I went from reluctant to absorbed in the course of those three hours, so it came as a shock when I looked up and found myself a foot from the end of the scarlet feather I was coloring, and the sun low on the skyline. Camphire straightened up from the figure she was working on and commanded, “Okay, stop. I have to end as I meant to begin. Actually, I did begin that way, but I meant it, too.” She took the chalk from me and finished the feather in a dense, jagged polygraph line that jolted out of its border on both sides and trailed off like a tadpole tail at the end. She took the turquoise chalk from Tick-Tick and did the same thing to an elaborately outlined curlicue. She fished out a canary-yellow chalk from her apron and turned the pointed petals of a lily into a furious squiggle. Then she sat down, suddenly and hard, on the pavement, and dropped her forehead on her knees.

Tick-Tick reached her first. “What’s the matter? Are you all right?”

Camphire raised her head. “I’m fine. It’s just always a shock, that’s all.”

I stopped a little ways away from her and stared. Her voice, though still hers, had more decision in it, and her face didn’t look as if it were waiting for its next expression. “Hullo?” I said.

She smiled (the smile was different, too). “This happens whenever I finish a really large piece. Don’t worry, it wears off after a while. And a good thing it does, too, because I can’t get a bit of work done in this state. I just can’t concentrate.” She stood up and dusted chalk and road grit off her skirt. “Thank you ever so much for helping me finish. I’d set my heart on winding up today, and I didn’t think I could do it.”

I got my voice back, sort of. “This… always happens?”

“Oh, yes. I suppose out in the World someone would say I was using my art as therapy.”

“Seems to work.”

“Well, yes, but do you know, I think my present state is the one I’m treating, because however comfortable it is to be normal, I find I can’t really be happy like this.”

“Mmm,” I said, beginning to wonder if she was completely recovered after all.

“Don’t you think so? I’m sure you’d be more comfortable if you weren’t fey, but would you be happy?”

It was Tick-Tick, unexpectedly, who answered. “No. You’re right. It’s better to be happy than comfortable, if you can’t have both.”

“Artists hardly ever get both,” Camphire said with a shrug. “The odd thing is, that if they don’t choose happiness, they don’t usually manage to be comfortable, either, because they’re busy fretting over how unhappy they are.”

“You’re sure you’re all right?” I asked.