The discovery of the portrait acted as a catalyst, a chemical agent that transformed the nature of their collaboration. The silent, armed truce in the carrel evaporated, replaced by a buzzing, shared energy. The next morning, Alistair arrived at seven-fifteen to find Elara already there, as before. But this time, the sight of her didn't fill him with dread. It was… tolerable. Even, if he were being honest with himself in the deepest, most private part of his mind, a little welcome. She had already procured two cups of coffee from the staff lounge. One was black and bitter, just as he liked it. The other was a latte with a dusting of cinnamon. The small gesture of accommodation was so disarming he almost didn't know how to respond.
"Alright," she said, pushing the black coffee towards him. "We have a ghost with a face. We have a painter with a secret. We have a pigment worth a king's ransom. What's our next move, Mr. Spock?"
Alistair ignored the Star Trek reference—he was vaguely aware of it as a piece of 20th-century pop-culture detritus—but he appreciated the sentiment. He took a sip of the coffee. It was perfect.
"Our next move is methodical," he said, his voice regaining its customary authority. "We must trace the painting's provenance. The auction house listed it as 'Private Collection.' We need to find out which collection, when it was acquired, and from whom. The trail will lead us back to Dubois, and hopefully, to the Comte."
He pulled up a new spreadsheet on his laptop. "I will begin by cross-referencing every major auction catalog from Christie's, Sotheby's, and Bonhams from 1950 onwards. We will search for keywords: 'Dubois,' 'Portrait of a Woman,' 'lapis lazuli,' 'mockingbird.' It will be a painstaking process, but it is the only way to build a verifiable chain of custody."
Elara watched him, a small smile playing on her lips. "That's a wonderful plan, Alistair. Truly. It's the foundation. It's the bedrock. It will probably take you six months and you might hit a wall in 1945 when a family estate was sold off without a detailed catalog."
"Do you have a better suggestion?" he asked, a familiar edge creeping into his voice.
"I have a faster one," she said, tapping a perfectly manicured finger on her phone. "The painting is currently on long-term loan to the Croft Gallery in Mayfair. The gallery's owner is a man named Julian Croft. He's a brilliant, if slightly unscrupulous, art dealer and a leading expert in Old Master provenance. He also happens to be an old family friend. And he owes me a favor."
Alistair stared at her. He had been mapping out a grueling, months-long deep-dive into digital archives. She was proposing a single phone call. It was the antithesis of his entire process. It was a shortcut, a leap of faith across a chasm of unknowns.
"That is not research," he said stiffly. "That is… networking. It's unreliable."
"The past isn't just in books, Alistair," she countered gently. "Sometimes it's hanging on a wall in a climate-controlled room in London, with a price tag that would make your eyes water. The people who own these pieces, they're the new custodians of the story. Sometimes, the only way to hear the story is to ask the current keeper."
Before he could formulate a protest, she had put the phone to her ear. He listened, his stomach a knot of anxiety, as she navigated the conversation with effortless charm.
"Julian! Elara Vance. Don't tell me you've forgotten the girl who beat you at Trivial Pursuit that time in Gstaad… Yes, that one. Look, I'm calling in that favor. The big one… No, not about the Renaissance bronze. Something much, much better. I'm looking at a painting in your inventory. 'Portrait of an Unknown Woman, c. 1791, School of Paris.' The one with the impossible blue dress… I know you know the one. I need to see it. In person… Tomorrow? Perfect. I'm bringing a colleague. Dr. Alistair Finch. He's the leading expert on the period… Yes, that Alistair Finch. See you at eleven."
She ended the call and gave him a triumphant look. "We're going to London."
Alistair felt a wave of vertigo, as if the floor of the library had given way and he was plummeting into the bright, terrifying sky. London. Mayfair. An art gallery. It was a world of polished floors, hushed tones, and staggering sums of money. It was a world for people like Elara—charming, connected, confident. It was his personal version of hell.
"I don't travel," he said, the words sounding pathetic even to his own ears.
