Dinner the next night was of exceptionally poor quality.
A dry meatloaf with too much salt and a single half-cooked potato, cold, with a fork sticking out of it. Gabriel dropped the plate in front of her and sank into a chair at the head of the formal dining table, six seats down, a goblet of wine in his fist and a glower on his face.
“Bon appétit,” he said.
Anne smiled and lifted the fork, gamely taking a bite from the potato and crunching it between her teeth. “Delicious. You’ve outdone yourself, Gabriel.”
He brooded and watched her eat. One taste of the meatloaf sent Anne groping for the water pitcher, but she refused to be cowed by his sulking.
Some perverse part of her kept trying to draw him into conversation. To make him erupt, as he so clearly wanted to do. But he seemed to have the same idea, responding in monosyllables yet refusing to be drawn into one of his towering furies — just to spite her, Anne thought sourly.
She was tired of pretending they were friends. Tired of his constant company. She wanted to be alone again. To have her power back! Sweet and compliant had gotten her nowhere. It was time for new measures.
Two months she’d been his captive. It was only Gabriel’s word that he’d even posted the letter. What if he hadn’t?
Anne expected him to shun her at dinner, and thus had brought La Belle et La Bête to peruse while she ate. Now she leafed through the book, pretending to be absorbed in the pictures.
“So you’re an Antimagus. Have you drained many people?” she asked, slicing off a bit of meatloaf and chewing with her mouth open.
His eyes flicked up from the goblet. “What do you think?”
“How many?”
He made an impatient gesture. “Too many to count.”
“How charming. And you call yourself a man of God. I think all this moralizing is just a convenient way for you to stay alive without suffering any guilt.”
He scowled at her. “You are a savage, Anne, with no appreciation for anything that truly matters.” He leapt to his feet and snatched the book away, flicking a bit of potato from its pages. “I think I am Beauty and you are the Beast!”
“I prefer the beast to the man,” she said with contempt. “At least the beast is honest.” Anne shoved her plate away.
Gabriel’s eyes flared, the pupils dilating. He gripped the table.
“You’re a rank hypocrite. I’ve told you everything you asked, but you withhold yourself. Tell me what you’re looking for! It’s not werewolves and goblins.”
She kept a sullen silence.
“Perhaps I’ll tell you, then.” He leaned forward and something in his face made her go cold. “We’re more alike than you care to admit. I know where you come from. What was done to you. The same was done to me. A man named Balthazar bought me for the price of four pigs when I was nine years old and delivered me to the tender mercies of Neblis.”
The name struck Anne like a slap to the face.
Neblis.
The daēva queen from Bactria who raised an army of Druj and necromancers and marched to war against the Empire, until the young conqueror Alexander drove her back. Her name was forgotten now, erased from the collective memory of a more civilized age. But a handful still remembered and Anne was one of them. Some of her army had laid siege to….
She could hardly make the words come, terrified of his answer. But she had to know.
“Were you at Gorgon-e Gaz?”
Gabriel shook his head. “No, though I heard what happened there. I had already fled, a deserter.”
Anne felt the blood rush back to her hands. She knit them together under the table.
Gabriel’s voice was quiet and deadly. “So you see, I know exactly how daēvas were trained. How they were punished for disobedience. I remember. Yes, I’ve killed people. Did the men who abused you deserve to live? There’s no justice in the world except what we make ourselves. You of all people should know that.” He studied her. “I think maybe you’re looking for someone in particular. Someone who wronged you—”
“No.” Anne met his eyes. “It’s not that. I… I’m looking for my own kind.” A tear ran down her cheek and she brushed it away impatiently. “I only know two others. Alec and Cassandane. They’re both bonded. The rest…. They vanished after the war. I don’t know if….” Her throat caught and she took a sip of water. “If any are still alive. The tales would be distorted, of course. They might be called wizards or fairies or djinni. But if there are free daēvas in the world, I would like to meet them. That’s all.”
Gabriel looked puzzled. “Why couldn’t you tell me this?”
“Because….” She sighed. “Oh, I don’t know. It just sounds so … pathetic.”
“No.” He took a handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to her. “Not pathetic at all. Just lonely.”
She shot him a look. “That’s a synonym for pathetic.”
“Then I am pathetic, too.”
“It’s not the same. You have your Order of the Rose Cross. Others like you.”
