Page 76 of The Beautiful Ones

Cécile did not follow.

The bells stopped the moment her mother crossed the terrace.

In the silence that followed, Nicholas approached me carrying a thin folded parchment tied with dark blue silk. I recognized the red wax before he placed it in my hands.

My contract.

I had imagined stealing it, burning it, tearing my name from the page and feeding the pieces to the kitchen fire. I had never imagined receiving it politely beneath a red sky while the house that owned me turned blue with flame.

Madame Lebon saw the paper from the terrace.

“That belongs to us.”

“No,” I said.

The word surprised me with its ease.

I loosened the ribbon. My name stood at the bottom in the careful hand I had used before Virginia taught it to tremble. Beside it was the mark of the man who sold my remaining years to Étienne Lebon.

I tore the contract once through both signatures.

Then again.

The pieces slipped from my fingers. Before they touched the ground, blue butterflies carried them upward, white scraps among their luminous wings. They rose through the broken glasshouse roof and scattered toward the four corners of the morning.

“Elin Andersdotter,” Adrian said. “Your debt to this house is ended.”

I wanted to feel only relief. Instead, freedom opened before me like a road in darkness. I had no money, no husband waiting in Virginia and no certainty that the Swedish trunk beneath my bed had survived the fire. I possessed the dress I wore, the letter hidden against my heart and the hand of the girl beside me.

It was more than I had owned an hour before.

Adrian looked at Cécile.

She had not released me. Blood dried along her cheek, and fragments of glass glittered in her dark curls among the pearls her mother had chosen. She seemed very young until she met Adrian’s gaze. Then something in her face settled—not age, but decision preparing its place.

“What happens to me?” she asked.

Her voice broke across the question. Adrian did not rescue it.

“That is no longer mine to decide.”

“Y-you c-came for my father.”

“I came because Nathaniel called us and your mother opened the door.”

“And now?”

“Now we leave.”

Beyond him, the ivory carriage waited at the far end of the garden, though I had not heard its wheels approach. The four gray horses stood beneath the oaks with their heads bowed. Octavia had changed from black to white without my seeing her do so. Nicholas’s coat had become summer pearl. Only Adrian remained dark against the burning house.

He offered Cécile his hand.

“You may go with Elin, if that is your choice. You may find your brother and build whatever life remains to you. Your voice will be difficult some days and merciful on others, but it will be yours.”

Cécile swallowed.

“Or?”