Layla was still coughing out bits of dust when she went out to the street outside the Clarice. For the first time since becoming a reaper, she considered ripping her own throat out to relieve the irritation, but that would only—
“I thought you said your allergies were gone?” Elise’s voice startled the remnants of dust right from Layla’s system. She turned to see her waiting on the sidewalk.
“Why are you here?” Layla demanded.
“What a beautiful welcome,” she said sarcastically.
Layla ignored her tone. “You said we were meeting in a few days. I haven’t found anything yet.”
Elise shrugged. “Fine.”
Something was off. Elise seemed less rigid than usual, her shoulders relaxed into a gentle curve rather than the harsh edges they typically formed. And there was a softer presence in her eyes. For once, her body didn’t bend to bear the weight of her responsibilities, her jaw was not clenched so tightly.
Layla sighed. “I’m assuming you have information to share, otherwise you wouldn’t be here—”
“Can I not just be here?” Elise quipped.
Layla shook her head. “No. You cannot. This is quite literally not your territory. So unless you have anything new to share with me, you should go. Reapers would love to watch a Saint fall,” she said icily.
Elise didn’t move. Her eyes remained trained on Layla, wavering with something undecipherable. After a few long seconds, she let out a huff of air and looked away. “Nothing substantial to report back on the mayoral rally.”
“Of course not,” Layla muttered.
Elise shot her a stern look. At once, the cold Saint Layla recognized had returned. The searing familiarity almost warmed her. “I’m sure the labs are where the important information is, anyway. How is the research going for you?”
“It’s not going,” Layla said. She thought back to just a few minutes ago when Mei had interrupted her study search and given her a warning. It seemed that nothing Layla did was right, no matter which direction she went in; work with the Saints to clear the reaper name, or ignore the Saints and go to prison for the rest of her long, grueling life. Layla cleared her throat and lifted her head, not wanting Elise to see her dejection. “My clanmates are on my case. My clan leader also hates me right now.”
A soft chuckle broke from Elise. “All of New York hates you. Layla Quinn, reaper under suspicion of murderous rampage.” Elise dramatized a reading of a popular newspaper headline. She thumbed at her lower lip, thinking, while Layla glowered at her. “You’re not going to deny it?”
Layla swallowed past the hard lump in her throat. “There’s no point. They believe what they want to believe.” The breeze picked up around them, and Layla had to claw her hair out of the way when it blew into her face.
Elise was still watching her, quiet. Finally, she spoke, voice lowered, “I don’t listen to them and their accusations of you being the murderer. I believe you.”
Layla’s heart stopped. She searched Elise’s eyes for any sign she was lying. But all she saw was an affirming warmth aflame within.
“Why?” Layla whispered.
Just a few weeks ago, Elise had Layla sign a contract to ensure no double-crossing would occur during their investigation because her word was not good enough on its own. Layla wanted to feel confused. But she felt her heart tumbling headfirst into a pit of comfort—a sensation she had not felt in ages.
The feeling was almost foreign. Layla wondered if this was what it felt like when a still heart began to beat again. When a devout person, who kneeled for years in prayer, finally heard a whisper from their god. Elise was not Layla’s god, nor was she adrenaline to start her heart. But the visceral reaction those three words unlocked in her was a phenomenon akin to what Layla might have attributed to divine recognition.
I believe you.
Elise didn’t answer Layla’s “why?” Layla was glad she didn’t. To put conditions on a feeling as fleeting as this one would crush it.
I believe you.
All earlier misery had been chased away by those three words. Her mind echoed them over and over, Mei’s threats long forgotten.
I believe you.
When Elise turned to leave, Layla let her face crack, like a stone, weatherworn and finally facing the sun, into a genuine smile.
The downtown lights were already beginning to glimmer along the skyline as Elise settled onto her piano seat in her music room. She set her fingers on the starting keys and sighed.
Layla crossed her mind once. Then she became an all-consuming thought. Elise wasn’t sure what her impromptu visit to Layla was supposed to accomplish. All she knew was that the clawing feeling in her chest she always associated with Layla did not occur when she saw her this time.
At first Elise figured it was because Layla looked different.
Her hair was down. Even before Elise left for France, Layla always wore her hair up to keep it out of her face while she danced. Today, her hair was down. A wild, soft crown that framed her sharp face. Where Elise remembered gentle curves, there were now rough edges. She had anticipated feeling the sting of those edges during this visit, but there was nothing. Nothing but a subtle throb of the new emotion now gnawing at her chest, making it ache.
Maybe Elise had visited Layla to ensure that her hatred for the girl who had upended her life was still intact. The hate was still there, but it was nowhere as near to her heart as it used to be.
Elise’s fingers slammed down on the piano keys, and the song screeched out of its deep, harrowing tone. She cursed, rubbing her eyes with the back of her knuckles.
Everywhere she turned, trying to find a new thread to bring her out of her confusion, Layla was there, blocking her. For once, the consistency of her brain irked her. Instead of finding one problem, there were thousands, and they were all tied to Layla Quinn.
