By the time she’d asked that question, he’d managed to put his mask back on. His cavalier mask. His mask of indifference.

“Marcus Stearns was my sister’s husband,” Kingsley said. “A teacher at the school I went to in Maine. A student and then a teacher.”

“But he was more than that, yes?”

Kingsley didn’t answer. He simply patted Jacques on the back again, and caressed the baby’s soft warm cheek.

“Ah, so he was,” she said. “In your personnel file, he’s listed as your next of kin. The person to contact in event of your death. An important position in your life.”

Kingsley said nothing.

“Put Jacques in his crib,” Madame said.

He stared hard at her. He didn’t want to let go, and she knew it.

She smiled a wicked smile. “If you want to hold him, you will answer my questions. If you don’t want to, you must put him down.”

“You’ll use a baby as a weapon?” Kingsley asked. “You are a sadist.”

“You want to hold Jacques. I want answers. Either put him down or answer my questions.”

Kingsley took a deep breath. Little Jacques’s hand latched onto Kingsley’s collarbone, the fingernails digging into his skin like five tender needles.

“Why is Marcus Stearns listed as the next of kin in your files?” Madame asked.

“He was married to my sister.”

“Your sister who is dead. He’s not family to you anymore.”

“I have no one else,” he said. “It was either him or a couple of my father’s cousins I haven’t seen in years.”

“He was the one you served, wasn’t he?” Madame asked. “The angel. The demon. The monster. I imagined it was a priest at your school when you told me. I thought he was someone much older, someone with power over you. But no. He was just a boy.”

“He was not ‘just’ anything,” Kingsley said.

“Ah, so I’m right,” she said. “Your master married your sister. And you call me a sadist?”

Kingsley said nothing again. He didn’t trust his own voice.

“Funny. I say ‘sister’ and nothing happens to your eyes,” Madame said. “I mention him, and I see lightning, thunder.” She waved a hand over her face to mimic a storm.

“Maybe I want to throw lightning at him,” Kingsley said.

“That’s passion,” she said. “You must still love him.”

“I hate him. I’d kill him if I saw him again.”

“I could say the same for my husband,” she said.

Again, Kingsley said nothing.

“Put Jacques down in his cradle if you won’t talk,” she said. “Those are the rules.”

Kingsley wasn’t ready to relinquish the little boy yet. He’d forgotten how solid babies were. Even when tiny, they had heft to them. They weighed somehow more than their actual weight. Was it life that gave them that weight? Was it the weight of the soul he felt? The whole of the tree fit inside a single seed. Did the whole of a man’s life live inside this tiny form Kingsley could cradle against his shoulder?

“What do you want to know about him?” Kingsley asked.

“Everything,” Madame said.

“Everything. All right. I’ll tell you everything. He’s beautiful,” Kingsley said. “You’ve never seen anyone more beautiful than him. Before him, I never loved a boy. Never even thought of it. I loved girls. I’d had my first when I was twelve, thirteen? Fifty by the time I was sixteen. Then I saw him.”

Kingsley closed his eyes as if he could hide from the memory. The memory found him anyway.

He continued, “His hair is like spun gold. His eyes are the color of a January sky before it snows. He even smells…he smells just like winter. He’s smart. Too smart. There’s an American phrase for when they want to say someone is stupid. They say, ‘He’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer.’ ”

Madame smiled.

“And Marcus?” Madame asked.

“He is the sharpest knife in the drawer. I cut myself on him.”

Even in the dark he saw the glint of pleasure in her eyes.

“Tell me more,” she said softly. “That’s an order.”

He didn’t need the order. He couldn’t have stopped talking now if she’d cut out his tongue. The vein had been opened. The blood had to flow.

“He’s tall. Very strong. Lean, though. He’s like a wolf,” Kingsley said, remembering his dream. “A white wolf. Dangerous because he’s hungry. Dangerous even when he’s not.”

“How so?”

