Larkin glanced at the remaining chunk of processed sugar in his hand, then nodded.

“June 5,” Doyle reiterated. “You thank me then. Do you know the difference between a life mask and death mask?”

“If this is intended to be a trick question, the names give away the answer,” Larkin said before eating the rest of his donut.

“You’re cute,” Doyle stated. “In a stick-up-the-ass, sees the world in black-and-white with a severely disadvantaged sense of humor sort of way.”

“That’s inappropriate.”

“Life masks were made with wax or plaster laid over the individual’s face, allowed to harden, then removed in sections. From that negative, artists could recreate a positive face with all the detailed characteristics unique to the sitter: wrinkles, scars, nose and ear sizes—you get my point. From there, the mask could be utilized after the fact to sculpt busts or paint portraits. Washington and Lincoln sat for life masks.”

The donut had left Larkin’s fingertips sticky, and he rubbed his thumb absently against the pads of his index and pointer while stating, “That’s not a life mask, though.”

Doyle’s eyes crinkled a little, and those flecks of gold seemed to spark, like….

—white sunshine skittering across the shattered surface of a lake—

“Why do you say that?”

“I don’t know. I’m not an artist,” Larkin answered.

“Are you familiar with the phrase memento mori?”

“It’s Latin—remember that you must die.”

Doyle nodded. He fiddled with the magnet still in his hand. “A tangible reminder of our own mortality. It’s a study in death.”

Larkin considered this for a moment, then said, “That’s an interesting word choice.”

“Which?”

“Study. As a noun, it has half a dozen different meanings, including: a piece of artwork.”

“It can also imply an investigation,” Doyle countered.

There was a sudden but subtle shift in the energy around them, something quantifiable but its calculation for measurement foreign to Larkin. It passed between them in a second. Like a loss of gravity, the crackle of electricity in the air before a storm, the tingle of blood rushing back into a limb after sleeping on it wrong, stuck in a loop of spins while waltzing.

It was there, and then it was gone.

But the look on Doyle’s face—he’d felt it too.

A partnership in art and investigation. A study in death.

Raising a thick eyebrow and holding the mask out to Larkin, Doyle asked again, his tone a touch more somber, “Why do you say it’s not a life mask?”