Chapter 38 Love
LOVE
Take root in me.
Plant your teeth like seeds.
My skin, your earth,
My sex, your sea.
Dolericym, God of Song and Sorrow
Tonight at midnight, everything will be fixed. Everything will be perfect. There will be a cost, but at this point, Claudia doesn’t care what—or who—it is. As long as she gets to keep her life and Cassius gets to keep his, she’ll do whatever it takes. Desperate times call for merciless measures.
Filled with a newfound hope, Claudia goes to the Treaty for breakfast. She smiles when she walks into the room and sees her friends.
Alistair, Angel, Marcherie, and Cassius are all sitting together at their table.
The four of them wordlessly look up at her at the same time.
Their eyes widen as Claudia approaches on her own for the first time in weeks.
“Hi,” she says excitedly.
They don’t speak until Cassius says, “Hi.”
“May I sit?”
They look at one another warily before they all nod.
While she sits with them, warming in their presence, color and sweetness seep back into the world—Marcherie’s lavender-and-chamomile cookies; the earthy scent of Alistair’s breakfast tea; Angel’s black coffee and fresh scones; Cassius’s peaches drenched in honey.
All this time, everything has smelled and tasted like nothing.
Now, coming back to life, everything looks divine.
It’s like she’s been given a second chance at life, and all the things she’s taken for granted are now little miracles.
The music of spoons clinking in porcelain teacups; the way her chair creaks below her because the legs are slightly uneven; looking into a loved one’s eyes.
They’re all so beautiful. For the first time, she’s noticing hidden cuts of color in all of them.
She once thought Alistair’s were all brown, but they’re not—they’re sliced with green blades like the first day of spring.
And Marcherie’s aren’t brown, either; they’re reddish and gold, like pomegranate seeds in a gilded bowl.
Angel’s eyes are so dark they’re almost black, and they shine like pure obsidian.
And then, of course, there’s Cassius. Bright, deep, raging blue. A swirl of thin clouds and rough waters and drops of midnight. There is so much beauty here. So much she almost missed. So much she’ll appreciate now that she knows how it would feel to lose it.
“I’m sorry,” she finally says. “Things have been bad, but they’re getting better.”
They’re still silent.
“I know you all probably want nothing to do with me after how I’ve behaved, but—”
Alistair cuts her off with, “Are you coming back to us? Really?”
She smiles. “I’m back.” Her hand slides over Cassius’s knee. “I’m back.”
Cassius stiffens beneath her touch. He tries to fight the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. His cheeks burn red. He turns to her and says, “Welcome home, Star Girl. I missed you.”
“I missed you, too.”
Alistair clears his throat, demanding her attention.
She smiles again. “I missed you the most, Alis.”
“Good,” he says with a wink.
“I’m so happy to see you well, Claudia,” Angel says.
Marcherie looks at her expectantly. “Did you miss me?”
Claudia surprises herself when she says, “You know, I think I actually did.”
Marcherie smirks. “I think I missed you, too.”
Claudia gives them each a long, sincere look. Her gaze stays with Alistair. “I’m so sorry for everything. I promise I will never leave again.”
They speak rapidly, trying to fit weeks’ worth of updates into the short time they have before they’re supposed to go to class.
Alistair and Angel recently celebrated their two-month anniversary.
Marcherie wrote her first entire opera—libretto and all—that will debut next week.
She’ll be playing the titular role of Antigone.
Cassius has been laboring over a new piece for publication, tentatively titled “The Rhetoric of Sympathy: An Autoethnographic Exploration of How Others Speak to Survivors of Paternal Suicide.” The idea came to him after detention, he says.
It’s the best, most honest, and most transformative piece he’s ever written.
Claudia has missed so much. Too much.
But she won’t miss anything ever again. After tonight, she’ll never be parted from this group as long as they live.
Halfway through describing the set design for her opera, Marcherie yawns and rubs her eyes. “Apologies. My sleep has been terrible lately. Last night was the worst.”
“Another nightmare?” Angel asks, and Marcherie nods.
“Nightmare?” Claudia asks quickly. “You’re having nightmares?”
“Is it any wonder, with all she’s been through?” Cassius says. “I’m surprised they only just started.”
“I’ve had nightmares about Odette before. But these are different. These feel—and look—so real. I almost wonder if—”
“Marchie, darling. Don’t go there,” Alistair says. “It’s not real.”
“But I saw—” She stops herself and closes her eyes, chewing on her bottom lip. “You’re right. I know.”
