Chapter Thirty-Four Abel
A slayer should never know the terror of waiting in a fire cellar. Better to face a dragon than your own helplessness.
—Official slayer training curriculum
Chapter Thirty-Four
Abel
In the following hour, guests reclaim their personal belongings. Housekeeping moves their inventory back to the rooms. The fire cellar empties until it’s just me, Lucy, and Claire who remain where we are.
Claire finally—finally—shifts in her sleep. Absentmindedly, she drapes her arm across my stomach.
“Ma belle.” I tap the knot between her eyebrows. “It’s time to wake.”
Her eyelashes flutter. Those cherry-brown eyes turn from bleary to clear in the space of a blink. Lucy takes that as permission to dive in and out of the folds of her skirts. Claire gathers her close and laughs while she licks her cheek.
“Bonjour, ma Luciole,” Claire chimes. She looks at me with a smile so normal, it hurts. “How about breakfast?”
Claire, bright and alert, has left to retrieve food. An irresistible pull to reread my research takes over my body. Bile burns the back of my throat, but I turn the pages with a fervor I didn’t have when I experimented on Micah.
Not fervor—hope.
The doorknob turns. I slam the journal shut and stuff it inside the drawer, just in time for her to lock the door behind her.
She shakes a paper bag. “Chocolate croissants, fresh from the kitchens.”
She hums as she drops onto the bed beside me.
This doesn’t feel normal. It’s like I’m examining her through a magnifying glass.
Everything is warped at the edges, my focus too narrow.
As vital as it is to her, to society, and to the safety of Florent that I keep my promise to slay her, the fact remains that when I first performed my experiments, I missed something behavioral.
“Chocolate croissants are new,” I say to distract myself. “I thought we’d exhausted the inn’s menu.”
“I may have slipped the chef a coin or two to add chocolate chips. And whipped cream with strawberries.”
I let her feed me a bite. She thumbs a smudge of chocolate from the corner of my mouth and licks it.
“Better than expected,” she quips.
I’m considering how to counter when Lucy crawls into her lap. Of course. I take my croissant and aim for conversation instead. “What’s the occasion?”
“Oh, just a small thank-you for the ball.” She feeds a strawberry to Lucy. “You should do your stretches twice today. Your arm was shaking while we danced.”
Damn. I hoped she didn’t notice. More wishful thinking. She’s too sharp for that.
I brush a hair away from the cream on her upper lip. “Do you remember what you said to me about wanting to go north?”
She nods, to my surprise.
“Where in the north, specifically?” I ask.
“To the mountains. The Northern Alps, I suppose.”
“Why? What makes you want to go there?”
Claire scratches Lucy’s ears to distract her from the croissants. Her stare finds the icy window. Snowflakes drift down to the street below and turn to gray slush in the gutters.
“You don’t fully understand the desire yourself?” I guess.
“It’s more like an impulse than a goal. I want to go there because I want to feel smaller.
Less significant.” Claire takes a deep breath and closes her eyes.
“Like my problems aren’t as big as they are.
If I can see the world from a higher vantage point and feel like there’s more to it than just myself… I think I can go in peace.”
“You are significant. Nothing can change that.”
I pull her against me and try my damnedest not to break down.
If that’s her reason, then there’s no divine hand at work here, no prophetic message in her words, and no god pulling the strings on a hidden purpose.
Diu picked her for punishment. No more, no less.
Claire thought this through. She’s chosen her place to die.
I let her go before I hold too tightly. “We’d better start packing.”
Someone pounds on the door, loud enough to startle Lucy under the pillows.
“This is Marshal Bard. Open up.”
I mutter a curse, then open the door. “Someone better be dead.”
That’s when his expression turns grave. Dread strangles my airway. My old friend cruelty sets in at the recesses of my mind—and, horrified, I banish it as the suns banish the night. Someone I know is dead, and all I care about is whether this will waste Claire’s time? What is wrong with me?
“Is it Lyle?” I croak.
“Lyle is fine,” he says, but it brings no relief. “Marshal Payen sent us a dove.” His face twitches, as if he’s arranging it for news he’s delivered a thousand times. “I regret to inform you that Afi Meteku has been murdered.”
Claire comes to my side and hugs my good arm. I don’t have to look at her to feel her concern that I might fall over.
Madame Afi, maker of my helmet, the woman who loved me and my brother more than our parents ever did. The family we deserved. The family I deserved.
The bolt to my shoulder didn’t hit this hard.
“How?” I demand.
“They found her head on the doorstep of her home this morning.”
Claire claps a hand over her mouth. I stare. I don’t have the emotional capacity to absorb this.
“The plan went south. The prisoner got away,” he continues. “But it wasn’t a complete loss. They discovered some things that you need to see.”
“Which are?”
“Payen didn’t say. It was too significant to risk with a dove. She wants you to travel to the station in Varsonne to hear it personally.”
Lyle is grieving alone in an empty house right now, surrounded by reminders of Madame Afi’s absence.
But I’m torn between his mother’s death and the scraps of life Claire has left.
Knowing him, he’d be upset if I prioritized his comfort when I could go straight to him after my time with Claire comes to an end.
Frustration and grief quaver my voice. “I told you before. I don’t have time to help investigate right now.”
“Abel.” Claire tugs my arm. “We should go.”
“Not at the expense of where you want to travel.”
“It wouldn’t be. Varsonne is on the way.”
I shut my mouth.
Varsonne: the city of mines and metal, best known for blacksmithing and coin minting. The highest bastion of Florentian civilization, located at the base of the Northern Alps.
It’s in the north.