The smell of disinfectant water suddenly deteriorated when the elevator mirror was wiped for the seventh time. Lila stared at the foam floating in the cleaning bucket and suddenly recognized the smell of Ethan's usual cedar cologne. Buttons on the twenty-eighth floor burst red like an unhealed cigarette burn, and when the elevator doors groaned thickly on the top floor, the mellow aroma of Chateau Marggo 1997 came pouring in with Scarlett's laughter.
"Look, baby, this irises set with African blood diamonds..." Scarlett's Cannes coast brown curls sweep past the security cameras, and Ethan's wedding ring swims across the iris tattoo on her back. When Lila pulled the mask over the bridge of her nose, she found the rubber wheel of the cleaning truck pressing against the edge of the dust cloth - beneath which a replica of Monet's "Water Lilies" was exposed, cut with a razor blade common in prison.
The crack of the wine bottle made everyone turn around. Scarlett's deep-V neckline, with its twenty-seven sapphire crosses, was now piercing Lila's pupils with her gasp: "Good heavens, isn't it our dear Miss Arsonist?" She ran her heels through the fuchsia liquid. "I hear you're looking for a new job?"
Ethan's left ring finger began to twitch, a gesture he used to make when mixing paint for her at the easel, now gripping his alligator wallet. Lila's rubber gloves ruffled sharply, and as she crouched down to clean up the glass, each piece reflected bite marks on the back of Scarlett's neck -- fresh, traces of Prussian blue paint.
"Watch your hands." Scarlett suddenly raised her foot to her wrist, the 12cm heel sinking into the scar left by the old handcuffs. "After all, these hands once created... Ah, what was it? Ash art?" As she leaned over, the iris birthmark on her collarbone brushed Lila's earlobe. "By the way, you should be thanking me. All of New York now calls me 'the Muse of the Fire.'"
As the whole bucket of wine was poured over her head, Lila heard the sound of ice cracking inside her skull. Tannin seeps through the orange ends of her hair, creating a flame shape across the front of her cleaning suit. Scarlett twiddled her empty bottle. "What perfect performance art. Shall I name this show? Like The Menstrual Cycle of a down-and-out Pheasant?"
The ceiling lights in the gallery suddenly flickered, and Lila saw Ethan mouthing "Go!" in the flickering light. The man who had given her artificial respiration during an asthma attack was now playing with a lighter and lighting a cigar with the same frequency as the burning canvas of five years ago.
"Or..." Scarlett's diamond watch suddenly pressed against Lila's Adam's apple. "You can do real stunts." She nudged her mouth toward the sprinkler. "Strike a match like you did back then? I've got a cleaner that contains too much phosphorus for you."
As "Aria on the G String" seeped out of the hidden sound, Lila dug her nails into the old wound in her palm. As the blood dripped into the red wine stain, she caught a glimpse of the fire truck passing through the window - the Harlowe family iris coat of arms covering the fire service announcement she had painted.
"Scarlett, the press conference is about to begin." Ethan finally speaks, the ring finger of his left hand spasmodic enough to slip into his suit pocket. The smell of his cologne suddenly became strong, and the detergent mixed with it became highly toxic in Lila's nasal passages.
As the V.I.P. Elevator doors opened, Lila saw in her mirror reflection Scarlett adjusting the tattoo on her back -- wait, why was the edge of the iris sticking up? The discovery sent an electric current through her spinal cord, which trembled as she was pulled into a safe passage by security guards.
The musty smell of a three-story underground warehouse hides turpentine. Lila pulled off the dripping hairnet and found that the surveillance cameras were all turned toward the wall. As she cleans a wooden box marked "flammable," the cover slides off to reveal the burnt frame of a picture she has repeatedly dreamed of in prison, Ethan kneeling in the fire tearing at the Twin Iris, now with an extra pair of hands on the debris.
The top floor suddenly heard the sound of breaking glass, mixed with the crowd. As Lila climbed the service ladder back to the twenty-eighth floor, she saw her cleaning truck stuck against the broken picture window. A 12th-order draft rolls in snowflakes, Scarlett's million-dollar couture gown is soaked in champagne, and she's holding up her live phone and screaming, "Security! The arsonist is at it again!"
Ethan's wedding ring rolls around Lila's feet in the chaos, the initials "To LW" engraved on the inside flashing in a pool of blood. She instinctively crouched down, prompting everyone to raise their phones and point them at her: "It's her!" "Take the ring in her hand!"
"That's my wedding ring!" Scarlett stepped barefoot over the broken glass, iris tattoo edge lifted a corner, "Last year Sotheby's auction of 12 carat pink diamond..." She suddenly choked because Lila was holding up the ring with her wine-stained hand, and the laser-carved thorn pattern suddenly projected an "EW❤LH" hologram in the blue light of the police car.
The floor fell silent for three seconds as Ethan's left hand clamped Lila's wrist from behind. His warm breath sprayed the fresh burn scar behind her ear. "Where did you find that?" It was the same tone as the night of the fire five years ago, when he held up the burning canvas and asked, "Why are you ruining our future?"
Scarlett suddenly grabbed the fire axe and hurled it at the floor-to-ceiling window, the siren of the hurricane swallowing up all the evidence. As Lila is pinned to the ground by three police officers, she sees Ethan applying a Band-aid to Scarlett's bleeding palm -- the same type of child's cartoon he used to cover her paint-knife cut.
"Robbery or aggravated assault this time?" The policewoman pulled her hair and pushed her head up, just in time to see the red liquid dripping from the ceiling's hidden sprinklers. It's not water, it's rust-flavored bordeaux wine, gathering in the shape of irises on the floor and flowing through the vents.
As the police car drove through Times Square, an interview with Scarlett was playing on a giant screen. "True art requires sacrifice," she said, touching the freshly painted tattoo, "just as a phoenix must burn its nest." The camera scans the Rising from the Ashes series behind her, where the pupils of an ash collage are embedded with the sapphire stud earrings that were confiscated when Lila was imprisoned.
The fluorescent tubes at the bail collection station sizzled. As Lila counted her seventeenth cigarette burn, the warden threw out her personal belongings bag, which contained an extra bottle of unlabeled vitamins. As she poured out the pill and rolled it in her palm, one of the capsules burst open, revealing the charred outline of a fingerprint on the microfilm.
The window of the last subway reflected her remains, while men in hoodies sat across from her doodling. As the train pulled into the tunnel, the man suddenly pulled off his mask - a key witness to the fire five years earlier, now covered with burns on the left side of his face that were symmetrical to Lila's right - and wrote in marker on the window: "When angels lift thorns, remember to look at your wings."
Before the light at the end of the tunnel swallowed up the writing, Lila saw that on his trembling left ring finger, he was wearing a thorn ring made of the same material as Ethan's wedding ring.