بخش 6 فصل 15

New York City

July 30, 2014

XV

Addie is surrounded by trees.

The mossy scent of summer in the woods.

Fear winds through her, the sudden, horrible certainty that Luc has broken both rules instead of one, that he has dragged her through the dark, stolen her away from New York, abandoned her somewhere far, far from home.

But then her eyes adjust, and she turns, and sees the skyline rising above the trees, and realizes she must be in Central Park.

Relief sweeps through her.

And then Luc’s voice drifts through the dark.

“Adeline, Adeline…” he says, and she cannot tell what is an echo, and what is simply him, unbound by flesh and bone and mortal shapes.

“You promised,” she calls.

“Did I?”

Luc steps out of the dark, the way he did that night, drawing together from smoke and shadow. A storm, bottled into skin.

Am I the devil or the darkness? he asked her once. Am I a monster or a god?

He is no longer dressed in the sleek black suit, but as he was when she first summoned him, a stranger in trousers, a pale tunic open at his throat, his black hair curling against his temples.

The dream conjured so many years ago.

But one thing has changed. There is no triumph in his eyes. The color has gone out of them, so pale they’re almost gray. And though she’s never seen the shade before, she guesses it is sadness.

“I will give you what you want,” he says. “If you will do one thing.”

“What?” she asks.

Luc holds out his hand.

“Dance with me,” he says.

There is longing in his voice, and loss, and she thinks, perhaps, it is the end, of this, of them. A game finally played out. A war with no winners.

And so she agrees to dance.

There is no music, but it does not matter.

When she takes his hand, she hears the melody, soft and soothing in her head. Not a song, exactly, but the sound of the woods in summer, the steady hush of the wind through the fields. And as he pulls her close, she hears a violin, low and mournful, along the Seine. His hand slides through hers, and there is the steady murmur of the seaside. The symphony soaring through Munich. Addie leans her head against his shoulder, and hears the rain falling in Villon, the brass band ringing in an L.A. lounge, and the ripple of a saxophone through the open windows on Bourbon.

The dancing stops.

The music fades.

A tear slides down her cheek. “All you had to do was set me free.”

Luc sighs, and lifts her chin. “I could not.”

“Because of the deal.”

“Because you are mine.”

Addie twists free. “I was never yours, Luc,” she says, turning away. “Not in the woods that night. And not when you took me to bed. You were the one who said it was just a game.” “I lied.” The words, a knife. “You loved me,” he says. “And I loved you.” “And yet,” she says, “you didn’t come to find me until I’d found someone else.” She turns back toward him, expecting to see those eyes yellowing with envy. But instead, they have gone a weedy, arrogant green, mirrored by the expression on his face, the faint lift of a single brow, the corner of his mouth.

“Oh, Adeline,” he says. “You think you found each other?”

The words are a missed step.

A sudden drop.

“Do you truly think that I would let that happen?”

The ground tilts beneath her feet.

“That for all the deals I do, such a thing would ever pass beneath my notice?” Addie squeezes her eyes shut, and she is lying beside Henry, their fingers laced together in the grass. She is looking up at the night sky. She is laughing at the idea that Luc finally made a mistake.

“You must have thought yourselves so clever,” he is saying now. “Star-crossed lovers, brought together by chance. What are the odds that you would meet, that you would both be bound to me, both have sold your souls for something only the other could provide? When the truth is so much easier than that—I put Henry in your path. I gave him to you, wrapped and ribboned like a gift.” “Why?” she asks, throat closing around the word. “Why would you do that?” “Because it’s what you wanted. You were so set upon your need for love, you could not see beyond it. I gave you this, I gave you him, so you could see that love was not worth the space you held for it. The space you kept from me.” “But it was worth it. It is.”

He reaches out to brush her cheek. “It won’t be, when he’s gone.”

Addie pulls away. From his words, his touch. “This is cruel, Luc. Even for you.” “No,” he snarls. “Cruelty would be ten years instead of one. Cruelty would be to let you have a lifetime with him, and have to suffer more for losing.” “I would choose it anyway!” She shakes her head. “You never intended to let him live, did you?” Luc inclines his head. “A deal is a deal, Adeline. And deals are binding.” “That you would do all this to torment me—”

“No,” he snaps. “I did it to show you. To make you understand. You put them on such a pedestal, but humans are brief and pale and so is their love. It is shallow, it does not last. You long for human love, but you are not human, Adeline. You haven’t been for centuries. You have no place with them. You belong with me.” Addie recoils, anger hardening to ice inside her.

“What a hard lesson it must be for you,” she says. “That you can’t have everything you want.” “Want?” he sneers. “Want is for children. If this were want, I would be rid of you by now. I would have forgotten you centuries ago,” he says, a bitter loathing in his voice. “This is need. And need is painful but patient. Do you hear me, Adeline? I need you. As you need me. I love you, as you love me.” She hears the pain in his voice.

Perhaps that is why she wants to hurt him worse.

He taught her well, to find the weakness in the armor.

“But that’s the thing, Luc,” she says, “I don’t love you at all.”

The words are soft, steady, and yet they rumble through the dark. The trees rustle, and the shadows thicken, and Luc’s eyes burn a shade she’s never seen before. A venomous color. And for the first time in centuries, she is afraid.

“Does he mean so much to you?” he asks, voice flat and hard as river stones. “Then go. Spend time with your human love. Bury him, and mourn him, and plant a tree over his grave.” His edges begin to blur into the dark. “I will still be here,” he says. “And so will you.” Luc turns away, and is gone.

Addie sinks to her knees in the grass.

She stays there until the first threads of light seep into the sky, and then, at last, she forces herself up again, walks to the subway in a fog, Luc’s words looping through her head.

You are not human, Adeline.

You thought you found each other?

You must have thought yourselves so clever.

Spend time with your love.

I will still be here.

And so will you.

The sun is rising by the time she gets to Brooklyn.

She stops to pick up breakfast, a concession, an apology, for staying away all night. And that is when she sees the paper stacked against the newsstand. That is when she sees the date stamped in the upper corner.

August 6, 2014.

She left the apartment on the 30th of July.

Spend time with your love, he said.

But Luc has taken it. He didn’t just steal a night. He took an entire week. Seven precious days, erased from her life … and Henry’s.

Addie runs.

She stumbles through the door, and up the stairs, turns out her purse, but the key is gone, and she pounds on the door, terror surging through her that the world has changed, that Luc has somehow rewritten more than time, somehow taken more, taken everything.

But then the lock slides, and the door falls open, and there is Henry, exhausted, disheveled, and she knows, by the look in his eyes, that he did not expect her to come back. That at some point, between the first morning and the next, and the next, and the next, he thought she was gone.

Addie throws her arms around him now.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, and it is not just for the stolen week.

It is for the deal, the curse, the fact it is her fault.

“I’m sorry,” she says, over and over, and Henry doesn’t shout, doesn’t rage, doesn’t even say I told you so. He simply holds her tight, and says, “Enough,” says, “Promise me,” says, “Stay.” And none of them are questions, but she knows he is asking, pleading with her to let it go, to stop fighting, stop trying to change their fates, and just be with him until the end.

And Addie cannot bear the thought of giving up, of giving in, of going down without a fight.

But Henry is breaking, and it is her fault, and so, in the end, she agrees.