Chapter Text
The rain is nearing a dull roar by the time Sophie arrives, so Gustave does not hear her until she steps inside the pagoda, heeled shoes crisp on the stone. He opens one eye and watches her dry out her umbrella with broad, strong thwaps, eventually satisfied enough to lean it against one of the pillars and turn to look down at him where he is spread-eagled on the stone, enjoying the way the cold sinks through his clothing and into his bones.
“Oh dear,” she says, so pleasantly, eyes bright with humour.
Gustave groans.
“I didn’t call you here, did I?”
“Intentionally?”
“Point.” He grimaces as he sits upright, brushing dust off his trousers as if that will help their abysmal appearance. The world outside the pagoda is a black blur of rain. Perhaps in the distance one could make out impressions of a treeline, or the shadow of a building, if they concentrated hard enough. As it is, the little stone dome is an island of dry serenity, just the way Gustave likes it.
“How long has it been since you last slept?” Sophie asks him next. Her outfit - a flouncy high-necked blouse enunciating the shape of her corseted waist and a long skirt that turns pulpy and wet at the hem - proves Gustave did not call her intentionally. He would never force Sophie into one of those things. It appears now as an afterthought, blurry at the edges. Only her face is thrown into sharp contrast, dark eyes roving across him in a faintly amused way.
“Don’t know,” he croaks eventually, rubbing his face. “What day is it?”
“Here? A Gloomy Wednesday the Fourteenth of June,” Sophie tells him.
“And out there?”
“I can’t tell,” she admits, “you’re too blurry.”
She looks pointedly at the sheets of water pouring off the pagoda’s gutters.
“Shit,” he sighs. “I’m sorry, Sophie. I didn’t call you here intentionally. I’m just tired, and I must have…”
“Missed me.” She smiles, unbothered. “I know.”
“It’s bad form.”
“It’s your nature,” she corrects, so gently, and Gustave watches her with tired eyes as she neatly smooths her hands across her skirt and sits so that her legs are folded demurely to the side. Definitely accidental, he notes grimly. Sophie was never so prim.
“Do you think she’s happy there?” He asks her. “In England, I mean.”
“Hm,” Sophie presses a grey finger to her mouth. “England. Let me see,” she squints her eyes. “Ah! An Ode to Second Choices - a Cesspit of Inadequacy - Ruled by a Second Son - Ruled by Second Guessing - Surrealism is wasted on the naturally Surreal - Food is Absolutely Shit and Foul–”
“Stop, stop!” He’s blushing now, hands covering his face. “Did I really say that?”
“You were drunk,” she says. “And it was only a week after she left.”
“Fuck.”
They fall into a brief quiet. Gustave sighs deeply and stares up at the roof of the pagoda. Inside the dome, a brilliant cog the size of a carriage wheel rolls in endlessly impossibly turns and hoops, disconnected from any kind of spoke. It glitters beautifully in the reflection of the rain, where the dome turns into black endless fog without end.
“Sophie would know what to do,” Gustave says finally, mostly to himself.
“I don’t know about that.” She says, surprising him.
When he looks over, she is styling her monochrome hair absent-mindedly, gazing out into the rain.
“You wrote Sophie as Self-Assured. Aware of Her Dreams. Aware of her Faults. Aware of Herself. It is why she went to England, isn’t it? She knew what she wanted, and you did not.”
“I know what I want,” he blusters weakly.
“But you didn’t know what she wanted. Or maybe you did, and did not want to listen.” It hurts to hear, especially coming from her facsimile’s mouth, but it must be true, because Gustave is thinking it. Self-introspection is particularly painful when it is embodied in his ex-love’s sweetened tones, if dulled slightly by her monochrome state.
“You put Sophie on a pedestal,” she continues, not unkindly, “she did not have all the answers, Gustave. Only her own.”
“Then,” he says miserably, “at least she could tell me what she thought I should do.”