"You do now," she said, her voice softening. "Alistair, you found the key. The lapis lazuli. But I have the feeling that to understand what that key unlocks, we need to see the lock up close. You need to see the paint. You need to feel the history. Trust me on this."
He looked at her earnest expression, at the genuine belief in her eyes. He thought of the woman in the painting, her enigmatic smile. He thought of the tiny, defiant mockingbird. He was a historian. His entire life was devoted to the past. And yet, he had only ever experienced it through the filter of text. He had never stood in its presence.
"Fine," he said, the word feeling like a capitulation and a new beginning all at once. "But I am booking a separate hotel."
The flight to London was a form of of torture Alistair had hoped to avoid. The recycled air, the proximity of strangers, the cacophony of modern life—it was a sensory assault. He buried himself in a newly acquired monograph on Parisian guild regulations, but he could feel Elara's amused gaze on him from across the aisle. She was sipping a glass of champagne and reading a novel, as if they were on holiday.
The Croft Gallery was everything Alistair had dreaded and more. It was housed in a starkly modern building of glass and steel, a brutalist statement of wealth and taste. Inside, the walls were pristine white, the lighting so precise it seemed to sculpt the air itself. It was the opposite of the Athenaeum's warm, cluttered embrace. Here, history was not a living, breathing entity; it was a commodity, displayed under glass and guarded by silent, suited attendants.
Alistair felt profoundly out of place in his tweed jacket and scuffed leather shoes. He tugged at his sleeves, wishing for the comforting armor of his carrel.
"Elara, my darling! A vision as always." A man glided towards them, extending a hand. He was Julian Croft. He was in his late forties, impeccably dressed in a tailored suit that probably cost more than Alistair's car. His hair was silver at the temples, his smile a practiced, disarming weapon. His eyes, however, were sharp and calculating, taking in every detail.
"Julian," Elara said, kissing him on both cheeks. "Thank you for seeing us. This is my colleague, Dr. Alistair Finch."
"Alistair. A pleasure," Julian said, shaking his hand with a grip that was surprisingly firm. "I've read your papers on the fiscal policies of the National Convention. Excruciatingly dry, but brilliantly argued. You're a man who likes his facts hard and his sources primary. I respect that."
The compliment was a scalpel, designed to flatter and disarm simultaneously. Alistair gave a curt nod. "Mr. Croft."
"Please, call me Julian. Now," he said, rubbing his hands together, "you wanted to see the girl in the blue dress. An excellent choice. She's become something of a celebrity in certain circles. A mystery. Follow me."
He led them through a series of cavernous rooms, past sculptures that defied gravity and paintings that screamed with color. Finally, he stopped in a small, intimate gallery at the back of the building. And there she was.
The painting was hanging on a wall by itself, bathed in a pool of warm, focused light. Seeing it in person was a fundamentally different experience. The digital image had been a photograph; this was a presence. The canvas was large, nearly life-size. The texture of the paint was visible—the thick, confident impasto of the blue drapery, the delicate, almost invisible brushstrokes that formed the skin of the woman's face. The lapis lazuli was not just a color; it was a substance. It had depth and a mineral gravity that seemed to pull the light into it. It was the color of a twilight sky, of a deep ocean, of a king's veins.
Alistair found himself taking an involuntary step forward. He was a man of texts, of abstract data. But this… this was a physical object, a vessel of history that had survived wars, revolutions, and the passing of centuries. He could almost smell the faint, ghostly scent of linseed oil and the Parisian studio from which it had emerged two hundred and thirty years ago.
"She has an aura, doesn't she?" Elara murmured beside him, her voice hushed with reverence. "A presence. That's what a fortune in pigment and a good story will buy you."
