Chapter Text
He wakes up in his bed.
The ceiling is almost familiar, like an old friend he shared company with many years ago—so long ago it would be unrecognizable save for its all-encompassing presence before him now. He shuts his eyes, tries to ignore it. Tries to fall back asleep, if one could call it sleep, for that’s what he truly desires above everything: the sweet release of nothingness. In truth it’s an addiction, but one which lost its intoxicating high over a century ago, once the truth of his reality settled in his bones—a night, a daytime reverie, no longer enough to sustain him. Once and for all, he needed the real thing.
He needs the real thing.
He opens his eyes and gets up.
He’s alone. A thin layer of film coats all his senses. Gone is the agonizing awareness of every cell of his body, its endless growth and regeneration; the aching knowledge of a forever-life. He can’t say if its absence is on account of her, or if this is what waking up after a deep sleep has always been meant to feel. Whatever it is, it doesn’t stop him from rifling through the bureau and the wardrobe, then the tall bookshelves lining his walls, some of which he cannot reach—but upon opening a volume out of curiosity and flipping through its blank pages, the object a poorly painted facsimile of the real thing, he abandons the shelves altogether.
He can’t hear anything unusual except for the bustling of a lively city below. He draws the curtains open.
Lumière. His city. He would recognize its skyline anywhere, the narrow alleys he explored in as a child and the rooftops he frequented with his sisters.
In the distance stands the Monolith, its face empty—no number, no inscribed messages for those who would never answer. The clouds still converge at its peak as if attracted to the power held at its core, though they are likely to dissipate in time and recentre on Lumière instead.
No weapons on him. His blade, likely long confiscated. Likely hidden away, if not altogether removed from existence. He tamps down the dread. Dread won’t get him out of this room.
But the door is unlocked.
Slowly, he opens it. The corridor is different. Narrower. Major details remain the same: the wallpaper, the console and fixtures, the moulding on the walls. Yet it’s clear he isn’t in the manor but a carefully thought-out transplant of it overlooking the city, and next to—he takes a breath and the warmth scent of cinnamon and rising dough fill his lungs—a bakery.
“Monsieur Dessendre?” He flinches at the unfamiliar voice. He hadn’t heard her leaving the room across the hall. “You’re awake!”
The servant putters to him in her heavy skirt, places the basin and washcloth she was holding on the console beside him and stares at him in wonder.
Verso blinks. He’s never seen this woman before—plain features, mousy hair. One of many faces that must have passed him during his time in Lumière, but hers he cannot recall. Pain shoots through his head and he clutches his temples.
“I—I have to tell madame,” she says. She clutches Verso’s arms, her grip strong. “Stay here, sir. I will be right back.”
She scurries away. Verso stumbles back, head still throbbing. A door opens and shut downstairs.
He holds onto the railing tightly as he takes careful steps down, glancing quickly at the small kitchen and dining table that await him, and a quaint fireplace housing smoldering embers against the far wall.
And then the door. It’s heavy when he pulls it open, and an iron padlock rattles against the wood when he shuts it behind him. He refuses to dwell on its presence. The implication.
Sunlight pierces his retinas, sharpening the pain behind his eyes. He doesn’t know where he’s going but he knows he has to get away. He’s in Lumière, under her domain. The furthest part could be somewhere on the Continent—but the question is how to get across? How to find somewhere to get his bearings, to recoup, to remember…what?
“Can I help you, young man?” An elderly man sits by a wagon of flowers displayed extravagantly for sale. He’s got a newspaper in his leathery hands, and kind eyes carrying a hint of sympathy. “I’d offer you a pair of boots, but as you can see, flowers are all I’ve got.”
Verso looks down at his bare feet, then back at the man. “No,” he says, winces, voice like gravel. From disuse. He clears his throat. “No, thank you. I’m fine.”
The old man smiles at him.
“Can you point me toward the harbour?” Verso says.
The man points behind Verso and he thanks him. With each step he takes, he finds renewed energy. His stiffened joints loosen, and each intake of the cool, mild air awakens his body. Even the pain almost ceases to be at the forefront of his mind, but when he stumbles on an alley much busier than the one prior, he freezes.
There’s some sort of festival. That’s what they are. Booths lined up in neat rows, each vendor selling unique items—enchanted or otherwise; the smell of fried food wafting in the air; children laughing, running, carrying brightly coloured streamers flowing behind them. Their parents look on fondly. Couples in the shadows, holding each other and whispering.
It reminds him of the days-long events leading up to the Gommage, the first of which he’d witnessed the year Clea—not his Clea; never his Clea—had approached him and ordered, not asked, that he revisit Lumière to watch over her. And she had been an infant then, and the parents whose faces he cannot recall he knew were kind, and would do good, and that no harm should befell her should she remain with them.
He returned frequently after that.
It should be easy to navigate the winding alleys knowing the direction of the harbour. Seagulls caw above him, blanketed by the orange sky. He knows he’s near, can practically hear the rushing sound of the sea and taste the salt on his tongue.
The lack of supplies should alarm him. The lack of everything but for the clothing on his back. But even in this universe he must still have allies. She doesn’t have it in her to take them all from him—Monoco, Esquie, the true remnants of him. He need only find them, secure a new location and then what?
As he takes path after path in the back alleys of Lumière, heart in his throat, a burst of chroma startles him—a sonic boom, rattling his bones and leaving the hair on his arms standing on end. He looks up. Energy ripples in the sky like a forcefield in the direction he’d come from, and a faint golden glow emerges in the clouds like a rainbow.
The air tightens and contracts, then expands like its breathing, alive. It does it again, pulsing in rhythm like something massive and alive, horrifying and beautiful. Pressure builds at the base of his skull again and he curls over, grunting as it grows more powerful. Deep, heavy breaths, gasps for oxygen—they do nothing, and he shakes his head, tries to toughen up. Get over it. Get out of here. Before she finds you.
The man had pointed east, opposite of the setting sun. He’s still far too close to the festival, could be accosted any time. He’s certain he’s been this way already. The apartment facades all appear the same, something typical of Lumière, but when he squints closer the similarities between each building appear uncanny—not just similarly designed but literal copies of each other. A speck on the brick here…and there it is again, but a few metres away.
The distraction costs him a hand on his shoulder. He turns, startled, to face glowing eyes. A fractured face.
