“Oh really?” he asked, a half smile creeping on to his face. “I don’t know. As a freelancer, I do pride myself on the quality of my work.”
“A fair point,” I said. “But you are standing in Belarus Central, so I think I might have the advantage here. Besides, if I’m to take your promise to help me seriously, you and I have to start trusting one another, so this is me putting my best foot forward. Don’t make me regret it.”
“I’ll try not to,” he said.
I wanted to trust the sincerity in his eyes, but I knew that might simply be a tool of his trade, the easily told lies of someone who most days worked simply for the highest bidder.
Caleb moved to one of the overturned bookcases, running his hand along it.
“I’d hate for you to get my blood on any of this stuff,” he said. “You know, you could have brought your bodyguard and Sir Nerdsalot.”
I move to one of the still-upright stools by one of the art tables, sitting on it and spinning around, my hands resting on the front of the seat.
“It just seemed like this might be a better place for you and me to talk privately,” I said. “I love Rory and Marshall, and they’re a huge help—even though they don’t have to help me at all. But they don’t really get what I’m going through all the time. Outside of fighting the good fight and prepping for whatever’s coming, Rory’s got her dance, and Marshall’s got his store. I’ve got . . . Well, I’ve got this. The family’s true legacy. It’s a singular focus, you know.”
Caleb nodded. “Mastering any art is a commitment,” he said.
I found comfort in his understanding of it.
“I thought maybe if I brought you here,” I said, “we could get away from all that noise and maybe find ourselves in a place where we could each work with someone who’s just as like-minded. Until meeting you, I hadn’t really thought that there’d be others out there who dealt in the things Alexander practiced. As far as I knew, he had locked those secrets away as part of protecting not just his family but the rest of the world. When I began uncovering them, it just felt like my own family burden to bear. It’s just, I don’t know . . . nice to have someone to talk shop with . . . ? Does that come across as insane? Does that even sound normal?”
Caleb laughed. “As normal as that can sound, yes.” His focus shifted past me. “May I ask what that is?”
I spun on my stool to face the draped drop cloth rising up in the middle of the far end of the art studio.
“Come with me,” I said, taking his hand. He didn’t resist my hand in his, holding tight as we crossed the room. I guided him carefully through the mess on the floor until we were standing by the draped cloth.
“Voila!” I shouted, pulling it free like a magician revealing his latest and greatest of tricks. The mannequin form stood there with the giant set of giant bat wings I had been sculpting onto it, impressively spanning nearly eight feet across.
“Holy shit,” he said, running his hand along the interior side of the left one. “Are these stone?”
I laughed. “Hardly. If they were, given their size, I think they’d have snapped the dummy form in two and crashed through several stories of the building.”
Caleb put one hand to either side of the form, slipped his fingers under the wing’s lower edge, and lifted. “They’re light.”
“They should be,” I said. “It’s clay over chicken wire. They’re hollow, but they hold their shape.”
“You plan on going all Icarus?” he asked.
I laughed. “No,” I said. “But sculpting comes hard to me, and if I’m ever going to master it for the sake of Spellmasonry, I need the practice. This is a study in building a gargoyle, working off the human form and adding to it. Once I figure out the right sense of proportion, I’ll move the full statue carving over to stone.”
“Could you animate these?” he asked, letting his hands trace over the arcs and ridges of the wings themselves. “If you attached them to a harness or something?”
“It’s just a prototype,” I reiterated. “An experiment. With all this broken stuff around here and needing to step up my art game, I just wanted to model them first before ordering a freight elevator’s worth of solid stone to go full dimension.”
“I get that, but could you animate just these?” he asked again.
I thought a moment before answering.
“It’s possible,” I said. “I’ve used clay on parts of Bricksley for the hands and feet, and he seems to be operating just fine.”
“What is a ‘Bricksley’?” he asked.
“You’ll probably meet him,” I said with a smile. “In due time.” I ran my hands over the top of the wings up to the sharpened claws I had modeled onto the tips, which gave them an extra-creepy Gothic touch. “In theory, I suppose I could animate these full-scale like this. It’s a lot more clay than I’m used to exerting control over, but I think it could work. The minerals in clay are those of broken-down rock for the most part, so if I could enchant them . . . sure, why not?”
“These are truly fantastic,” he said, his hands pressing against the faux-leathery texture I had tried to replicate in my sculpting of them.
“Thank you,” I said, hoping that the dim light of the room hid my burning red face, but by the way Caleb was looking at me, it probably wasn’t.
“You’re blushing,” he said.
I sighed. “It’s one thing when my friends or family compliment my work, but it’s uniquely refreshing to hear a compliment from someone who actually does what I do.”
“I could never do something like this,” he said, running his hand along the edge of the wings up to the clawed tips. “I mix and fill vials. I’m no artist—more of a bartender, really.”
“Maybe not with stone or canvas,” I said, “but from what you know of alchemy alone, you are an artist.”
He smiled at me, then gave a deep bow. “Well, thank you.”
“My pleasure,” I said, meeting his smile with my own.
Our eyes locked in the dimly lit studio, the moment lingering longer than I found comfortable. His shifted his eyes away for a second, no doubt in reaction to my discomfort. When he looked back at me, it was his turn to look uncomfortable because I was still staring at him, delighting in the discomfort I was causing him.
He stepped toward me, but I didn’t move away, instead welcoming his advance as his hands slipped around my body, one to the base of my neck and the other to the small of my back. The strong press of his lips met mine. The scruff of his face rubbed hard against my cheek, and although the suddenness of it all caught me off my guard, I found myself wrapping my arms over his shoulders, welcoming all of it, meeting his passion.
My mind shut down all rational thought as I fell into the moment. Sharing more than just a mutual passion for the arcane felt more than right, and I would have gladly shared more given the reaction my body was having to him, but Caleb pushed away from me, showing a restraint I certainly wasn’t. My eyes opened, but his were still closed a moment longer before they opened and a slow, deliberate smile overtook his face.
“Sorry,” he said. “I needed to do that.”
“Needed to, huh?” I smiled. “Was it a chore?”
“Wanted to,” he corrected.
“That’s better,” I said, my smile widening, but I couldn’t help but notice a bit of reluctance in his eyes now. “Is that not a good thing?”
“Oh no,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong. It was very good. But I needed to do that because . . . I’m not sure if I’m ever going to get to do it again.”