بخش 6 فصل 11

New York City

July 30, 2014

XI

The city slides past beyond the window, but Addie doesn’t turn her head, doesn’t admire the skyline of Manhattan, the buildings soaring to every side. Instead, she studies Luc, reflected in the darkened glass, the line of his jaw, the arc of his brow, angles drawn by her hand so many, many years ago. She is watching him, the way one watches a wolf at the edge of the woods, waiting to see what it will do.

He is the first to break the silence.

The first to move a piece.

“Do you remember the opera in Munich?”

“I remember everything, Luc.”

“The way you looked at the players on that stage, as if you’d never seen theater before.” “I’d never seen theater like that.”

“The wonder in your eyes, at the sight of something new. I knew then I’d never win.” She wants to savor the words like a sip of good wine, but the grapes turn sour in her mouth. She does not trust them.

The car pulls to a stop outside Le Coucou, a beautiful French restaurant on the lower side of SoHo, ivy climbing the outer walls. She has been there before, two of the best meals she’s had in New York, and she wonders if Luc knows how much she likes it, or if he simply shares her taste.

Again, he offers his hand.

Again, she does not take it.

Addie watches a couple as they approach the doors of the restaurant, only to find them locked, watches them walk away, murmuring something about reservations. But when Luc takes the handle, the door swings open easily.

Inside, massive chandeliers hang from the high ceilings, and the large glass windows shine black. The place feels cavernous, large enough to seat a hundred, but tonight it is empty, save for two chefs visible in the open kitchen, a pair of servers, and the maître d’, who drops into a low bow as Luc approaches.

“Monsieur Dubois,” he says in a dreamy voice. “Mademoiselle.”

He leads them to their table, a red rose set before each place. The maître d’ pulls back her chair, and Luc waits for her to take her seat before taking his own. The man opens a bottle of merlot, and pours, and Luc lifts his glass to her and says, “To you, Adeline.” There is no menu. No order to be taken. The plates simply arrive.

Foie gras with cherries, and rabbit terrine. Halibut in beurre blanc, and fresh-baked bread, and half a dozen kinds of cheese.

The food is, of course, exquisite.

But as they eat, the host and servers stand against the walls, eyes open, empty, a bland expression on their faces. She has always hated this aspect of his power, and the careless way he wields it.

She tips her glass in the direction of the puppets.

“Send them away,” she says, and he does. A silent gesture, and the servers disappear, and they are alone in the empty restaurant.

“Would you do that to me?” she asks when they are gone.

Luc shakes his head. “I could not,” he says, and she thinks he means because he cared for her too much, but then he says, “I have no power over promised souls. Their will is their own.” It is cold comfort, she thinks, but it is something.

Luc looks down into his wine. He turns the stem between his fingers, and there in the darkened glass, she sees the two of them, tangled in silk sheets, sees her fingers in his hair, his hands playing songs against her skin.

“Tell me, Adeline,” he says. “Have you missed me?”

Of course she has missed him.

She can tell herself, as she has told him, that she only missed being seen, or missed the force of his attention, the intoxication of his presence—but it is more than that. She missed him the way someone might miss the sun in winter, though they still dread its heat. She missed the sound of his voice, the knowing in his touch, the flint-on-stone friction of their conversations, the way they fit together.

He is gravity.

He is three hundred years of history.

He is the only constant in her life, the only one who will always, always remember.

Luc is the man she dreamed of when she was young, and then the one she hated most, and the one she loved, and Addie missed him every night that he was gone from her, and he deserved none of her pain because it was his fault, it was his fault no one else remembered, it was his fault that she lost and lost and lost, and she does not say any of that because it will change nothing, and because there is still one thing she hasn’t lost. One piece of her story that she can save.

Henry.

So Addie makes her gambit.

She reaches across the table and takes Luc’s hand, tells him the truth.

“I missed you.”

His green eyes shimmer and shift at the words. He brushes the ring on her finger, traces the whorls in the wood.

“How many times did you almost put it on?” he asks. “How often did you think of me?” And she assumes he is baiting her—until his voice softens to a whisper, the faintest roll of thunder in the air between them. “Because I thought of you. Always.” “You didn’t come.”

“You didn’t call.”

She looks down at their tangled hands. “Tell me, Luc,” she says. “Was any of it real?” “What is real to you, Adeline? Since my love counts for nothing?”

“You are not capable of love.”

He scowls, his eyes flashing emerald. “Because I am not human? Because I do not wither and die?” “No,” she says, drawing back her hand. “You are not capable of love because you cannot understand what it is to care for someone else more than yourself. If you loved me, you would have let me go by now.” Luc flicks his fingers. “What nonsense,” he says. “It is because I love you that I won’t. Love is hungry. Love is selfish.” “You are thinking of possession.”

He shrugs. “Are they so different? I have seen what humans do to things they love.” “People are not things,” she says. “And you will never understand them.” “I understand you, Adeline. I know you, better than anyone in this world.” “Because you let me have no one else.” She takes a steadying breath. “I know you won’t spare me, Luc, and perhaps you are right, we do belong together. So if you love me, spare Henry Strauss. If you love me, let him go.” His temper flashes through his face. “This is our night, Adeline. Do not ruin it with talk of someone else.” “But you said—”

“Come,” he says, pushing back from the table. “This place no longer suits my taste.” The server has just set a pear tart on the table, but it turns to ash as Luc speaks, and Addie marvels, the way she always has, at the moodiness of gods.

“Luc,” she starts, but he is already on his feet, casting the napkin off onto the ruined food.