Sir, it says. Verso backs up, and the thing—it isn’t a person. It’s shaped like one, like the expeditioners she’d revived from the remnants of their chroma on the Continent, not-quite-humans; her grip on them so tentative it had only taken a few hours for Renoir to paint over her shoddy work.
Come with me. Its voice is hollow and garbled, like speaking to someone on the telephone far, far away.
Verso looks down at it, the sword strapped to its hip. No banner on its arm but if he squints he can see where it should have been, where she must have ripped it off.
He curses inwardly. He could run. But when other former expeditioners, all armed, march into his line of sight, he relents.
The expeditioner winds his wrists behind him and pushes him forward.
There’s no small talk between them. Verso knows it would be useless trying to negotiate with them. They’re mere automatons now, soldiers to do her bidding. They must line the perimeter of the city in some way or another as a means to secure it, inside and out. It’s sloppy work but must get the job done. Must appear, to her, especially effective for him, having robbed him of his weapons, pictos and lumina. He’s just another man now.
They lead him through the winding alleys, passing under archways until they reach an enclosed courtyard. It’s empty, the shadows slowly deepening as the sun sets, casting a narrow strip of orange on the stone path.
The expeditioner pushes him onto the ground to kneel. He tries to get up, wiggling under its grip, but it kicks him on the backside with a hard boot.
“I’m so sorry.” A woman’s voice grows closer. Footsteps. “I told him to stay put, but I must have forgotten to—”
“I don’t need your excuses,” she hisses. “You’re of no use to me now. Begone.”
“But madame, I need this job,” the servant implores.
“Get out of my sight.”
He doesn’t see her face. Just her silhouette, the length of her hair and the bounce of her skirt making dark shapes on the ground.
“Let go of him.”
The expeditioner’s grip weakens around his wrists and his arms hang loosely by his sides.
The swift tapping of her footsteps. Her knees thud on the ground, bump against his. Arms around his neck. She whispers his name.
He swallows. Words trapped in his throat.
“You’re awake,” she sobs, voice thick with emotion. She doesn’t look at him, just holds him closer—tighter, impossibly tight, choking him. How are the words meant to come out with her hands around his neck?
“I didn’t know if I could—if you would—” she stammers. Heaves again. The shudder of her body reverberates in his chest. He blinks hard and forces the tears back. He doesn’t know for whom he sheds them. Dulled senses and heightened empathy. He would argue it’s all been inverted from what it was before, but perhaps she has always been his exception.
“Let me see.” She finally leans back and cups his face.
He can’t look at her.
“Look at me,” she says.
He can’t.
“Look at me.”
He gets as far as the ends of her silver hair. Otherworldly. She’d confided in him before: It’s a rare colour in Lumière. There’s certainly no risk losing her in the crowd now.
“Please, brother,” she says, gentle voice cracking.
His face twists. He looks at her.
“I’m not your brother.”
Maelle blinks. Grey eyes. Beautiful.
She smiles a crooked thing.
“Don’t be silly.” She blinks back tears. Her face crumples, the smile obliterated quickly.
She wipes her face with a gloved hand, cups his own. He lets her look at him, lets her examine her work.
“Perfect,” she whispers, holding him tight once more.
“You’re perfect,” she says again. She shakes like a leaf, like she’s the one in danger—adrenaline in her lithe body, so deceptively fragile.
She leads him back to the apartments. She’s taken up the room next door, naturally. Her hand in his is small, soft and untarnished. With the other, she shoos her soldiers away, and they disperse like insects crawling from underneath a rock, disturbed.
“Let’s get you home.” That little smile again.
“What were you thinking walking around without any shoes on? You could have gotten hurt,” she tuts. “Can’t get away from me so easily, and without even saying goodbye.”
He lets her do the talking. It’s clear she’s frazzled, shoulders tense, strides wide to keep up with his own, even when she’s taking the lead. Perhaps he can learn more from her this way—that missing something; the ultimate drive he once had before this slumber which fueled his determination. It’s something he conveniently can’t recall, yet it’s indelibly carved within him like a faraway memory.
“I tried to make it nice for you,” she says, looking over her shoulder at him. She takes his breath away.
“Added all the furnishings I could recall. I mean, some are a little different. I’m still working on getting better. It’s where I was, you know, before Anna came to me. Painting lessons. It gave me a shock to know you’d finally woken up and I—”
She stops and turns to him. They’ve arrived at the apartment.
“Verso,” she says—breathes, an intake of air, like she’s surprised. She takes both of his hands in hers, holds them up close to her chest.
“I’m so glad you’re here. You’ve no idea how long I’ve waited. I thought I wouldn’t—that I wasn’t strong enough to…” She trails off, and a distant look casts her eyes.
She snaps out of it, and shakes her head. “Never mind that. You’re here now. That’s what matters.”
She opens the door for him and gestures for him to come through.
“Verso?” She waits for him. Verso looks her over: she isn’t armed. Upon her awakening she’d used her sword as a conduit for her chroma, relying on an object to direct her power much like her father. Clea and Aline, being superior painters, never seemed to rely much on the technique. But he doesn’t know how long it’s been since she’s rebuilt Lumière and its inhabitants, and how much power she’s gained since—how much she’s grown.
“Just come inside,” she says, hand tightening around the doorknob.
Verso goes.
He sits in the small kitchen and watches her scurry about. Pots and pats bang against the countertops when she sweeps them to the side to make room for the kettle, murmuring something about Anna’s tidiness.
“I would do all the work but I come home every night exhausted. It was only right to hire a maid. The people here…some of them remember me. I suppose some of it was pity.”
“You sent her away,” he says. He idly traces the grain of the wooden table. It’s quite well-built, the spirals as close to nature as he knows it. It appears this little abode has suffered no lack of attention to detail.
She turns and leans against the counter. Crosses her arms.
“There are many like her here. Many to take up the job. They’d be lining up right outside the door by now if word spread.”
Silence as Verso processes the words.
“They know who you are then? What you can do.”
“It was unavoidable to keep everyone entirely in the dark.” She approaches him, the leather of her boots creaking softly, then crouches before him, so they see eye to eye.
“At the start, I could only do two or three—real ones, I mean. Not like the expeditioners who found you. I learned as I went. The few turned into a dozen, and then more.”
“You’re their god.”
“I’m only undoing what Papa destroyed.”
Her expression remains neutral, the words, to her, self-evident.
The pain again, tingling in the back of his head. He pinches his nose.
“It’s wrong, Maelle,” he says.
She leans back. A divot between her eyebrows.
