I stand in the entryway of the old vault. It is clean and spotless thanks to the thorough scrubbing it got. It is marble and, by human standards, quite acceptable. However, this is a branch of the Royal Fey Bank. Kenric, Melina, Holger (Glass/Lead Artist), Merovech (Sculptor), and Dominico (Painter) are with me. I find it sterile and boring.

  I wave a hand at the box surrounding us, "Gentlemen, look around you. What do you see?"

  Holger answers first, "A solid structure, Princess. Good proportions. High ceilings."

  I shake my head, "I see a box. A cold, square, human box. It has straight lines. It has corners. It is... dead."

  I signal to Melina and two guards. They heave three large trunks onto the center tables. I throw open the lids. The room is instantly filled with color as the Fey silks spill out, catching the light from the windows.

  "You asked for direction on 'Fey Style.' I cannot draw it for you, not the way it truly is. So, I brought samples so you can see them, touch them, and perhaps understand them. What I will ask of you will likely push the limits of your craft." I smile at the three very confused artists.

  I pull out the dress I wore to the Bank Party. It is the one woven of moonbeams and forest whispers, with the mantle of translucent wings.

  I gesture to Holger, "Holger, come closer. Look at the fabric."

  Holger adjusts his spectacles and leans in. He touches the iridescent wing-mantle.

  Holger is entranced by it. He picks it up and walks to the doorway, playing with the fabric, watching the colors shift. Awed, he looks at me, "It... it looks like glass, but it moves like water."

  I nod, "Soft lilac melts into silver, then into deep emerald green. Do you see how the light changes when it moves?"

  Holger, still playing with the fabric, nods.

  I smile at him. "This is what I want for the lighting. I do not want static chandeliers hanging like dead spiders. I want fixtures that look like frozen waterfalls. I want glass that holds the light like a gemstone, shifting color as you walk beneath it. Can you blow glass that looks like this silk?"

  Holger is mesmerized by the idea, "I... I can try. We would need to layer the glass... infuse it with metal salts..."

  I watch his face as he tries to work out what this will require. He seems challenged, perhaps a bit overwhelmed by it. Good. It will push his limits.

  I nod and smile, "Then do so. Let us see what you can create. Next."

  I pull out the outfit Kenric wore when we arrived in Varpua, the doublet with the copper embroidery. Fey magic has a way of creeping into everything. "Dominico. Look at the embroidery."

  The painter steps forward. He traces the thread's lines with a finger. "It’s like a vine of copper grew this. There are no straight lines. Nothing repeats exactly, but it’s still got proportion, repetition."

  I nod, "Exactly. In Imelenora, we do not force nature into a grid. We let it flow. We revel in its wildness. I want the murals in the entryway to feel like this. Not stiff portraits of dead, judgmental men in chairs. I want vines that seem to grow out of the baseboards. I want the ceiling to look like a canopy of leaves at twilight. Use these colors, the deep copper, the wine-red, the moss green."

  I gesture to the wedding dress, the one made of aspen leaves and wild roses. Merovech the sculptor. This is for you."

  The sculptor looks at the dress. He looks at the way the silk roses anchor the silk aspen leaves. No two of the aspen leaves are exactly alike. I turned them into silk, but they started as leaves that grew on trees. They saw the sun and felt the wind. There are slight variations in the color, the veins, and the texture

  Merovech grimaces, "It is... texture. Layer upon layer."

  “No,” I explain, "It moves and dances like leaves on the wind. I want the molding to do the same. Do not give me flat wooden trim. I want you to carve the banisters to look like twisted roots. I want the doorframes to look like arching branches. I want the stone pillars to look like fossilized trees."

  I turn to Kenric. "Husband, show them the dagger."

  Kenric draws the Fey Steel dagger I gifted him. The Red Bronze crossbar gleams. The two pixies on the hilt look as though they are about to take flight.

  "Pass it around. Carefully. It bites," I say.

  It is quite sharp on all four of its edges. Merovech takes the dagger first. He stares at the tiny, gem-encrusted pixies.

  Merovech turns it over, examining it. "The detail... their eyes have pupils. Their wings are almost translucent."

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  He passes it to Holger, who focuses on the hilt. “The wire wrappings are braided and woven.”

  Dominico takes and holds it at arm's length, studying the colors, “I think if I saw them, I’d recognize them. These are portraits, not mere copies of each other, and done so well that they look very similar.”

  “Now you begin to understand Fey art,” I say, "That is the standard. Even a weapon is art. Even a door handle must tell a story. I want the hardware in this building, the hinges, the knobs, the latches, to be made of Red Bronze. I’ll get you the ingots. Cast them in the shapes of animals. Foxes, owls, badgers. When a visitor opens a door, I want them to feel like they are shaking hands with the forest."

  I step back and survey the overwhelmed artists. "This is Fey Style. It is opulent, yes. It has been called lavish, even ostentatious, but it is organic. It is alive. It is 'Druidic'. This is our aesthetic. We’ll start one room at a time."

  Dominico is flustered, "Princess... to replicate this level of detail on a building scale... it will take a lifetime."

  I smile at him and shake my head. "It will take an army of apprentices," I correct him. "Which is why I have given you an unlimited budget. Do not paint the walls, Dominico. Grow them. Do not build the lights, Holger. Pour them."

