Page 74 of First Light
“Right.” Carys frowned. “Could Aisling have them?”
“Possibly. I don’t really know what happened to Seren’s things after she died. I imagine some of them were taken back to the chamber you’re staying in, but Lachlan probably kept most. Maybe some were sent to her father. Her journals though…”
“Journals are really personal.”
“Exactly.”
“The good thing is, if we can find them, they’ll give us more insightto what was going on in her life than anything else. Unless they’re all about crops and ladies’ dresses, of course.” She finished the chicken leg, wrapped it in the napkin he handed her, and took the apple Duncan held out. “So why are you all dressed up?”
He raised a single eyebrow and took the chicken leg in the cloth. “I’m not dressed up.”
“For you?”
He huffed. “Elanor commanded me to clean up for the banquet tonight. I expect she’ll have clothes picked out for you too. When Elanor commands you, you don’t ignore her.”
“Okay, but actually she seems really nice.”
“She’s a formidable queen,” Duncan said. “Born in Briton. Fostered in France—called Gaulle here. Not within the Queens’ Pact, but something similar. She’s highly educated, and she’s a good match for Robb. She was like another mother to me as a child, so I treat her like my own.”
“And she was Seren’s foster mother,” Carys said. “So she knew her better than her stepmother probably.”
“Not probably. Definitely.” Duncan pointed them down another hallway.
Carys couldn’t figure out how he knew where he was going, but she imagined it had something to do with the paintings on the walls because all the corridors looked the same. She caught a familiar image from the corner of her eye and stopped. “Hey.”
He halted immediately. “What?”
Carys pointed to the painting just past the corner. “That painting…” She frowned. “It looks like my mother’s work. But not.”
He walked over and stared at it. “It’s a landscape. I don’t know enough about art to tell one style from another, but I do know this one was painted by Efa of Eryri. She was a painter in a religious cult of some kind.”
“How do you know?” She couldn’t stop staring at the snowy peaks of the mountains in the painting. It wasn’t justlikeher mother’s work—it was startlingly similar in brushstroke and perspective. Theuse of light was different, but that would be expected in a dimension without a sun.
Duncan pointed to a small gold plaque in the frame. “It says it right here. Efa of Eryri, Daughter of Epona. Eryri is the name for the Snowdonia region in North Wales. Epona is a goddess.”
“She’s a Celtic fertility goddess, if I’m remembering correctly.” Carys leaned closer to the painting. “Efa of Eryri. Eryri is where Cadell is from.”
“I’m no art expert, but I’ve heard her name before, so she must be fairly well known.”
“She’s still living?”
“I don’t think so. From the date on this painting, she’d be well over a hundred by now if she was still living.” He nudged her back down the hallway. “Maybe she was related to your mother’s Shadowkin.”
“Oh, you’re right!” Something like that definitely made sense. “Very cool that she was famous though.” Carys smiled. “My mother would love that.”
“Was your mother well-known in America?”
“Not really. She rarely sold anything; she mostly painted for herself and for friends. She did behind-the-scenes work in Hollywood for a while. She made a lot of money doing that when they first moved. Mostly storyboards. Costume sketches. That sort of thing.”
Duncan looked impressed. “Amazing. She must have been talented.”
“Have you heard of Javier Torres, the film director?”
Duncan halted. “Are you serious? Of course I have. His films are some of my favorites. I lovedArmy of the Underworld.”
Carys smiled. “My mother did the storyboards for that. For a number of his films. Javier considered her his visual muse. I still talk with him and his wife sometimes. They always send me a very cool Christmas card.”
“Fuck me,” Duncan muttered. “Do all Californians know famous people?”