The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - V. E. Schwab Page 0,144

no sign of Matteo’s sketch, not among these finished works, but she sees those early lines reflected in his masterpiece, The Muse, sees them again in the sculpture of a face resting on a hand, the painting of a woman sitting by the sea.

She is a ghost, a gossamer, laid like film across the work.

But she is there.

She is there.

An attendant informs her they will be closing soon, and Addie thanks him, and continues on her round. She could stay, but the vast halls are not as cozy as the flat in Kensington, a gem left unattended in the winter months.

Addie pauses in front of her favorite piece, a portrait of a girl before a looking glass. Her back is to the artist, the room and girl rendered in high detail, but her reflection little more than streaks. Her face rendered only in the silver smudges of the mirror. And yet, up close, anyone would see the scattering of freckles, like floating stars against the warped grey sky.

“How clever you are,” says a voice behind her.

Addie was alone in the gallery, and now she is not.

She glances left, and sees Luc staring past her at the painting, his head inclined as if admiring the work, and for a moment, Addie feels like a cabinet, the doors flung open. She is not coiled, not wound tight with waiting, because there are still months until their anniversary.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

His mouth twitches once, relishing her surprise. “I am everywhere.”

It has never occurred to her that he could come as he pleased, that he is not bound in some way by the dates of their deal. That his visits, just like the absence of them, have always been by design—by choice.

“I see you’ve been busy,” he says, those green eyes trailing over the portrait.

She has. She has scattered herself like breadcrumbs, dusted across a hundred works of art. It would not be a simple thing for him to erase them all. And yet, there is a darkness to his gaze, a mood she distrusts.

He reaches out, trails a finger along the frame.

“Destroy it,” she says, “and I will make more.”

“It does not matter,” he says, hand falling. “You do not matter, Adeline.”

The words bite, even now.

“Take your echoes and pretend they are a voice.”

She is no stranger to Luc’s foul moods, his streaks of ill temper, brief and bright as lightning. But there is a violence to his tone tonight. An edge, and she does not think it is her cunning that’s upset him, this glimpse of her folded between the layers of the art.

No, this dark mood is one that he’s brought with him.

A shadow dragging in his wake.

But it’s been almost a century since she struck him, that night in Villon, when he struck back, reduced her to a gnarled corpse on the floor of Estele’s house. And so instead of retreating at the sight of teeth, she rises to the bait.

“You said it yourself, Luc. Ideas are wilder than memories. And I can be wild. I can be stubborn as the weeds, and you will not root me out. And I think you are glad of it. I think that’s why you’ve come, because you are lonely, too.”

Luc’s eyes flash a sickly, stormy green. “Don’t be absurd,” he sneers. “Gods are known to everyone.”

“But remembered by so few,” she counters. “How many mortals have met you more than twice—once to make a deal and once to pay the price? How many have been a part of your life as long as I have?” Addie flashes a triumphant smile. “Perhaps that’s why you cursed me as you did. So you would have some company. So someone would remember you.”

He is on her in an instant, pressing her back against the museum wall. “I cursed you for being a fool.”

And Addie laughs.

“You know, when I imagined the old gods, as a child, I thought of you as grand immortals, above the petty worries that plagued your worshipers. I thought that you were bigger than us. But you’re not. You’re just as fickle and wanting as the humans you disdain.” His hands tighten on her, but she does not quiver, does not cower, simply holds his gaze. “We are not so different, are we?”

Luc’s anger hardens, cools, the green of his eyes plunging into black. “You claim to know me so well now. Let us see…” His hand drops from her shoulder to her wrist, and too late, she realizes