Browse the art gallery

Vicky hadn't really had a chance to take a look at the gallery and Brandon agreed that a peaceful afternoon spent browsing sounded like a good idea.

Almost all of the paintings were from France, starting with works of impressive realism from the 1850s and complemented by examples impressionism and art nouveau. Another gallery was filled exclusively with family portraits, dating back roughly as far as the rest of the gallery. Leon had looked very dashing, even has a young boy, though Vicky figured it was probably a liberty taken by the artist: No child of twelve years old carried themselves with that much poise. He had several portraits of himself during his career as a magician with a number of celebrities, his assistant by his side.

A number of somewhat less grandiose paintings also depicted the family before Leon's birth, though these works were placed in such a way that they seemed significant in and of themselves. Leon evidently through much of his antecedents, with paintings of not only his parents but even his grandparents in their youth, few of which did not include what Vicky assumed to be his grandmother on his mother's side.

Brandon had stayed behind in the gallery proper, and didn't catch up with Vicky in the family section until it was almost time for dinner.

"Damn, grandpa Leon loved his family," he said, whistling under his breath. "Vicky, dinner's almost on. We should probably head out."

"Sure," said Vicky uncertainly. Try as she might, she could find no paintings of Leon with his grandmother beyond the age of about ten, and she assumed that the old woman must have passed away at that time. The shock of losing someone so obviously dear to him must have been terrible, as it was about then that his expression took on the decidedly sombre cast seen in every painting thereafter.

"Sure," she said again, shaking off a vague sense of unease. "Let's go."