The Painter's Candle burned through the morning like a soft oath.
Not loud. Not hungry. Just true. Its light did not demand attention — it earned it.
Leona and Jonas left it in the mill, trusting the room to protect what it finally understood. The river carried the light in its reflections, thin gold stitches along the current. The sky seemed more aware of itself, clouds drifting with purpose instead of passing.
They walked toward the old art hall — a long-abandoned studio where apprentices once learned to mix pigment from minerals and prayer. The doors had rotted from the bottom up, leaving a mouth-like gap that breathed dust and expectation.
Jonas tested the frame. "We don't know what waits inside."
Leona placed her palm on the wood. "We do. The river wants the Painter to finish speaking."
Inside, easels stood like frozen dancers.
Canvas skeletons leaned against walls, half-remembered faces and half-forgotten dreams staring through layers of dust. The air smelled of linseed oil and ash — a memory of color that refused to fade.
At the center stood a single canvas shrouded in a grey sheet.
Leona approached. The air tightened around them.
Jonas whispered, "It's humming."
It was. A quiet vibration, as though the painting beneath the cloth remembered a song it had never finished. Leona lifted the sheet.
The canvas revealed itself slowly — not with shock, but inevitability.
A woman stood painted in a field of white — or what had once been white before the river's light redefined the color. Her hair was made of strokes that looked like wind caught in a net. Her eyes were closed, yet somehow aware. Her hands cupped something unseen, as if holding a promise she wasn't ready to show.
Jonas breathed, "It's the Painter's final work."
But Leona shook her head. "It isn't finished."
As she spoke, the woman's eyelids flickered.
The brushstrokes trembled.
The canvas inhaled.
Jonas stepped back, heart pounding. "Leona —"
Paint peeled itself forward like a second skin. The figure's lips parted slightly, revealing the faintest trace of red — a color that had not existed on the canvas a moment ago. It glistened. Wet. Alive.
The painted woman whispered.
Not a word — a sensation. A brushstroke of sound.
Leona leaned closer, understanding with her bones.
"It's waiting for the candle."
The unfinished hands on the canvas — those cupped palms — wanted fire. Wanted purpose. Wanted the next stroke of creation.
Jonas looked toward the mill. "We should bring it here."
"No," Leona said. "It must choose to come."
She touched the canvas, fingers hovering a breath above the paint.
"What is your name?" she asked softly.
The canvas exhaled pigment.
Words formed along the bottom edge, written in liquid color:
AMARA
Leona's breath caught.
She turned to Jonas.
His face had gone pale. "That's not possible."
But the river had never been interested in possible.
"Amara…" Leona repeated, the syllables tasting like hope.
The painted woman's eyes fluttered open — not fully, just enough for a line of gold to appear like dawn finding a horizon.
Jonas stumbled forward, voice rough. "Amara Reed is still alive. She's in the other story. She's—"
"Yes," Leona said gently. "She is building Grace River again. And here, the river is remembering her as the first spark."
A crack formed across the canvas — not breaking it, but revealing another layer beneath. The studio filled with the scent of burning cedar and fresh rain. Something deep beneath the paint was waking.
Then the voice came — clear this time, shaped into meaning:
"Do not rebuild the bridge the same way twice."
Jonas froze. "Daniel said that."
Leona nodded. "And the house echoed it. And now paint repeats it. This is the river's commandment."
The crack widened into a bright seam. Light — not candlelight, but origin light — leaked out. The studio shuddered, easels rattling, windows chiming.
Leona stepped back. "The Painter didn't paint her — he found her in the canvas."
The light pulsed again.
Come home.
The voice did not sound like a plea. It sounded like a plan. A call across books. A crossing of worlds.
Jonas whispered, "If this is Amara… then Grace River and the Valley of Mirrors are reflections of each other."
"And the river is the hinge," Leona said. "Memory is the door."
The canvas shifted — the painted figure leaning forward, her cupped hands reaching through the boundary of pigment and linen. Not fully free. Not yet. But the river was giving her permission to try.
Leona felt the room bend around the moment — a tilt toward unity, toward reunion.
"We need the candle," she said. "Its flame knows how to speak without devouring."
Jonas nodded and turned to run back toward the mill — but stopped when the painted woman spoke again:
"Bring the child who knows the fire's name."
Ember.
Leona and Jonas exchanged a look — equal parts fear and awe.
"She's the wick," Jonas whispered.
"No," Leona corrected, heart pounding. "She's the match."
A gust swept through the art hall, rustling the sheet they had pulled aside. The light inside the canvas pulsed, eager and afraid. The unfinished world waited.
Leona took Jonas's hand. "Then let's gather what fire trusts."
They stepped outside.
The river's reflection shimmered like a corridor of choices.
Behind them, the canvas whispered one last time — a promise shaped like a threat:
"If the fire does not come, I will burn alone."
The sky dimmed in response.
The day realized it had spoken too soon.
The sun retreated behind a cloud, waiting for permission to rise again.
The canvas waited too — a heart unlit, a prayer unsaid.
Leona and Jonas ran toward the place where a child taught fire to remember itself.
And the river, hearing paint speak back for the first time, began to rush.