Time rewound a few minutes.
After night fell and moonlight streamed through the tall floor-to-ceiling windows into the museum's exhibition halls, the exhibits began waking from their slumber, enjoying the freedom that belonged to them.
The sunflowers unfurled their petals across their canvases, each scorning the others' existence. The three-flower ones looked down on the five-flower ones, believing rarity made things precious; the fifteen-flower ones looked down on those with twelve or fewer, believing they utterly failed to display the splendor of sunflowers. When Vincent had created them, he surely could not have imagined his works would develop such discord.
The Scream leaned against the railing and cleared its throat. Behind it, drifting clouds and seawater swirled with its voice, rolling into bottomless whirlpools. Through their centers, one seemed able to glimpse an endless Starry Sky, or an ancient palace resting on the deepest seabed.
Sphinx shook the dust from its body and rose to its feet, and thunderous rumbles echoed throughout the exhibition hall. The stones on its body were too old—so old that even the museum's most senior researchers could not determine their age. It was said that the sphinx before the Pharaoh's tomb at Giza in Egypt had been modeled after it, lending it considerable prestige within this museum.
There were also flocks of Cupid, bare-bottomed and flapping their little wings as they flew about, shooting arrows at every wizard and witch they saw. Yet the wizards who had earned a place in the museum's wax figure section were no longer young, long past the age of stirring hearts.
There were Night Steeds as well. When they had been alive, wizards could not see what they looked like. After they died, only dry skeletons remained, and wizards still could not see them clearly.
A false sun hung