I nodded. “Yes. I carved it when I was a child—A for Amy.”

The twilight pressed into the studio like soaked cotton, the fluorescent light above flickering, sharpening the doubt on the judges’ faces.

The elder judge’s finger lingered on my carving, when Olivia suddenly pulled out a stack of yellowed papers from her bag, tossing them onto the easel with a flourish.

On top lay a copy of Attic in Evening Breeze, clumsily signed with my name in the corner, dated three years ago.

“Judges, look!” she said, voice laced with feigned innocence and hidden triumph. The silver bracelet at her wrist clinked against the frame.

“I told you Emily knew Professor Larson’s work too well. I found this while helping Sophia clean her dorm room last week. She even copied the window lattices exactly the way he painted them thirty years ago!”

Blood surged to my head then dropped cold to my feet. The strokes on the page were laughably crude. My signature was always angled upward; here it leaned crooked, like grass bent in the wind.

And three years ago, I hadn’t even lived in a dorm. I had only been to Sophia’s dorm once, last year, to help her move her things.

“This is fake!” I lunged to snatch it, but Olivia darted behind Larson, tilting her face up at him with a look of dependence.

“Professor, isn’t this sketch similar to your Attic in Evening Breeze? I’m not trying to target Emily, but plagiarism is unfair to all the contestants.”

All eyes turned to Larson.

I stared too, my heart squeezed so tight I could hardly breathe.

In my pocket, the torn scrap of paper pressed painfully against my skin: “Her art carries fire…”

In another life, the girl in the denim dress from the photo had borne my face. Surely he would say it now—surely he would reveal this forgery.

At last, his fingers touched the stack of papers, stroking the rough surface.

The light overhead steadied.

“Professor, please say something!” Olivia whimpered from behind him, feigning grievance. “I only want fairness…”

But Larson ignored her. His gaze lifted past the forged sketch to my freshly completed Grandmother’s Courtyard.

The oak’s leaves still shimmered with wet paint, the carved A softened by dusk.

His throat moved. When he finally spoke, his voice was deeper than before.

“In your grandmother’s yard, on the west side of the oak—there’s a crescent-shaped scar in the trunk, isn’t there?”

I froze. The corner of the scrap in my pocket cut into my palm.

That scar had been left when lightning struck the tree one summer when I was ten. I had sat on the stone bench beside it often, sketching. Even Sophia might not have remembered such a detail.

“Yes…” My voice shook. “It looks like a crooked crescent. When it rains, water gathers in the hollow.”

Larson nodded. Then he raised the forged sketch to the judges, pointing at the clean, unmarked trunk drawn there.

“In this copy, the oak’s bark is smooth. No scar at all.”

Olivia’s face turned pale in an instant. She stepped forward, trying to snatch the sketch.

“Maybe she just remembered it wrong later! And besides, this sketch is only a copy of Attic in Evening Breeze, not her grandmother’s courtyard!”

“But the courtyard she painted just now doesn’t overlap with Attic in Evening Breeze at all.” The elder judge adjusted his glasses, his gaze sweeping over Olivia.

“Tell me, how would you know so much about a sketch supposedly drawn three years ago?”

Olivia opened her mouth, but for a long moment no words came out. The silver bracelet at her wrist clinked faintly.

Just then, Larson suddenly pulled a palm-sized wooden box from the inner pocket of his suit. The redwood surface had grown glossy with age, clearly something long treasured.

He opened it, revealing a single magnolia hairpin made of denim fabric, lying quietly inside.

It was the very hairpin my grandmother had made for me when I was eight. I had lost it at the gate of the New York Academy of Fine Arts when I was ten, and I thought it had long been buried under dust.

“This hairpin—” Larson’s fingertips brushed lightly against the embroidered magnolia.

“Thirty years ago, it fell beneath the windowsill of my studio. That day I had just finished Attic in Evening Breeze. When I turned around, I saw a little girl in a denim dress squatting in the flowerbed outside, crying, holding half a broken charcoal pencil.”

My breath stopped all at once.

At ten years old, I truly had cried for a long time beside the flowerbed after losing my hairpin, secretly peeking through the studio window at the young teacher in his white shirt, watching him paint.

So I had already seen him back then.

Suddenly Olivia let out a shrill scream:

“Impossible! That hairpin was clearly—”

But halfway through, she bit off her words, her face turning deathly white.

At that moment, the back door of the studio creaked open. An elderly man with a cane walked in, carrying a thick leather photo album. His voice was booming:

“David, I brought the old album you asked me to find! Back then you said you picked up a hairpin by the window, and also said—”

The old man didn’t finish his sentence, for my eyes were fixed, unable to move, on the album in his arms.

On its cover was a small photograph.

In the photo, a little girl with pigtails clutched a charcoal pencil, peeking through the studio window. And inside the window, a young Larson had just turned his head toward her, a faint smile at his lips.

Larson held the wooden box out to me. The magnolia hairpin shimmered faintly under the light.

Just as my fingers were about to touch it, Olivia lunged forward, trying to knock the box from his hands.

“This is fake! You two set this up together!”

But before her hand could reach the box, Larson stepped sideways, blocking her. His gaze was as cold as ice.

“Years ago, you swapped Emily’s yellow ochre for raw umber. And now you’ve forged sketches. Did you really think I’d forgotten?”

Olivia froze in place, terror in her eyes.

And as I gazed at Larson’s profile, I suddenly remembered his dying words in another lifetime: “Susan’s paintings are truly beautiful.”

Perhaps those weren’t words of praise, but of regret.

Regret that I had not, like Susan, continued to hold onto my brush.

Just then, Anderson flipped open the album and pointed to a photograph inside with a start.

“Look at this one! Emily was sketching outside the window, and David, you secretly added a few strokes to her paper…”

My heart thudded violently, my eyes fixed on that photo.

But before I could make out the painting clearly, urgent footsteps echoed at the studio door. Several uniformed officers strode in, heading straight for Olivia.

“Miss, you’ve been reported for forging competition entries and infringing rights. Please come with us.”

Olivia shrieked and struggled, dragged away by force.

As she passed me, she suddenly halted, glaring at me with venom.

“You think he’s really on your side? He’s hiding secrets—far more than I ever did!”

I whipped my head toward Larson. His expression had indeed changed, his grip on the wooden box tightening.

Anderson continued turning the album’s pages, and the next photo slipped into view.

In it, a young Larson held a letter. On the envelope was written, “To Amy.”

And beside it lay another, never sent, addressed to “Susan.”

My fingertips went cold. I opened my mouth to ask, but Larson abruptly shut the album, his voice hoarse.

“Emily, there are things… I’m not ready to tell you yet.”

Dusk had filled the studio completely, hiding his expression in shadow.

But Olivia’s words still rang in my ears.

What secrets was he hiding?