“What you did was wrong.”
“No.” Maelle stands. She places a hand on his shoulder. He looks up at her.
“You’ll see. It was different before because I didn’t remember, but—” She squeezes her hand, and something like fear creeps into him. “But I remember now. I need you to trust me to see it through.”
“How could I trust you? You had your chance to see it through, and you chose wrong—”
“I didn’t,” she says, voice high, almost shrill. “I will give you a life worth living. With me. With all of us.”
Verso bats her hand away, throat tightening. “Just leave me be.”
“You’re in pain.” She tilts her head, watches him. “I can’t leave you.”
Verso shuts his eyes. Is this truly his fate? And should he accept it as it is? He has no family here. The family he’d known, had spent a century in conflict with—they’re all gone, turned to dust, and he knows he had a willing hand in their destruction, perhaps even eagerly, but his damned shortsightedness did not consider her—the wayward variable, the outsider, as naive as she was sweet; the babe he’d watched over and grown affectionate of. He cannot look at her, and feel nothing.
And that is his weakness.
“Talk to me,” she says, a shaky smile on her lips. “I’ll even call Anna back, if it makes you happy. Tell me what you want. What you need. I’ll give it to you, Verso.”
Take me to my family. Alicia’s last words before she’d looked at him with contempt, and before she gommaged her in front of his very eyes without a further word. The bitterness of it hasn’t faded. If anything it has grown sharper the more his senses return to him, the more the memories slowly begin to seep into his brain. Everything they’ve been through. Everything he’s done—to all of them, and to her.
“I need…” He sighs. Looks down at his pathetic, weakened body.
“A pair of boots.”
He doesn’t see the expression on her face but can sense her relaxing, the tension in her shoulders easing, her demeanor loosening.
There is one servant.
Her name is Anna. She takes care of the cooking and the cleaning, and tends to the fire in the kitchen and also upstairs in his rooms, and in hers, when she finds the time to stay there. She was tasked to watch over his sleeping form during the daytime. She dismisses Anna when she comes home, and at night they are alone.
Maelle wants to show him how she calls her.
“Everyone knows each other here,” she says. “They’ve all a mind of their own. Don’t look at me like that. You might think I can get into their heads but I can’t, just as I can’t get into yours.”
“I’ve always had an awfully thick skull,” he says.
“It’s all real.” She opens the window, where he can see the old man from earlier still reading his newspaper. “Peter, dear?”
“Yes, madame?” Peter raises his head to regard her.
“Please find Anna and call her back here. We need her assistance.”
“Yes, madame.” He stands and wobbles down the street.
“Is he going to be all right?” Verso asks.
“Of course.” She turns to him and sizes him up. “In the meantime, come. See what I’ve saved for you.”
His things are in her room, at the foot of her bed.
“See, even your weapons and your expedition coat. Though you won’t need it anymore, of course.” He can’t tell whether she means he no longer needs his weapons or the old coat.
He spots something white buried at the bottom of the trunk. He picks up the ribbon she’d given him, had wrapped around his arm so gently what feels like a lifetime ago. He traces the thirty-three with his thumb, and feels his age.
Welcome to the Disaster Expedition, she said, spreading her arms wide. She smiled sheepishly up at him, eyes bright, cheeks ruddy, a strand of red hair caught underneath her chin.
“I can have somebody come by and tailor something more fitting for you,” she says, rifling through her wardrobe. From his vantage he can see a mix of clothing hanging neatly on the racks, some familiar, some not—some hers, some his. “But here.”
She hands him a buttoned white shirt and trousers, points at the boots next to hers by the mirror.
“You ought to get fitted for a vest. And then you’d look just like—” She stops. Bites her lip.
“Like him?”
“N-no,” she says, then chuckles softly. “No. I mean, just like a proper gentleman.”
She approaches him, soothes a hand down his chest. Her touch is an icy burn, but one which he refuses to cower from. She looks at their reflection in the tall mirror beside her bed.
“Look,” she whispers. “You don’t. Look like him.”
He peers at himself. There’s not much there that has changed. Perhaps a little older, a little more tired, lines under his eyes. Pale. He meets her eyes in the mirror and her demeanor changes, her lids lowering, demure.
“Your scars,” she says.
He watches their reflection, watches her trace the lines on his face with her fingers, the scar over his eye he refused to heal, aching and gentle like their first touch at camp, but gone is the brightness in her eyes, the excitement in the line of her body—now it’s a smouldering fire, tempered, but deeper for it, hotter.
“I like them.”
Hungrier.
Insatiable creature.
Downstairs, the kettle screams.
It turns out the small festival marks a year since the official rebuilding of Lumière. There is a general understanding that their expedition had been a success, and that the Gommage no longer poses a threat to Lumière’s inhabitants thanks to the awakened powers of the new Paintress, who is much more benevolent than the previous one. This new Paintress rules—though she would argue against such a term—with a gentle hand, and largely prefers helping those in need, and especially those who ask for it nicely, and spends her spare time bettering her powers.
“Gustave convinced Emma to bar public use of the Hanging Gardens, and so now I spend my time there.”
“Emma?”
“Gustave’s sister,” she says.
It’s the next day, and they are on their way to say hello to old friends. He didn’t sleep. How could he, after being in the sweet clutch of slumber for so long? She wanted to stay up with him no matter what, and so he conceded, and spent the time in her room adjacent to his. They share a wall.
She only lasted about an hour, chattering away about nothing to fill the space between her bed and the chaise on which he lounged, watching her, before her exhaustion overtook her, and with a few slurred words, of which he could make out his name, she’d nodded off to sleep, still sitting upright.
Of course he took the effort to tuck her in, to lay her head on a soft pillow and throw a blanket over her shoulders.
“I mentioned her to you once,” she says, hooking her arm around his. “Speaking of my life in Lumière. They were like my parents in a way.”
Verso hums. He recalls it, vaguely.
“Gustave has Sophie of course,” Maelle adds quickly. “But Emma, I suppose she was more like a sister than a mother. And then I would say Gustave was a bit of both…or something.”
“You don’t have to box them in, if you don’t want to,” Verso says. “It would only hurt your head.”
Maelle scoffs. “I’m trying to explain how I see it, you dunce.”
There’s no time for a retort. She leaves his arms at first sight of Gustave and sprints towards him. He grunts at the force of her embrace, catching her in his arms and holding her so tightly her feet are lifted from the ground. From the intensity of it one would think they haven’t seen each other in years, but it appears to be business as usual, as no one around them bats an eye.
