And copying Sargent’s El Jaleo would forever be grief and hope twined together. It was knotted tightly with the song that was leading the charts the first week she got to Boston, the bright new knowledge that sweetmetals existed, the sound of that little boy’s voice when he woke up at the Boudicca party, the quality of the light coming into the Blick’s as she bought new brushes to replace the ones she’d lost, the heart-pattering chance that artists just might be able to keep themselves awake if they were original enough.

Jordan was beginning to understand how it might be possible for ley energy to be tangled into the art-making process, too.

“Of course Ronan can’t tell me exactly when he’ll be here,” Declan said.

The sentence came quite out of the blue, as before that he had, in his singsong soothing patter, been telling her about Quantum Blue, a new blue pigment invented with nanotechnology, designed to replicate the exact color of the idyllic “blue hour” of a Greek dusk. He was still seated in his chair the way he always sat when he came over, one leg crossed over the other, his tie loosened, his jacket removed and laid over his knee as if he had just come in from work, because usually he had. She hadn’t told him the portrait was done, so he still posed. “It is not the Ronan Lynch way to provide enough information to prepare.”

“What’s it, exactly, that you’re hoping to prepare for?” Jordan asked. She herself had mixed feelings about the news that Ronan, Bryde, and Hennessy were paying a visit to Boston, because of one harsh fact: Hennessy still hadn’t called. Ten years of complete codependence, and suddenly Hennessy had gone radio silent. At first she’d put it down to Hennessy being unable to find Jordan once she’d moved to Boston and gotten a burner phone. But now Declan had gotten two calls from Ronan and Jordan still didn’t have even a message from Hennessy. Jordan went from worry to annoyance to zen and back again. Truthfully, what truly kept her up nights was the realization that Hennessy hadn’t given Jordan all of her memories when she made her.

She had been waiting weeks to demand an answer for that, and the call never came.

Declan said, “I’ve never been good at Ronan, and there’s no handbook for the conversation we need to have now.”

“Sure there is. It’s a snap, a quick group read. The handbook’s called Your Boyfriend Called, He Thinks You’ve Joined a Cult, Please Advise.”

“Ronan’s not much of a reader,” Declan said darkly. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You brought it up.”

“Did I? What was I talking about before?”

“Quantum Blue. Alexopoulou. Blue hour.”