This makes her turn to him again. She smiles. A great accident, he confirms, observing her form. The edges of her skirts are turning pulpy after being in the rain, sodden and clumped like wet paper. A black ink is staining the ground.
“Well, I can answer that, at least. It is what she always thought you should do.”
Gustave waits, breath held. There is a tingling in his arms and legs, pins and needles threading up throughout his body which tells him their strange little moment is ending sooner rather than later.
Sophie raises her eyebrows at him expectantly, and then laughs as if it is absurd, the white of her teeth a shock against her grey ink-stained skin.
“The right thing, Gustave,” she says slowly, as if she is speaking to a child.
The cog above him starts to spin faster and faster, splinting and cracking along the edges.
“Isn’t that what I did?” he asks her desperately, suddenly frightened, reaching for her hands. She lets him take them, silently amused. “Sophie? I did the right thing, didn’t I?”
“I can’t answer that, Gustave,” she reminds him. The rain outside turns darker and darker, into mud, and then ink, the sour smell of it burning Gustave’s nostrils.
“I’m not Sophie - remember?”
–
Gustave surfaces with a cough and a splutter, ink splattering out of his mouth across the keys of his Dactyle and the paper resting there, glimmering and warping with the after-effects of his craft. His vision is still monochrome stained; he catches his breath and waits until the ink recedes back up his face and behind his eyes before he sighs heavily, falling backwards in his seat.
His study is only a small space. Room enough for a cluttered bookshelf on either wall facing inwards to his desk, nestled in the middle of two tall windows overlooking a bustling arcade, alive now with noise and colour. The space is amassed with paper, used and otherwise, and one leg of his desk is held up only by a few sturdy ledgers and sheer force of will. His father had turned his nose up when Gustave had purchased the apartment in the deuxième, complaining that it looked low on him to be so far from the rest of his cohort near the Latin Quarter. But Gustave had insisted it was best for him to have a show of independence, now that he was to make a name for himself in their society, and that he enjoyed the short stroll to the Salle Favart on days he treated Emma to a show.
The reality was far more simple. Gustave hated the old house, with its many dusty parlours and bedrooms, pretending to be aristocracy when it had been some decades since the Koechlin family had much to crow about. He hated most watching his father, a figure now somewhat removed from the heroic silhouette of his youth, turn into something shallow and simpering whenever he was called upon to attend the Council. Worse still was the pressure he put on Gustave, his only male heir, who had both the blessing and misfortune of inheriting his craft as a Writer. Every day he spent under the old manor roof was more opportunity for Gustave to be toted about to potential heiresses or thrust into the Council’s spotlight as an emerging talent.
No, best he escaped - and he found he much preferred the noise and business of the deuxième.
It was somehow easier, to surface from the cool depths of his Writing, breathing heavily in his chair as the ink receded under his nails, when all the sounds of the merchants below bled in one by one like a familiar blanket, soothing his return to reality.
And Maelle of course - standing at the doorway to his closet-study.
She is watching him with some fascination, although it is shaded by another emotion he cannot name, and smiles grimly when his eyes at last flutter open to their usual brown and settle upon her apologetically.
“I wasn’t gone for very long,” he says, defensively.
“No,” she agrees, and then, “you don’t have to explain yourself to me. It’s your work, Gustave.”
“Well, this wasn’t.” He looks down at the Dactyle, and the pile of papers stacked beside it, the fresh words now fading from a glimmering opalescence to a familiar inky black as the Writing settled. His eyes settle on some words - her eyes watch him as he fades back into reality, noting how pale his cheeks were, how he had worried the skin around his nails with guilt - and he snatches the paper with a flush, crumpling it with his hands.
The smile he casts on Maelle is bright and false.
“Besides,” he says, “I don’t like to leave you alone here.”
Her mouth twists, and the words curdle in his gut. She is young yet, although in some circles Gustave would have been expected to show her out by now, introducing her to society and its many eligible suitors. But he would not. Could not. Maelle shows her appreciation in her masculine clothing - old shirts of his, ink-stained at the hems, and spends her days lazing and reading in the sun, when she is able. Her hair is loose, clouding down her back in dark waves.