“This is my…Verso,” she says to Gustave and the others. They all nod hellos.
Verso can’t look at Gustave for long, a swirl of emotions long repressed threatening to bubble up. He told Maelle the truth about Gustave when she asked, but looking at her now it seems but water under the bridge.
“Pleased to finally meet you,” Gustave says, reaching a hand out. Verso shakes it. “Officially, I mean. I helped bring you to the apartment of course. I can’t thank you enough for what you did for Maelle and the others.”
“No thanks needed,” Verso says. He catches Emma’s eye and she smiles. The petite woman beside Gustave, Sophie, watches them with mild interest.
“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” Gustave goes on. “We can finally move on and—and live.”
Sophie takes Gustave’s hand and they exchange an affectionate look.
While Verso does not share the optimism, he can appreciate that they do.
“Come,” Maelle says, taking his hand and pulling him down the street. “I want to show you Lumière.”
Verso trails after her, helplessly caught in her thrall. As they pass by the booths she’s greeted by many friendly faces—some refer to her more formally, whispers of Madame and the Paintress. To others she is simply Maelle.
“I told them I prefer Maelle, but it’s difficult to convince them once they’ve made up their minds.”
“But you don’t correct them either?”
“I just told you,” she says, tugging him along behind her. “Some of them are stubborn.”
The festivities appear quite similar to yesterday’s, with families and children lining the streets, banners celebrating the Anniversaire du Nouvelle Lumière, and a general joie de vivre in the air. It’s idyllic, almost too perfect, and he does not fail to notice that the sights are exactly the same as the small preview he had yesterday, like a moving picture replayed over and over again.
A child runs past them and he almost stumbles on his path.
“Pardon!” he says, laughing.
Maelle shakes her head fondly, and leads him to a nearby stall.
“These are my favourite,” she says, taking a chocolate-stuffed crêpe topped with strawberries from a vendor, who directs the two of them with a smile.
“Here.” She brings it to his face, and he has no choice but to take a bite.
“Well?”
“I’m not overly fond of sweets,” he says, chewing. The rich melted chocolate pairs well with the bright tangy sweetness of the fresh strawberries.
Maelle raises a brow. “Now, Verso,” she says. “I don’t think that’s true.”
He takes another bite. Doesn’t relent.
“Once I’d been naughty,” she says. “It was something stupid. Clea must have started it. I knocked over one of her paint jars and she told on me. Maman sent me to my room with no supper.”
“How vile,” Verso says.
“But I wasn’t very upset. Not that I couldn’t survive a single night without supper but—I wasn’t upset because he always brought something for me, after they’d all finished. He knocked on my door, brought in a tray and made sure I ate it all, for he had to sneak all the empty dishes back out and couldn’t trust me not to drop them all down the stairs.” She laughs, hard, and it tapers into a whimper.
“Hey,” Verso says. His hands itch—no, they burn. To reach out and touch.
“I’m fine,” she says, gulps. “Just hungry.” She takes a bite of the crêpe and chews hard, teeth gnashing.
“You’re right. It isn’t good.” She approaches a nearby bin and dumps the crêpe in with the rest of the garbage.
He isn’t sure how to occupy his time while he gathers enough strength to act. Obviously the natural course is to determine what the act is, but knowing that she appears as clueless as him reassures him somewhat. They live in a sort of limbo. He knows he ought to get away and recoup, that distance would be good. But being near her isn’t exactly dangerous either. Part of him even wonders if it would only hurt him to leave.
His personhood cannot centre entirely around her. Certainly not. But these thoughts manifest only in his lonesome. When she is near, he ceases to be his own, utterly captivated.
Like a fool.
“The piano should arrive today,” she says. She’s sat at her little vanity, a quaint thing made of wood, much smaller than Alicia’s had been. But the books that line the shelves on her walls remain full, and he isn’t ashamed to admit he’s pilfered some of the more familiar titles to pass the time. Surprisingly, or perhaps not, every word is captured faithfully on their pages.
“You don’t have to,” he says.
Anna has been tasked with brushing her long, silver hair. She begins to weave little braids.
“I don’t have to, but I want to,” Maelle says, catching his eye in the mirror. She’s got quite the lax demeanor at home. Dressed in nothing but her robe, with a servant at her beck and call and her brother to watch over her, a bit of her real nature peeks through.
“It’s dangerous to indulge someone you don’t know very well.”
She laughs dryly. “Oh, but I do know you. I know you want very much to get out of here, which is why you are meeting Monoco at about nine o’clock to have a very secret conversation.”
“Exactly,” Verso says.
“And then you will come home and tell me everything, and as a reward—” She pauses to admire her reflection in the mirror. Vain thing.
“I will get you a nice big piano, which you will play for me.”
“How well you’ve written out my day for me.”
She waves Anna away and stands slowly. She approaches him on long legs, in slow, dainty steps—a dancer’s steps.
“You’re not a stranger to me,” she says. Slender hands adjust his collar, tuck a strand of hair behind his ear. He grabs her wrist before she can get away, pulls her close.
He doesn’t know what qualms still lie between them. She isn’t old enough to know what’s good for her, but certainly she must know the effect she has on him—even a little bit. Still it pleases him to let her know he knows, and he gives her body a slow, burning once-over, from the pale skin of her thighs, peeking under her short robe, to the pink triangle of her exposed collar.
“Am I not?” he says, voice a deep rumble. She shudders, blinks, and pulls her wrist away.
She wraps her arms around herself.
“No,” she says. “Or at least, I don’t think you are.”
When he doesn’t respond, she makes a disapproving sound.
“Go. I have lessons.”
Despite the bitter note left between them, she isn’t wrong about his day. He is meant to meet Monoco and Esquie, then stop by Lune and Sciel’s homes.
Monoco and Esquie wait for him by a parkette near the outskirts of the city. Obviously they cannot go very far outside of it, though Esquie begs to differ.
“My old friend,” Monoco says, taking him into an embrace. Countless reunions between the two of them means this is but another one to add to the list—a drop in an endless well, despite Verso’s inclination to believe still, perhaps naively, that there will be an end.
“Mon ami,” Esquie says. “How we have missed you.”
“I missed you too,” Verso says, smiling as he hugs him too.
