lips and the olive-brown tones of her skin. We’ve never met, but I think I’d know her anywhere. “She’s . . . she’s . . .”
“Luminescent,” Alexandre finishes my sentence. “It’s the Delacroix mastery of color and light.” His light follows the length and curve of Leila’s figure. “See how even in profile, her features are really refined? And the embroidery on the robe?”
When we shine our light closer to the canvas, we see the midnight-blue of the robe or dress she is wearing is deep and rich. The silk cascades in folds along her body and onto the ground below, concealing her feet as she stands gazing into a fountain. The robe slips ever slightly from her shoulder and is bordered all along the hem with golden stars. Her left hand casually grasps a silver dagger at her side, its cream-colored handle showing between her fingers. It’s the dagger that’s sitting in my living room right now.
Alexandre gasps. “The dagger.”
“I know,” I whisper.
I honestly can’t tell if this is real life or a dream—lately everything I hope for slips through my fingers, making hope feel too fragile, too dangerous, to believe in.
My heart races. I have to remind myself to breathe, because I think I stopped the minute a beam of light passed over Leila’s face. She’s young. Maybe nineteen or twenty in this portrait, though the Leila we glimpsed in the letters was older, middle-aged. This is the Leila of Byron’s poem. She was beautiful and strong, and she deserved more than what life offered her. She was barely older than me. And alone.
“Leila’s entire life, she was forced to hide,” I mumble, my voice cracking. “Who the hell shoved her in this dark corner with a bunch of junk?” My voice grows louder with my anger. “Let’s bring her into the light.”
Alexandre squeezes my shoulder. “I couldn’t agree more,” he says, then gently lifts the small painting off the wall.
We duck back through the door, Alexandre clearly taking care not to bump into anything. I wipe down the small kitchen table and then line it with paper towels, creating a semi-clean spot to rest the painting. We lean in closer. My breath is heavy, labored, like the weight of this moment is finally hitting me. Bending over the table, I search for the distinctive Eug. Delacroix signature but can’t find it. It could be hidden beneath the frame, faded, or maybe he never signed it. But it has to be a Delacroix. I hope.
Alexandre steps away from the table and sinks to the floor. “I can’t believe . . . finally. Finally, there’s a chance. My family . . . we have to authenticate it first. X-rays. Multispectrum analysis. But the brushstrokes, the romantic nostalgia, the kind of dreaminess about the scene—it definitely feels like some of his later paintings.”
I take a seat next to him and nudge him. He smiles. I smile back. Then giggle. He starts laughing, too. Nerves, I guess? I said there was a weight to this moment that made it hard to breathe. But weirdly, there’s a lightness to it, too. A joy. A disbelief.
A thought occurs to me, something I remember from researching art provenance and authentication. “The back of a painting. We have to examine the back.”
“Sorry?”
“Art historians learn as much from the back of the canvas as they do from the actual painting.”
“Yes,” says Alexandre. “Delacroix didn’t sign all his paintings—”
“On the front,” we say together and stand.
Alexandre steps over to the painting and lifts it up gently by the edges of the frame. I move closer. The back of the canvas is dark, a dirty beige. There’s a yellowed piece of paper affixed to the top of the exposed wooden frame. It’s small—maybe the size of a credit card. Faded black cursive on the back reads: Cherchez la femme, trouvez le trésor. There’s no signature, no other words, no date. Celenia Mondego would probably say it hardly counts as evidence, but she’s sitting behind a desk somewhere, and I’m here right now. For me, it is enough.
Alexandre’s face erupts in a huge smile, every tooth showing. He carefully rests the painting on the