The days in the gallery stretched slowly, like thick honey over cold glass, but it was in these days that Emily began to notice a change. Since Sebastian Knight had become the new owner, the atmosphere had changed-not so much in appearance, but in the feel of the space, in the way the footsteps sounded on the parquet, the way the sun lay on the canvases, as if approving his presence.

He didn't show up every day, but when he did, the air changed. His voice was calm, slightly hoarse, his manner of speaking - restrained, but clinging, like a rare canvas: dim, but unforgettable.

They began to collaborate on organizing a spring exhibition. It was her chance to show that she was not just a modest curator, but a girl who felt art - and could breathe it.

- You have taste," he once said, stopping by a Julian Snyder painting. - But you choose your exhibitions as if you were afraid to speak out. Why?

She was confused.

- Because... afraid of being too personal, I guess. I didn't think a gallery was a place for myself.

He looked at her a little longer than was customary.

- And I always thought good art was when you put yourself in a frame, under the light.

For the next weeks they worked closer and closer. He listened to her. Didn't interrupt. Asked why she loved Mark Rothko, why she preferred watercolor to oil, and how the loss of her father had affected her vision of light. These questions were like gaps through which something warm and real burst through.

One evening, when the gallery was empty, they lingered in front of a new work by a local artist-the Hudson River Bridge at Night. The canvas still smelled of paint.

- Interesting work," he said quietly. - But there's no breath in it. Only shadow.

- Like a man who lives in the past," she said suddenly to herself.

He turned to her. There was no reproach in his gaze, only weariness.

- What if the past is the only thing that remains present?

She felt for the first time that he carried something more than just power and money. Something scorched. Loneliness, perhaps.