For a moment she doesn’t reply, and then she shifts on her feet and sighs hard. She does not enter the study.
“Emma is here,” she says instead, looking past Gustave out the window to the streets beyond. He almost follows her gaze before he registers the sound of impatient knocking, further into the apartment.
“You left her there?”
“Should I have opened the door?” She responds waspishly, and then storms off to her room, which was once Gustave’s study before he repurposed it for her.
Swearing, he stumbles to right himself. The stains from his Writing are gone, but his shirt is still smeared with regular old ink, and he rubs at it self-consciously as he rushes to the hall and to the entrance where Emma is knocking, louder now.
The door opens to reveal her, arms laden with a leather travelling case and a pinched expression on her face.
“There you are,” she huffs, clearly out of breath. Gustave’s apartment is on the fourth floor. “What took you so long?”
“I was, uh,” he steps aside, letting her brush past him, but doesn’t miss her expression, going a little sourer at his words.
“Working?” she says, over her shoulder. She pauses before she reaches the kitchenette, catching sight of Maelle through the open door of her bedroom where she is curled up on her bed reading a novel. “Oh. Hello.”
Maelle has clearly decided that today she will be difficult. Such is the right of sixteen-year-olds, Gustave regrets. She fixes Emma with a pleasant smile and says: “Oh, hello, cousin.”
Emma sets the case down on the kitchen table and eyes Gustave. “You moved your study?”
“Well,” he says, rubbing his neck, “she needed the space.”
Emma looks at him carefully for a long moment, chewing on her words.
“Tea?” he offers, feeling a little cold.
“Are you coming tonight?” she asks him instead, purposefully. “No, never mind. I’m not asking. Father expects you to be there tonight. Gustave,” she adds, when he grimaces and looks away. “I expect you to be there tonight.”
“God,” he sighs, “are you serious? It will be miserable.”
“Incredibly,” she agrees, “which is why I will be very cross if you are not there to drink with me and distract me with terrible made up stories about all and sundry present.”
“It’s not you that father will be offering like fresh meat to anyone interested, Em.” He tells her. “More likely you will have to distract me.”
Emma’s longstanding engagement to Leo Fontaine has given her the mercy of no longer being on the marriage-market, even if the man is away half the time on campaign.
“I would have thought the Dessendre’s would be distraction enough for both of you,” says Maelle, where she has crept out of her room to loiter in the doorway, eyes pale and shrewd.
Gustave winces, but Emma misses it as she flinches at the girl's approach, casting her a single, tense look.
“True,” she concedes slowly, “their Matriarch is practically bursting at the seams to make a show of unity. I imagine it’s why the Gala is being held on such short notice. And to invite our cohort, especially. What has the Council said, Gustave?”
Gustave pauses as two gazes turn upon him, one curious, one calculated.
“I don’t know,” he admits slowly, “I have not spoken to them about it yet.”
“But you spoke about the fire, surely,” says Emma, shocked.
“A bit,” he hedges, glancing around quickly. “What’s in the bag?”
This distracts Emma enough. She opens it with a snort, pulling out pomade and oil and all matter of grooming appliances.
“I saw the state of your armoire last time I was here,” she says, “I’ll not have you embarrassing me tonight. Tell me at least that you still have your fine suit. The blue one.”
“His only one,” Maelle says under her breath.
“I do,” Gustave grouses, and sticks his tongue out at Maelle when he snorts.
Emma glances at him and Gustave closes his mouth. She sighs deeply.
“We need to make an impression tonight, Gustave. Every person there, not part of the community, will be watching us and wondering what we know.”
“I don’t know anything,” Gustave says automatically, tongue a leaden weight in his mouth.
