So why haven’t you taken the pill yet?
Why are you letting the minutes race by, closing the window on when that medicine is going to be effective?
Why are you so determined to watch that bridge burn?
I step back, needing a second to regroup here. Maybe more than one. More like a thousand.
After I scoop up at least sixty, letting a minute pass, Bastien speaks again.
“It is true. She was in my arms when she went to the angels—with her own brother’s dagger buried in her chest. A dagger he meant to plunge into me.”
And there go all the rest of my seconds.
Along with all my air.
The breaths that his words snatch from the space beneath my scar.
I curl a hand into that space, as if that’s enough to calm the agonized pulses against the jagged line of marred skin. The ragged heartbeats that I still have but Magique does not.
Magique. The woman he truly loves. I am so sure of it, even now. Especially now. The grief in his words as he speaks. The agony that creases the corners of his eyes and compresses his mouth. And consumes his broken heart…
I know it because mine cracks too. Not in the way of sympathy or empathy. In the way of feeling this stuff, like I did last month when things fell apart with Justin.
Only a billion times worse.
It’s searing and shattering. I feel like I’m bursting, in none of the good ways. I can’t breathe and sure as hell can’t see. I grab the back of a chair, intending to plummet into it, but I stumble until falling against Bastien again. Nearly onto him.
Yearning to crawl inside of him.
But I can’t do that either. Never again, no matter how right it feels to think about it.
So what now?
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
I’m so desperate about it, the words tumble from me aloud.
“Je ne sais pas. Je ne sais pas.”
And the room is careening harder.
My senses are screaming louder.
I shove at Bastien’s chest. As I stumble back, I tear at my head with both hands. It’s not enough. The action confirms that my skull is still intact, but my mind isn’t.
What’s happening? What the hell is happ—
“Raegan?” Bastien isn’t helping either. His gentle tone and brushed bronze gaze are like silk sheets after I’ve only slept two hours. I long to melt back into him. But…no. No! “Ma magnifique. It is all right. I do not know either. Perhaps we can fathom it through together?”
The question is a luxurious comforter on top of the sheets. But I shake my head, forcing myself to resist. Needing to. “Je ne sais pas.” Especially when nothing but that spills out. “Je suis désolée, Bastien!” And then that.
I have to get out of here. And then I have to run.
But where?
I can’t risk being seen anywhere in the city. But I know I can’t stay in this room any longer, with this man and his world invading more and more of my thoughts. My senses. My emotions.
And dear God…my memories?
I rush across the room. When I’m at the door, I yank at the knob. When I’m on the other side, alone in the hallway, I still don’t feel any better. My thoughts are racing. My body fights my mental urges for calm. I’m thankful for D’s reassurance that nobody else is staying at the Greene. At least I don’t have to stress about faking nice to someone on their way back to their room.
A jolt of energy pulls me around as the pretend lightbulb flashes in my brain.
The other rooms…
They’re all unoccupied.
Five of them, if I remember correctly from Drue’s rundown yesterday—holy shit, was it only yesterday?—and all fully paid for another nine days. If I’m calculating correctly, two out of the five must be upstairs. That means I can try my luck at the other three.
The first two, located off the same narrow hallway as the room that Bastien and I were given, yield no joy. Secured snug and tight, without a chance of hairpinning the locks loose.
My determination pays off on the third door.
I walk right into the room, which is clearly a catch-all holding space for extras and crew. The disassembled bed parts are stored flat against one wall. Instead, two portable banquet tables are set up and surrounded by more chairs than they should really accommodate. A few used coffee cups and soda cans have been left behind, along with some jackets and aluminum water bottles.
But my eyes latch on to the best discard of all. In this moment, my ultimate treasure.
A cheap doodle pad and a cup of dull pencils.
It’s not the bells and whistles of my electronic design program, but maybe that’s a secret blessing too. Now is not for normal. The cosmos have made their point, loud and clear.
Maybe now is also a time for embracing that—but in the same stroke, forgetting it too.
From the moment I sit down, pushing back a page of hangman rounds to begin the image that takes life in my mind, I’m also celebrating it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BASTIEN
It is agonizing to let her go, but I push through the pain and set her free. This time, due to no small miracle, I keep my impatience in check, as well.
Or perhaps there is no miracle at all. Maybe it is a simple lesson called understanding.
My poor Rayonnement. All the elements that struck her at once in here…would that I did not commiserate with every one of them, but I did. With cruel clarity. The sort a person can only have from recent experience. I know what it is like to be so stunned, only a dazed fugue is possible for relating to the world. Of forming sentences one painful word at a time. When even that fails, of withdrawing into safer places inside one’s spirit. But even then, not finding the familiar fallback—and deciding to run.
And being given the freedom for that flight.
She gave me that gift yesterday, so I compel myself to return the favor today. She has left behind her phone device, so I know she will not go far. Or perhaps that is a desperate wish, since I doubt my tracking abilities will be of use in a forest of concrete and glass. Or my talents for hunting, fighting, and falconry.
I do congratulate myself for determining that the little box labeled TV Remote has something to do with the shiny monstrosity crafted by the artist named Sony. This modern wonder serves to gobble up the next three hours of my existence, as I discover that foam packing pods are useful in city rooftop gardens, the Knicks shall be playing the Nets tonight and are favored to win, and someone on The View is making a great deal of other people upset and they have gathered on a net to express it together.
But out of all that, I am most fascinated with a selection that features dazzling minstrel performances called Big Apple Spectaculars. I am puzzled about the title, since no apples of any size are in the scenes, but the pageantry of the presentations has me overlooking the omission in favor of an awestruck stare—especially since several of the musical stories are said to be set in Paris.
But if the set pieces are to be believed, the city has grown into more than anything I dreamed. Paris, not Versailles, is now heralded as a global icon, with a soaring opera house, a grand golden tower, a mysterious phantom, and courtesans more elaborate than Louis’s palais beauties. Those courtesans do a dance called the cancan, and I wonder if my pupils separate from my eyes while watching it.