of her tweed skirt and the tops of her tall, lace-up boots, her knees are bare.

She’s been eating winter strawberries that she bought from one of the market stalls, and her fingers and mouth are stained with drippy, pastel syrup. “It will be warmer inside the gallery.” She makes a face at Alastair and Lark, teasing. “You babies.”

“Sorry that we didn’t spend most of our childhood in Trieste, so we could be used to this ,” Alastair retorts. His breath plumes in the icy air, an unintended but perfect emphasis.

Ignoring her brother, Camille plucks another strawberry from her basket and holds it out to Lark. She eats it from Camille’s hand, licking the sticky juice from her fingers.

Ahead, the banners outside of the Trieste art gallery are bright against the muted tones of the parkland.

A red background with white lettering advertising the final days of the Ottavio Caedmon exhibition.

Lark grins as the gallery comes into sight, hurrying ahead of the others toward the main entrance.

It’s so early, no one else is in the line.

As she steps inside, Lark is entranced. There is a spell cast from hushed rooms, careful lighting, the sound of footsteps over parquet floors.

The exhibition is downstairs, below a glassed atrium, and the winter sunlight follows her as she descends.

Camille and Alastair follow her at a distance, the way they always do in each gallery they visit—leaving her space to be alone in her thoughts.

She pages through her program as she walks, though she already knows the story of this exhibition by heart.

How the curator discovered a hidden canvas in the attic of the descendants of Paul Saint-Cean, a long-dead Triestian painter who had studied under Caedmon.

An unfinished work, entrusted to Saint-Cean by his former mentor.

The first rendition of The Dusk of the Gods .

The painting is displayed in the very depths of the exhibition space, tucked away like a precious jewel. As Lark enters the room, she feels the same bittersweet pang she always does when she visits an exhibition.

The curator, a young art historian from Trieste, might have been her in another life.

She imagines the moment of discovery, unveiling the forgotten painting.

The thrill of recognition, the wonder of seeing something both familiar and so wholly new.

And the delight of being the one to introduce that work to the wider world.

Lark’s eyes blur; she blinks back tears as she sits on a wooden bench at the center of the room.

Her gaze falls to the floor, to the toes of her boots smudged by dirt from the riverside path.

She thumbs at the locket around her neck, where inside she’s kept a single piece of obsidian glass.

It’s a simple motion to look up at the painting—the only one on display in the room—yet it feels like the furthest distance.

Alastair comes to sit beside her, careful and quiet.

His hand strokes gently at her hair; it’s growing out, now, from when he cut it last spring.

Camille opens her satchel and produces the basket of strawberries, which she has smuggled into the gallery.

When she offers one to Lark, Alastair glares at his sister, aghast. “You can’t bring food in here! ”

She flashes him a pink-smeared grin. “Are you going to tell on us, Alastair Felimath?”

“If anyone asks, I don’t know either of you,” he says, tipping his chin haughtily in the air.

Lark shakes her head at them both, and she begins to laugh. The siblings’ playful teasing has become a familiar soundtrack during their travels, one that always makes her feel safe. She wipes her tears on her sleeve. She takes a deep breath. She raises her head to look at the painting.

The canvas is framed in simple, dark wood.

The plainness of it serves to reinforce the beauty, the wonder, of the artwork itself.

Here, in rough brushstrokes, unfolds Caedmon’s earliest vision for what would become his most iconic piece.

Study for “The Dusk of the Gods.” Leaves and flowers, a sylvan forest. The bare, petal-strewn feet of the procession of the gods as they make their way through the woods.

Therion is at the rear, just like in the finished mural.

In this rougher, older, depiction, the abstraction of paint turns him into a sharp-jawed stranger, all amber eyes and silken wings.

So different from the creature who has woven himself so intricately through Lark’s life, through all of their lives.

Lark gazes at the canvas, feeling as though she’s tumbled into a half-forgotten dream.

For the briefest moment, everything goes translucent, unfixed.

She is in the gallery, on the bench with Alastair’s fingers woven in her hair.

Camille at her other side, strawberry-sweet, letting out a soft, impressed sound as she takes in the scene.

And Lark is there , in the woods, feeling cool shadows and hot sun as she moves from light to shade, hearing the sigh of the wind. The scent of salt and seafoam—the scent of home—fills her lungs.

The bittersweet feeling from before rises in her chest, until she can feel it aching, pressed to her ribs, curved against her heart.

Camille takes her hand. Alastair leans his cheek against her shoulder.

And Lark, seated between her loves, pictures her life divided into paths, branching out like the endless rooms of a gallery.

Framed obsidian mirrors, each of which reflects a different girl, with all the things that might have been.

In the final one, three figures sit side by side on a wooden bench, their skin flushed from the cold, their hands joined. At their backs, the shadows of the hall form a shape that might, from a certain angle, look like outstretched wings. The arched neck of a swan.