The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - V. E. Schwab Page 0,176
he folded around her, swallowing her whole.
New York City
July 30, 2014
XIII
Luc’s mood lifts a little as they walk.
The night is warm, the moon barely a crescent overhead. His head falls back, and he inhales, breathing in the air as if it were not ripe with summer heat, too many people in too little space.
“How long have you been here?” she asks.
“I come and go,” he says, but she has learned to read the space between his words, and guesses he has been in New York almost as long as she has, lurking like a shadow at her back.
She doesn’t know where they are going, and for the first time, she wonders if Luc does either, or if he is simply walking, trying to put space between them and the end of their meal.
But as they make their way uptown, she feels time folding around them, and she does not know if it’s his magic or her memory, but with each passing block, she is storming from him down the Seine. He is leading her away from the sea. She is following him in Florence. They are side by side in Boston, and arm in arm on Bourbon Street.
They are here, together, in New York. And she wonders what would have happened if he hadn’t said the word. If he hadn’t tipped his hand. If he hadn’t ruined everything.
“The night is ours,” he says, turning toward her, and his eyes are bright again. “Where shall we go?”
Home, she thinks, though she cannot say it.
She looks up at the skyscrapers, surging to either side.
“Which one,” she wonders, “has the best view?”
After a moment, Luc smiles, flashing teeth, and says, “Follow me.”
* * *
Over the years, Addie has learned many of the city’s secrets.
But here is one she did not know.
It resides not underground, but on a roof.
Eighty-four stories up, reached by a pair of elevators, the first one nondescript and rising only to the eighty-first floor. The second, a direct replica of Rodin’s Gates of Hell, with its writhing bodies, clawing to escape, takes you the rest of the way.
If you have a key.
Luc draws the black card from his shirt pocket and slides it into a yawning mouth along the elevator’s frame.
“Is this one of yours?” she asks as the doors slide open.
“Nothing is really mine,” he says by way of answer as they step inside.
It is a short ascent, three brief floors, and when it stops, the doors open onto an uninterrupted view of the city.
The bar’s name winds in black letters at her feet.
THE LOW ROAD.
Addie rolls her eyes. “Was Perdition taken?”
“Perdition,” he says, eyes sparkling with mischief, “is a different kind of club.”
The floors are bronze, the railings glass, and the ceiling open to the sky, and people mill on velvet sofas and dip their feet in shallow pools, and linger along the balconies that ring the roof, admiring the city.
“Mr. Green,” says the hostess. “Welcome back.”
“Thank you, Renee,” he says smoothly. “This is Adeline. Give her anything she wants.”
The hostess looks to her, but there is no compulsion in her eyes, no sense that she has been enchanted, only the cooperation of an employee, one very good at her job. Addie asks for the most expensive drink, and Renee grins at Luc. “You’ve found yourself a match.”
“I have,” he says, resting his hand on the small of Addie’s back as he guides her forward. She quickens her step until it falls away, and weaves through the milling crowd to the glass rail, looking out over Manhattan. There are no stars visible, of course, but New York rolls away to every side, its own galaxy of light.
Up here, at least, she can breathe.
It is the easy laughter of the crowd. The ambient noise of people enjoying themselves, so much nicer than the stifled quiet of the empty restaurant, the cloistered silence of the car. It is the sky opening above her. The beauty of the city to every side, and the fact they are not alone.
Renee returns with a bottle of Champagne, a visible film of dust coating the glass.
“Dom Perignon, 1959,” she explains, holding the bottle out for inspection. “From your private case, Mr. Green.”
Luc waves his hand, and she opens the bottle, pouring two flutes, the bubbles so small they look like flecks of diamond in the glass.
Addie sips, savors the way it sparkles on her tongue.
She scans the crowd, filled with the kinds of faces you would recognize, even though you’re not sure where you’ve