Chapter Seventeen Claire
My brother may defend your species, but I see you for what you are: self-anointed gods. You would be wise to remember that you are made of stardust, and to stardust I can return you.
—Words of warning from Noctu to the Immortals
Translated from The Tale of Stars (L’Histoire des étoiles), Part II: The Book of Dark Days
Chapter Seventeen
Claire
In a slice of moonlight between the curtains, I sit awake in bed and prop Abel’s journal against my blanket-covered thighs. Fingers clenched around the edges, my thumbnail digs into the name on the bottom corner. The meager light gives the gold-stamped letters a glow, soft as fireflies.
ABEL ESTELLIO
If I could, I would go back to the lobby and put myself in a separate room with a single bed and space to breathe, away from Abel and the ghostly dragon skull he propped against the wall.
Alone, I could remind myself that it’s safer to live under different names in different places, making marks out of men who deserve a little dose of misfortune.
Here, I’m forced to listen to the soft breathing of a boy about whom I cannot, for the life of me, determine whether he is my savior or my doom.
Abel Estellio: slayer of dragons, friend to girls with blood on their hands.
If he can overlook a throat slit by a human hand, can’t he overlook an unwitting dragon?
I should’ve opened the journal the second after I left him with Marshal Bard.
Why didn’t I?
The day I joined the Dames Blanches, Anne-Sophie taught me to pick my marks with a moral code.
Usually, I pickpocket men who leer at me.
They can look all they want—their coins become a payment for their objectification of me.
That code means I can walk away with my pride intact and head held high.
With her help, I created a permanent mask: a pushy, selfish, manipulative Claire who takes what she wants and leaves people in the dust.
But in the carriage, Abel—knowing the thief I am—handed me his most valuable possession, no questions asked. For the first time since I left Anne-Sophie, I was given something priceless: trust.
I run my fingers over the beat-up leather. This journal contains a seed of hope, but it’s also Abel’s biggest secret. I press a hand to my chest. My every heartbeat aches with a poisonous twang of guilt. It isn’t fair for me to feel this. I should take what I deserve without a shred of remorse.
When I tried to kiss Abel, my mask cracked.
I don’t know what I wanted from him. Nothing meaningful, I’m sure. After traveling alone for so long, I only know how to survive.
But I don’t want survival. I want a full life, with a community I can depend on, where Diu’s curse doesn’t dictate my every move.
To get that life, I must remember that Abel is a mark.
A means to an end. I cannot spend my days with him in a fantasy land when I haven’t gotten rid of the monster inside me.
I stroke Lucy, who sleeps curled up at my side.
A silent prayer to the Dames Blanches on my lips, I open the journal and read.