Armand. It has been so many years since I last spoke that name, and yet, even now, I cannot speak it, only write it. It seems that everyone I meet has a tale of loss. Small wonder, that, since ours is a life that extends until the stars burn out. I thought, when I sought out Armand, that I was making the choice that would bring me fame, immortality through my work. However, I have found that rather than bask in the light of my achievement, I must allow myself a few small victories only, before ducking back into the shadows to avoid being discovered.

When I was young, I studied the arts, traveling Europe to experience art where it was born. Though I came from a wealthy family, they had no desire for me to study anything, merely play the piano decently, practice my needlepoint diligently, and smile prettily at the men they paraded through the drawing room. This was certainly not written in my future, as far as I was concerned, so I cut my hair, pocketed money, resized my brother's clothes, resolved to do away with the name Alessandria Chataire, leave Montreal and run off to Europe.

I learned to pick pockets and steal bread from busy merchants, and sleep in stairwells, and by these means I was able to spend my time following artists, painting on walls with mud to practice, or going down to the river to mold the mud. I stole into museums and galleries while the backs of the elite were turned, or sleeping. I diligently sketched statuary and tapestry with stolen pencils on scraps of paper until I knew the inside and out of every visionary's mind. Then, I began my own work. I chipped at marble, bent metals to my will, molded clay, blew glass. I made some small successes in my hometown, when I returned, but nothing so grand as I dreamed. Perhaps it was because I was no good.

Angrily, I yearned for ages in which to practice the arts, to perfect the skill that I felt burning inside me. As I traveled more deeply in the circles of the contemporary artists, I began to hear of things that made me wonder. Now and again, several hidden caches of masterworks would be discovered in some unlikely hidey-hole. Or an artist would emerge from apparent nothingness, produce a huge number of works and then disappear into the blackness. Several years later, another artist with similar style would simply appear. One such was Armand. I thought perhaps he would teach me, or at least tell me why his paintings were so much like Rococo and so much like Toggio, and Branet…little known artists, but frighteningly alike…

After many meetings between the two of us, I finally found his secret and made him share it with me. Of course, now that I have honed my skill, it is many years too late for me to make a name for myself. I have no history, no family, no real place in the world. I am looking for a place where I will succeed in producing a masterwork--something that will make people remember Alex Clocharde.