Chapter Thirty-Seven
Theodore
There is something terrifying about Nikolai Alilovi? that makes me feel all too much like a frightened pup, rather than the beast I’ve been so afraid of my entire life.
He is handsome in the way sculptures of Lucifer are handsome—otherworldly almost, chiseled and carved as if from the hands of God himself.
The beard on his chin is just long enough to be considered dashing, yet short enough to seem scruffy and roguish, and while his dark hair is longer than most gentlemen prefer these days, the gentle waves framing his face suit him, the stark white sections at his temples even moreso.
Yet while he is achingly polite, and his blood-splatter eyes are unexpectedly kind, my heart still thunders against my ribs whenever we cross paths in the halls or he joins us in the parlor.
I cannot help but feel like prey, frozen at the edge of a meadow where a predator lurks in the shadows.
Like something deep inside me is biologically created to fear this creature.
Even my hunger has no interest in him, perhaps unwilling to fight for food against something with sharper teeth.
Despite his kind eyes and his polite performance, there is no mistake that he is as vicious as his daughter when given reason to be, and as soon as the truth came out about her death, he’d given Kolfina an offer of judgement.
“By right, his life is yours,” he’d said, his gaze locked on hers, digging, searching. Hungry to know what she would choose. “If you wish to seek revenge on him, the Court will support you. You need only say so.”
And she had. She’d considered it for a long moment, conflicting emotions playing in her pretty hazel eyes.
Then she straightened her shoulders and gave him a single, decisive nod.
Invitations were sent out the next morning—two for the other heads of the Court to inform them of the decision, a handful to Azizi’s siblings to invite them along for the ruse, and one for Lord Walden de Klein, the guest of honor, inviting him to dinner under the guise of apologizing for what happened at Lord Macabre’s party.
After that, it became a game of waiting.
Kolfina spends the next few days adjusting, coping with the truth and the memories, fading in and out of view in no discernible pattern.
Azizi, as she is wont to do, has secluded herself away in her studio, having woken up the next day with a spark in her eye and inspiration twitching at her fingertips.
We’ve hardly seen her since, though that is not unusual.
Still, I wonder how much of her absence is due to her sudden inspiration, and how much of it is an avoidance of her father’s supposed disappointment.
Loathe as I am to discredit her feelings, I cannot help but disagree with them.
There is no disappointment in Lord Alilovi?’s eyes when I find him standing in the tea room at the end of the week, observing one of Azizi’s charcoal sketches I decided to hang upon the wall a month or so ago—one of Kolfina and I on the chaise in Azizi’s studio, Kolfina’s head resting in my lap and my hand plunged into her chest.
There are still wrinkles in the parchment from when Azizi crumpled it up and tossed it across the room, but I’d ironed out as much as I could without smudging the charcoal and found an old frame just big enough to display it.
Whether or not Azizi knows it’s here at all, I have no idea, but Lord Alilovi? seems engrossed in it.
"I have always been fascinated with those who can create such exquisite beauty with such few materials," he says when I join him.
His voice is both ancient and youthful, and there is a heavy Italian accent riding on the back of his tongue.
He does not look at me, but I can feel the weight of his attention as he scrutinizes the work hung before him.
"My Azizi has always had a particular talent in it.
It is almost as if her paintings are alive, as if the hearts within them beat and the monsters hidden in the coal and oil are staring back at you. Don't you agree?"
When he finally looks down at me, I cannot help but feel two feet tall beneath his gaze.
I know I have no reason to think this—so far, he has not looked at me with anything other than fondness—but it feels all too much like temptation.
Like a scorpion luring a frog across the water. A hunter luring a fox from its den.
I swallow the urge to run, fight back my instincts telling me not to turn away from the man as I do so anyway, looking instead at the drawing he stands in front of.
"She is incredible," I answer, stupidly proud when my voice does not waver. "I've had the honor of seeing a great many of her more private works, and she pours herself into each one. I think that is what gives it the life we see."