She recalled a sweeter memory now, where Layla stood behind Elise at the piano, her fingers tangling in her curls. It was a soothing gesture; something Layla just knew how to do to help Elise release some tension while practicing a particularly difficult piece. When Elise had finished playing, she tugged Layla’s arm further around her shoulders and sighed.
“You’re going to be so famous one day, leading the orchestra at the fancy conservatory in Paris,” Layla insisted.
Elise had laughed at the then-fanciful hope. “Sure. But only if you dance at the fancy ballet school nearby.”
Layla released her then and Elise felt an immense loss until she slid onto the bench beside her, sitting so close, their thighs pressed together. “Well, of course. You’re my best friend. I don’t want to do life without you.”
A smile lit Elise’s face while Layla looked up at her. In that moment, Elise wanted to risk everything for Layla to truly understand the depth of her feelings. It was just one look, but it made Elise’s world move. She felt it in the following silence and saw it despite the room’s dim lighting.
Now, Elise pushed against the tender knots dotting her brain, but they only tightened. Her mind, forbidden to cave, made a prison for Elise’s own feelings. She inhaled. On her exhale, Elise began to play. This time, she leaned into the newly raised emotions. Grace poured into her mind like warmed honey. Slowly, the tangles unraveled. Her mind mapped itself out before her, music painting a vivid backdrop of her feelings.
Each note was a gentle awakening from a long slumber. Her fingers stretched and curled with the music, inviting the swell of vulnerability to fill her previously hollow crevices. In this room, music was the sole eye of her perception, the window cracked just enough to let her glimpse at the delicate dissection of her heart and mind.
The song carried Elise like a breath of fresh air back into her body. She finished it, fingers trembling slightly against the damp keys as the final notes faded around her. Tears coated her cheeks. Her mind felt gloriously cleared with no more blocks forcing her to look inward.
Layla was gone from her thoughts, her only presence existing in the now silent song.
Elise closed the piano.
When Elise was younger, her father had a habit of drinking black coffee at midnight. Now, she glowered at her father’s closed door as the maid, Helen, knocked on it, holding a steaming mug of the stuff. Elise could smell it the second it started brewing. The scent filled the house, curling around every corner and diving into every crevice it could find. Elise wrinkled her nose.
She sat up in the sitting room across from his study, moving pieces across a chessboard while she listened for him to come out. An hour had already passed, during which Sterling had bade her goodnight.
The study door finally cracked open.
“Please take it up to my bedroom, Helen. Thank you.”
The knight piece fell from Elise’s hand while she looked up. Helen hurried down the hall with the coffee in her hands. Then Mr. Saint emerged. Elise righted the chess piece and straightened up in her seat. “Father,” she said solemnly.
Her father chuckled. “Allow me to be the first victim of this new defense you’re working out.” He pointed to the chessboard and sat in the chair opposite hers.
“Are you sure? You aren’t tired?” Elise asked.
“Elise,” he said flatly. She noticed the least expected emotion residing in his eyes: guilt. “Give me a chance. You’ve been waiting up all night for me. I should be taking more time to spend with you, and I’m sorry I haven’t. Work has just been so busy.”
Elise nodded quickly. “I understand, Father. That’s why I assumed you would want to go to bed. Not play chess. I’m not even good.” She laughed, and it was soft enough to make him smile.
“I love watching you learn,” her father said. “All right, then. I’m black. You’re white.”
It was nearly three o’clock in the morning by the time her father went to bed and Elise could sneak into his study. He beat her badly in two games, which Elise had not minded at first. But then he went into critiques, telling her how sloppy her defenses were and how it could all be a grand metaphor for her job as heiress.
“You lack self-awareness, my pearl. I don’t want you to get hurt because you assume those around you are playing this game of life as safely as you are.” His voice had been so soft as he spoke, like a proper father giving her advice and guiding her into an important stage of her life.
Then he had taken her queen.
Elise closed the study door behind her and turned to face the massive room. She caught the whiff of roses first, a sickeningly sweet scent that overwhelmed her senses.
She started at her father’s desk, rummaging through drawers, shifting papers about. Most of the letters she found that were addressed to Mr. Wayne were already sealed. There was no way for her to open them without making it obvious they had been tampered with. Elise set those aside and continued to search the room. By the fireplace sat two plush armchairs. A crystal glass half full of red wine rested on one of the chair’s side tables, a worn notebook planner on the other.
Elise picked it up and flipped to the most recent pages:
She ran her fingers over the rough pen marks of her father’s handwriting. He must have been upset; the gouges of the pen nearly ripped the page. Almost every page was full, details scrawled even in the margins. Until she found a mostly blank page for the first of October.
All it said was ‘BUSY,’ with an X crossed over the whole page.
Elise shut the planner and put it back where she found it. Whatever her father was planning was big enough to warrant plans weeks in advance. Yet Mr. Saint, the man who carefully ensured timeliness and organization, had not told his family a single thing.