And yet… he knew Séverin had beenoff. That sheen of desperation still clung to him. Enrique knew he wasn’t perfect. He too had moments of deliberate unkindness.
Once, an old, white curator had come to visit the galleries of L’Eden and see the works Enrique had acquired for the hotel. In the past, the man had been a rather harsh critic of museums, but when Enrique and Séverin met with him, he was a shriveled thing, his clothes hanging off him, his glasses askew. He got historical dates wrong, mispronounced the names of kings. Enrique had savored correcting him as pompously as possible until the old man was reduced to stammers and tears. Later, Laila had admonished him. The curator had a neurological condition that had impaired his memory. He had come to L’Eden not to write an article of critique, but to try and familiarize himself with the activities he’d once loved in the company of another renowned historian.
Ashamed, Enrique had slunk into Séverin’s office. “I was intolerably cruel.”
Séverin, who had been in the middle of reviewing some papers or another, barely looked up. “What do you want me to do about it?”
“Do you have atsinela?”
“What?”
“Never mind,” said Enrique. “I was mean and thoughtless and awful—”
“And not yourself,” finished Séverin. “So you had a dark moment. It happens. Do you know what makes a star appear so bright?”
“That sounds more like a question for Zofia.”
“The darkness around them,” said Séverin, closing the book before him and giving Enrique his full attention. “Growth and remorse are rather like stars: the surrounding dark makes them vivid enough to notice. Invite the old curator once more and apologize. Tell yourself that next time you’ll do better.”
Enrique frowned. “I know you did not devise such wisdom on your own.”
“Quite right, I stole it from Laila. Now please leave my office.”
In the music room, Enrique almost laughed.
He stood there, thinking about the darkness between stars. He had no doubt that Séverin had fought through darkness. Who was Enrique to deny anyone the chance for light? And would he also deny that light to himself?
Just because the threat of the Fallen House was gone, that didn’t mean there wasn’t still plenty left of the world that demanded changing. He’d seen that much even inside the matriarch’s safe house.
Yesterday, when he had been researching in the library, he had stumbled on a slim, pale volume hiding amongst the matriarch’s belongings:The White Man and the Man of Color. Enrique knew the title well. It had been written nearly twenty years ago by theItalian physician Cesare Lombroso. His university classmates had argued loudly about its merits, but he’d never bothered to open it until now. Curious, he flipped to a bookmarked page.
“Only we whites have achieved the most perfect symmetry in the forms of the body…”
Something cold wound its way up his ribs. The words rooted him to the spot. Enrique put the book down when Lombroso blamed criminal tendencies on the residual “blackness” of white communities.
Now, Séverin’s words flitted through his head.
If you could change the course of history and lift up those who had been downtrodden in its path… wouldn’t you?
That had always been Enrique’s dream.
He wanted to be like his heroes, to light a path to revolution, to carve out a space for himself in a world where people told him he was not wanted. He yearned to do grand things—brandish a sword (though preferably not a heavy one) and sweep someone off their feet, to utter deadly one-liners and swish a cape behind him. More than anything… Enrique wanted tobelievein something better. And he wanted to believe that he could be part of bringing that vision to life. That he could stand at the front instead of in the shadows.
In that second, he made a decision.
He would not merely want… he woulddo. Even if it meant opening himself up to hurt once more.
On the other side of the door, someone rapped lightly. “Enrique?”
Zofia.
When Enrique opened the door, he found himself face-to-face with Hypnos and Zofia. Of course, he’d spoken to and seen both of them earlier, but it only dawned on him at this second that he was staring at the two people he’d most enjoyed kissing in the entiretyof his existence. And he had never noticed until now how similar and yet different their eyes were. Two shades of blue: one like the heart of a candle flame, the other the hue of winter.
“Are you… done?” asked Zofia.
The blunt question knocked the whimsy out of him. He sighed, nodding. “I’m ready.”
“Thank every pantheon,” said Hypnos. “This much responsibility ages me.”