“I know that,” she flaps her hand, exasperated. Behind her, Maelle stares at Gustave, unblinking. “But they don’t. And Aline Dessendre will be looking for any reason to accuse a Writer. Any Writer,” she adds meaningfully. “So you need to show up, well-groomed, pleasant, and make it absolutely clear how horrified and upset you are by the attempt on the Dessendre’s life. Do you understand?”
“I am horrified,” Gustave says. “I am upset.”
“Why exactly do they think it was intentional?” Maelle asks carefully. “I thought they said they didn’t find anyone after the fire was contained?”
“I’m serious, Gustave.” Emma continues, ignoring the girl completely. “I can’t have you in their sights, not after maman, not–”
The mention of their mother pours ice down Gustave’s throat. Emma seems to catch herself as well, bracing against the kitchen table. Gustave takes a moment to swallow thickly, rubbing absent-mindedly at his chest.
“Maman,” he begins haltingly, “was a - delicate affair, Em. She wasn’t careful with what she wrote. And it wasn’t the Painters who came for her in the end, you know that.”
“No,” Emma agrees, eyes downcast. “She always set her sights much higher. But around here the Dessendre’s are as high up as they get, and I can’t…” she reaches out, touches the very tips of her fingers to his bared forearm, traces the ink stains there. “I can’t see you hang, too.”
Maelle retreats into her bedroom, silent as a ghost, and shuts the door.
It is ironic and hateful, that it makes the same sound as the gallows did, when they opened and their mother swung. A quick, quiet snap. Almost apologetic.
“You won’t,” Gustave says, voice hushed as they lean into each other, “Emma. I’m fine. I’m safe. I had nothing to do with the fire.”
She glances up at him. Her eyes catch the setting sun outside, making them appear as pools of molten gold within their usual brown.
“Yes,” she says after a moment, and then inhales suddenly and wipes at her face, “God. What was I thinking? Of course you wouldn’t - you wouldn’t know - why would you? Oh, Gustave, I’m sorry–”
“Don’t be,” Gustave says, sick with guilt, resting a hand on her narrow shoulder, “you’re right to worry. You’re right about everything else, too. The Painters Council will be looking for someone to blame, of course. I won’t give them a reason to look at me twice.”
“Do you promise?” her eyes are wet, her mouth shaking. “Gustave, promise me.”
“I promise,” Gustave tells her, and means every word.
—
God. God shit fuck and damn.
“Another drink, Monsieur?” Clea Dessendre asks him, smiling thinly. It does not reach her eyes.
She had accosted him with frightening ease only shortly after the initial welcoming speeches and opening quartet, right when Gustave was bracing himself to circle the room perpendicular to his father and Monsieur Alexandre, head of the Writers Council, who have been in close conversation with each other since the Koechlin’s carriage had arrived at the Palais Garnier earlier in the evening. Gustave had managed to escape their immediate grasp by leading his sister onto the dancefloor for the opening sets, but now she has dispersed to find Leo, who is somewhere in the milling crowd, and he was left to wander nervously amidst the other revellers.
The ballroom needed little adornment so close to the announced Gala - it was already as gilded as the finest of crowns, golden from top to bottom and drowning in the warm light thrown by hundreds if not thousands of candelabras and chandeliers. The light reflects off the mirrored walls and polished floorboards, and off the jewels and gowns and suits of the crowds amassed within, the halls thunderous with the combined noise of their revelry and the brilliant hum of the assembled musicians.
Above them, the roof has been painted. By Aline Dessendre herself, no less. The swirling colourful abyss of the canvas stretched yards overhead reveal rolling hills that morph into fantastical cathedrals - deep oceans and fish, children laughing amidst crushing waves. It’s a headache and a dream all at once. It’s a show of the skill of the head of the Painter’s Council. It is a threat, made only more evident by the way the woman had positioned herself with her family at the head of the ballroom upon their entry, her stoic husband on her arm and her three children lined up like chess pieces, polished and fine, even from a distance. Gustave finds himself staring at the roof and wincing.
