She could already see it in her mind, feel the power of it gathering in her like a storm.

She raised her brush, swirled it in color for the first stroke.

Her heart lifted. The magnitude of the joy was almost unbearable. She might burst from it if she didn’t transfer it onto canvas.

The image was burned in her mind, like a scene etched on glass. With stroke after stroke, color blended on color, she began to bring it to life.

“You know this was always my deepest dream.” She spoke conversationally as she worked. “For as long as I can remember I wanted to paint. To have the talent, the vision, the skill to be an important artist.”

“Now you have it.”

She switched brushes, glancing at Kane before she faced the canvas again. “Yes, I do.”

“You were wise, making the right choice in the end. A shopkeeper?” He laughed, dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. “Where is the power in that? Where is the glory in selling what others have created when you can create yourself? You can be and have whatever you choose here.”

“Yes, I understand. You’ve shown me the way.” She slid him a coy look. “What else can I have?”

“You want the man?” Kane shrugged elegantly. “He’s bound to you here, a slave to love.”

“And if I’d chosen otherwise?”

“Men are capricious creatures. How could you ever be sure of him? Now, you paint your world as you do that canvas. As you wish.”

“Fame? Fortune?”

His lip curled. “So it is with mortals always. Love, they say, is what matters more than even life. But it’s wealth and it’s glory that they really crave. Take it all, then.”

“And you, what will you take?”

“I have already taken it.”

She nodded, switched brushes. “You’ll have to excuse me. I need to concentrate.”

She painted in the warm bath of sunlight while the music soared.

FLYNN hit the door with his shoulder, then gripped the knob and prepared to ram it again. The knob turned smoothly in his hand.

Zoe gave him a jittery smile. “I must’ve loosened it for you.”

“Stay down here.”

“Save your breath,” Dana advised and pushed up behind him.

The light seemed to pulse now, thicker and somehow animate. Moe’s growling became wet snarls.

Flynn saw Malory, standing at the far end of the attic. Relief was like a hammer blow to his heart.

“Malory! Thank God.” He leaped forward, and hit the solid wall of mist.

“It’s some sort of barrier.” He spoke frantically now as he pushed and slammed against it. “She’s trapped in there.”

“I think we’re trapped out here.” Zoe pressed her hands against the mist. “She doesn’t hear us.”

“We have to make her hear us.” Dana looked around for something to batter against the wall. “She must be somewhere else, in her head, the way we were. We have to make her hear us so she’ll snap out of it.”