She perched on the arm. “It’s what that guy said, isn’t it? Boat fellow, the one your brother took us to see. The art’s got to do something to the artist. It’s more about making it than what gets made. It changes them, I guess. If you’re a bang-up artist who always paints great work, it doesn’t mean anything when you make another great work. It’s got be something else, not trauma, exactly, it’s more like … energy and movement. One makes the other. There’s movement in their life, their technique, somehow, that captures that ley energy, its movement. I guess. I don’t know, really. I’m talking out my ass, and if my voice sounds desperate to you, it’s because of that, it’s coming from my ass.”

Matthew liked that she was talking to him like he was a real person. “So you think making an—a not-copy, a, uh, an original, will make a sweetmetal for you? Because you always do copies?”

She pointed at him, snapping her fingers. “Right. Right. That’s what I’m hoping. But I just won’t know if it works until I need it, will I? I’ve been working on an original, that painting of your brother, but I can’t tell, sitting here, if it’s working. I can’t feel any of the sweetmetals the same way these past few days, actually, because of whatever Hennessy and Ronan are doing with the ley line. Have you noticed that? Have you noticed you’ve had fewer of the episodes?”

Matthew was so relieved to hear her say it, like it was just a normal, commonplace thing. “I haven’t been wandering!”

“Right? When I first got here, I felt the sweetmetals so strongly. I could feel El Jaleo doing something to me, I guess because I needed it. Now it feels like there’s more energy to be had all around, so I just feel normal when I see it. I mean, I love it, yeah, sure. But I don’t know if I’d be able to tell it was any different than an ordinary painting if I saw it for the first time today. So I can’t feel if my painting is getting there or not.”

“You could get another dream,” Matthew suggested. “A sleeping one. From a dead dreamer. Back at the Barns, there’s loads of my dad’s still, probably.”

“That’s a really good idea.”

She sounded like she really meant it, too. Because of this, he felt bold enough to ask, “Can I see it?”

“What? Oh. The painting. You know he hasn’t seen it yet.”

“Yeah.”

“You’d be the only person besides me to see it.”

“Yeah.”