The girl stopped abruptly. The silence that followed was deafening.
She opened her eyes—hazel, flecked with gold, and sharp enough to cut through the darkness. She tucked her violin into its worn case with practiced speed, her movements guarded.
"Staring is free, but the music costs a dollar, Mr. Suit," she said, her voice rasping like velvet on stone.
Julian stepped forward, out of the shadows. He looked out of place in his tailored charcoal coat, standing in a grime-covered tunnel. "I'm not here for the music. Well, I am. But I'm here for you."
The girl froze. Her hand moved toward a small pocketknife hidden in the folds of her cardigan. "I don't do 'services,' and I don't go to second locations. Move along."
"I'm Julian Vance," he said, stepping closer. He expected a reaction—a gasp, a spark of recognition. Most people in the city knew his face from the covers of art magazines.
She just blinked. "Am I supposed to be impressed? Does the name Julian Vance pay my rent?"
"It could," Julian said, his eyes scanning her face, memorizing the way the streetlight caught the angle of her jaw. "I'm a painter. I'm stuck. And your music… the way you look when you play… it's the only thing that has made me want to pick up a brush in six months."
He pulled out a card, gold-embossed and heavy. "Come to my studio. Sit for me. Just for three hours a day. I'll pay you more than you'll make in a year on this street corner."
The girl looked at the card, then back at him. A bitter laugh escaped her lips. "You want to trap me on a canvas? You rich types are all the same. You think everything has a price."
"Everything does," Julian countered. "What's yours?"
She looked at her bruised fingers, then at the dark, cold tunnel behind her. "Five hundred. Per hour. Cash."
Julian didn't blink. "Deal. Tomorrow at ten. Don't be late, Muse."
"The name is Elara," she snapped, grabbing her case. "And I'm nobody's muse."