“Very well, then. Who am I?” he mused. “I’m . . . a man.” Something glinted in his gaze.
Celine eyed him sidelong, her expression sardonic.
“I’m the son of people from different worlds,” he continued, his smile lingering. “My mother was a free woman of color, and my father was Taíno.” He paused. “For too short a time, I was also”—a shadow crossed his face—“a brother. After I lost my family, I became a nephew. My uncle brought me back to New Orleans at the age of nine, and I lived here until I was sent to the academy, where—barring a rather unfortunate incident—I almost became a soldier.” A hint of bitter amusement touched his lips. “Now I handle my uncle’s affairs when he is away on business.” He raised a shoulder. “I suppose that’s the whole of it.”
Celine refrained from calling him out. Bastien may not have told any falsehoods, but he’d obfuscated the truth, distilling the whole of his life down to nothing more than a few particulars. A fount of questions gathered in her throat. Michael’s admonition from days earlier rang through her mind, spurring her to press Bastien for details, so that she might understand the full extent of the Ghost’s unhappy tale.
She chose to ignore this desire. It would be easier to take on those concerns tomorrow than bear their weight tonight.
“You can ask me, Celine,” Bastien said. “After all, Michael didn’t tell you everything.” Caustic humor laced his words.
“Of course he didn’t. I’m certain it hasn’t escaped your notice how much he hates you.”
“The feeling is most assuredly mutual.” His grin reeked of arrogance.
“May I ask why?”
“You may. But I may not answer. Since I promised not to lie.”
Celine’s lips were caught between silence and speech for an instant. “Very well,” she grumbled. “For what it’s worth, Arjun is a wretched spy.”
He snorted. “As well as an excellent attorney.”
“For fiends and scoundrels alike.” She paused. “But in all seriousness . . . what happened to your family?” This, at least, she wished to know in this moment.
A look of blank apathy settled onto his beautiful face. “My mother died six months after my sister. Following their deaths, my father took me from New Orleans to Saint Domingue. He fell ill soon thereafter, so we moved to his home in San Juan.”
“And . . . how did your sister die?”
“She was killed in an accident, at the age of fifteen.” Though Bastien’s reply sounded indifferent, his features hardened for an instant, anger flashing behind his eyes before his artful mask slipped back into place. There was a story there. A source of immense pain. But Celine did not wish to press Bastien on the matter. Not yet. “My father succumbed to his illness a short while later, after which I returned to New Orleans,” he finished.
An invisible hand gripped Celine’s heart in a vise. It troubled her how Bastien spoke about loss in such a matter-of-fact tone. Perhaps that was how he talked about things that truly mattered to him, in cold, detached fashion.
“I’ve heard many people say tragedy shapes us,” Bastien continued. “But I am not the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, nor am I the worst thing I’ve ever done. Nothing in life is that simple.” He looked across the darkened streets of New Orleans, his gaze steady. Determined.
His words were like a blow to Celine. Every day she denied parts of herself. Tried to hide the worst thing that had happened to her, the worst thing she’d ever done. Her entire life, she’d denied who her mother was, as if it were some kind of great shame. Because of this, she knew nothing about half her past. Half of her own story.
Since the age of four, she’d been told this was the only way.
“Do you ever wish you could be someone else?” Celine asked, her tone solemn.
“Often. Especially when I was a boy.” Bastien turned toward her. “And you?”
Celine blanched.
“Don’t lie to me.” Bastien repeated her earlier words: “Tonight we deal only in truths.”
“Which is . . . difficult, since my whole life is built on a lie.”
It was honest. More honest than Celine had ever been with anyone in her life.
She breathed in deeply through her nose. “My mother was from a Far Eastern country. I was never told which one. But . . . I am of mixed heritage, from a marriage of East and West,” Celine blurted, almost as if her own admission startled her. “I’ve never said