Maximillian has hauled me away, beneath the awning that covers the boardinghouse’s back patio, to issue his answer. All too swiftly, I have learned why.
His answer is nowhere near a laughing matter.
“A revolution.”
I shake my head while reiterating my brother’s terminology—and extending some silent gratitude for the cold air that gusts up the alley. Fortunately, the rain has abated for now. But if Maximillian has more stunning truths to impart, I might be wishing for another downpour as well.
“For eleven years?”
A grim nod from Max. “What you experienced—and me, shortly after—was barely the beginning of it all.”
Of it all.
Another collection of words, atop his others, that should not represent so much more. Revolts and revisions. Arrests and accusations. And a horrible Reign of Terror…
“And Robespierre led the chaos?”
“Among many others,” he supplies. “Sieyès, Danton, Lafayette…but the most famous was probably Bonaparte.”
“Bonaparte?” I lurch to my feet. “That small, twitchy man? Now I know you surely play, brother.”
He is too damn somber for comfort. “Well, the twitchy gentleman was eventually crowned emperor.”
I pace a few steps, about all I can manage in the confines beneath the alley’s large puddles. “Perhaps it was fortuitous that Kavia got us out.”
“Both of us.”
He stresses the syllables as if they are incantations of their own. Meaningful ones. Before turning back around, I am already aware of the places from which they emerge. His huge heart. His boundless spirit. Max is a unique human being, genuine and intense about the way he loves—applicable, as well, to the way he grieves. I cannot fathom what it was like for him to do so in such a strange new world, thinking I was murdered along with Mother and Father.
But clearly, he has found his way here. And done so with so much joy, shining from his whole being, as he grins anew at me. “St. Peter’s balls, Bast. I still cannot believe you are here.”
I lean back against a dry part of the wall. “I do not think I do yet.”
But now, beholding the ongoing awe in his gaze, I am beginning to. No matter how staggering it might be.
My God.
I am supposed to be dead.
But I definitely am not.
I already know the how of it, especially after confirming it all by exchanging a few cursory sentences with Max. A few key phrases were all I needed to hear.
Escaping from a mob.
Kavia and Carl.
Wardrobe on fire.
Surreal. Unreal. And yet the truth…that now feels like so long ago.
I am a different man now.
And, just a few minutes after being reunited with him, I know Maximillian is too.
“But now…we must focus on keeping you here.”
I snap my head up, shaking free from my newfound fascination with the tops of my feet. It takes another second for Max’s declaration to set in—and to formulate a reply as dazed as my first one.
“Keeping me?” I cant my head. “Why the hell would you want to do that?”
He scowls as if my brain has toppled out of my skull. “Because the alternative is not acceptable.” He emphasizes with a stomp, turning a smaller puddle into silver drops against the alley lights. “You do remember what happens in the original version of this story, right? In 1789, you die, brother.”
I attempt a smirk. “As you have made me well aware, Maximilian.”
He clenches his jaw. “Then why—”
“Because if I do not go back, or even try to, she dies.”
That relaxes his jaw but puckers his brow. “She who?”
“Magique De Lys.” I have to order my shoulders down from my ears before going on. “Just before Carl and Kavia found me and put me in the cabinet, she was murdered before my eyes.”
“Désolé.”
While I know he means it, the sentiment does not get completed in his eyes. His gaze rakes across the empty air, as if he is searching the invisible molecules for specific information. “Magique de Lys,” he repeats. “Was she not the Versailles salon servant with whom you were having a fun bit of bread and butter?”
“You mean the woman whom I asked to be my wife?”
At once, his gape grows. “Oh.”
That rings with more sincerity. I dip a nod of appreciation. Max had no way of knowing what Magique had come to mean to me. How much she still means, considering it has been impossible to forget her. These bizarre circumstances have given me no choice.
A predicament that Maximillian deserves to know in full.
“I was with her…minutes before Kavia put me into the wardrobe. But she was killed before my eyes. Taken by the blade of a Jacobin lunatic.”
He swears. I yearn to join him but must focus on holding back the additional part of the revelation. That the zealot was Magique’s own brother.
“I thought my own story had some insane parts.”
I flatten my spine along the wall. The reinforcement is needed now.
“And that is hardly not the end of mine.”
Another gritted swear word. “There is more?”
I steel myself again before going on. “Raegan Tavish…”
Despite how calmly I approach the pronunciation, the syllables are like sparks on my lips and tongue. More markedly, they ignite things in Maximillian too. Things that have my posture stiffer than the wall behind it.
“Is part of the team who saved my life,” he growls. “So just to be clear here, brother. If you have led her to believe—”
I pummel the wall with both fists. Just one pound. Fortunately, it is enough. “I have led her nowhere.”
The corners of his eyes tighten. “Meaning what?”
Another long inhalation. An exhalation that feels like hell. “She is a mirror image of Magique.”
I am unsure what to expect now. But Maximillian’s continued calm is not on that list.
“You are mistaken,” he decrees. “You must be.”
He is not the only De Leon with knowledge of quiet control.
“If Kavia reappeared and hurled you through time again, would you forget Alessandra’s face?”
His nostrils flare. He flicks a glance toward me—a silent and grudging touché. “But just her face?” he prods. “There is nothing below her neck to tell you—”
“I have learned enough.” While I know he will not press for every intimate detail behind that, I acknowledge he will not settle for four plain words. “The scar on her chest…it is the exact same location where Magique was stabbed.”
He believes me. I see it now. I just wish the confidence felt better, especially as he paces toward the other end of the awning.
Once there, he does not turn. One of his long arms extends over his close-coifed head, bracing to a support pole for the canopy. He looks up into the mist that clings to the air. The blue-silver light from the artificial lights traces an interesting line along his strong, determined profile.
“So you think they are connected somehow? Magique and Raegan?”
“Unsure.” I drop my stare back to the tops of my feet, hoping my tone conveys that sincerity. “But ever since I got here, there have been instances…”