  I pick up the sash from the bank party dress, the one made of braided vines and crystal droplets. "When a human walks into this Embassy, I want them to feel as though they have stepped out of Dobile and into a dream. I want them to be afraid to touch anything because it looks too beautiful to be real. Can you do that?"

  Holger looks at the dagger. Merovech looks at the wedding dress. Dominico looks at the shimmering silk. They are still processing what I am asking of them.

  Holger snaps out of it first, "We will have to invent new tools, new techniques, maybe even new materials."

  This really is beyond human experience. I look at these three.

  I nod, "Then invent them. And send the bill to Gerhardt."

  The silence in the Old Mint is heavy. The three artists are staring at the Fey artifacts, the dresses, the dagger, the tunic, with a mixture of awe and defeat. They look small. They look human.

  I decide that they need a bit of encouragement. I think they are up for the challenge. Now they need to see that they are up to it. Let’s drive humanity forward a bit more.

  Dominico rubs at his temples, staring at Kenric’s doublet, "It breathes. The thread… it breathes. Princess, we are men. We work with brushes and chisels. We cannot breathe life into inanimate objects."

  Merovech is holding the dagger, but his hand is trembling slightly. "To carve stone to look like this? To make granite look like it is fluttering in a breeze? It is not a matter of skill, My Lady. It is a matter of physics. Stone does not do that."

  Holger clings to the iridescent silk of the dress like a sailor clings to a floating barrel. "We would need a thousand years. We would need to be… you."

  I step forward. I do not look down on them. I look them in the eye. I let a little of my power bleed into the room, not to intimidate, but to energize. To wake them up.

  "Stop." My voice is clear, calm, and commanding.

  The single word cuts through their panic.

  They all spin to face me as I pace around the room. "Do you think I chose you by accident? Do you think I walked into the Guildhall and pointed at three random men because I liked the shape of your beards?"

  I stop in front of Merovech first. I take the dagger from him and place my hand on his shoulder. He is broad, strong, intense, like the stone he carves. "I chose you, Merovech, because I saw your fountain in the Weaver’s Square. I saw how you made the water nymph look as though she was shivering from the cold water. That was not stone. That was marble carved into suffering. You, Merovech, do not just chip away at rocks. You liberate the form trapped inside."

  I pick up the hem of the wedding dress, the one with the aspen leaves.

  I turn to Dominico next. "And you, Dominico. I saw the portrait you did of the Wine Merchant’s wife. You didn’t just paint her face. You painted her vanity. You painted the secret she was keeping behind her smile. You understand that color is not just pigment, it is emotion."

  Holger is looking at me with his sharp, analytical eyes.

  I turn to Holger. "And Holger. The multitalented. The inventor. The man who sees the skeleton of the world. You look at a window, and you don't see a hole in the wall. No, not you. You see a way to manipulate the sun. You see the math behind the beauty."

  I step back, spreading my hands to encompass the empty, echoing room. "I could have brought Fey shapers from Imelenora. They could have sung to the wood, and it would have bent. They could have whispered to the stone, and it would have flowed. It is easy for them. It is their nature. It would also be entirely, completely Fey. There would be nothing of Centis in it at all."

  I pause, letting my gaze bore into them. "But I do not want easy. I want struggle. I want the tension that comes when a human hand forces the universe to yield. I want to see Centis woven into this. The human and the Fey together."

  Merovech winces, "But we are limited, Princess."

  “Ah, but that is your strength,” I explain, "Limit is the mother of masterpiece! The Fey create because we are magic. You create because you need magic. That hunger? That desperation to bridge the gap between what you see in your mind and what your hands can do? That is what makes human art sweating, bleeding, and alive."

  I point to the ceiling, which is currently just bare beams.

  “I fear I have frightened you,” I say slowly, "I am giving you the one thing every artist dreams of, and the one thing every artist fears: Total Freedom. No budget. No timeline constraints that compromise quality. No King telling you to make his nose look smaller and his shoulders bigger."

  Dominico smirks for a moment, and I know I have them now.

  "Oskar does have a difficult nose,” Dominico mumbles.

  I laugh at his statement, but grow serious again, "I am asking you to build a legacy. When you are dust, and your great-grandchildren are dust, this building will stand. And people will walk in here, and they will not say, 'The Fey built this.' They will say, 'Holger, Merovech, and Dominico built this.' They will say that three men touched the divine and brought it down to earth."

  I pick up the Fey-steel dagger again. I hold it out, hilt first, to Merovech. It is a challenge. "Allow me to advise you. Do not try to copy the Fey,” I say, “It’s good for learning, but little else. Copying another, even one of the Fey, is a fool's errand. Surpass us. Make the stone so light it mocks the wind. Make the glass so clear it shames the water. Make the paint so vibrant it makes the flowers jealous."

  I look at each of them in turn. "I have faith in you. Not because you are Fey. But because you are the masters of this world. Now... stop trembling. And start creating."

  

  
• An inspirational speech delivered by a Fey war goddess in couture.


  
• Three artists experiencing spiritual combustion.


  
• A masterclass in motivation through awe, praise, and mild intimidation.


  
• And a promise that the Fey Embassy is about to become the most breathtaking building this side of every border.


  

  Have you ever commissioned an artist? Let me know in the comments...