Lucanis hadn't intended to bring Illario. In truth, he'd planned to slip into the gallery unnoticed, take a quiet look, and leave just as quietly. It wasn't about reconnaissance or investigation, not this time. He just wanted to see her work.
But Illario had a nose for unspoken errands and the particular gift of being exactly where Lucanis didn't want him. So now he was trailing behind like an overcurious hound, hands in his pockets, glancing around at the painted walls with all the subtlety of a bored noble in a wine cellar.
"I still don't see why we're here," Illario muttered, already sounding half-done with the place. "Did someone stash a coin purse under a frame or...?"
Lucanis didn't answer. He had spotted it.
Tucked into the far wall, slightly off-centre, under the cascade of a narrow skylight, it was unmistakable. He would have known it was hers even if her name wasn't tucked into the corner in delicate, hesitant script. He could feel her in the lines.
Evie's portrait. It wasn't flattering. It wasn't supposed to be.
This wasn't the carefully cultivated public image of the woman who hosted exhibitions and sold curated beauty to the Trevisan elite. This was something rawer, bone-deep, peeled-back. Evie had found something in her and laid it bare.
Lucanis stared at it. At the fine lines around the woman's mouth, rendered with neither apology nor pity. At the wary intelligence in her eyes. At the set of her shoulders, proud and burdened both. It was like Evie had looked straight through the woman and painted what she'd found waiting inside.
Illario had followed, peering over his shoulder. "Huh," he said. "That's… actually impressive."
Lucanis nodded, a faint smile playing at his mouth. "It's Evie's."
Illario blinked, surprised. "The little songbird? Didn't know she had it in her."
"She has a great deal in her," Lucanis said, his tone quiet but edged.
A familiar voice joined them before anything more could be said.
"It's been drawing attention since I hung it."
The gallery owner stood beside them now, arms folded, lips curved in approval, not smug, but satisfied. Her eyes flicked from Lucanis to the painting, then back. "The artist painted it from memory, you know." Her tone was warm with admiration, touched with disbelief. She stepped forward, arms loosely folded as she looked up at the portrait, her own eyes studying her own face, as rendered by someone else.
"She met me once, briefly," she continued, glancing toward Lucanis. Her voice dropped a little, almost reverent. "I'd never had a portrait done where I actually recognised myself. Not the way I look in mirrors, but the way I feel when no one's watching. Can you imagine? One meeting. That's all it took. I told her," the woman added, more firmly now, "that anything she finishes - anything - I want to see it first. There's something about her work… it doesn't pander. Doesn't flatter. But it's honest."
Lucanis looked up at the portrait again, heart aching with something like awe. This was who his soulmate was. This was what she could do.
Lucanis didn't speak. He couldn't. Not through the quiet pride and ache in his chest. Evie. His little Evie. She was making a name for herself here, not by charm or song or shadow, but by the sheer force of what she saw in the world and dared to put down. He was proud. Fiercely so. Evie was building a life here. And he was glad of it.
They stepped out into the afternoon sun, the doors of the gallery closing softly behind them. Lucanis didn't speak at first, still carrying the weight of what he'd just heard; the image of Evie's portrait burned into his mind like sunlight through glass.
Illario, naturally, couldn't let the silence last.
"So," he drawled, falling into step beside him, "your mysterious little soulmate is not just a street performer but a budding artist with unsettling insight into the human condition. How terribly inconvenient for you."
Lucanis gave him a sidelong look. "She's extraordinary."
"Oh, I gathered," Illario said, grinning. "You were practically glowing back there. Do you want to go back in and gaze at it a little longer? Maybe write a poem?"
Lucanis snorted, but it lacked heat. "I'm sure you'd be more than happy to compose one for me."
"I'm already working on it," Illario said cheerfully. "Something tasteful, something soulful. 'Ode to the Soulmate Who Sees Through Me Like Stained Glass and Doesn't Have Enough Taste to Kiss My Cousin.'"
Lucanis rolled his eyes, but his mouth twitched. "You've missed your calling."
"I know. I could have been a bard. Or a very wealthy courtesan."
"You talk too much for both."
"And yet, you keep me around."
Lucanis let out a low breath, not quite a sigh. "She's making something of herself here. I'm glad. Even if it's not what I pictured."
Illario glanced over, the teasing easing out of his expression. "She's not what anyone pictured, Lucanis."
Evie saw people. She saw him. And one day, he'd make her believe she deserved to be seen, too.
-
"She what?" Tai asked, half sprawled across his mattress in their little home. Kieran looked up from his notes, brows raised. Even Hirik, hunched over one of the Crow ledgers, turned his head.
"She said she wants to see anything else I finish," Evie murmured, a little stunned by her own voice. "Before I take it anywhere else. She called it… 'honest and searching'. Said it stayed with her."
Hirik let out a low whistle. "And she wants more?"
Evie gave a tiny laugh and nodded. "Apparently."
Tai grinned. "Look at you, setting the world on fire with a paintbrush."
She didn't mention how nervous she'd been about how the woman would react - how many years she'd spent hiding the things she really saw, never sharing it beyond them and her family. How many times she'd been told to be softer, quieter, less herself. Even now, the idea that someone else might see something real from her and not reject it, that was new.
Evie tried to smile, but the weight in her chest hadn't quite lifted. She didn't say she'd been standing outside the gallery for the better part of an hour, uncertain she could even make herself walk in. She didn't say Lucanis had found her there, that he'd looked at her work like it was something sacred. That he hadn't tried to reassure her with empty words, only looked and breathed and told the truth.
She didn't say how much that had helped.
There was a whisper of a memory, sitting at the Queen's feet with Ben when he was younger. The Queen's voice sweet and reasonable as she told Evie her soulmate might be better off without her. He deserves an easier life, don't you think, Evangeline? Wouldn't you want that for someone you love?
But he looked at her like he saw something... worth seeing. And he was trying. But today, someone had seen her work and wanted more. Lucanis had looked at it and understood.
But he was only trying because he was supposed to. He didn't know, not really. He just wanted to believe. Hadn't fate worked out a treat? She started dismantling the Crows, then learns Crow incarnate is her soulmate. His soulmate was working to undo his life, his family's legacy...
Evie shuddered. They needed to finish what they were doing, then get out of Treviso. Ignore the guilt, ignore the way his eyes softened when he looked at her, the way her stomach took flight when she heard his voice. She was good at ignoring, repressing, and hiding.
Just focus on helping Uncle Zevran get out from under the Crows. Then she could go home and see her father and her brother for a little while.
And leave Lucanis standing in the wreckage she left behind...