After Cosimo turned the ship around, Nico repaired to his room and continued studying his Illusion textbook. He felt a minor thrill each time he passed a lesson and the next one appeared. Now his lessons were oriented around facial alteration, which was one of the most complex aspects of disguises. People were adept at recognizing faces. A facial disguise had to be perfect. Nico was practicing by wearing faces of people he knew — Tomasso, Lucius, Cosimo. Women were much harder, so he mainly practiced using male faces.

Nico was wearing Leo’s face when Leo burst into the room. He jumped out of his boots when he saw Nico.

“Azrael above!” Leo said, clutching at his heart. “Am I truly that handsome?”

“I took some liberties,” Nico jested. “You have a big fat nose. I fixed it.”

Leo smiled, but it quickly faded. “Dani says Tomasso has been arrested.”

Nico sighed slowly. He focused his mind and dispelled his Disguise, returning to his normal form. It felt weird each time he did it. It felt like a weight sloughing off him. “She divined this, I take it?”

“Scrying portents, reading cards. She showed me her tits and climbed into my lap. It was a rather bizarre production, all things considered. I think she’s half-mad.”

“Only half? Divination is an imprecise art.”

Leo looked visibly relieved. “And we saw Tomasso yesterday. Mere hours before her prediction.”

Nico shook his head. “I wouldn’t worry about it. We have bigger fish to fry.” And then he told him his theory about the riddle.

***

Centuries ago, the patrician Constance Ortiva fell ill with the Scarlet Pox — an incurable disease which ate the flesh and inevitably claimed its victims. Lacking an heir — lacking any living family relations at all — he made a bequest to the Empire on the proviso that his legacy be used to promote the arts and serve public welfare. And thus the Musea di Ortiva, the world's first public art gallery, was born.

Built in the neoclassical style, the Musea was a palatial fortress housing innumerable works of high art. There were paintings by Montorro, Civaggio, Zervez … the famed portraits of the Vedic royal line by Campani… an entire wing of Bernini’s statues…

One roomy exhibit accommodated the glass sculpture of a frost dragon, the product of the renowned one-armed glassblower Minos. Minos claimed it had been crafted from a single pane of glass. No one really believed him, but it was remarkable nonetheless.

The Musea, more than anything else, was what had established Verona as a cultural capital, attracting artists and intellectuals from across the Discovered World, and it was the reason Nico had fallen so irretrievably in love with the city.

***

Just past dawn they debarked the ship and headed to the Musea.

Morning crowds had already descended upon the art gallery. Leo and Nico had to wait in line for nearly a half hour before they managed to gain admission. Leo dropped two shims into a decorative vase (the price of admission was a single coin of any denomination) and a jowly, sad-eyed guard ushered them into the Grand Foyer.

Nico would never forget the first time he had seen the Grand Foyer, nor the sense of euphoric triumph that had accompanied it. A large room with an airy rotunda, the Grand Foyer had been dedicated to the glory of the Paladisian Empire. Murals on the walls depicted pivotal moments in the Empire’s history. The center of the room was occupied by a statue of Paladisian General Francesco Illari, carved by Bernini himself. It was Illari who had forged the Paladisian Empire, toppling the Duchy of Pern and enveloping outlying Parthian colonies, before finally uniting a panoply of city-states (including Verona) into the world’s largest extant empire.

Illari’s greatest feat, however, was vanquishing the Dark Wizard Vinus on the slopes of Mount Dread. One of the wall murals, entitled Righteous Conquest, depicted this legendary battle, with Illari’s hapless troops storming up a rocky scree while Vinus rained lightning and thunder down upon them.

Nico took a moment to pause and absorb the Musea’s grandeur once again.

The air held a distinct fragrance: a heady bouquet of dried parchment and old ink, of honeysuckle and pine, of joy and melancholy and hope and despair. The ambience had been carefully manicured by a Vedic perfumer.

To Nico, it was like stepping into paradise. Even now, so many years after his first visit, the feeling was still there, albeit distant and subdued.

Leo, for his part, never truly understood the allure of art. Sure, some paintings were fine to look upon, and some made a vague impression. But overall, he felt, art’s beauty was stale and superficial. It lacked the grandeur and splendor of nature’s own beauty, of a cascading waterfall or a springtime glen. Some nobles and merchants invested in art, but as an investment it made a shaky asset — a careless buyer could lose a fortune if they accidentally purchased a forgery.

“This place was like home to me when I was young,” Nico said.

“You came here often?”

“Once a month, or so. Dante would bring us here to study the masters… to memorize all the fine details of their paintings and portraits. It was how we were able to reproduce their works. I know this place like I know the back of my hand. Here, this way…”

Nico led Leo through an adjoining exhibit. Ortiva and successive curators had traveled the world collecting artifacts of artistic and archaeological significance. They passed Ancient Druin obelisks and mummies and dusty old rings of long-forgotten kings who reigned before the Cataclysm, before Azrael and his divine family had taken residence in the Ice Court, claiming dominion over mankind.