Gabriel gave her a cheeky smile. “There’s no one like me.”
Anne laughed and wiped her nose. “That’s undeniably true.”
They were silent for a moment.
“What if you never had to feel lonely again?” he asked.
Her heart beat painfully, still raw and tight. “What do you mean?”
“I’m sorry we came to know each other this way. More than you can imagine. I…. I’ve wrestled with it for days. Weeks.” Gabriel always seemed so certain of himself. He lived in a world of moral absolutes — as he chose to interpret them. But now he sounded tentative. “I tried to avoid you, Anne, but you made that impossible. And, well…. I’ve come to care for you, and I think perhaps you for me.”
“Perhaps I have,” she conceded.
“When I told you the story of the Beast and you asked if the ability could be taught….” He picked at the pearl buttons on his waistcoat. “It would take years. But if we were bonded—”
Her chair scraped back. “You’d make me your slave,” Anne snarled, knowing it was unfair but too shocked and furious to restrain herself.
She’d lost her temper more times in the last week than she had in the last century.
“No!” Gabriel was vehement. “Never. If you wanted to leave me, I wouldn’t stop you. But you would have all my gifts.” His voice lowered to a seductive purr. “I know you want to. I could see it in your face last night. You wondered what you might become. What it would feel like to have claws and fangs, a tail to lash when you get angry at me—”
“And what would you get out of it?” she demanded.
“Life without death,” he said simply. “You call me a parasite. Then help me stop killing, Anne.”
“Oh, no. Don’t you dare put that on me.”
He crossed his arms, hurt in his eyes. “Would it truly be so bad? You like my cooking.” He glanced at the meatloaf. “Most of the time. You could come and go as you wished. I have my own life, you know. I won’t interfere in yours.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“Because it is.”
“Was this your plan all along? Coax me into bonding you?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Yet you happen to have a set of cuffs.” Her eyes narrowed. “Where did you get them?”
“An old woman at the bazaar in Kabul,” he replied smoothly. “She had no idea what they were, of course. I bought them decades ago. A curiosity. I suppose they belonged to a pair of Immortals.”
She shook her head. “I do care for you, Gabriel. Against my better judgment.”
An eyebrow rose.
“But when I was freed, I swore never to allow myself to be bonded again. You must understand that.”
“I do. And I don’t expect you to make up your mind on the spot. Just think about it, Anne. That’s all I ask of you.”
“I don’t have to. The answer is no.”
“We’ll see.”
His calm was maddening.
“All right, Gabriel. If I were to agree, there would have to absolute trust between us, yes?”
“Of course.”
“So prove it to me now.” Anne raised a hand to her throat. She could sense the rose cameo dangling from her neck, inches away. “Take this off.”
He hesitated.
“You see. You don’t trust me.”
“And if you try to kill me again? You know all my secrets now.” His eyes darkened. “This time you might succeed.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
A slow cannonade of thunder rattled the windows. Gabriel rose.
“Don’t break my heart by lying, Anne,” he said softly. “Just … don’t.”
La Belle et La Bête.
She lay in bed, the book open across her chest.
In the story, only true love could reverse the spell.
But what if Beauty didn’t want to reverse the spell?
What if she wished she were the Beast?
If you bonded me, you’d have all of my gifts.
Oh, Gabriel did know her. Too bloody well. He knew exactly what to promise that might tempt her.
But no. She’d be mad to even consider it.
Anne climbed out of bed and paced to the window, peering into the night. The Beast of Gévaudan was out there somewhere. It had been a shadowy presence the night she encountered it in the forest, but she suddenly wanted to see it, this creature of ancient magic and dark appetites. To look it in the face, or at least catch a glimpse.
Gabriel’s bedroom looked out over both the bailey and the woods beyond the wall. She sat in a chair by the window, her eyes growing heavy but determined to wait. The hours passed. And then, just before dawn, Anne saw something moving through the trees. She sat up, instantly alert. It slunk through the dappled shadows, moving low to the ground, lithe and sleek. Then it passed beneath a huge oak and disappeared for a moment. Anne held her breath. A few seconds later, Gabriel emerged, walking upright and clad only in moonlight.
He strode through the postern gate and drew up a bucket of water from the well, dousing it over his head. Then he rolled his shoulders and tipped his head back, arms raised to squeeze the water from his hair.
Their eyes met.
