11"x 14" framed painting, acrylic on canvas -  The Thirteenth Question
 
The velvet drapes dimmed the late afternoon light. A perfume of old ink and orange coffee lingered in the air. The manuscript lay open on the desk before her. It was said to contain not answers, but the exact phrasing of the right questions. The kind of questions that, when spoken aloud, peeled the illusion from reality like parchment curling in flame. It was written by twelve hands across three centuries, each philosopher adding only a fragment before mysteriously disappearing. Some were declared insane, others canonized. A few, it was rumored, simply walked into a mirror and never returned.
 
And now she had it.
 
Behind her, a dragon stirred near the frosted glass. She did not flinch. Not because she didn’t know he was there—but because she did. It had been following her since New York. Or was it Paris? Dreams and cities had begun to blur.
 
Then the phone rang--the sharp, deliberate sound of another century. She lifted the receiver with casual grace.
 
A voice—clipped, low, carved from crystal and gin—spoke across the line:
 
“They know you stole the manuscript. They’re coming. Midnight. You’ve got one chance.”
 
The line went dead, but she did not move.
 
She did not fear the ones who were coming. What she feared—what she ached for—was the thirteenth question. The one no hand had dared inscribe. The one that was not written in the manuscript, but hidden between its folds like a seed between worlds.