They passed the Human exhibit, where a creepy but extraordinarily talented mage had used clay, silicone, rubber and other materials to create life-like humans. Then he had animated them, breathing life into their inorganic forms. They both appeared and behaved almost identical to real humans — so much that many wondered if they were not in fact real people. They spent most of their time looking glum, lounging in their glass exhibit, praying, and occasionally begging and pleading, with tears in their eyes, for someone to liberate them. It was deeply unsettling.

Nico half-expected Leo to make some wry quip about it, but he barely noticed it. Instead he was pointing to a structure up ahead: a glass frost dragon rising thirty feet high, its wingspan sixty feet wide. It dwarfed everything around it, making all other monuments and statues around it seem small and insignificant.

“How long do you reckon it took to make that?” Leo said.

“A lifetime,” Nico replied. He knew the piece’s history. “A glass sculpture by a glassblower named Minos. It’s all one single pane of glass, meticulously crafted.”

Leo laughed. “One pane? I highly doubt that. Do you know how hard it is to blow glass? I mean, I’ve never tried myself, but glass is such a fickle medium, so delicate and difficult to shape.”

“Well, this Minos’ magnum opus, his only opus. His one single completed work of art. He was the scion of a minor noble, and squandered his family’s entire fortune on his art. He tried and failed to make the dragon three hundred and fifty three times. Hence the name of the piece.” Nico gestured to a placard, which bore the simple title #354. “Some say there’s a minor defect in it, and that when Minos discovered it, now penniless and destitute, he flung himself to his death.”

“Rich people find the most creative ways to piss away money,” Leo said, shaking his head. “Hey, at least he wasn’t up to his eyeballs indebted to a mad duke…”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

They went up a flight of stairs, and finally arrived at the threshold of an exhibit titled simply Artificium.

“Artificium,” said Nico, ”is a very niche field of art. A century ago an alchemist concocted a type of movable ink. With a careful lattice charms and potions, this ink could be induced to take on almost physical characteristics. Trees would sway in the wind; rivers would flow in turbulent currents; snow flakes would gently fall.”

“Sounds neat, I guess” said Leo. “But kind of gimmicky.”

“Most artists would agree with you. Contemporary artists shunned artificium, and modern ones still do. Artists delight in novelty but eschew sorcery. There was one primary practitioner of this field, one great master of it. Telemachus of Arkimidea. Telemachus adored nature, but he was a romanticist at heart. He painted nature not as it was, but as he wished it to be. He combined elements from around the world to create fantastical settings.”

“Okay. What does this have to do with the riddle?”

“Well, Telemachus was incidentally Ilhen’s mentor, and one of his paintings matches the riddle’s description. It features an imaginary setting inspired by the Jasmine River of Wuhabi and the Nordian Mountains. There are elm trees situated along the banks. It’s titled Among the Sierra, and it’s right up here.”

***

They were alone in the Artificium exhibit. Nico made a beeline for Among the Sierra and studied its features.

“This is definitely it. You see what I mean? The Jasmine River, snowcapped peaks, elm trees. It has everything.” Except anything to do with a cellar. That line threw Nico.

“ 'Neath the lee of a spreading elm tree. That was the line, wasn’t it? So what’s under the elm tree? I see nothing.”

“Nor I. And there’s something else about it… something strange.”

Something was decidedly off about it. A shudder ran up his spine as it suddenly occurred to him. The revelation struck him like a bolt of lightning. “This painting is a forgery.”

Leo recoiled at the accusation. “What? How do you know? You’ve seen the original?”

“A thousand times, right here in this very spot. Not long ago, in fact. The curator must have replaced it with this fake. Somebody did.”

“Well incidentally,” Leo said quietly, gripping Nico’s elbow and subtly steering him away, “somebody is watching us.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Nico saw a member of the Black Cabal watching them.

***

It was a hot and sweltering day, the sun perched on the zenith of the cloudless sky. When they returned to the Mint, they found the indentured crew hard at work, scrubbing the deck and repairing chips in the paint, sweat glistening on their backs. Ever since the day Nico had first boarded the Mint, Cosimo had offered his crew no respite, demanding rotating 12 hour shifts. For now he had kept the ship’s sails unfurled, as though expecting to make a quick departure. And indeed, when Leo and Nico entered the Captain’s Quarters, they found Maximilian and Cosimo poised above an oversized map of the Discovered World. The map was so large that it completely draped Cosimo’s dining table; the text on it was so minute that Max used jeweler’s loupe to inspect it. Gianna sat nearby, playing an enchanted board of Citadels by herself.

“What is the meaning of this?” Max said, the loupe nearly falling off his red-face. “Cosimo tells me you—”

“We solved the riddle,” Nico said. “It’s a painting, not a location.”

Cosimo said nothing. He looked blankly from Nico to Leo and back again. Maximilian spoke first.

“A painting!? What are you blathering about? What painting?”

