Page 62 of Chateau Reverie

‘You know, and you are still here?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

Claire carefully places the candle on the ground. It’ll soon burn out: the wax is now only a small mound, near formless, the wick peeking out in a tiny black dot. When she looks back at him, her eyes are all steel and storm. No fear there. Only resolve.

‘I love you,’ she says. ‘I do not know how it can be possible to love you, in what little time we have known each other—but I do. I will not leave you here, Leander. I refuse.’

He feels sick with it, this combination of giddiness and grief, joy and regret. ‘I thought you would hate me for lying to you.’

She chokes a laugh. ‘It is you who ought to hate me. A man living without a past, and then I arrived in this place, determined to lose my own. How can you not resent me for that? No—neither of us is at fault. Both of us are. It does not matter either way. We will leave here together.’

The candle gutters at their feet, and the light distorts the space around them, casting strange silhouettes over the dirt walls.

‘You have left the auction,’ Claire says. ‘You have surrendered to your mother.’

‘Yes. I traded my freedom for your victory.’

‘You are a fool,’ she says. Oh, but she is beautiful when she’s angry; even when that anger is directed at him, he wants to fall at her feet and thank her for it. ‘You gave up your liberty for this? For a woman you have known two days?’

‘For the woman I love,’ he says. ‘I think all I’ve ever wanted, Claire, was to feel human. To feel real. You gave that to me, in the end. It’d be unfair to ask for anything else.’

Claire shakes her head. ‘You know nothing. You know so little of me, of who I am; our acquaintance has been so brief. To surrender yourself to this place for my sake? It is madness.’

‘I know enough,’ he replies, and he seizes her by the elbows. He needs her to understand. He’s selfish enough that—even if he is to sacrifice himself—she must understand why he’s doing so. ‘I have long resented my existence here, Claire. I saw so many things worth dying for: my freedom, my anger, my pain. But you gave me something worth living for, instead—even if only for a few days. Now I will repay that debt. I don’t want you to become Genevieve, but I want you to be happy. I want to give you every chance for happiness.’

The darkness around them seems to rise and fall with his desperate breathing. His eyes sting, and he is hysterical, covered in dirt. This will be the last she ever sees of him, the last he ever sees of her. The thought of that is terrifying. It’s a blade with a serrated edge, sawing and sawing.

She says, ‘If I were to change my heart’s desire—’

‘You wrote it on your invitation. There’s nothing to be done now.’

‘What if I spoke to your mother?’ Claire asks. ‘Surely she has the power to change what I am bidding for?’

Leander snarls, ‘Claire, no. She will destroy you. She’ll use it as an opportunity to take us both.’

‘I do not care.’

‘I won’t allow it.’

‘It is not your Company, Leander. It is hers. Where is she?’

‘I won’t,’ he repeats, more firmly. This stubborn creature, this demon, this saint, this woman with two names and two lives and his heart in her hands—he wants to hate her. He loves her. It is all he can do to stop himself from wrapping his arms around her and keeping her with him in the dark.

‘Then I will find her myself,’ Claire says.

He takes a step back from her, tugging at his own hair hard enough that it hurts. ‘You maddening woman, why can’t you accept this? You have what you came for: you will win the auction. You will be Genevieve. What more do you need?’

‘There must be more,’ she says, as the candle flame shakes and shudders, the wick nearly smothered by its puddle of wax. ‘I must believe that. If I remain Claire, then I must believe it is worth it. Otherwise, I might as well have died all those years ago. Otherwise, I should never have been born at all. I thought that becoming Genevieve was a way to fight, but it was not. This is my fight. This is my battle, and I will win it.’

‘Claire. . .’ he begins. But she is smiling, of all things, smiling at him as if all is well. He doesn’t know what to do, in the face of a smile as nonsensical, as perfect, as this one.

‘I could not save Genevieve de Vienne,’ she says. ‘I could not save Saliha Sultan, or Kurki, or Señor Ortiz, or Missah, or Madame Kramarov. But I can save you, Leander Sterne. I can, and I shall.’

She kisses him. As their lips meet, the candle goes out, and they are plunged into darkness.

Twenty-Four