Claudia quickly throws her arms down at her sides and relaxes her face by the time Cassius appears. Secretly, she’s blushing over being so clearly seen.
To be loved is to be known. To love is to pay attention. And Cassius is paying attention to her. He always has been—even when she didn’t realize.
She unlocks the door to the observatory and braces her palms on it. “Are you ready for the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen in your life?”
He stares for a long time and doesn’t speak.
“Well?” she asks, turning to face him.
He laughs. “I’m already looking at it.”
Claudia has to turn back around and cover her mouth to keepI’m dangerously close to falling for youfrom slipping out.
She doesn’t love him. These powerful, heart-pounding emotions are left over from the opera. This is Dolericym talking.
Pushing open the door, she brings him into the observatory for the first time, and the stars have never been brighter. They’re not pinpricks—they’re entire explosions of sharp white light. It’s breathtaking.
Cassius’s head falls back, and he gazes up at the glittering sky. He paces around the circular room, effortlessly sidestepping dips and cracks in the floor as if he’s already memorized where they are in one sweeping gaze. Skirting the edge of the observatory, heruns his hands over the old spines of the books while keeping his eyes fixed above.
“What do you think?” Claudia asks, suddenly filled with the same anxiety she’d have if she were bringing someone to her home for the first time. Does he like it? Should she have tidied up and dusted more before he arrived?
Finally, he says, “It’s beyond what I imagined.” His voice is heavy with awe.
She walks over and takes his hand. “I felt the same the first time I saw it.”
“When was that?” he asks.
“Oh, not long ago,” she says, painfully aware that she’s wearing her lying face and doing her lying voice.
His head tilts to the side. “What are you hiding from me, Jolicoeur?”
“I’m not hiding anything.” She needs to redirect this conversation. Sliding her hand up his arm, she says, “You knew I enjoyed the stars when you met me. Hence the taunt you made for me.”
“It’s a term of endearment.”
“It hasn’t always been.”
“Well, it certainly is now,” he says, kissing her cheek.
She smiles. She’s almost impressed with herself—how deftly she can change the subject and put the focus back onto their relationship.
Old wood groans from somewhere in the crumbling wing, and it brings Claudia’s attention back to the task at hand.
“Come with me,” she says, leading him to the desk with the grimoire. She flips it open to Corvus, Horologium and opens the big desk drawer.
There’s the needle, and there’s the empty space where Odette’s diary entry used to be.
Claudia now knows that Odette was wrong about Cassius, so who is the true killer Odette was searching for? And if Odette wasn’t killed, why didn’t she wake up? Nothing makes sense.
At least, thanks to Malevimus, Claudia can trust in Cassius’s innocence. Everything else is a shadowy, strange mystery with a million missing pieces.
She picks up the needle and closes the drawer softly.
“Where did your love of stars come from?”
“My mother,” she says. It’s not entirely untrue. Her mother, arguably, told her about all of this years ago. She simply didn’t know what her mother meant. “She was fascinated by the stars. She said she could hear them speaking to her, and she taught me how to listen.” She shakes her head and says, “Give me your arm.”
He obeys. She rolls up Cassius’s sleeve and readies Lamour’s needle over his skin. Before she makes any marks, she says, “Remember, you can’t show this to anyone. It’ll only take a day or so to heal, but until then, the sleeve stays rolled down. Understood?”
