Ethan moved his brush in swift, confident arcs, blending colors as if he'd done it a hundred times before.
"You have to stroke it like this," Cecile said in memory, her voice a warm echo as she guided his hand across a different canvas long ago. "That way the painting will look smooth." She had beamed at him then.
The recollection lingered as he worked, and he kept painting.
After a while Ms. Skoglund clapped her hands, and the room stilled.
Sihun giggled at his creation.
George examined his machine with quiet pride.
Haerin smilled, satisfied.
Jamie nodded at his own work and Cirano smiles at his creation
Ethan looked at his piece—foreign to his eyes, yet a gentle warmth unfolded in his chest.
The studio glowed like a cathedral of paint and shadow. Lanterns hissed softly against the winter-dark windows as Ms. Skoglund swept her gaze across the room.
"Very good, everyone. Let's see the hearts of your Hestias," she said, her voice low as candle smoke. "George—will you begin?"
George rose, clutching a small wooden house. He wound a brass key.
The house unfolded like a secret music box: shutters blooming open, gears sighing to life.
Inside, tiny figures stirred—a boy bent over a cluttered workbench, an elderly man guiding his hands while a grandmother offered steaming bread.
A faint lullaby spun from the hidden mechanism, fragile as morning mist.
"I love it when Grangran Megan gave me and Grangran Hector snacks while I help their workshop" George said smiling remembering his memory vividly
Everyone snapped their fingers to agree
Then Haerin and Sihun got up holding their empty canvas
Ethan tilts his head confused
Haerin raised her palms; silver water coiled between them and rained in a delicate veil.
A shard of sunlight broke through, bending itself into a rainbow across the blank frame.
Sihun touched the canvas with a spark of fire. Color bled upward, revealing a tender sketch of the two of them strolling beneath trees with their mother.
Another ripple of snapping fingers, like a breeze through dry leaves.
Then Cirano strode to the center with a single pane of glass.
He looked up; windows slammed shut, the roof dimmed to night.
A lonely beam of light struck the glass, and the pane bloomed with visions—acrobats in mid-flip, tigers of pure light, a riot of drums and brass.
"My Hestia will always be the circus," Cirano said, a sly smile cutting across his face, "and our wild, brilliant crew."
Applause in snaps and murmurs.
Now Ethan stepped forward, easing his easel into the lantern-glow.
A grassy field sprawled across the canvas—himself, a blond lad, a brunette girl, a small child, and Cecile with her auburn hair lying among fireflies that pulsed like golden embers.
"I don't know my past," Ethan said quietly, "but I trust these faces. So I painted them."
The room answered with another hush of snapping fingers.
Everyone snapped their fingers to agree
Last came Jamie, the blindfolded boy.
His painting waited—midnight water on stretched linen.
Two figures, near mirror images, sat on a weather-worn pier, their bare feet lost beneath ripples of silver moonlight.
(How can a blindfolded lad paint such beautiful piece ) Ethan thought to himself
Jamie brushed the canvas with his fingertips.
The air shifted.
Floorboards liquefied into ripples; walls breathed mist.
Above them, a cobalt sky unfurled, heavy with drowned stars.
Cool lake-scent—iron, cedar, rain—wrapped the class.
"Fishies!" Sihun cried, clapping like a startled bird.
Haerin knelt, eyes wide as spectral koi drifted past her knees.
Jamie crossed to Ethan's painting and laid a gentle hand upon it.
Fireflies erupted from the canvas in a slow, golden storm.
Cirano laughed low, delighted.
George stared upward, awed as the tiny creatures danced across the phantom lake.
Ms. Skoglund's eyes shone.
"Is this your will?" Ethan asked softly.
Jamie smiled beneath the blindfold. "A fragment of it. I can let pictures breathe for a moment."
A melodic bell tolled—silver, inevitable. The illusions unraveled like fog.
Students sighed as the room returned to wood and plaster.
"Do not fret, my young artists," Ms. Skoglund said, gathering her shawl of paint-stains. "We meet again tomorrow."
Brushes were stowed; the magic settled like dusk.
Ms. Skoglund paused beside Ethan.
"It was a pleasure to meet you today, Ethan. If you need guidance, my door is open."
"It was an honor, ma'am," he replied.
She watched him go, a secret smile tracing her lips.
"You remind me of someone, young lad," she murmured when he was gone. "I wonder how he fares."
Ethan checked the board—Alchemy, Room 504.
"Thank goodness it's not another painting," he whispered, half-grinning.
But when he turned the handle, a bitter vapor rushed out, clawing his throat.
He choked, stumbling for breath—
—and a hand, sudden and cold, clamped over his mouth