Monoco and he share a long chat. They, along with Sciel and Lune, have been busy with rebuilding New Lumière and are part of the committee tasked with re-establishing its infrastructure and various social and financial systems—most of which had already existed prior to their unexpected Gommage of last year, but which accordingly have to be altered to suit a larger, now continually expanding population. The committee is a convergence of domestic and expedition-oriented organizations. In short, it is a new government.
He’s always appreciated Monoco’s candidness. Despite the few hiccups along the way, Monoco is a loyal friend.
“We don’t know why you were the last to awaken,” Monoco says, sitting next to him on a bench. Esquie listens patiently nearby.
“Lune theorizes it is because you are the product of the previous Paintress, who was a master of the craft. Ours is young and inexperienced, as you know.”
“She told me she’s been practising. Lessons.”
“She wants to get better. Who can fault an artist for that?”
Verso refuses to deign that with a response.
“What about the others? Are they well?”
“You’ll find out for yourself.” Monoco clasps a hand around his shoulder. “I know it seems bleak, but you are in good hands.”
“It isn’t just bleak,” Verso pushes. “It’s a prison. She’s imprisoned me. You can twist it any way you wish but that is the truth of the matter.”
“And to her own detriment,” Monoco concurs. “Are you not both sharing this cell together?”
“We’re not.” Verso leans forward, hands on his temples. He breathes in, then out. Tries to slow the rapid beating of his heart.
“It’s not the same.”
“Does it make her selfish?”
Verso hates the question immediately.
Tell me what you want. What you need. I’ll give it to you, Verso. Her words. Selfless at its face, but he isn’t stupid.
I’ll give it to you, she said. Rely on me alone, she meant, because how could he think he would ever do anything without her?
“And if I say it does make her selfish?” he growls.
“I suppose time will only tell you the answer to that.”
He remembers Aline, on the other side of the Canvas, broken and spilling ink, her face—
Verso shudders. Yes, time will only prove the downfall for both of them, and then motives and questions about what is selfish and what is selfless will grow moot, and perhaps the entire world will come crumbling down again and there will be no one to save them then, while they are destroying each other.
“Family,” Monoco says, patting his back slowly. “It truly is complicated.”
Sciel has a son. He’s toddling now. Sciel calls him an uncle.
“Don’t get so emotional now,” she teases when he raises a brow. “After what we’ve been through, you’re like family.”
He meets Pierre, her husband, who has retired from his life at sea and has found a safe job at an accounting firm, a part-time position that allows him to take care of the boy.
“We debated over his name for quite a while,” Sciel says. “But we eventually settled on Gilbert, after Pierre’s father.”
She welcomed him into their home, a small apartment on the highest floor by the harbour, and he sits across from her on a nice couch. There are modest fixtures, and the stucco walls are filled with framed photographs of Sciel and Pierre, and familiar faces too. The warm smell of beef stew floats into the living room from the adjacent kitchen, and yellow curtains cast a magical glow into their quaint home, lending a comforting atmosphere. Trinkets line the walls of their modest fireplace: a small sailboat made of wood; a paper mache figure in Sciel’s likeness, likely from her students; and a small vase of glass flowers with what appear to be pictos carved into each of its petals.
“From Pierre,” Sciel says when she follows his gaze. “It was what he proposed to me with. I wear enough jewellery from my apprentices, so I suppose he wanted to get creative.”
On the carpeted floor beside her, Gilbert chews on a letter block and babbles loudly, as if agreeing. Sciel gives him a little wave.
“He’s precious,” Verso says.
“I keep busy, if you’re wondering,” she says, leaning back on her seat. “New Lumière can’t be built in one night. Sometimes I look outside and can’t believe it’s already been a year. So much has changed, but also so little.”
“You’re practically immortal now by comparison,” he says, echoing her words.
Decades and decades before us. I guess this is how it feels to be immortal.
“Seems you’ve finally found what to do with all your time.”
“Yeah.” A sadness casts her eyes, but goes away quickly. “Now I live for him. For them.”
“And Aquafarm 4?”
Sciel laughs. “Yes. And Aquafarm 4.”
Lumière’s agricultural industry certainly appreciates Sciel’s efforts, and Gustave’s too, for continuing the Aquafarm projects. It’s certainly a lucrative business, and likely aided Sciel in the purchase of her nice suede couch.
“We’re planning to move soon,” Sciel says. “This space, it’s too small for the three of us.”
She picks up Gilbert and guides Verso to the kitchen, where she hands him a cup of coffee.
“I don’t know how you two manage it in your apartment.”
“It’s…fine. We make do.”
“I’m sure the arrangements are lavish compared to camping on the Continent. It must be an adjustment.”
“She likes it quite a lot,” Verso says reluctantly. “She took care to make it familiar for me, and for her as well.”
“What do you mean?” Gilbert fusses in her arms, and she begins to rock him. Motherhood suits her.
“Much of it is what I remember from my wing of the old manor,” Verso says slowly. “But it’s only our rooms. Mine and Alicia’s.”
“I see,” Sciel says.
It’s always been difficult to read her. Sciel is a lot sharper than she comes across at first.
“She watched over you every night you slept. It was difficult to pry her from you at the start. Poor girl wouldn’t eat or drink.”
Verso can imagine that easily.
“She’s obsessed,” he says grimly.
“She loves you,” Sciel says. “I’m not saying you didn’t deserve it, but—”
“I don’t.” He scowls.
“Grief changes you.” She takes a seat across from him, brings a bottle to Gilbert’s lips. “It brings to light things that truly matter in your life.”
He watches the image they make, a mother and her son. Grief had changed Sciel. He met the part of her that grief transformed, and she had been as full of a person as she is now. But it would be willfully ignorant of him to say that she doesn’t glow more than she used to, having her family returned to her. And still, he mourns the version of her he had known, and the version of her he’ll never meet.
“You and I know fully well,” he says slowly, “that our experiences differ.”
“Yes. They do.”
The natural order of life and death is something that oughtn’t be tampered with, Canvas be damned. Its disruption, its selectivity, now at the hands of a child, yet he is the one made to be a fool to find the whole thing a ridiculous, wasteful—crude charade.
He leaves Sciel’s home with leftover homemade cookies, packaged neatly in a tin box and topped with a garish ribbon.
“Bring these home to your—” She pauses. “Your sister.”
Your sweetheart. He can tell she was tempted, a flush rising high in her cheeks, but she waves him away.
“Tell her I said hello!” she calls behind him.
The days grow shorter as the weather cools, and he shivers as a breeze blows past him. He ought to take her up on the offer of that tailor.
