CHAPTER 16

Elena walked to the main hall with Chloe holding her arm.

Her hands were cold. Her stomach felt like a stone. At the gate, Mrs. Park stood waiting in her best brown coat. She pressed something small into Elena's palm.

"A lucky coin," she said. "My mother gave it to me. Now it is yours."

"Mrs. Park, I cannot."

"Take it. And stand straight. You have done nothing wrong."

Elena closed her fingers around the coin. It was warm from the old woman's hand. She nodded, because she could not speak.

The main hall was huge and cold. Rows of wooden benches faced a long table at the front, where three teachers and the dean sat in dark robes. The Fifth Year stood on an easel beside them, uncovered. Seeing it there made Elena's throat tighten. It looked so alone.

She took a seat in the front row. She did not look back. If Adrian was in the room, she did not want to know it yet.

Vanessa sat across the aisle in a cream dress, with her father beside her. Mr. Reed was a large man with a loud watch and a smile that never reached his eyes. He glanced at Elena once, the way a man glances at a stain.

Behind her, the hall began to fill. She heard feet, whispers, the creak of benches. She kept her eyes on the painting.

Then a door opened at the side of the hall, and the whispers stopped.

Adrian walked in with the dean's assistant at his side.

He wore a dark grey suit, and his face was calm and cold, the face he used for strangers. He did not look tired. He did not look lost. Only someone who knew him well would see the faint shadows under his eyes.

He took a seat in the side gallery, a little above the others. A man like him did not sit in the rows. He sat where he could see everything.

He saw a long hall. A crowd of students. A table of old teachers.

In the front row, he saw the back of a young woman with her hair tied low and a plain blue dress. She sat very still, with her head slightly bowed.

His eyes passed over her and moved on.

He was thinking about numbers. He was thinking about the board, and a phone call from his mother he had not answered, and a locked drawer at home. He did not think about the girl.

The dean cleared his throat.

"We are here to decide who painted the work before us. Mr. Reed, you may begin."

Mr. Reed stood up like a man at a party.

"Thank you, Dean. My daughter Vanessa has worked on this piece for four months. She has shown it to her friends. She has talked about it at dinner. We find it very sad that a scholarship student, who only arrived a few weeks ago, would make such a claim."

He spoke smoothly for ten minutes. He said words like hardworking and honest and family. Every few sentences, he smiled at the panel as though they were all old friends.

When he sat down, a few people clapped softly.

"Miss Hart," said the dean. "Your turn."

Elena stood.

Her legs shook. She gripped the edge of the bench and felt Mrs. Park's coin biting into her palm. She walked to the front, turned, and saw rows and rows of faces.

She did not look at the gallery.

"I painted this," she said. Her voice came out thin. She tried again. "I painted this painting. On Tuesday night, in the studio, between ten and one in the morning."

"Can you prove it?" asked the dean.

"Yes. I have a photograph with a time on it. And I have records of paintings I sold under another name, before I came here. They show the same hand, the same style."

She held out her papers. A teacher took them and passed them down the table. The panel studied them. One of them frowned. Another tapped her pen.

"This is interesting," said Professor Linden. "But the photograph was taken by a friend. And the sales records are only words on paper."

"I know," Elena said quietly. "I wish I had more."

"Then we are in a difficult place."

Mr. Reed leaned back with a small smile.

In the side gallery, Adrian looked at his watch. He did not know that the young woman at the front had just lost her breath. He did not hear the way her voice shook. He only saw a girl in a plain dress, asking to be believed, and he looked away as one looks away from a small sad thing.

The dean sighed. "Then I am afraid, without further evidence, the panel must..."

The doors at the back of the hall banged open.

Every head turned.

A man stood in the doorway, wind blown and a little out of breath. His scarf hung loose around his neck. There were dark rings under his eyes from the long flight, and in his arms he carried a small flat parcel wrapped in brown paper.

"Forgive me," Alexander Cole said. "My plane was late."

Elena's heart jumped so high it hurt.

"Mr. Cole," said the dean. "This is a closed hearing."

"I know. But I have something the panel should see." He walked down the aisle, past Mr. Reed, who had stopped smiling. "May I?"

Professor Linden nodded.

Alexander set the parcel on the table and unwrapped it with careful fingers. Underneath was a small canvas, no bigger than a book. It showed a single hand, pale and still, resting on the arm of an old chair.

He placed it on the easel beside The Fifth Year.

The hall went silent.

The two paintings stood side by side. Different sizes. Different years. But the hand was the same. The same slender fingers. The same grey and rose, laid on so lightly it seemed to breathe. The same way the light touched one knuckle and left the rest in shadow.

"This was painted two years ago," Alexander said. "By an artist who sold her work online under the name Quiet Hands. I bought it. I have bought fourteen more since. I have never met a hand like hers." He looked at Elena. "Until I came to Westbrook."

No one spoke.

Professor Linden stood up, walked around the table, and bent close to the two canvases. She looked for a long time. When she straightened, her eyes were wet.

"It is the same brush," she said. "Beyond doubt."

The other teachers leaned in. One by one, they nodded.

Mr. Reed rose from his seat. "This is ridiculous. A gallery owner who wants to make a star out of a girl from nowhere."

"Sit down, Mr. Reed," said the dean quietly.

"Dean..."

"Sit down."

Mr. Reed sat.

Vanessa's face had gone as white as paper. She stared at the two paintings as though they might bite her. Then she stood up so fast her chair fell backward, and she ran from the hall with her hand over her mouth. Nobody stopped her.

The dean turned to the panel. They spoke in low voices for a moment. Then he straightened and read from the sheet in front of him.

"The panel finds that the painting titled The Fifth Year belongs to Miss Elena Hart."

A sound went up from the benches, half a gasp, half a cheer. Chloe was crying openly. Elena felt her knees give way, and Alexander's hand caught her elbow for one second.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"You did it," he said. "I only carried a picture."

Up in the side gallery, Adrian had stopped looking at his watch.

He had heard the name. Elena Hart. It struck him like a cold hand on his neck. But it was a common enough name, he told himself. Many women were called Elena.

Then his eyes moved to the easel.

He saw the long dining table. He saw the empty chairs, ten of them, twelve, stretching away into shadow. He saw the plate gone cold. And beside it, resting on the arm of a chair, he saw a woman's hand, waiting.

It was his table.

The one in his dining room. The one in his house. The same dark wood, the same silver candlesticks at the end, the same corner where a quiet girl had sat for five years eating dinner alone.

Adrian rose to his feet.

He did not know he had done it. His hands hung stiff at his sides. His heart was beating in his ears.

Down at the front of the hall, the young woman in the blue dress stood very still. She had felt something, a prickle, like a hand touching her back. Slowly, she let go of Alexander's arm.

She turned around.