15. Julien
fifteen
Julien
T he four of them wordlessly stared up at the high perimeter fencing of Père Lachaise Cemetery, each spike glinting menacingly in the moonlight.
Even having removed their ties, they weren’t quite dressed for this breaking-and-entering adventure.
Cinn bit that beautiful bottom lip of his. “Julien, I can’t get arrested for this. Not with my record.”
Julien was pretty sure Eleanor had instructed his record to be wiped clean, but he grabbed Cinn’s hand, thumb trailing over his knuckle, and dropped his voice to a low murmur. “I give you my word that I won’t let that happen.”
With one sharp, decisive nod, Cinn squeezed Julien’s hand before releasing it.
In case he wasn’t completely convinced, Julien swung his rucksack around, unlatching the top to show Cinn the interior. “If the police do suddenly arrive, I have multiple weapons in my arsenal.”
Cinn’s jaw fell slack.
“Not to kill them!” God, what did Cinn take him for? Lighting a cigarette, Julien inhaled a lungful of smoke before passing it to Cinn’s eager fingers. Did Cinn also feel the tingle of sensation where their skin had briefly touched? Was Julien alone in the slight increase to his heart rate?
Most importantly: was Julien forgiven yet ?
If only he could reach inside Cinn’s mind to unravel its mysteries.
Reaching the tall metal gate, secured by a chunky iron chain held by a sizeable padlock, Julien smiled—he was prepared for this. He reached inside his rucksack, seeking his compact, silver capsule that would align the padlock’s tumblers and spring the lock free.
However, as his fingers closed around the object, Elliot, in an annoyingly languid way, lifted his hand, and channelled windmotes into a powerful, tight tunnel of pressure, flinging them at a specific link in the chain.
Blasted apart, the chain and the padlock dropped to the ground.
Darcy tutted, but before she could complain, Elliot said, “What? I checked for CCTV. We’re clear.”
“Woah!” Cinn exclaimed, still staring at the broken chain, and Julien shook his head softly. Cinn had seen the Arcane Purifers blow a building to smithereens with motepower, but now Elliot’s simple pressure blast was impressing him?
Seemingly in tune with Julien, Elliot laughed. “My friend, that was nothing.”
“That was not nothing!”
“Please, Julien and I could do that trick by the time we were ten. Although he always had far more precision control than me. When we were kids, his greatest joy was thrashing me at our camp’s tournament every summer, then tormenting me about it for the rest of the year.”
Elliot jostled Julien with his shoulder, but Julien didn’t respond, only sighed in dismay at Cinn as he absorbed Elliot’s words, looking between him and Julien with pinched brows. Goddamn Elliot and his big mouth.
Cinn blinked at Julien. Tugged on his beanie. Then stared at him some more.
Julien braced himself for the inevitable question that poured from Cinn’s lips. “How come I’ve never seen you channel any motes? ”
A gust of wind blew behind them, sending a tin can hurling noisily down the street. Elliot and Darcy waited for him to answer, likely wondering what script he’d give Cinn. He considered outright ignoring the question, but Cinn’s big golden eyes were so intent on him, he found himself unable to.
“I can’t channel anymore,” Julien said at last.
Elliot snorted, shaking his head. “He means he won’t. ”
Stop talking, Elliot, please stop talking.
Ignoring his silent plea, Elliot turned to Cinn. “He was, well is , well, could be, the very best channeller our generation has seen. That’s what our coaches used to say.”
How did Elliot not understand that the warm pride Julien could hear in his voice made it five times worse?
Curiosity coloured Cinn’s face as his head snapped towards him. “So why don’t you?”
Julien’s stomach tumbled. He scrambled for a simple answer that would placate Cinn. A moment later, Darcy saved him—Darcy, who’d been scrutinising him carefully for the last minute.
“Can we just get on with this whole grave-digging thing before I change my mind about rummaging around in the dirt for our best friend’s bones, please?”
Darcy pressed on the wrought-iron gate, leaning all of her weight against it to push it ajar.
The sliver of moon offered little light to guide their journey as they weaved through rows of silent tombstones, a sepulchral maze. Rustling leaves and the occasional hoot of a nightbird were the only sounds as they passed weathered mausoleums and engraved benches.
Nearing the spot where Béatrice was buried alongside their mother’s own grave, a sudden realisation struck Julien. He hadn’t yet seen her headstone, recently installed. Before he had time to prepare, the thing filled his vision, a solemn sentinel standing tall and resolute above many of the others. He paused in his steps, frozen by the name Béatrice Montaigne, inscribed in large, looping cursive, on a slab of gleaming white marble.
Flowers still remained from her funeral—next to his father’s white roses lay a bundle of black and purple lilies, still as fresh as the day Julien had placed them there months ago, shimmering with everglaze.
Her epitaph read: Our Brightest Treasure, Your Star will Forever Shine.
Imaginary Béatrice snorted and shook her head in amusement.
For weeks, Julien and his father had warred over burying her in the family plot, or cremating her and splitting the ashes between them. Julien wasn’t even sentimental, but the notion of his father controlling Béatrice’s death had tipped him over the edge. Well, he may never get her ashes, but he was about to be in possession of something even more macabre.