Lune lives in a house.
Verso doesn’t expect it, but perhaps this is what she’s accustomed to. There are few residents in Lumière who choose to live in houses, opting instead for the convenience of an apartment and its proximity to the downtown core. But she had been close with her parents, who were more established researchers and admirable expeditioners in their own right. Their affluence was likely a byproduct of their many successes, and served to fuel them for further and further research.
At his knock, there’s the bark of a small dog.
A woman opens the door. She isn’t Lune, though looks very similar to her. Must be the sister.
“Lune!” she yells over her shoulder, her voice overpowering the barking. The woman looks over him with a suspicious squint. “You have a visitor.”
Footsteps down the stairs. She hasn’t changed a bit. She eyes him with careful curiosity and shoos her sister, who picks up the dog and walks into a room, slamming the door behind her.
“Verso,” Lune says, letting him in. She seems surprised.
He tilts his head. “I was told you were expecting me.”
“Oh, was I?”
She leads him into her office across the hall. There are tools and vials and mountains of papers littered all over her bureau, and books and scrolls spill out of the ceiling-high shelves that line every wall of the study. Glowing blue journals are scattered on the table top and tucked in several corners of the heavily carpeted floor, which certainly pose a tripping hazard, but Lune weaves through them effortlessly.
“Pardon the mess,” she says absently as she digs through the mountain of documents.
“Ah, here it is.” She procures a letter and reads it. It’s less of a letter, though, more of a small memo—easy to get lost in a room like this.
“She doesn’t speak to you plainly?”
“Of course she does,” Lune says. She looks up at him, raising a brow.
“We’re quite busy. Both of us. She sends messengers or notes, but I’m not always available to receive them.” She folds the note neatly and places it on the highest point of the tallest pile, which starts on the floor.
“I suppose I wasn’t a priority.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Lune says, smiling. She gestures to the seat beside him and they sit across from each other.
“I’m glad to see you’re well.” Lune eyes him like the true researcher she is. “If something had gone wrong, I’m sure you would have seen me a lot sooner.”
“Well, I think I’ve got everything I need,” he says, looking around the chaotic order of the room. “Eyes that can see, a mouth that can speak. Got all my fingers, and toes.” She blinks. He stretches his palms out for her to see.
“The only thing I’m missing is…what was it again? Right. My free will.”
“I thought you were going to say a working mind.”
“No,” Verso says. He crosses his arms. “It is definitely working.”
A tense silence falls over them.
Lune stares—not at him, but something just over his shoulder. Unblinking.
“The expedition was a success,” she says. “The mission was completed. You knew what had to be done.”
“And I’m what? Collateral damage?” he says dryly.
“Yes.” She finally looks at him, and they stare each other down.
“I’m not about to rehash old arguments,” she says slowly. Her expression softens. “And I’m sorry. Truly, I am.”
Verso stands. He doesn’t know what he expected to get from her. Some sympathy, perhaps, after everything they’ve shared. But look at her life now: a nice house, a nice family, even a dog. She can research anything to her heart’s content, begin living a life with a meaning of her own making, and not simply searching for an answer that, at the time, nobody truly knew whether or not existed in the first place. All these things he knows to be true, and yet selfishly—selfishly, like her—he does not find it in him to justify the harm it has caused.
“That’s it?” Lune says, standing with him.
“I just wanted to see your face,” Verso says. Picks up the ridiculous tin of cookies.
“Cookie?”
Lune looks at it, smiles. “From Sciel? Oh, no. Bring them to her. She loves the chocolate ones.”
Lune leads him to the door, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“You will tell me if anything comes up? Healthwise or…” She stares pointedly at his forehead.
“So you can slice me open and tinker with my organs?”
“You’re fully capable of slicing yourself open without me,” she says, amused. Then, with more gravity: “I know there are going to be symptoms…side effects. For her. I’m relieved to see you awake because I thought perhaps she would experience a decline sooner than anticipated.”
Verso tucks his hand in his pocket, curls it tight in a fist. Oh, how she must see him. See both of them. Perhaps they are not so different from each other after all, if this is how one of their wisest views them: like little toys that can break. Fix them, quickly, or say goodbye to your world.
Verso looks around the spacious foyer, the small dog bed nearby the console.
“How is your family?” he says.
Lune smiles sadly. “My sister and brother are back. But we all agreed…that perhaps our parents deserve peace.”
He refuses to believe that she doesn’t see the irony of her words, especially when spoken to him. Her parents deserve peace, that eternal rest. And of him? Nothing. Nothing, if he serves to be of use to her, their little Paintress, with her sweet face and kind eyes, and her heart blackened by love.
As Verso takes the last few steps to the small gateway by the front of the house, Lune calls after him.
“My brother,” she says. Verso turns. “He was an artist before his gommage. He’s been helping her channel chroma.”
Verso does not find this helpful. He says his last goodbyes and searches for a way to the Hanging Gardens.
Freedom. It’s what he gets when she loosens the leash just a bit. Now no longer suffering the effects of waking from a year-long coma, he can appreciate the changes his colleagues have made to New Lumière. The new in the title is much deserved, despite the lack of any true relocation or extravagant restructuring.
Few of the residents here appear to notice him as something out of place, and if they do he commends their subtlety. Aline painted them with great care, almost as if she used one of their childhood storybooks for reference. Lumièrens are a resilient people, with a strong love of their culture and the arts, and a neverending thirst for the mysteries of the world. It was little wonder that it had only taken sixty-seven years for their expeditioners to finally achieve their goal—certainly well under the time limit provided, albeit unbeknownst to them, and despite the tenacious efforts of Aline’s Renoir to stop them.
Yet as he strolls down the maze-like streets of the city, he cannot relieve himself entirely of the anxiety that comes from turning a sudden corner, uncertain of what dangers lurk there. As the shadows deepen, so does the mild dread that comes with being stripped of his weapons. He knows, rationally, there is no danger here, but decades of living in survival mode cannot be easily painted over with a single brushstroke. His scars run deep, etched into the very fabric of his being, and he has little faith over anybody’s ability to mend them.
The buildings the real Renoir had destroyed during his parental lessons appear to be long-mended, the brick facades holding fast against the strengthening winds. It seems there are already plans for expansions. Metal scaffolding creaks above him. They line some of the lower-storey shops, likely to make room for residential units. The woody overgrowth that invaded many side streets that appeared in the early years of the Fracture has been cleared to provide room for roads and automobiles, and small shops and bakeries.