“It’s titled Among the Sierra. A painting by Ilhen’s mentor Telemachus. It’s on display at the Musea. But there’s a minor complication. The original has been replaced with a forgery, and someone —”

“—the Black Cabal,” Leo interjected.

“—is monitoring everyone who comes and sees it. The forgery has been altered in some small but meaningful way. I believe it’s a honeypot trap.”

“A honeypot?” said Cosimo, one eyebrow cocked.

“The altered detail is presumably engineered to lead us astray on our quest. Perhaps it even leads to a trap.”

“How do you know it’s a fake? Have you memorized every Telemachus painting?”

“Yes.”

There was a moment of dumbfounded silence, and then Maximilian began applauding, swinging his arms wide in big exaggerated claps. “Bravo,” he said, stepping forward. “An excellent performance. Almost plausible, if only it wasn’t so ludicrously… asinine.”

“What are you talking about?” snapped Cosimo.

“The fine folks from the Pathfinders have solved everything. Even cracked a cryptogram that fooled Golgas — Golgas, the world’s most preeminent fucking cryptomancer. How astonishing — it’s almost, dare I say, unbelievable.”

“Oh, shut up,” said Leo.

“The brilliant adventurers from the Pathfinder have solved everything. Now I have solved them. They’re the ones behind this ruse. Their guild laid the trail, then placed the cryptogram in Cosimo’s possession. A desperate act from a desperate — and hopelessly indebted — guild.”

Cosimo did not flatly reject the notion. “It’s true… Nico has solved every clue.”

“Because he’s damned good,” said Leo.

Cosimo seemed uncertain. “So what next?”

Nico said, “We need to engineer a diversion so that I have more time to examine the painting. Maybe then I can deduce the alteration.”

Cosimo considered this, finally nodding. “Very well. So long as you put only yourselves in danger.”

“I want in,” said Gianna, her back turned to them. “Just let me finish this game…”

***

Just past noon, the trio returned to the Musea. It was decidedly less busy now compared to earlier, which was perhaps not to their favor, but time was of the essence.

They had formulated a plan. A diversion to draw away the guards so that Nico would have time to analyze the painting unobserved and unmolested. With any luck, the experience would help jog Nico’s memory and he would be able to recall the missing detail. It was a long shot, but the only shot they had on such short notice.

They staggered their entries into the Musea. Nico went first, loitering around the Grand Foyer as he waited for Leo and Gianna to show up. He feigned interest in the Bernini sculpture of General Illari, pretending as though he was seeing it for the first time. It was not hard to be impressed by the piece, even if Nico had seen it hundreds of time before. The rotunda’s high windows were made of enchanted Vedic glass such that the sun’s light refracted onto Illari’s longsword, blazing like fire. It was one of Bernini’s finest works, in Nico’s estimation. There was only one detail Nico resented. Illari’s face was tilted slightly away from Righteous Conquest, the mural depicting his defeat of Vinus. A small detail, but one that Nico was amazed that Bernini and Ortiva had both overlooked.

It took about twenty minutes for Leo and Gianna to show up. From afar Leo gave him the signal to move their plan into action.

Nico took position outside an exhibit on Impressionism, which was both within earshot and eyeshot of the Sierra painting. He clasped his hands behind his back, sidling from one painting to the next, nearly all of them Godels. He feigned interest in their vibrant watercolor hues while listening intently for Gianna to make her move.

For a time, nothing happened. He wondered if perhaps there had been a complication. Butterflies fluttered in Nico’s stomach.

Then she burst into the room.

“Someone's trying to steal a Von Andrees!” she shouted.

“Huh? What?” The guard was clearly taken aback.

“Von Andrees, the Edmiri expressionist! Duh! Someone's wrenching it right off the wall like a thieving troglodyte! Come quick!”

“I — uh, where?”

“I'll show you. Come on, hurry!”

The guard followed her, albeit reluctantly.

Nico wasted no time. He slipped into the room, which was more crowded than it had been earlier, but there were no guards — none he recognized, anyway.

Another man was already viewing the painting — a lanky man in food-stained brown robes. He had a goatee and fetid body odor, and seemed nonplussed by the commotion. Nico jockeyed for position, shouldering closer to the painting, much to the man’s annoyance.

Nico commenced a thorough examination of the painting, scouring every detail, brush stroke, ink drop, every errant mark… Dante had once said that it was the flaws that made art flawless. A painter’s foibles and idiosyncrasies were the most difficult aspects to forge… and Telemachus’ work abounded in idiosyncrasy. The mountains were a touch too steep; the clouds had a subtle tint of lavender; the River Jasmine gushed like a waterfall.

But what was altered? He had the unnerving sense it wasn't even a subtle detail. It was conspicuous. Something that should leap out at him. But it didn't.

‘Neath the lee of an elm tree

What was altered? His eyes roamed over canvas.

Then it occurred to him. So obvious! A trivial detail altered — a detail right beneath the elm tree.

But as he reveled in his epiphany, he heard the sound of approaching footsteps behind him. A man jabbed a wand into his back and invoked a spell: “Disabilis!”