This is where Clea Dessendre finds him, huddled in an alcove, clutching an already empty flute to his chest.
“Mademoiselle,” Gustave stutters, righting himself.
At least Emma has done fine work. His blue suit is neatly pressed and the golden accents catch the light attractively. Emma has brushed and oiled the curls of his hair so that they look handsome, rather than manic. He has even groomed his moustache.
Clea Dessendre, on the other hand, looks like she is ready for battle. Unlike her mother, who addressed the hall in a sleek avant garde gown of expensive fine lace, Clea is dressed in black and deep greys, buttoned up to her throat and her long hair braided back off her stern face. There is a touch of colour - sapphires, dangling from her ears. Gustave has never been in such close proximity to the woman before. She is beautiful, in a firm way. He thinks perhaps she takes after her father, and not her mother, who leans towards willowy.
Gustave realises he is speaking to a beautiful young woman from a prominent family, and hopes to God nobody notices.
“Monsieur Koechlin, is it not?” Clea continues implacably. She has two flutes of champagne in her hands, and presses one into Gustave’s chest so that he is forced to take it. He wonders faintly if it is poisoned.
“You know me, Mademoiselle?”
Stupid.
“I know of your family,” she states.
“My mother, you mean.”
Stupid. Stupid.
Clea’s thin lips press together in what might be interpreted as a smile.
“Yes. A brave woman, to describe the death of the last sitting Bonaparte with such… enthusiasm.”
Gustave winced.
“I am not sure brave is the word, Mademoiselle.”
“Well, by all means, correct me,” she says, and he realises he has fallen into a trap only when her signature Dessendre blue eyes narrow in relish, “Words are your specialty, are they not?”
Gustave’s mouth is suddenly dry. He clears his throat and looks around anxiously, taking a too-large sip of his drink.
“Mademoiselle?” he asks.
“I was not there when the fire started, you know.” She says conversationally. She turns to face the dancing, to give the impression that they are only in idle conversation. Regardless, Gustave sees Emma swing past in Leo’s arms, and when her eyes land on him they widen with shock. “I was travelling. Apparently the fire started in two places - each of my siblings' bedrooms. Curious that it had not started in my own. It must have known not to bother, in my absence. An intelligent fire.”
“I am aware of your family’s theory,” Gustave says stiffly. “You need not play games with me, Mademoiselle Dessendre.”
“Needn’t I? Very well, then.” She finishes her drink, eyes still on the crowd. “My understanding is that you have had an open invitation to the Writer’s Council for some years now. An invitation you have yet to take up on. Why?”
“That is my own business,” he says, carefully.
“It is strange business, then, Monsieur. One in your position would be honoured to take up the mantle, I should think.”
“My position.”
“Hm. Yes.” She looks at him sidelong.
Gustave grits his teeth.
“Fine,” she says. “An exchange then. Of information, I should think. It is the best currency our parties have, at the moment.”
“You have nothing that I want to know, Mademoiselle.” Gustave tries desperately to spy his sister in the crowd again, hoping she will surface from the dance to ferry him away to safer grounds, but all he can see in the end is his father and Monsieur Alexandre, now joined by another Writer - Monsieur Martin, who is closer to Gustave’s age and frowning at him from across the floor. He leans towards Gustave’s father’s ear, but his stare remains.
“Would you like to know why my mother blames the Writers?” Clea offers. She has followed Gustave’s gaze and the corner of her mouth is curled in a smirk.
“The animosity between our groups is well known,” Gustave says. He feels sweat trickle down the backs of his thighs and grimaces uncomfortably. “An animosity, I must stress, I do not share.”
“Ink.” Says Clea.
He turns to look at her - too quickly, he knows. Face stricken with surprise. Clea’s smirk grows. She knows she has him.
