Tryst walked back to the canvases, this time unveiling another.

What magic is this?

He lurched back in shock. A blue shape appeared to be emerging from the canvas, pumping up and down as if it were someone’s breathing chest. No form to speak of. Tryst stared at it for some time. He wanted to question Tuya about it, but thought better of that.

With caution, he revealed another, this time a sketch of the city as seen from her window. Nothing remarkable there. With his eyes fixed on the pulsating blue form, he pulled back the cloth on a fourth painting.

He took several steps away in disgust, holding his hand to his mouth.

Tuya still lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. His face creased in horror, Tryst examined the image before him: a hacked-open carcass that seemed altogether too real. A heart – or something resembling one – beat inside it, and streaks of red paint, possibly even blood, had dried while dripping down the canvas. Whatever was in place of a face stared back at him with one unblinking eye. He looked around the room and picked up an empty candlestick and prodded the thing. It squelched away from where he applied gentle pressure.

What the hell is this? Tryst wondered. Is it alive?

‘What you… doing now?’ Tuya said suddenly behind him. She was grasping a knife, pointing it at him threateningly. ‘Get away from them!’ she hissed.

The drug was obviously wearing off, fast.

Tryst stood with hands raised, palming the air gently. Trying to disguise his panic, he said, ‘Hey, I’m only looking at what you paint… It’s truly… remarkable.’

‘Just get over by the bed.’ She sliced the air as if to reinforce her words. She looked vaguely ridiculous waving a blade around while wearing only a corset.

He did as she ordered. There was a knife concealed in his boot, but he did not want to use it yet. Manipulating her mind would be a much more powerful weapon, if he could get inside her. It was what torturers were trained to do, seeking to work a little beneath the surface.

‘I don’t mean any harm, Tuya,’ he said, noting the slight drowsiness still in her eyes.

She looked at him uncertainly, and he could perceive that she didn’t quite know what to do next. She held the knife too close to her, so she wouldn’t strike him with it yet.

From her behaviour, these monstrous paintings suggested something deeply personal.

‘Tell me about your art,’ he said. He glanced to and from her creations, noticed they were still throbbing dully. She turned towards them, and he acted quickly. With the same candlestick, he leaned forward and struck her across her head, and Tuya stumbled, but remained upright, so he hit her twice more, with sharp and clinical blows.

She fell with a groan to the floor.

That was not what he had wanted, but she had forced it, hadn’t she, so it had to be done. He placed the candlestick down, then began to rummage through her bedside drawer. He picked out a couple of belts, then tightly bound her hands and feet. There’d be no more of this delicate tiptoeing around the issue. There was some serious shit going on here, and he was going to find out what the hell she was up to.

He left the room silently, taking one last glimpse at the horrors on the canvases.

An hour later, he was in possession of more sannindi from his contact on Sigr Gata, enough this time for a prolonged session with Tuya.

Those paintings caused him distress and he wanted answers.

When he got back, there she was, sprawled face down on the floor wearing her corset, just as he’d left her. Tryst slung his damp outer cloak on a chair, lifted her back up against the bed, then ran his palm across her scalp to feel the bruises. They weren’t too bad, and she groaned in his arms like a lover seeking comfort – ironic, and he knew it. Tilting her head back further, he tipped a larger dose of sannindi down her throat.

While he waited for her to wake up, he stood in front of the paintings, shaking. He couldn’t get used to the horror of these depictions, despite his years spent in the Inquisition torture chambers. This was a different horror, however, some artificial life force pulsating impossibly before him. With one finger extended, he poked it several times. His immediate thought was that this must be some cultist evil, manipulating the arts of the Dawnir. Why did she have such monstrosities in her room? How did she sleep at night with these things hidden only by a cloth? Was it her who had painted something that could come alive? Or did she purchase them from a cultist?

There was coughing behind him, obviously some of the powder having caught in her throat. He stepped towards her. ‘How’re you feeling?’ he asked.

She looked up at him through the hair covering her face. ‘I feel terrible,’ she croaked.

‘Good,’ Tryst said. ‘Now I want you to tell me the truth.’

She brushed a thick tress of hair back behind her ear.

‘First of all, your name?’

‘Tuya Daluud.’

‘Your age?’

‘I… honestly, I don’t know,’ she replied.

‘OK, Tuya Daluud. I’d like you to explain those paintings to me. Tell me, why do they appear to be alive?’

‘They are alive.’

‘Ask a stupid question…’ Tryst murmured. ‘Well then, how’ve you done it?’ He knelt down before her face to face, in an almost threatening manner – their pose a corruption of a lover’s kiss.

‘Many years ago I formed a relationship with a cultist. To keep things short, he provided me with special materials. A couple of relics. He showed me some techniques that would breathe extra life into my art.’

‘Why would a cultist care about that?’ he sneered.

She made full eye contact. ‘Because he was in love with me.’

‘Ah, yes,’ Tryst said. ‘He paid for your body, and you called it love – is that right?’

‘It wasn’t like that at all. He only paid me the first time…’

‘I’m sure it wasn’t really the first,’ he said, hoping his sarcasm would provoke her.

‘Why are you being like this to me? I’ve done nothing to hurt you.’

‘True,’ he said, and slowly untied her. ‘Now, let’s have a little tour of your gallery, shall we?’

She explained it all, each painting, from conception to creation.

Behind the ones that Tryst saw first lay even greater horrors, and he would never forget them. What he had at first found disgusting he later deemed cruel, since her creations did genuinely appear to be alive, but not in any way he was familiar with. For an hour he was shown the intricacies of her paintings, the body shapes that appeared to step out of them. Most of her creations were now set free, somewhere across the Archipelago, on journeys of their own. One image intrigued him particularly: a clay sculpture of a reclining dog. It moved its head around when she neared it, as if it fed off her presence. The creature was totally black, except for eyes possessing a fragile emotion. How could anything so unreal have a life? It broke all known laws, all religious teachings, every philosophy he’d known.

‘I’ve one more question,’ Tryst said, as the clock tower rang out the thirteen chimes of midnight. ‘Why do you make these things?’

She turned to a lantern resting on a chest of drawers, stared at it as if it was a beacon of hope. ‘I think, deep down, it’s because I can. You don’t know how rewarding it feels to have your creations come to life. No one does, so I can’t begin to explain. That way your art takes on a life of its own. I remember when I was much younger, people criticizing my paintings for being lifeless. Now I can make anything come out of these canvases, and they behave according to my wishes – even if they die shortly after. And I do it because… well, because I’m lonely. This is a big city, but I feel like a stranger in it. My family died years ago. I’ve spent all my life here, so where else would I go? There’s nothing for me in one of the far-off villages of some backwater island, and I wouldn’t fancy my chances out there in the Freeze anyway. No, I’m trapped here, a permanent stranger. Perhaps it makes my job easier. When men have finished with me, they go back home to their wives, their families, and I know they wouldn’t want me to walk up to them in the street and say hello. So every time I make love to a stranger, it makes me a little more distant, a little more solitary. A little more scarred.’