Chapter Forty - Ixion
I catch her by the arm, jerking it hard enough to make her cry out in pain, and just barely prevent her from toppling over and falling head-first down the stairs.
“Stop,” I say, my heart beating fast at the near-fatal accident that almost happened. “Just fucking calm down and stop.”
“No,” she says, jerking her arm away. She turns and I see a massive bruise forming on her hip. It’s ugly. Already deep purple and swollen. “I’m going downstairs.”
“Then take off your fucking blindfold,” I say, reaching for it.
Her hand grabs mine. Hard. Well, I mean hard for such a tiny hand. “Do not,” she seethes, “remove my blindfold.”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask. “Why are you being so fucking difficult?”
She opens her mouth to say something. Then pauses to take a breath and tries again. “It’s not over yet,” she whispers. “I want more time here.”
“No one’s kicking you out,” I say.
“No, but you’re leaving, I can feel it. So either help me down the stairs or get the hell out of my way.”
She shoves me to make her point and then her foot is hovering over empty space—
I pull her back a second time. “Fine,” I hiss. “Fine. I’ll take you down the stairs. Just… be fucking careful, will you?”
“I will.” Her voice is soft through her smile.
She steps very carefully as I lead her. Much more carefully than she was before. And the fear I had begins to fade. She will not fall and break her neck. She will not stumble into a hundred-year-old window and cut herself to pieces. She will be fine.
Unless, that is, I fuck her up again.
I hesitate when we get down into the grand foyer. “Where do you want to go now?”
“Outside,” she says. “I want to sit on that swing with you.”
“Evangeline,” I growl. “You’re completely naked. It’s nineteen degrees outside. We’re not going outside.”
“I’m kidding.” And then she giggles. Like… actually giggles. As if trying my patience was the cutest thing she’s ever done in her life.
I smile. Reluctantly.
Maybe not so reluctantly.
I’m going to miss her.
“You seem to think I need to practice, so take me to that violin. You might as well be the first person to hear me play in a decade.”
I stay absolutely still. Probably even hold my breath.
“Ix?” she says. “Did you hear me?”
I nod. Exhale. Then clear my throat and say, “Yeah. Yup. It’s down here. Stay close to me. I don’t want you to fall again.”
Her small hands wrap around my bicep, squeezing like she never wants to let me go.
I’m so sorry, I want to say. I’m so sorry you’re part of this game. If I could take it back, I would. But I can’t.
But I can’t. Because I’m a coward. And not only that, I’m playing as well.
I’ll make it up to you. I promise.
There are no more incidents as I lead her down the hallway to the library. And I can’t help thinking back to that first day I came here. How wrong I was to assume that her instrument would be the most interesting thing in this house. I pictured her unable to leave it behind when in reality she had almost no interest in it at all.
My intuition—my infamous intuition—failed me.
How many other things have I gotten wrong?
“Do you want to stand in front of the window?” I ask. Because I feel like… I have no idea who she is right now. I can’t even begin to predict what she wants out of this night.
“No,” she says. “I want you to sit on the couch. It’s yellow, right? Crushed velvet? Something my mother would hate because it’s too… romantic.”
I stare at the yellow couch and remember back to her first night here. When she was in a blind panic. When she raced to the bathroom to hide. When she came out, wandered around, and then crumpled to the floor after she saw the violin waiting for her. How she slept, shivering with cold, desperately trying to cover herself with a blanket that would never be able to cover enough. How she never came back to this room again.
How wrong I got it.
How badly I have already fucked this up.
How she might take the gift I’ll give her, but never forget why I gave it.
“I like it,” I say, referring to the couch. Because I do. It’s not something my mother would’ve liked either, and it hurts a little to think that. Because it means we’re different. That I was always different.
“Get me the violin,” Evangeline says, standing right in the place I put her in the middle of the room.
“OK,” I say, prying her fingers from my arm before walking over to get it. When I pick it up I’m reminded of how light this instrument actually is. Mostly hollow, mostly air, nothing but thin wood and thinner strings. I take the bow and a little container of resin Evangeline will surely want, and bring it all over to the couch.
“Good,” she says. “Now sit.”
It’s not an order. Not a command. Not a request, either. It’s just… what she wants.
So I sit, because I want to give her what she wants tonight. And she sits on my knee, perched off to the side a little with her back straight, and her legs closed, and her hands reaching out.
I place the violin in them and it’s like… she inflates. Immediately. Her chin lifts to accommodate the instrument, her shoulders square as one set of fingers find the strings and the other set holds the bow. She sucks in a breath, like she’s about to play a flute instead of a violin.
“Now listen,” she whispers. “Don’t miss the gift I’m giving you.”
When that bow touches those strings the room is immediately full. The tone starts out deep as she begins some once-well-rehearsed Evangeline Rolaine version of a scale. Her fingers fly, picking up and coming down on just the right string, as her bow slices through the air in just the right way. And the heavens open up inside this almost-empty room as she proclaims that in this singular, elegant way, she owns the entire fuckin’ world.
She is poetry incarnate.
The beauty she creates makes me want to die from joy. The notes reverberate off the wood-paneled walls. The music takes over my mind, and my body submits to her spell, and there is no way anyone who hears her music could ever miss the fact that this girl, frightened as she was, lonely as she was, sad that she was, is nothing but a genius.
And with that realization I understand… she no longer needs me.