Séverin stood wild-eyed before her, shocked at her presence. Her face burned. That moment where she’d leaned over him, that evening where he’d hungrily whispered “make it worth my while,” now felt like antiques of a different era.
“Laila,” he said, exhaling it like a curse he wished to be rid of. “What are you doing here?”
Laila had been waiting for this. She’d gathered every scrap of courage to speak these words. For the past two years, she thought that having a deadline on her life should make her pull back… but Tristan’s death changed that. She didn’t want to glide through life, unfeeling. She wanted to know everything while she could. She didn’t want the ghosts of thresholds not crossed hanging over her. She didn’t want one night. She wanted a chance. It was that conviction, more than anything, which made her drop the reports to the floor, step toward Séverin, and kiss him.
38
SÉVERIN
Séverin’s seventh father was Lust.
Lust taught him that a broken heart made a fine weapon, for its pieces were exceptionally sharp.
One day, Lust became obsessed with a young man in the village. The young man shared his affection, and both Séverin and Tristan spent many a night laughing at all the strange sounds that echoed through the halls. But then one day, the young man came to the villa and said he had fallen in love with a woman of his family’s choice, and he was to marry her within the fortnight.
Lust was furious. Lust did not like to be jilted, and so he found the young woman. He made her laugh, made her love him. And when she told him she carried his child, he forsook her. The girl took her own life, and the young man she would have married went mad.
So, Séverin suspected, did Lust. He spent days sitting on the stone balcony, his feet dangling out, his whole body tipped forward as if he were daring the world to give him wings at the last second.
The day before Séverin and Tristan left for Paris, Lust whispered to him:
“Lust is safer than love, but both can ruin you.”
SÉVERIN BROKE OFFthe kiss, startling backward.
“What the hell was that?” he spat.
Confusion flickered on Laila’s face, but she masked it quickly.
“A reminder,” she said uncertainly, her eyes on the floor before she lifted them to him. “To live again…”
Live?
“Turning into ghosts is not what the dead deserve.”
She came closer. There was so much hope in her face that he felt the ache of it in his bones. Memory bit into Séverin. He remembered how he reached for her instead of Tristan, how he shielded her against one he’d sworn to protect. How could she dare to speak of what the dead deserved?
Ice crept into his heart. A sneer twisted his mouth, and he laughed, walking back to his desk and leaning against it.
“Laila,” he said. “What do you want me to say? Would you like me to quote poetry? Tell you there’s witchcraft in your lips that resurrected me?”
Laila flinched. “I thought in the catacombs that—”
“Did you really think that kiss meant something?” he asked, smirking. “Did you think one night meant something? I can barely remember it. No offense, of course.”
“Stop this, Séverin. We both know it meant something.”
“You’re delusional,” he said coldly.
“Prove it,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Séverin’s eyes flew open. She was standing right in front of him, her footsteps silenced by the plush rug beneath them. He steadied himself as he reached out to touch her cheek. The slightest tremble ran through her body.
“You’re blushing, and I’ve hardly touched you,” he said. He forcedanother sneer onto his lips even as his foolish heart leapt. “Do you really want me to go through with this proof? It will only humiliate—”
Laila wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him against her. Séverin’s hands gripped her waist, as if she were an anchor. As if he were drowning. And maybe he was. A sigh, once trapped in her throat, turned into a moan when his tongue slipped into her mouth.
“Laila,” he murmured. He said her name again, whispering it like a prayer.