Claudia can’t help but ask, “What did you see?”
Alistair kicks her below the table, but she ignores him.
“I saw Odette hovering above me, pale as the moon. Floating like a star. Her eyes were wide and bloodshot. And she had this awful, dripping smile that didn’t look human.”
“Oh gods, March. I’m sorry,” Claudia says.
Maybe Lamour is right. Maybe Odette is just a terrifying ghost haunting them all. If Odette’s ghost is here, it makes sense why she haunts Marcherie in such a vivid, visceral way.
When the clock chimes twice, everyone in the Treaty stands and heads for class. Claudia and Cassius are supposed to go to Olivier’s lecture, but once they break from the rest of the group, he stops her in the hall.
“Claudia.”
Her eyes land where he holds her wrist before she looks up at him. “Cassius.”
He waits for her to speak further, but she doesn’t. After an incredulous laugh, he says, “I need a little explanation.”
She grabs his hands and kisses his knuckles. “I can tell you everything tomorrow.”
“That’s not enough.”
She knows he’s right, but she can’t tell him everything before she’s fixed it. In fact, she doesn’t ever intend to tell him the whole truth. After tonight, she’ll have to craft a perfect lie to excuse her behavior.
But there is one truth she can tell him now.
One truth that’s more important than everything else.
One truth she’s been dying to tell him for far too long.
She takes a deep breath and looks up into his eyes. “I love you.”
Stunned, he stands perfectly still as a statue. “What did you just say?”
“I said I love you. I’ve loved you since the night of The Deer and the Daughter. I’ve fallen harder and harder every day, and I held back because I thought our love was doomed to fail. Now I know it’s not.”
He still looks confused, but Claudia can’t wait any longer.
Balancing on the tips of her toes, she kisses him.
His mouth parts against hers and his hands flex at her back.
Her fingers tighten in his soft black hair.
He tastes better than she remembered—like nectar, like autumn, like time standing still.
It takes all her willpower to pull herself back and ask, “What are you thinking?”
Bewildered and breathless, he says, “I love you, too.”
As they stand in the center of the corridor, eyes locked, chests heaving in shared rhythm, the rest of the world fades away.
Bustling crowds blur, unnoticed. All other sounds grow quiet.
There is only Cassius—the strong heat of his body, the sweet smell of his skin, the tease of his grip tightening upon the small of her back.
“We should go somewhere,” he says.
“Your room.”
He nods. “Come.”
Hand in hand, they rush through the halls, crashing through walls of students and stumbling around sharp corners.
Their steps echo through the Musices wing, percussing the men’s choir as they rehearse Machaut’s “Sanctus.” Claudia’s heart is pounding harder than it ever has before.
They cut through the Lexora, earning harsh whispers from Mrs. Winters and several students hunched over tomes.
When they reach Cassius’s door, Claudia can’t hold herself back.
She takes his face into her hands and kisses him, sliding her tongue against his and moaning into his mouth.
Locked in her embrace, he fumbles with the key and shoves the door open.
Hooking his hands beneath her thighs, he picks her up and moves his hold to her hips as she wraps her legs around his waist. Not once does their kiss break.
Cassius kicks the door closed behind him and carries Claudia to the bed.
He lays her down and crawls on top of her, hands roaming her body as though he’s worried she’ll disappear.
Claudia’s hands race down Cassius’s robes and pull them off over his head, along with his shirt.
While he removes his trousers and underwear, she tears off her own robes and tosses them over her head.
Her underdress is so thin it feels like they’re already skin to skin.
Cassius pulls back, his body trembling.
“Claudia,” he says through a breath.
“Cassius.”
“Please don’t ever leave like that again.”
“I won’t,” she says quickly, but Cassius’s face remains tense. She runs her fingers along his face, his shoulders, stopping at his chest. Her right hand rests over his heart. “I promise.”
“How can I know?” His voice is desperate. He needs more assurance, more security, so that he can give in to this moment. Claudia knows she owes that to him.
She brushes his hair out of his eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.
Tell me what you need in order to believe me and I’ll give it to you.
You can carve your name over my heart or put a ring on my finger or tie me to your bedposts so I can’t leave.
Anything you want. Mark me in a way that lets you know I’m yours forever. ”
His eyes darken. He takes her wrists and pins them down on the bed, framing her face. “Is that what you want? Do you want me to tie you down and make you mine?”
“Yes.”