The Frame

Ellis Wren

Jace Marlowe is the most beautiful man in Los Angeles, and at twenty-two, the luckiest. When the painter Theo Brandt finishes his portrait in a studio on Traction Avenue, Jace makes a wish in front of the canvas: that the painting would grow old in his place, and that he would stay as he looks in that amber light. The wish takes. The portrait ages with every sin Jace commits, while Jace stays twenty-two — a fact the city turns into a legend. Seven years of it make Jace rich, famous, and empty. He collects things he cannot keep, and the trail has costs: Lena Cross, the actress who loved him more than her work and died the morning after he ended it; her brother Owen, who spends seven years hunting the man he blames; Theo, who painted the wish into being and is buried for knowing too much; and Colin Marsh, the anesthesiologist who kept the secret alive with a signature and a key. The portrait in the locked room, in the frame Pemberton built, records it all — a one-way account that only moves against Jace. Fleeing to a desert retreat, Jace finally does one good thing — he lets June, the only person who wants nothing from him, go unharmed — and comes home believing the account might close on a credit. It does not. Mercy is not a credit in this account. The portrait shows him what the good thing was: vanity, with a receipt. On the last night Jace stands before the finished picture, the knife that cut him out of the canvas long ago in his hand. He finally understands the terms. The account closes only when the last payment is made — and the last payment is him.

本作品改编自奥斯卡·王尔德的小说《The Picture of Dorian Gray》，由 TalesReborn 出品。