26. Cracks
Cracks
“Come, sing for me.” You sit at the piano, your fingers tracing the keys. You’d learned to play it several years ago, but I’d not heard a song since coming to Paris.
Then again, I’m very rarely in our home.
I hunt alone. I go to the salon alone. I walk the streets of Paris alone. I am so rarely in your company these days, I almost forgot we live together.
(“Don’t they say if you love something, set it free?”)
Set it free?
I was not set free by you. I pulled away and you watched with disinterest. You never asked to join me on my hunts, to see where I went when I was without you.
Set me free. How dare you?
“Sing?” I ask.
“Yes,” you say, not taking your eyes off those keys.
“Now?”
“Will you continue to ask questions, or will you oblige me?” Your tone has not changed, but I can feel the splinters on the question. Oblige you—more like obey you.
I wondered when you would snap the leash, pulling me back to you.
My skin itches at my wrists, as though I am shackled. I rub them and turn to you, waiting for my summons.
“You’ve nothing to say?” you ask.
“Asking what you would have me sing is a question,” I say, trying not to bite the words. I want to snap them between my teeth and use the sharp edges on you.
“Hmm” is your only reply.
I wait, still rubbing my wrists. You stare at the keys in silence.
“If you’ve somewhere to be, I shall let you go,” you say.
“Just to hunt,” I say. It is not a lie. I had no intention of meeting with Zora that evening. I’d thought about it constantly since I left her the night before, sorting through my choices and chasing their ends.
To abandon her and lose my new bracelet—I did not care, I could compel another idiot human to give me one. The fact she’d stolen it from me enraged and intrigued me.
What complicated my thoughts the most was her ability to ignore my compulsion. I had several explanations for that, none of them good. To continue to meet with her was dangerous.
She’s just a human. I’d taken their blood and sometimes their lives for over a thousand years. Her ability to override compulsion did not cancel the fact that she was just food to me, and I the stronger of the two of us.
“Not to meet with others of our kind?”
Ah. There it was. I felt along the edges of your words, seeing them for what they were. I know where you go at night. I know with whom you keep company. You’d lost your subtlety over the years, it seems.
“If time allows,” I say. I’ve not moved back to the door, nor have I moved toward you. I remain in a neutral territory, one where I can claim myself the warden of whatever I choose. If I sit at your knee and sing to you, well—I was almost to you anyway. If I turn to the door, I was but a step away.
You press your fingers into the keys. The tone is dark, some minor chord, I suppose. Those are your favorite. Sometimes they sound like thunder, but mostly they grate on my ears. My ears ring for days after a long practice session, it is why I never joined you in learning.
I wait, but you keep clanging away, your long fingers dancing over the keys. You are so beautiful like this. I lean toward you, even as my ears protest.
“Go,” you say once the song is over.
“You no longer wish for me to sing?” I ask, not caring about your anger with my questions. So what if you deny me an answer? It wouldn’t be the first or the last time.
“I do not care,” you say, starting another song. This is just as abrasive, the exact tones that sear into my skull. I wince and press my hands against my ears to keep the sound out. It barely works against your incessant pounding on the keys.
I throw the first thing in reach. It is a vase that was here when we moved in. It shatters against the wall beyond your piano. You pause, and I think I finally have your attention. I think you will finally look at me.
The pause is over; you resume playing.
I reach for another vase, another useless item that decorates the home we stole.
You stole. I never get a choice in these matters, do I? We simply appear, and there is a home you’ve picked, ready for us.
Another vase crashes against the wall, then another and another, temporarily drowning out your aria.
The fifth vase is the last within reach.
I could keep going. I could move through this entire expansive manor, grabbing someone else’s things and throwing them into the wall, scattering their pieces on the floor.
Perhaps I will destroy the entire manor, turn it into rubble amongst the aging aristocrats around us.
According to the members of Le Sang Bleu, it is only a matter of time before the city demolishes blocks like this and all the people inside it.
We will be crushed under the weight of the commoner if we stay.
Perhaps I will bring it down around us and watch the rest fall like dominos.
I wait for your reprimand, for you to turn from your piano, for you to say anything to me.
You do not.
Your song continues, louder now against the aftermath of my crashing rage.
I leave for Palais.