Anne pulled back from the window. Had he truly seen her? It was only for the briefest instant. She couldn’t be sure.
But she raced to the bed and leapt under the covers.
She heard the massive front door open and soft footsteps climbing the stairs. They padded down the corridor and paused for a brief moment in front of her bedroom, then continued on. A door closed softly somewhere in the house.
She sat up and threw the covers off.
Oh, what the hell.
Anne went to her door and opened it. She smoothed her nightgown and dragged fingers through her hair. Then she started down the corridor, reservations crumbling to dust. At the same instant, Gabriel appeared from the other direction. He’d yanked on a pair of trousers and a linen shirt, open at the throat, and by God, he looked good.
“Anne,” he breathed, eyes widening.
“I was just—”
He took a step towards her when they both heard the sound of hooves on the road.
Gabriel frowned. “Excuse me, Anne. I… I’m sorry.” He spun on his heel and hurried down the stairs. He seemed annoyed, but not surprised or alarmed.
He was expecting someone.
Anne slipped after him.
The rider must have already reached the front door, for she heard it open and the murmur of voices. She crept as close as she dared, but they’d gone into the library and closed the door. Like all the doors at Chateau de Saint-Évreux, it was thick and nearly impervious to eavesdropping.
Still, Anne did her best.
She seemed to have missed some crucial part of the conversation though, because most of what she heard made little sense, as well as being conducted in French, which she was rusty at. Gabriel seemed enraged at the rider, his voice a harsh staccato. From what she gathered, the man had done something Gabriel did not approve of. She heard the word fantôme several times, which she thought meant a wight or a ghoul. Also Duzakh, and Bekker. To her intense frustration, the rest of it was inaudible.
When she heard footsteps approach, Anne darted for the stairs, just rounding the first curve as the door opened. She crept back to her bedroom. Gabriel did not return to her, though she heard him pacing downstairs long after the rider had departed.
A soft knock roused her late the next morning. Gabriel stood in the doorway, dressed more formally than usual, in a dark coat with silver buttons and polished boots. He clearly hadn’t slept and violet shadows smudged his eyes.
“I must leave you, Anne. For a few days only.”
“Where are you going?”
“London. The Duzakh is gathering and I must deal with them. You have free rein here. There’s food in the kitchens. For God’s sake, just stay within the castle walls. Will you promise me that?”
“And if you don’t return?”
“I will. And then…. We can talk more.”
Once she would have rejoiced at being left alone. She might have made another run for the wall, Beast or not. Now she felt only dread. She knew enough about the Duzakh to understand that Gabriel was walking into a viper’s nest.
“Who was that last night?”
“A man named Constantin. One of my brothers in the Order.” His jaw tightened. “He stepped over the line about a certain matter I set him to attend to, but I’ll sort things out myself.”
“Be careful,” she said, touching his cheek.
He closed his eyes for a moment, leaning into her fingers.
But he made no promises he couldn’t keep.
Anne watched through the window as Gabriel galloped off on his horse, bent low over its neck.
She spent the day reading but found it hard to focus. Dinnertime came and went. Anne had little appetite. They didn’t spend all their time together, but she always heard him somewhere in the house, playing his pianoforte or rattling around in the kitchen. The silence was oppressive.
Finally, she succumbed to curiosity — and perhaps a desire to feel his presence — and sought out the room Gabriel slept in. It wasn’t hard to find. It was the only one with fresh linens, a room far less grand than the one she’d taken over. Anne sat down on the rumpled bed and looked around. One of his shirts was thrown over a chair. She saw a brush and polish for his boots, a razor and small shaving mirror. And a book, with one of his black ribbons carefully holding a place.
Anne picked it up. The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz.
The publisher’s watermark was a cross with a rose at the center. Printed in 1616, two years after they’d first met.
She lay back on Gabriel’s pillow and started to read. The story was divided into seven days and read like a fever dream, steeped in romance and mystical allegory. It told of a Bride and Groom, and the narrator’s arduous journey to a castle for their wedding. He endured captivity and any number of strange experiences, but the tone of it was joyous and full of wonder.
Anne read it straight through without stopping, a shaft of sunlight creeping across the room as the hours passed. At last she closed the book, the smell of him on her skin, and let out a soft breath.
No author was named, but she knew who’d written it.
A beautiful, demented fantasy, she thought.
Just like Gabriel.