Nina skips over and pokes me in the side, snapping me back to reality. “Your feet are in the wrong position,” she corrects me. “Like this.” She does a perfect impression of the statue, right down to the way the satin ribbon at the end of her braid hangs down her back. One flawless pirouette later, she skips away again, leaving me laughing.

We stroll to the next gallery, filled with washed-out, dreamy watercolors. “These are my favorites,” I declare.

“They say Impressionists painted rain as a metaphor for washing the streets of the blood of the Revolution,” Maxine says beside me. I consider the painting. “Hmm,” I reply, noncommittal.

What if they just liked the rain, I want to say. What if they thought it was pretty and it was as simple as that? I’m so tired of trying to decipher meaning, of trying to decode secrets. Rain is never just rain. A key is never just a key. Death isn’t death. It’s exhausting. I’m exhausted. It would be nice to be washed clean.

I blink to clear my head and move through the gallery.

We pass through the Renaissance next, Maxine and Lena trying to swallow their giggles at all the truly hideous Baby Jesuses, haloed in gold, beatific in the arms of very stern-looking Marys. “Why does he have the face of a grown man?” Lena laughs. “You’re going to hell for that,” Maxine replies, but she’s laughing too.

Next is the hall of Greek statues, standing above us, tall and chalk white.

There’s a laughing group of schoolchildren in matching straw hats and wide-collared little blazers, weaving between us and the busts.

In the hall of Dutch still lifes, Lena sits down on a bench and unpacks her paints. She pulls out a canvas only a few inches wide and squeezes out globs of oil paint onto a tray for mixing. Bright red, sunshine yellow, vibrant blue, titanium white, and from them, she creates magic.

We watch in silence, the sun streaming in from the skylight, as she re-creates a pale pink peony on a dark wood table. In one clever stroke, she’s created a perfect shadow; in another, a drooping petal. I could watch her work for hours. We sit there until Nina tugs us along and Lena declares the painting “decent enough.” I think it’s more than decent, and tell her so. “Can I have it when it dries?” I ask. Lena wraps the canvas in cheesecloth and tucks it back into her bag. “Let me paint you something better than this.”

I throw an arm around her shoulder, despite her being taller than me. She laughs and ducks down to put us on an even level. “Nope, I want that one,” I say.

This would be a nice day, if not for our true mission.