A few residents mill about the streets: elderly men like Peter who lounge about smoking their pipes and drinking their wine, men and women in businesswear scurrying home, and construction workers sitting atop rooftops watching the sun set behind the Monolith.
There even seems to be some work underway on the Crooked Tower, though whether it is for repair or preservation, he’s unsure. He is headed in its direction, for that is what Maelle instructed of him after he concluded his visits.
“You climb high,” she said, when he asked her how he would get to her. “The Hanging Gardens are just along the path you’d take to the tower.”
The entrance is through an innocuous building with an unguarded entrance. He slips past the door and climbs several storeys to the roof. He follows the walkways with no particular certainty where he’s going—but he knows deep down he’s close. He can feel the buzzing of her chroma on his skin like a gentle caress, a goading whisper. It makes him burn inside for her in ways he would rather die than admit to her.
Finally, the Hanging Gardens appear in the distance. He can see the green foliage of it peeking from underneath the glass ceilings which reflect the bright rays of sunlight, effecting an air of otherworldliness to the city. On the roof, the sights from below transform from the everyday tableau of a bustling city into a magical world, where the inhabitants are tiny and insignificant, and he a giant, or perhaps a bird, ready to take flight—at least from this vantage. He can understand, in a sense, why she loved this so much.
He quickens his pace. He needs to find her before they lose daylight and must stumble home in the sparse lighting of the city streets, where shadowy figures are likely to roam. How long must her lessons last? She shouldn’t be out so late in the day.
Laughter. Two voices. One he knows like the back of his hand and the other, a stranger.
They make striking silhouettes underneath the glowing sun. He’s much taller than her, slender, protective, a hand on her wrist guiding her—she lets him do it—the other on her shoulder, trailing down, lower…
“Maelle.” Her name leaves his lips for the first time since he opened his eyes. It’s a clumsy sound. His tongue trips on it with delight. Its syllables an invocation.
She turns to him, breaks free of him—the brother.
“Verso.” His name an echo, for that’s what they are.
She goes to him, quickly at first, and her steps grow hesitant as she comes closer. It won’t do.
He grabs her wrist, pulls her close. He can tell she’s pleased, the way she rests her head on his chest and winds their fingers together, how she cradles his hand close to her heart.
The man, Lune’s brother, approaches them.
“Hello,” he says. What Verso saw must have been a spectre. He looks an average gentleman.
“I’m Sol, Lune’s brother.” Sol extends a hand. Still in her embrace, Verso does not reach for it.
Sol takes it in stride and lowers his hand. “You must be Verso,” he says, nodding to him, then Maelle.
“Sol and I were working on harnessing my chroma without my sword,” Maelle says. She digs her chin into his chest, watching his face.
“And?” He raises a brow at her.
“I think I’ve got the hang of it, but not all the way quite yet,” she says.
“Not all the way,” Verso repeats.
“Yes, but he’s really a very good teacher. Aren’t you, Sol?” She turns to Lune’s brother.
“Is that true?” Verso says. “That you’re a very good teacher?”
Maelle giggles, hides her face in his shirt. “Stop repeating after me, you.”
“I suppose so,” Sol says, colouring. “I mean—we try our best every day. She has made some progress. The sword serves as a general conduit but we know it’s possible to harness large amounts of chroma without using it as a crutch.”
“Right,” Verso says. “Maelle.” He turns his attention to her. She’s humming something, a song, swaying in his arms.
“Yes?” she says.
“It’s time we get home.” He swallows. “It’s getting dark.”
She says goodbye to Sol. He watches them pack up her sword and shut the attaché with her jars of paint.
“It helps to visualize new ideas,” Sol says, when Verso eyes the attaché on the small table, next to a well-used palette. A large canvas sits on an easel, displaying a half-finished painting of a watery landscape: a massive waterfall rushing into a vibrant river, with a vast, sparkling sea visible in the background.
“We’re working on securing a water source with more promising longevity, thanks to the cooperation of Sciel and the Aquafarm 4 team,” Sol provides.
“I have to take more breaks than usual thinking about so much water,” Maelle says, muffling her laughter with a hand. “If you know what I mean.”
“I do, mon chou,” Verso says. The endearment surprises even him, but he waves it away. Maelle looks pleased as a kitten.
He lets her lead the way home after a final goodbye to Sol. He almost half-expects her to do something as ridiculous as give him a peck on the cheek. They’ve certainly shared a level of intimacy that Verso thinks is far too inappropriate.
“How long have you been…practising?”
“Hm?” Maelle says. She’s balancing on the curb, arms spread on either side of her. When she reaches a streetlamp she takes hold and spins around it once, before jumping down in front of him.
“With Sol,” he says.
“Oh, our lessons? Just recently. It was his idea,” she says, walking alongside him. “Before this, I was helping the committee with all the boring rebuilding. I think they were afraid to ask me anything more. But the question about the water sort of jolted—” She pushes her shoulder against his arm, swaying them to the side of the road. “—them out of it or something. Then they remembered I could be of use a different way.”
“You were recovering,” Verso muses aloud. “I’m sure they didn’t know how long it would take for you to be able to paint more.”
“Well, neither did I.” She shrugs. “I could help with a few buildings, but they’re more than capable of doing that themselves. It’s enriching.”
Verso hums.
“What?”
“Dangerous way to talk about them. They aren’t your toys or—”
“Pets?” she says. She pauses, looks at him.
“Yes,” he says, holding her gaze.
“I told you I can’t get into their heads. They’re sentient beings, Verso. With souls.” She pokes him with a finger. “Like you.” She smoothes her hand over his shirt, down the wrinkle she made.
Verso takes her hand in his. He prefers keeping it there as it gives him some sense of control, and the knowledge, at least, that she is within his grasp.
When they get home, Maelle leads him to a set of double doors on the main floor.
“I don’t recall this being here,” he says.
“It wasn’t. I painted it when you left.” She opens it, and the interior almost makes him gasp. It’s a near replica of his old piano room. Tall windows, spacious shelves and a desk holding her typewriter. There’s even the train set on the floor. At the centre sits a grand piano. It isn’t the same of course; none of the things are what he once owned. But the attention to detail is staggering. Despite being of separate minds, Aline and Alicia share this care for him.
“Well?”
Verso can’t speak. He runs his fingers through the keys and finds them to be pleasantly in-tune.