“There was ink, Monsieur. Great quantities, according to my brother, who saw it all happen. He found the arsonists quite caught in the act, one moment, and then -” she spreads the fine fingers not holding her champagne flute, and the light glances off chromatic paint, caught beneath her nails. “Gone. Quite an explosion, Verso says. He had to throw out his clothes, they were quite ruined.”
“Ruined,” Gustave repeats, numbly, “by…”
“Ink, yes.” She stares at him. “As I said, Monsieur.”
“So you see,” she continues. “The reason for my mother’s suspicion. She is not flinching at mere shadows, Monsieur, but clear footsteps. If the Writers did not cause the fire, then they were still certainly involved.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Gustave stops, and in his panic, sets his now two empty glasses on the polished floor before straightening to face her. A passing dancer catches one on her heel and it goes shattering into the din of conversation and music. There is a distant yelp of surprise. “You’re saying these arsonists - these men. They exploded. Into ink.”
“Like balloons,” Clea says, without any trace of humour or derision, like she is commenting on the weather.
Gustave’s mouth goes drier still, and then abruptly floods with saliva. He coughs, covering his face.
“Gods,” he whispers, shaken.
“Your turn, Monsieur. Why have you not taken the Council up on their offer? Is there something preventing you? Or someone?”
“Excuse me,” he says, making to push past her, “What you are describing is ridiculous. Writers cannot just… I must get some air.”
What Clea is describing is ridiculous. Painters and Writers may not share the same Craft, but the principles are much the same. Painters step into their Canvases, as Writers step into their stories. The real world does not come into the equation. It cannot. It should not. To do so would break up the very reality of the world, and shatter whatever tentative peace remains in their society. What Clea is describing is ridiculous. And powerful. And desperately, desperately terrifying.
“Monsieur,” she halts him with a hand on his arm, feather-light, and the shock of it pulls him up short. Her expression is serious. “I am not the only one who is curious.”
She looks meaningfully to his father, who is now crossing the ballroom in Gustave’s direction.
“Your name is coming up surprisingly often in some circles.” She says lowly. “We hear your Writing is particularly… imaginative.”
“Gustave,” his father says, appearing from between a group of passing gentlemen.
“Clea,” a smoky voice announces, from their other side.
Verso Dessendre is his father’s son, if only in stature and feature. His dark hair has been styled rakishly, and his suit is shot through with veins of gold, as gold as the signet ring on his hand, which he offers to his sister. His eyes - curiously pale, and unseelie - his eyes remain on Gustave. Gustave knows that Clea may be the eldest, but Verso Dessendre is the one who carries his mother’s hopes and dreams. His name is murmured enough amidst the Writers circles to have taken on hints of concern, rumours of his skill with Paint abound.
“Shall we dance, sister?” he continues, though he does not smile. “I think you have entertained Monsieur Koechlin enough for one evening. Don’t go giving father any ideas.”
“Gustave,” Gustave’s father says, “Monsieur Alexandre was asking for you. Do join us.”
For a moment the four of them are caught in a cross-hairs. Gustave’s father extends an arm to him, and Verso to his sister. But Clea’s eyes are on his father, cold and mocking, and Verso’s are on his.
“Yes,” Gustave says to his father, to Verso, feeling a little numb, “of course. Right away.”
He is led away, feeling much like a lamb to the slaughter, while the two Dessendre siblings disappear into the crowd together, heads bent close in heated discussion. Although they are still crossing the room to join the other Writers assembled next to the refreshment table, it is mere moments before Gustave’s father is holding him fast by his arm and hissing in his ear.
“What was she asking you, Gustave? What did she say? Did she mention the fire?”
He says this last word as they arrive at the table, and Gustave sees Alexandre’s face twist at his father’s lack of tact.
Monsieur Alexandre has been head of the Writers Council for two decades now, and it shows. Not just in his fine clothing and finer tastes, but in the concrete set of his smile, which is carved with the kind of certainty that comes only from assumed superiority. It tends to twist downwards whenever he must deal with Gustave’s father, a mere flicker of distaste, but is always at its most charming when he turns it upon the Koechlin junior.
