Page 50 of A Vicious Love

I was used to men asking questions in galleries when they did not want answers.

They wanted to be seen asking a pretty girl to say something charming so they could correct her.

But I loved the painting too much to give it a polite lie.

“I think it’s honest,” I said.

The man was quiet.

So I continued, because once I started talking about art, I was terrible at stopping.

“The subject is ordinary. Maybe that’s why I like it. It’s not trying to impress anyone. But the work itself is honest. You can see the discipline in it.”

“Discipline?”

“Yes.” I stepped slightly closer to the painting, careful not to cross the line. “The hand is controlled, but not artificial. That’s what makes human craft beautiful, I think. Someone studied for years. They failed over and over. Learned pressure, colour, patience.”

The man said nothing.

I smiled faintly at the painting.

“That matters now more than it did then, I think. Back then, human hands were the only way. Now anything can be created or made if someone has enough access. Rooms, faces, music, paintings, bodies.” My voice softened. “Convenience became so powerful that people forgot effort had value by itself.”

Still silence. I should have stopped.

I didn’t. When it came to art I had an opinion.

“The value of old art disappeared before humans realized convenience wasn’t always the answer,” I said. “Or maybe it didn’t disappear. Maybe it just became quieter. It’s harder to hear something made slowly when the world learned how to make everything instantly.”

I turned then, expecting a stranger.

The man beside me was Damius Crow.

My whole body forgot how to work.

He stood a few feet away, dressed in a black suit. No tie. Silver hair. Tattooed throat. His face was sharp, preserved by money and science and whatever else Crows used when nature became inconvenient.

His eyes too alive in the way predators were alive when they had stopped needing to run to catch anything.

Damius Crow.

In Harlan and not sealed away in the Crow estate in Villain like a nightmare politely kept in another city.

Beside me…looking at my favourite painting. I couldn’t breathe. Every family warning I had ever heard moved through my head at once.

Do not attract Damius Crow’s attention.

Do not lie badly to Damius Crow.

Do not speak unless spoken to.

Do not offer him something he can turn into debt.

Do not forget that monsters become old by being better at survival than everyone who challenged them.

His gaze remained on me.

I curtsied before I decided to.