“I had them make sure it was tuned just right. I’ve never had an ear for it the way you did.”
She crosses her arms and leans against the threshold, watching him appraise her work.
“The way I do,” he corrects, looking up from the train set.
“Yes,” she says. “Of course. That’s what I meant.”
She goes up to the piano and traces its finish with the tips of her fingers. He notices that she didn’t seem to trust herself to conjure it with her own chroma, instead conceding that the better ability lay in the hands of those dedicated to the craft. He wonders what she thinks of Aline’s creations, how, left to their own devices, they were naturally inclined to pursue such a path in life.
He wonders what it must be like to be so committed to your art. It gives him pause.
“Play for me,” she says.
He hesitates. Of course he does. With a fractured memory he isn’t certain he can recall the songs he once played for her.
“Please.” She takes his hand and makes him sit, and makes herself comfortable next to him.
For a long moment, she stares at him, and he the black and white keys which call to him like an old friend. He’d taken solace in his music the years leading up to the Fracture, and once he’d been skilled enough, had written countless songs, many of which were lost in the fire. He kept them close after that, and his inspiration had changed, too. The dilemmas that once plagued him as a boy, which fueled every note on the page, dissipated in light of playing for her, writing songs for her, just to see her smile again, though he knew underneath her scars even smiling caused pain.
He shuts his eyes and her face appears before him as it once was. He knows it isn’t the same, and the guilt eats at him every day—it’s why he cannot bear the agony of such a meaningless life, especially without her, painting be damned.
But, a part of him thinks, he isn’t without her. Not entirely.
Not anymore.
“I played this…” he says, putting his hands on the keys, “for my sister.”
A small intake of breath. Verso doesn’t mean to be cruel to her, even though it may come across as such. But when he begins to play the opening notes, his fingers gliding along the keys without hesitation, she eases.
It’s an older song, something juvenile he’d played as a child, and likely one of the first pieces he ever mastered. Aline must have been proud enough to instill the ability to play it seamlessly within him too, just to further carry out her fantasy. He can imagine how blurred the lines must have been for her, especially near the end. And it only led to her losing herself not only outside the Canvas, but also within it. It’s a profoundly sad fate.
He uses the grief for her, his mother—for she was his too—his sisters, and even his father, to play harder, faster, his fingers aching from disuse. The notes rise to a crescendo, and his bones vibrate from the force he exerts on the keys as if his whole body is infused with the music and the emotion, mourning everything he has lost, all the pain he’s suffered. Until at last, it tapers into the few, final notes, lilting, almost hopeful.
They sit in silence again. He doesn’t dare look at her. He can’t.
“I recognize it,” she says shakily. “I remember it. He played it for me, on my birthdays.” She swipes a hand over her cheek.
“Did he…” Play it on that day?
“Yes,” she says, as if reading his mind.
She touches a few keys, testing the higher notes. Fiddly thing. Could never sit still, try as she might, when she wanted to get away. Like a flighty bird.
“I can play another.” He rolls his wrists and stretches his fingers, adjusts his seat on the chair.
“If it pleases you,” she says, looking up at him with red-rimmed eyes. He doesn’t mention that she invited him to play for her.
“Maybe…something different?”
“Oh,” she says, and there’s the smile. “Like what?”
“How about this?” He begins a lighter song, with an addictive melody.
She begins to bob her head, her legs twitching with the tempo.
He knows what it means.
“You can dance,” he says, pausing. She blushes, tucks her hair behind her ear.
“Alone?” A nervous laugh. “I don’t know if I can…”
“You can.”
Maelle swallows, then stands gingerly.
“I haven’t really—practised. It’s been a while and I don’t think I can—”
“Just do it,” he says, and he has to force himself not to smile. He loved watching her dance when they were children and held no inhibitions. The natural instinct upon hearing music, always, is to dance.
He resumes the song from where he left, and watches her. She sways in place, nervous at first, but as the song progresses she begins to move in step, an imaginary partner in her arms.
They’d all taken dancing lessons as Dessendre children. It was expected of them after all. The progeny of painters as renowned as Aline and Renoir Dessendre were meant to fit seamlessly with the noble class. It meant proper etiquette at the dining table and during social calls, an esteemed level of education with the best tutors money could buy, dancing lessons and tea lessons and, of course, the proper rearing of their inherited talents for the arts.
He remembers his Alicia rejecting such an upbringing nearly as stubbornly as him, though she was unable to be as subtle about it, and unfortunately bore the brunt of Aline’s scorn. She wasn’t denied her true passions by any means, as Renoir had even gifted her her treasured novels. But dance? Dance was something nobody could take from her.
Maelle moves fluidly with the music, her steps graceful, the line of her body hypnotic as she spins and steps and moves her arms and hips. He allows himself to get lost in the trance of watching her, his lids growing heavy, something simmering at the pit of his stomach. He lets the flames of want lick at his periphery, like passing a finger over a burning candle. It doesn’t hurt, but that’s what makes it so satisfying.
The song ends. She misses the final step and crumples to the floor.
He’s up in a heartbeat, goes to her.
“Maelle,” he says, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. She’s breathing hard, her cheeks flushed and eyes dewy.
He pets her fringe back, cups her face.
“Hey,” he coaxes. She blinks slowly. “There you are.”
“Is this…” She looks around the room slowly. “Real?”
Verso helps her stand. She holds onto him tightly, small hand fisting the front of his shirt.
“My…Maelle,” he says. “Come, let’s get you to bed.”
She takes a shaky step forward, and collapses into his arms with an oof and a reedy giggle.
“Sorry, I’m—can you?”
Verso picks her up gently. He tucks his arm under her legs and the other around her waist. She leans his head on his shoulder and bumps her forehead softly against his chin.
“Thanks,” she says sleepily.
He navigates them carefully up the stairs until they reach her room. When she makes no move to leave him he sighs and approaches her bed, where he sets her down on her pillowy sheets, mindful of her head all the while.
She’s looking at him, her usually bright grey eyes flat and vacant under the lamplight.
“See to it Anna gets paid for the day,” she whispers, then shuts her eyes, shuddering out a sigh.
He untucks the blanket at the foot of the bed and lays it on top of her, and underneath it she curls in a tight ball. It takes everything in him not to kneel down beside her, stroke the hair off her face and stay and talk, to make sure she’s all right.
“Get some rest,” he says instead, and forces his legs to move, and his hands to take hold of the door and to shut it behind him.