“Father,” Gustave murmurs warningly, before turning to the others with his best smile, the one he uses exclusively for family affairs, the one he uses on Maelle when she is at her darkest.
“Gentlemen,” he says pleasantly. “How is your evening?”
He is passed another drink and quickly, forcibly, folded into their private circle. He laughs at the jokes and politely demurs the insistent queries as to his invitation to the Council, and he watches the revellers dance, and he tries to ignore the smell of ink and the black stains on Alexandre’s wrists.
Stains that match his own.
—
It is by coincidence only, after Emma extracts him from the Council circle with half-hearted excuses about dancing tickets and a thousand hurried apologies in his ear, dancing three sets in a row with him to buy him some breathing room, that Gustave turns from one set to the other and finds himself opposite Alicia Dessendre.
He is still trembling, feeling a little disconnected from the sounds and smells around him. But he focuses now, as the pale shape of the girl assembles itself before her, blending like letters on a page.
She is a pretty little thing, in a ribboned dress styled perhaps a little too young. She takes after her mother the most, with her slim limbs and vibrant red hair, which is only half pinned back in deference to her young age. Gustave finds himself going from having met none of the Dessendre siblings in acquaintance to having met all three of them in one night. He wishes he had not the honour. There is a chaperon lingering at the edge of the dancers, watching Alicia carefully. An older woman, with the look of a nursemaid grown out of the duty. She watches Gustave with suspicion.
The musicians strike up again, and Gustave’s surprise is forced away in lieu of grasping the girl’s small hands when she offers them, though her expression is shy and a little bemused. They dance the next set, and Gustave ensures she has as much room as she needs to move about him without touching the other dancers, and even twirls her under his arm once or twice, the way he knows Maelle finds fun. He is rewarded with Alicia’s laughter, sudden and bright. She seems to even surprise herself.
“Are you a Writer, Monsieur?” She asks suddenly, well into the next set, which Gustave realises they have stayed together for on mutual agreement.
Her voice holds no trace of Clea’s prying assertiveness, or Verso’s wary coldness. It is open and genuinely curious.
“Yes, Madoimeselle,” Gustave tells her, “although not a very good one, I am sure.”
“All Writers say that,” she laughs. The freckles on her nose crease. “And all Painters, too. Except perhaps my mother. And Clea. They are quite confident in themselves.”
“That, I believe.”
“I have wished to speak to a Writer about their Craft,” she admits. “But maman says that cannot happen now, after the fire, even though it did not damage very much and I was not hurt at all. I am glad to dance with you, Monsieur.”
Gustave finds himself smiling despite himself, charmed by her forthrightness - a younger version of Clea’s cultivated, crueler touch.
“I am glad to dance with you too, Mademoiselle Dessendre.”
“What do you like to write about?” she asks eagerly.
Gustave swings her into the next round of movements and waits a moment while they are separated by a waltzing couple to reunite, twirling her again for the fun of watching her smile.
“Strangeness, I suppose.” he tells her.
“A strange answer indeed!”
“I like to write about friends who have known each other for decades. Machines that can carry a world upon their backs. Expeditions into wondrous lands. Strange things.”
Her eyes sparkle under the chandeliers. They are the exact shade of Verso’s, although warmer still.
“I should like to read them, someday,” she tells him, meaning every word.
Gustave’s distant smile passes over her head to the amassing crowd, and realises with a sinking feeling that they are one of the few couples remaining on the dancefloor as the musicians settle down for a break. They are in clear view then of Aline Dessendre, who has broken away from her usual crowd of supporters to draw close to her husband and whisper in his ear, staring at them. Alicia’s father is stormy with repressed tension, dark brow furrowed in thought.
And then Gustave looks back at his dance partner, and realises who it is he is looking at.