Lord Alilovi? hums, folding his hands behind his back. "You do not think all artists do the same? Pour themselves into their work to give it life?"
I think about the question for a moment, remembering the painting of the chateau that still hangs in the foyer and the bland frescoes that decorate the church in my village.
“I think there is a difference between those who use their own selves to create, and those who simply make art for the sake of it. "
"How do you mean?"
He is looking at me again. I can feel the weight of his stare, the poking of his curiosity as he scrutinizes me the same as he has done the drawing.
I consider my words carefully. While they come easily enough when I've a pen in my hand, they often find themselves lost on their journey to my mouth. My father says I was born with my mind in my fingertips, rather than my head. I cannot say I disagree.
"Before I answer, may I ask why you chose Azizi all those years ago, when you found her as a child?" I look up to him, forcing myself not to flinch when he meets my gaze. "Azizi said that all the children you've adopted, the ones you've turned, you did so for a reason, yes? What was the reason?"
His head tilts at the question, something almost like a smile twitching at the edge of his lips. Like I have asked something he did not expect. Or perhaps something he did.
"They are, each of them, very different," he begins, turning to face me more fully, as if to show that he is fully invested in the conversation, "and yet I have chosen them all for the same reason, aside from my Dorian of course, who was born from me. Each of my children has a passion and skill for art that surpasses many I have seen before. They were all very young, most of them destitute or orphaned, with no connections to help them cultivate those skills.” He gestures toward the door I came from where two marble busts stand at the base of the stairs.
“As a sculptor, I have a heartfelt passion for the arts myself.
I had the benefit of knowing someone in my youth who gave me the opportunities to explore my love of sculpting, and I benefited exponentially from it. "
Music spills from upstairs, drawing our attention momentarily. Jonas, I imagine, as he’d been spending most of the week in Kolfina’s music room. A genuine smile graces Lord Alilovi?’s lips this time, the expression beautiful and devastating on his handsome face.
"I met each of them by happenstance, really. My little darling Azizi was an orphan working for a Parisian church, restoring their art pieces in exchange for room and board. I saw the fire burning inside her when she sketched in the parks, away from the services, and I watched it slowly dull, threatening to sputter out completely if left to rot within the church’s walls.
It was rather devastating, if I'm to be honest."
I don't have to imagine it to understand what he means. Too many times, I've walked in on Azizi working on one of her more "palatable" works, as she likes to call them. The ones she paints for other people, rather than herself.
There is never any light in her eyes when she works on those. No excitement for the image to take form, no pride upon finishing. Just frustration and desperation.
"This, however, is why I turned her." Lord Alilovi? runs a finger along the simple frame, an almost dreamy haze to his eyes as he stares at the charcoal figures lounging in an unfinished room.
"She allowed me to sit with her one day in the park and watch her sketch, and before I left, I asked if she might draw me something for the next time we meet.
Anything she wanted, so long as it came from her heart.
When I returned a week later, she presented me with a small drawing of an animal skeleton in a cobbled alley.
I still have it on display in my office. "
He blinks, as if pulling himself back from the memory, and he smiles down at me.
"That is why I choose the ones I bring into my family. They have talent that has been squandered and crushed, yet I believe the world would be a better place if they were given the means to flourish instead."
"I understand why Azizi speaks so highly of you," I tell him, the fear from earlier finally managing to putter away under the light of the man's pride for his children.
It is the same light my own father holds when looking at me.
Unashamed. Unconditional. "I think the same reason you took Azizi and the others in is what makes her a different sort of artist than others. "
Is it strange to be speaking of this with her father? I know Azizi's worries over his opinion. I have seen how quickly she will spiral into madness and obsession at the mere thought of his disappointment.
Perhaps that is why it's so easy to tell him these things. To make him see what I see. To make sure he knows how wonderful and talented she is no matter how little of her work he actually sees.