Père, this is one battle I’m now glad you won.
Darcy ran her fingers over the letters etched deep into the marble. For a while, nobody spoke, until Darcy tipped her head backwards at the starless, cloudy expanse of the sky. “Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light,” she said.
“I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night,” Julien finished, moving forward to squeeze Darcy’s arm.
“Shall we graffiti it on top of your father’s unsentimental crap?”
“Tempting.”
Cinn had positioned himself slightly apart from them, hovering back, eyes downcast. Sometimes Julien forgot Cinn had never met Béatrice. And yet he was here, standing in the middle of a cemetery, about to commit grave robbery for her. For him .
Even after Julien had been an absolute prick.
Julien briefly ran a hand over his mother’s headstone, far less grandiose than Béatrice’s. “Repose en paix.” Be at peace.
Then, one quick unzip of the bag, and the shovel was ready to go .
“Don’t tell me you actually want to spend five hours digging?” asked Elliot.
Julien balanced the shovel on his shoulder. Smiled. “Not particularly, but it seemed pretty important to bring it. For aesthetics, if nothing else.”
Elliot raised both hands out in front of him. It was good fortune that it was a blustery evening—the windmotes would offer him more power behind them to channel. Cinn’s eyes widened once again as the wind whipped up around them, creating a strong current of air that escalated into a small tempest.
When Elliot manipulated the wind with supreme precision to slice into the grass, creating a neat rectangle of turf, every molecule of Julien’s essence ached to join him, imagining the feel of the windmotes underneath his fingertips. How they’d bend for him so easily. The elation, the high that came with channelling.
And as Elliot manipulated the windmotes underneath the rectangle he’d so masterfully created, to lift it four feet in the air above him, it took all Julien’s energy to block out that tiny voice whispering in his ear: he’s better than you, now.
Some loose dirt still remained above the casket, and Elliot removed that in clumps, creating small earthy tornados that deposited the soil in a pile next to the gravestone.
Then it was done, and Béatrice’s silver casket shone in the feeble amount of moonlight the clouds let pass. And underneath it? By now, she’d have very little flesh left, if any. Her teeth may well have fallen out. All this he knew from his month-long obsession with researching corpses when his mother died.
“Right, Julien, what now?” Elliot asked.
Time suspended as three pairs of eyes sought his for instruction. This was his plan, but now that he was actually here, about to tear a bone from his sister’s skeleton, it didn’t seem like a very good idea at all.
“Umm…” he started .
Darcy said, “If you’ve changed your mind—”
“I haven’t. This is our best chance to get the strongest magnet item possible.”
“I guess I can do it,” said Elliot, but he looked less than enthusiastic, eyeing the casket warily. “I could even try to use the windmotes again.”
“Or me,” said Darcy, glancing at Elliot, face pinched with worry. “I think I’d handle it best of all.”
Julien looked between the pair of them. Now was the moment where he stepped forward, to insist there was no way he was letting either of them be the one to mutilate his sister’s corpse.
Then Cinn stepped forward, arms crossed in steadfast resolve. “I’ll do it. I’ve seen enough dead bodies to last a lifetime already. One more can’t hurt.” He shrugged. “At least this one will be stationary and won’t try to attack me.”
Julien waited for Darcy or Elliot to protest.
They didn’t.
Cinn moved towards the grave.
“So, what do we want? A finger? A toe? A kneecap or two?” Cinn’s attempt at humour was offset by the slight shake to his voice.
In a quiet voice, hesitant and unsure, Julien replied, “A rib.”
Something that her heart touched.
Cinn nodded, tossing his jacket to Elliot and rolling up the sleeves of his shirt before dropping to the ground next to their dirt pile.
Julien couldn’t watch.
He’d set this whole thing up, dragged them here, made them all do the dirty work, and now he couldn’t even watch .
Facing away from the scene of their crime, Julien set about counting the abundance of headstones in his peripheral vision, focusing on the task like his life depended on it.
But even so, he heard it all.
The creak of the casket opening .
The tearing of clothes. That awful blue dress P è re insisted she be buried in.
Cinn’s strained grunts of effort.
And finally, the heart-wrenching snap of bone.
Julien didn’t turn around until the rhythmic thud of Elliot redepositing earth on top of Béatrice’s coffin rippled through the night.
When he did, he found Darcy cradling a canvas bag close to her chest, hugging it delicately, eyes shining with tears.
If the bone turned out to be useless as a magnet item, Julien would suffer some serious guilt from the PTSD he’d surely inflicted upon everyone tonight.
Cinn moved away from the grave, approaching Julien with slow strides.
When he was close, Julien reached for Cinn’s arm. “What… what did she look like?”
Cinn gazed straight at him with those amber pools, and for a moment Julien basked in their golden warmth. “Beautiful,” he said, solemn and soulful. “She looked beautiful.”
Without overthinking it, Julien reached over to wipe a dusting of mud from Cinn’s chin. He didn’t restrain his hand from lingering on his face. “Thank you,” he whispered.