RoseBlood(51)

“Like what you did the first time?” Thorn suppressed a snarl. “You’ve seen the consequences of those actions. The witch told you it wouldn’t be successful unless the girl agrees to the sacrifice. Don’t let desperation cloud your judgment. Don’t let impatience endanger what you’ve waited so long for. She’ll come to us as planned. On the night of the masquerade. I’ll see to it myself.” Thorn strove for sincerity, all the while his mind scrambled to find an answer to satisfy everyone in this jumbled and hopeless equation.

Impatience glittered within the depths of the mask’s eyeholes. “If your plan fails”—Erik held his mouth tightly closed, again throwing his voice—“I’ll burn the whole opera house to the ground this time.” His answer drifted through the door, rising from the cages in the parlor. A flutter of feathers, growls, and chatters followed—discontentment and confusion rippling through Thorn’s animals.

Thorn cursed under his breath and strode across the threshold to settle them. “Don’t my patients already bear trauma enough?”

Erik followed, but stopped in Thorn’s doorway, a menacing imprint against the calming blue that radiated from the aquarium behind him. “You’re right, of course. It was not my intent to upset them.” He used his own mouth now, all tenderness and humility. “Remember our pact . . . made in the sewers of Paris all those years ago. Everything I’ve ever asked of you has a purpose. And you’ve earned your place as my son by doing them. But this is different than our work with the animals. It involves a mortal soul. The witch said it has to be done on a night of liminality . . . when the boundary between the dead and living can be crossed. We need Rune in my laboratory by All Hallows’ Eve to complete the circle. Only when she’s with us at last, will our family be complete. A family that can endure forever.”





12



L’HORREUR, L’ENLèVEMENT, LE FANT?ME


“It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.”

Niccolò Machiavelli

Thorn shut himself in his room.

A family that can endure forever.

He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. If they accomplished what Erik wanted, was he going to resume stealing life from his victims again, so he’d never die? He hadn’t mentioned that as part of the plan.

The temporary nature of living was what made it invaluable. Life was to be respected, even the lives of people who had made bad choices, for there was always a chance for redemption. Thorn wouldn’t forget the woman who taught him this.

Mother . . . warmth . . . peace.

He lifted his violin from its case, caressing the silky black wood. Drawing out his bow, he poured every emotion into the instrument—letting it speak in ways his damaged vocal cords couldn’t. Every soulful vibration purled from the strings to his jawline, and sank into his throat, setting him adrift upon a sea of turmoil.

He’d never needed an anchor more than he needed one now.

“Maman,” he whispered. She’d been his moral compass, as ironic as that was. What would she think of the monster he’d become? Or had she expected as much from him, all along?

Thorn hadn’t been a typical child. He’d learned to talk at a very young age, and could sing songs so beautifully and affectingly, he could move people to tears, force them to face things they had hidden from themselves and the world. He was only four years old when the full ramifications of this power were revealed.

That was another time and place, when he was Etalon Laurent. When he and his mother lived in a small shack just outside of Bobigny, a suburb of Paris. They eked by without electricity, gas, or modern comforts, surviving on bread, water, dried meat (mostly from pigeons, rabbits, and the occasional squirrel), and the rare bruised and squishy tomato or plum—whatever damaged items fell from produce carts without the grocers being aware.

Back then, Etalon was too young to understand the sacrifices his mother made to keep him clothed and fed. He knew only that each night, she poured herself into skimpy dresses, then waited on their porch in a cloud of noxious perfume, her face caked in powder and lipstick, for a black car to drive her away until morning.

She would leave him in the care of a neighbor in their slum—an old hag named Batilde who did nothing but complain and recount stories of a better life, when she had a television, four-course meals, and money, before her husband left her for a younger woman.

Etalon’s mother gave Batilde food in exchange for her help, though the two women often had shouting matches over why Etalon was there at all.

“You should’ve given that bastard child away, Nadine. Sold him when Arnaund first made the offer months ago,” Batilde spat one morning after spending a sleepless night with a feverish Etalon crying for his mother. “We would both be out of this pig swill and living in the city.”

“Swallow your tongue,” Maman scolded, her freshly washed olive skin darkening as she shielded Etalon’s ears. “Never call him that. He is an angel born of dreams. And you! You are lower than a serpent’s belly to suggest something so debase! I would never have even left Ettie last night had I known he was ill.”

“Children get fevers.” Batilde bared her teeth—all four of them. “And when they aren’t sick with snots and vomits, they eat you up, house and home. Parasites they are.”