The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - V. E. Schwab Page 0,69

remembers her.

How? How? The question thuds with the drum of her heart, but in this moment, Addie does not care.

In this moment, she is holding to the sound of her name, her real name, on someone else’s tongue, and it is enough, it is enough, it is enough.

Paris, France

July 29, 1720

XIII

The stage is set, the places ready.

Addie smooths the linen on the table, arranges the porcelain plates, the cups—not crystal, but still glass—and draws the dinner from its hamper. It is no five-course meal, served by glamoured hands, but it is fresh and hearty fare. A loaf of bread, still warm. A wedge of cheese. A pork terrine. A bottle of red wine. She is proud of her collection, prouder still of the fact she had no magic, save the curse, by which to gather it, could not simply cut her gaze, say a word, and will it so.

It is not only the table.

It is the room. No stolen chamber. No beggar’s hovel. A place, for now at least, to call her own. It took two months to find, a fortnight to fix up, but it was worth it. From the outside it is nothing: cracked glass and warping wood. And it’s true, the lower floors have fallen into disrepair, home now only to rodents and the occasional stray cats—and, in winter, crowded with bodies seeking any form of shelter—but it is the height of summer now, and the city’s poor have taken to the streets, and Addie has claimed the top floor for herself. Boarded up the stairs and carved a way in and out through an upper window, like a child in a wooden fort. It is an unconventional entrance, but it is worth it for the room beyond, where she has made herself a home.

A bed, piled high with blankets. A chest, filled with stolen clothes. The windowsill brims with trinkets, glass and porcelain and bone, gathered and assembled like a line of makeshift birds.

In the middle of the narrow room, a pair of chairs set before a table covered in pale linen. And in its center, a bundle of flowers, picked in the night from a royal garden and smuggled out in the folds of her skirt. And Addie knows none of it will last, it never does—a breeze will somehow steal away the totems on her mantel; there will be a fire, or a flood; the floor will give way or the secret home will be found and claimed by someone else.

But she has guarded the pieces this past month, gathered and arranged them one by one to make a semblance of a life, and if she’s being honest, it is not only for herself.

It is for the darkness.

It is for Luc.

Or rather, it is to spite him, to prove that she is living, she is free. That Addie will give him no hold, no way to mock her with his charity.

The first round was his, but the second will be hers.

And so she has made her home, and readied it for company, fastened up her hair and dressed herself in russet silk, the color of fall leaves, even cinched herself into a corset despite her loathing of bone stays.

She has had a year to plan, to design the posture she will strike, and as she straightens up the room she turns barbs over in her mind, sharpening the weapons of their discourse. She imagines his thrusts, and her parries, the way his eyes will lighten or darken as the conversation turns.

You have grown teeth, he said, and Addie will show him how sharp they have become.

The sun has gone down now, and all that’s left to do is wait. An hour passes, and her stomach growls with want as the bread goes cold in its cloth, but she doesn’t allow herself to eat. Instead, she leans out the window and watches the city, the shifting lights of lanterns being lit.

And he doesn’t come.

She pours herself a glass of wine, and paces, as the stolen candles drip, and wax pools on the table linen, and the night grows heavy, the hours first late, and then early.

And still he doesn’t come.

The candles gutter and snuff themselves out, and Addie sits in the dark as the knowledge settles over her.

The night has passed, the first threads of daylight creeping into the sky, and it is tomorrow now, and their anniversary is over, and five years have become six without his presence, without his face, without his asking