بخش 6 فصل 3

Chicago, Illinois

July 29, 1928

III

There is an angel over the bar.

A stained-glass panel, lit from behind, with a single figure, chalice raised and hand outstretched, as if calling you to prayer.

But this is no church.

Speakeasies are like weeds these days, springing up between the stones of Prohibition. This one has no name, save the angel with its cup, the number XII over the door—twelve, the hour of midday, and of midnight—the velvet curtains and chaises that lounge like sleepers round the wooden floor, the masks given to the patrons at the door.

It is, like most of them, only a rumor, a secret passed from mouth to liquored mouth.

And Addie loves it.

There is a wild fervor to this place.

She dances—sometimes alone, and sometimes in the company of strangers. Loses herself in the jazz that rocks against the walls, rebounds, filling the crowded space with music. She dances, until the feathers of her mask cling to her cheeks, and Addie is breathless, and flushed, and only then does she retreat, falling into a leather chair.

It is almost midnight, and her fingers drift like the hands of a clock up to her throat, where the ring hangs on a silver cord, the wooden band warm against her skin.

It is always within reach.

Once, when the cord snapped, she thought it lost, only to find it safe within the pocket of her blouse. Another time, she left it on a windowsill, and found it hours later at her neck again.

The only thing she doesn’t lose.

She toys with it, a lazy habit now, like curling a lock of hair around one finger. She skims the edge of the band with her nail, twirls it, careful to never let the ring slide over her knuckle.

She has reached for it a hundred times: when she was lonely, when she was bored, when she saw a thing of beauty and thought of him. But she is too stubborn, and he is too proud, and she is determined to win this round.

Fourteen years she has resisted the urge to put it on.

And fourteen years he has not come.

So she was right—it is a game. Another kind of forfeit, a lesser version of surrender.

Fourteen years.

And she is lonely, and a little drunk, and she wonders if tonight will be the night she breaks. It would be a fall, but it is not so great a height. Perhaps—perhaps— To occupy her hands, she decides to get another drink.

She goes to the bar and orders a gin fizz, but the white-masked man sets instead a Champagne glass before her. A single candied rose petal floats among the bubbles, and when she asks, he nods at a shadow in a velvet booth. His mask is made to look like branches, the leaves a perfect frame for perfect eyes.

And Addie smiles at the sight of him.

She would be lying if she said it was nothing but relief. A weight set down. A breath set free.

“I win,” she says, sinking into his booth.

And even though he folded first, his eyes are bright with triumph. “How so?” “I didn’t call, and yet you came.”

His chin lifts, a study in disdain. “You assume I’m here for you.”

“I forget,” she says, sliding into his smooth, low cadence. “There are so many maddening humans around to swindle out of their souls.” A wry smile tugs at perfect lips. “I promise, Adeline, few are as maddening as you.” “Few?” she teases. “I’ll have to try harder.”

He lifts a glass, and tips it toward the bar. “The fact remains, you have come to me. This place is mine.” Addie looks around, and suddenly, it is obvious.

She sees the markings everywhere.

Realizes, for the first time, that the angel above the bar has no wings. That the curls rising around his face are black. That the band she took for a halo might as well be moonlight.

And she wonders what it was that drew her here the first time.

Wonders if they are like magnets, she and Luc.

If they have circled each other for so long that now they share an orbit.

It will become a hobby of his, these kinds of clubs. He will plant them in a dozen cities, tend them like gardens, and grow them wild.

As plentiful as churches, he will say, and twice as popular.

And long after the days of Prohibition, they will still flourish, catering to many tastes, and she will wonder if it is the energy that stokes him, or if they are a grooming ground for souls. A place to ply, and pry, and promise. And in a way, a place to pray, albeit a different kind of worship.

“So you see,” says Luc, “perhaps I win.”

Addie shakes her head. “It is only chance,” she says. “I did not call.” He smiles, gaze falling to the ring against her skin. “I know your heart. I felt it falter.” “But I didn’t.”

“No,” he says, the word nothing but a breath. “But I was tired of waiting.” “So you missed me,” she says with a smile, and there is the briefest glimpse in those green eyes. A fracture of light.

“Life is long, and humans boring. You are better company.”

“You forget that I am human.”

“Adeline,” he says, a shade of pity in his voice. “You have not been human since the night we met. You will never be human again.” Heat flushes through her at the words. No longer pleasant warmth, but anger.

“I am still human,” she says, voice tightening around the words as if they were her name.

“You move among them like a ghost,” he says, his forehead bowing against hers, “because you are not one of them. You cannot live like them. You cannot love like them. You cannot belong with them.” His mouth hovers over her own, his voice dropping to nothing but a breeze.

“You belong to me.”

There is a sound like thunder in the back of his throat.

“With me.”

And when she looks up into his eyes, she sees a new shade of green, and knows exactly what it is. The color of a man off-balance. His chest rises and falls as if it were a human thing.

Here is a place to put the knife.

“I would rather be a ghost.”

And for the first time, the darkness flinches. Draws back like shadows in the face of light. His eyes go pale with anger, and there is the god she knows, the monster she has learned to face.

“Suit yourself,” mutters Luc, and she waits for him to bleed into the dark, braces for the sudden, reaching void, expects to be swallowed up and spit out on the other side of the world.

But Luc does not vanish, and neither does she.

He nods at the club. “Go on, then,” he says, “go back to them.”

And she would rather he had banished her. Instead, she rises, even though she’s lost her taste for drinks, for dancing, for any kind of company.

It is like stepping out of sunlight, the humid room gone cold against her skin, as he sits there in his velvet booth, and she goes through the motions of her night, and for the first time she feels the space between the humans and herself, and fears that he is right.

In the end, she is the one to leave.

And the next day, the speakeasy is boarded up, and Luc is gone. And just like that, new lines are drawn, the pieces set, the battle started.

She will not see him again until the war.