The shape is a little different, of course. He has never been closer to Alicia Dessendre, the baby of the family, kept almost constantly behind the wing of her father’s dark coat. Yes, the shape is wrong - she is a little taller, her hair a little shorter. But the similarities are enough to set Gustave’s stomach curdling with horror. The same round eyes. The same freckled cheeks. The same slim wrists and boyish gait.
He must have seen Alicia in passing. He must have imprinted her appearance into his memory for future use, like so many other thousands of people he has done in the past. What easier way to Write a character then base them off someone already familiar, even if only from a distance? Much easier to build a body when you already have the bones.
“Excuse me,” Gustave says, choking, “I must get some air.”
“Alright,” Alicia says, bemused and releasing him. “It’s not because of my papa is it? I know he seems scary, but he’s just worried after the-”
“-the fire, yes,” Gustave snaps, more harshly than he intends. His mind is swimming. He feels unbalanced. “No, I just need some, I need - sorry, excuse me–”
He flees, like a coward, through the crowd and further still, out through the building to the entrance and into the night. He feels the cold air like a slap to his face and reals, wheezing slightly, blinking dampness from his eyes.
He has broken his promise to Emma, he knows. But surely, it is not his fault. He thinks it was inevitable. From the moment he entered the Palais, it felt as though a noose was slowly tightening about his throat. Pulled from one end by the father and the Writers Council, and the other from the Dessendre’s and their suspicious, sharp teeth. What had he done wrong? Where had he slipped up? He knew the Writers were eager for him to join the Council, had seen his skills advance throughout his teens when he was still young and naive enough to let them watch, but surely they did not know? Surely they could not guess? And what stories had they been spreading, encouraging, enough to cross even the Painters doorsteps and set their sights on him?
Gustave pants hard and stares up into the starry night. The Palais swells with light and laughter behind him, a solitary island in the dark. Above him the sky rumbles, and rain dots his face.
What does Clea Dessendre think she knows?
Gustave turns on his foot, and flees.
—
It is dark when he returns home to the apartment. He left without advising his sister or his father, for which he knows he will pay sorely for in the future. Maelle has not left any lights on in the house, perhaps intentionally. It reads of petulance. There is a glow under her bedroom door that encourages Gustave to knock, shamedly. He has to check. He has to make sure.
When he hears her hum of ascent he creaks it open, and almost backs out at the last second. Perhaps, if he doesn’t confirm, he can exist in the safety of ignorance for a moment longer.
But he cannot control his own arm, pushing the door open further still, to reveal the lamplight of Maelle’s bedside table, and the girl herself, curled up in her bed, a book open in her hands. Once of Gustave’s own.
“What is it?” she asks, after a moment of Gustave’s gormless staring.
Her eyes are the exact same. Her body, her expression.
Only the colour is different. For where Alicia is swamped with it - her red hair, her blue eyes, her pink skin - Maelle has none at all.
She is monochrome tip-to-toe, in shades of inky grays. And she blurs sometimes, at the edges, like the blotted end of a quill, staining deep into parchment.
She has been that way since the very day Gustave woke from Writing to find her in his study, wide-eyed and shivering, and suddenly, inexplicably, real.
“Nothing,” Gustave rasps, voice barely above a whisper.
“Did you have a good night?” It’s mocking. She’s still angry at him. Perhaps she spent the whole night dreaming of a gala. Of women in fine dresses and sparkling crystals and laughing men. Perhaps she ached to join them too.
“Yes,” says Gustave, “yes, it was fine.”
“Okay,” she eyes him suspiciously, “when was the last time you slept?”
Properly? Probably since the night of the fire. But Gustave cannot tell her that.
“I’ll go to bed now.” He says instead. He feels a little dreamlike, a little far-away from himself. He’s sure he looks mad.
“Okay,” Maelle says again, more slowly. The hostility bleeds out of her, replaced with concern. “Gustave?”
“Goodnight, Maelle.” He says, and shuts the door again, pacing quickly to his own room without turning on a single light.
It is better, he thinks, that the night stays dark.