I turned back to him to see him watching me, amused. “I will need context to understand what it is you are trying to say—”
“Art!” I exclaimed and then grinned wide. “This your collection?”
“Part of it—”
“Part of it?” I gasped and walked over to what looked like a man in a colosseum. However, there was a lot of buildup, fading to it, and some parts were covered in dirt and dust. It wasn’t just that one, but the one beside it and the one beside that one. Spinning around to him, I felt a scream coming on. “I’ve figured out what I want to fight you about!”
“And what about our earlier agreement?”
“I retract it! How could you leave your collection like this, Theseus?” He’d basically left them to rot.
He casually glanced around the studio. “It is not as bad as you would think for being left here nearly a hundred years.”
Now I wanted to kick him. “You left it like this for a hundred years?”
“Nearly.” He smiled.
“Theseus!”
“Before the fight commences, my defense is you.”
“Me?”
He nodded. “It is not as if I could come back here to take care of them while I spent the last century looking for you. Art can be restored. If I missed my chance to find you, however, that would have been a far greater tragedy.”
Just like that, he stole all the fight out of me, and I couldn’t say a word. Damn him and his perfe
ct lines.
“Have I avoided this fight?” he questioned with amusement, knowing full well he had.
Reaching into my bag, I carefully took out the portrait he’d painted for me and set it on one of the tables near me before taking out a pen and paper to scribble down all the information to it.
“What are you doing?”
“Next year, for my birthday, you are sending me as much art as you can so that I can have them cleaned, restored, and cataloged.” I held up the sticky note for him to see. “This is how you send it.”
He tilted his head to the side. “You wish to clean paintings on your birthday next year.”
“Yes.”
“Odd. But very well,” he countered, taking the note from me. “Though I must ask why you must wait a year?”
“So I can create a valid excuse for a large number of unknown works to be sent to our museum. Campaign for submissions take a few months to get approved, then another few months for advertising, then collection. I’m just giving myself time.”
“You are aware you are free to come here to clean them, or I can have them sent to the cabin for you to do them there.”
I shook my head. “I want to see Dr. Lovell’s face. He will lose his mind. And it will be really cool for the museum to do together.”
He stared at me strangely but then nodded to the painting I set down behind me. “Why did you leave this here? Did you not want it?”
“Of course, I want it. I love it. But having it here means I also have another reason to come back.” I smiled.
I wanted to explore. I wanted to see more, to know more. But still, the presence of all the vampires made me tense, and having my mother here, even as a portrait, sort of made me feel like I wasn’t the only witch here anymore.
“I shall have Pelopia arrange everything,” he said, placing the sticky note down on the wooden desk.
“Who?”