Alistair didn't answer. He was transfixed. He looked at the woman's eyes, the secret smile playing on her lips. He looked at the simple, revolutionary dress, a stark contrast to the decadent, royalist blue behind her. It was a painting of contradictions, a captured moment of impossible tension. He felt a connection to the long-dead artist, Jean-Pierre Dubois, a man who had poured his fortune and his secret onto this canvas. He was no longer just a name in a ledger; he was a man with a soul, a man who had loved this woman enough to risk everything for her.
"We believe she is the Sylphide," Elara said to Julian.
Julian chuckled, a smooth, practiced sound. "Ah, the Sylphide. The beautiful ghost. The romantic myth. It's a wonderful story. It adds a few zeros to the price tag."
"It's more than a story," Alistair said, his voice surprising him with its intensity. He turned from the painting, his historian's persona snapping back into place, but it was different now, tempered by the visceral experience of the art. "The painter is Jean-Pierre Dubois. We can prove it. The blue drapery is painted with ten pounds of lapis lazuli pigment, a purchase he made from a royal supplier in March of 1791. An expense that makes no sense for a painter of his station unless he was working on a secret, high-value commission. This painting is that commission."
Julian's smile didn't falter, but his eyes narrowed with interest. He looked from Alistair to the painting and back again. "Ten pounds of lapis, you say? That's… a very specific and interesting fact. My own research traced the painting back to the collection of the Dukes of Halstead. They sold it in 1948 to settle death duties. The family lore was that it had been acquired by a 'dashing ancestor' after the Napoleonic Wars. The trail goes cold there. A common story. So much was lost in the chaos of that era."
"The Comte de Valerien," Alistair stated. "The 'dashing ancestor' was likely a British officer or agent who received the painting as payment for services rendered to the royalist cause. The Comte was trying to smuggle his assets out of France. A painting this valuable, this portable, would have been perfect."
Julian steepled his fingers, his expression now one of genuine intrigue. "You're not just historians, are you? You're treasure hunters."
"We're historians," Elara corrected smoothly. "We're interested in the story. The painting is just the first chapter. We believe it's a key. A map. We think there are other documents. A codex."
"The Sylphid's Codex," Julian breathed, his commercial veneer momentarily cracking to reveal the passionate collector beneath. "The white whale. I've heard the whispers. Everyone in my world has. A collection of letters, a diary… a myth."
"A myth we intend to prove," Alistair said. "And this painting is our starting point. We need to know everything you have on its provenance between 1791 and 1948. Any correspondence, any old inventory lists from the Halstead estate, anything at all."
Julian was silent for a long moment, his gaze fixed on the portrait. The air in the room was thick with unspoken calculations. This was no longer a simple favor for a friend; this was a potential game-changer in the high-stakes world of art history.
"That information is… proprietary," he said finally. "It's part of my gallery's research. It has considerable value."
"We're not asking to publish it," Elara said. "We're asking for your help. Think of the story, Julian. Finding the Codex… it would be the historical discovery of a generation. The painting in your gallery would be the Mona Lisa of the Revolutionary period. Its value would be incalculable."
He looked at her, then at Alistair. A slow smile spread across his face. It was the smile of a predator who had just spotted a particularly magnificent prey.
"You drive a hard bargain, Dr. Vance," he said. "Alright. I'm in. But I want in on the hunt. Full partnership. My resources, my contacts, my expertise in navigating the… murkier waters of the art world, in exchange for being part of the team that finds the Codex."
Alistair opened his mouth to protest. The last thing he wanted was this slick, charming showman involved in his meticulous research.
But Elara spoke first. "It's a deal," she said, extending her hand.
Julian shook it, then turned to Alistair, his eyes gleaming. "Welcome to the shark tank, Dr. Finch. You'd better learn to swim."
As they left the gallery and stepped out into the bustle of Mayfair, Alistair felt a strange mix of exhilaration and dread. He had left the silent deep of his archive and was now swimming in the open ocean. He had a new, unpredictable partner, a powerful, self-serving ally, and a single, breathtaking clue. The hunt for the Sylphid's Codex was no longer a quiet academic pursuit. It was a race. And he had a sinking feeling they weren't the only ones running.