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It is with some relief that I put down my brushes for the day and stretch, hearing my spine creak. I'm sure that Schuldig feels even more stiff, for he has been stock still for what seems an eternity, only the brightness of his eyes letting me know he is not asleep.
"Is that it?" he asks.
"For today."
He stretches his arms out behind him, his hands clasped together. I watch the way his shoulder blades move, entertaining a fantasy that they are the remnants of wings. Would he be a fallen angel? I think, or some sort of perverse creature of the fae? He looks at me oddly, as if he has divined my thoughts, then smiles at me sidelong, as sly as a snake.
"Go on, then, one more fucking sketch."
I maintain a dignified silence as I sharpen a pencil and open a sketchbook to a fresh page. "Could you put your arms out behind you again, please?"
I work quickly, just a rough study to satisfy my desire to not let a single image go to waste. Just before he is ready to quit, I close the book and lay down the pencil.
"Thank you. You're sure you have to go? You don't want to come to dinner?"
"Not tonight. I'll see you on Thursday," he says, dressing. "Don't wear out your drawing hand before you see me again," he adds with a knowing leer, and saunters from the room.
* * *
I wake in the silent hours of the night from an uneasy slumber to find the moon's pale light leaching the colours from my room. My head is pounding, and my throat parched as I stagger from the bed towards the sink, desperate for water. I was a fool to try to out drink Sergei, and now I am paying the price. I turn back towards the bed and freeze - I am not alone. The figure moves fully into the moonlight and I breathe out, for it is Schuldig, as casually naked as if he has come to sit for me.
He comes to me, and I watch him in awe, noting the way the thin light turns his skin to something approaching the colour of silver. He stretches, rolls his shoulders and spreads out the massive wings furled at his back. I gasp at the sight; not even the moonlight can rob his feathers of their colour, a rich mix of ochres and deep golds, tipped with the brightest scarlet. He speaks then, a language I have never heard, not English nor German, the words wild and sounding like a bird's far-off cry. I shake my head in confusion and he beckons me with long, many-jointed fingers, each tipped with a hooked claw. Standing in the reach of his arms, I stare in fascination into his eyes, pools of solid gold, and tremblingly touch the outstretched arc of a wing. His feathers are not soft, as I at first foolishly thought, but feel like fine, living steel. They are warm, and give to my touch, but where I brush against the edge of the flight feathers a thin trail of blood marks my skin.
He speaks again and laughs, a high and dangerous sound, as he caresses my face with his clawed fingers, his other hand sliding down my side to rest upon my hip. Wherever he touches me, my skin blazes with heat and I feel that I am burning up, no matter that I am standing naked on bare floorboards in the middle of the night. Whatever he wants of me, coming to me in this uncanny guise, I cannot deny it.
"Please," I say.
Triumph in his face, he pulls me tight against him, burying his face in the hollow of my throat. He kisses me and fire runs through me as I throw my arms around him as if to stop him leaving. His wings sweep forward, enveloping us both in red, metallic warmth, and I am overcome and know no more.
* * *
I do not wake until lunchtime. Gingerly, I make myself a pot of coffee and force it down. Only then can I face the thought of some dry bread. I will straighten the bedclothes and go back to sleep, I think. I don't have to work if I don't want to. Buoyed by this thought, I manage to stand up and turn towards the bed. I stop, my breath hissing out in shock.
Lying in the middle of the floor is a large feather, scarlet at its edge, fading to a deep orange-gold. I pick it up and shiver as the hangover dissipates like fog melting in sunlight. I turn the feather over and over, then tap it against the edge of the sink. It rings, like metal.
I take my sharpest penknives and a whetstone, and with the greatest care finally manage to cut a nib in the feather's shaft. Writing quills should have the actual feather stripped away, but I am not sure if that's possible, and I could not bear to do it. I am not even sure I want to do as much as I already have.
At last I am ready. I do not know what truths this new artist's tool will reveal, but I should try to be brave enough to find out. I have hated my cowardice long enough. I sit at the table, a new and empty sketchbook open before me, a bottle of ink to the side and the quill, warm and light, waiting. I take a deep breath and pick it up.
I dip it in the ink, and start to draw.