Free The Blackhope Enigma by Teresa Flavin

detectives were watching him at that moment. His dad might have arrived by now, too.
    “Sunni! Dean!” he yelled, puzzled by the muffled sound of his own voice. The place was dead silent.
    Instinctively Blaise pulled out his sketchbook and pencil. Flipping to his sketch of
The Mariner’s Return to Arcadia
, he drew a star on his location at the docks and then chose a route up into the city where, if luck were with him, he would find Sunni and Dean.
    Blaise hunted the streets, stopping to examine Corvo’s painted people. A smear for an eye, a dash for a mouth, he noted, peering closely at the petrified figures.
    “Sunni! Dean!” he shouted again. There was no reply, so Blaise moved on, occasionally stopping to make a quick note of his location on the sketch.
    After he had wandered through many lanes, tiredness overcame him. Hoping to find somewhere to rest, Blaise came upon a slightly opened door to a house. In an upstairs window, a lady looked out from behind her fan.
She looks nice
, he thought dreamily, and went through the door. There was nothing there, just an empty space.
    Blaise spread his coat out and sat down. He ate a banana and half a granola bar and drank a little water.
    He was plotting what route to take when he heard a deep voice from somewhere outside.
    “You beauty!”
    Blaise jerked around, his heart pumping, and scrambled to his feet. Limping toward the door, one leg half asleep, he peered out, trying to keep himself hidden.
    “You flaming beauty! Lorimer, you donkey brain, look what you’ve missed! Every brushstroke, every shadow, every hair the Raven painted!”
    The voice was moving closer. A man in a hat and dark overcoat appeared, sometimes pausing to study the belongings and clothing of the people in the street.
    “Bellissima,”
the man murmured, staring nose to nose into the blank eyes of a woman in his path. “Were you his lady love? He took more time painting your face than all the others in this street.” He stroked the woman’s cheek. “Did you know his secrets? Eh, not talking either?”
    Blaise held his breath and kept watching. The guy seemed drunk or something.
    Just then the man wheeled around and fixed his eyes on the doorway where Blaise was frozen in place.
    “You’re Blaise, aren’t you?” the man asked, pushing open the door. “You looked younger in the newspaper photo.”
    Bewildered, Blaise sized up this big man. If it came to a fight, he wouldn’t stand a chance, even though he was pretty tall for his age.
    “I’m Angus Bellini. Your art teacher is my cousin. He sent me in after you and . . . Sunni. And whatzisname, of course, her brother.”
    “Dean,” said Blaise, stunned. So Mr. Bell had known more than he’d let on. “Mr. Bell sent you? How did he know the way into the painting?”
    “Lucky guesswork,” said Angus. “We put our heads together and worked it out.”
    “Why didn’t he come himself? Or call the police?”
    “Call the police? I could ask the same of you, my lad. Thought they wouldn’t believe your story? Well, you were right. They wouldn’t have believed us either. Just be grateful I’ve come to help you out.”
    “Who else knows how to get in?”
    “Nobody else. We wouldn’t want the hordes streaming in, getting in our way and mucking up the place,” Angus said.
    “You know the way out?”
    “Not exactly. But the four of us will figure it out.”
    “It’s just me. I haven’t found the others yet,” said Blaise.
    “You’ve looked everywhere?”
    “Not yet. This is as far as I’ve gotten.” Blaise scanned Angus’s face, still sizing him up.
    Angus grinned and tapped the top of his head. “Look, Blaise, no devil horns. No forked tail either.”
    With a shrug, Blaise pulled out his sketchbook and flipped to the sketch he had made of
The Mariner’s Return to Arcadia
. “I started down here at the docks and came along these streets. We’re here.”
    Angus’s face lit up. He grabbed the sketchbook and thumbed through