“Because you see something that beautiful, like a white wolf, and you want to pet it.” He shook his head. “Don’t. You’ll lose a hand.”

“Or your heart?” She was teasing him now.

“At least I had a heart to lose. He’s got ice in his veins. Stone for a heart.” Kingsley took a breath. “And even worse, he plays piano. Beautifully. Everything about him was cruel. Even his virtues.”

“Go on.” Madame’s eyes had taken on a lupine hunger of her own. “I love to hear you talk of him. It’s like watching you flay yourself.”

“We were talking once, sitting next to each other on a bed. I kissed him…out of nowhere, I just kissed him before I went mad from wanting to kiss him. He kissed me back, but only for a second. Then he pushed me down onto the bed. Held me down so hard he nearly broke my wrist. It popped. I remember it popping under his hand.”

“Did you like it?”

“It made me hard.”

“His kiss?”

Kingsley whispered, “The pain.” La douleur.

“La douleur exquise?” she asked.

He smiled. “Exactement.”

“Did he love you?” she asked.

“I loved him. He owned me. If there was love, it was because he loved the owning, not the thing he owned.”

“You were lovers?”

Kingsley placed his hand over Jacques’s ears.

“Not in front of the children,” he said to Madame.

She smiled again. “You were lovers. Tell me what it was like with him.”

“The first time was in the woods, this forest that surrounded our school. I wanted him… God, I never knew you could want someone like I wanted him. I didn’t know it was possible. I pursued him. It didn’t work. Then one day, I don’t know, instead of following him everywhere like I’d been doing, I ran.”

“You ran?”

“Into the woods,” he said. “Something about the way he looked at me, I knew I should run. He caught me. Our first time was in that forest, in the dirt. I was in so much pain after, I had to crawl back to school. One boy at school…” Kingsley paused to laugh. “He asked me if I’d gotten attacked by an animal.”

“Hardly an ideal first time with someone.”

“It was exactly what I wanted,” he said. “Does that sound sick? It does to me, but it’s true.”

“Sick? No. You were so young, both of you. Too young. Like I was when I got married. You don’t know yourself yet. Someone tells you what you are and you, well, you believe them.”

“He knew what I was. He knew, and he was right.”

“It seems he did.”

“I told you he was smart.”

“Regrets?”

Kingsley shrugged. “He was too good at it. How’s that for a regret?”

“What do you mean, too good?”

“After him…it was years before I was with another man. I thought it would be too much like being with him.”

“Was it?” she asked.

Kingsley shook his head. “No. No one is like being with him.”

Madame made a soft murmuring sound, a sound of pleasure.

“Tell me more about him. More, more, more,” she said, turning her hand to indicate he must keep talking. “Your pain is a fine wine on my tongue.” She laughed at her own eagerness.

“You’re a sadist,” he said, smiling.

“Real sadism is an art form. I’m an art lover, and you, right now, you’re the Louvre. Tell me more about how he hurt you and let me see your face while you do.”

Kingsley turned to her, let her see his face, let her see his pain. He didn’t want to, but he needed to. The masochist in him needed to give that to her.

“He broke me. In so many ways, he broke me. He broke me until I was happy I was so broken. The more pieces of me there were, the more pieces of me there were for him to break into even smaller pieces. By the time he was done with me, I was nothing but shards. If I’d spent another day with him, I would have been the dust on the bottom of his shoe.”

“A perfect pair then. A true sadist with a true masochist. Perfect and rare.”

“Perfect,” Kingsley repeated. “Maybe for a little while.”

“Why did he marry your sister if it was you he wanted?”

“Money. His trust fund. He got millions when he got married.”

“He was trying to take care of you,” she said.

“We were poor,” Kingsley said. “Me and my sister after our parents died. Too poor to even see each other, separated by an ocean in more ways than one. If we had money, we could all be together. The three of us. She wasn’t supposed to fall in love with him. When she found out it was me he was… When she saw us kissing, she didn’t take it well.”

“She killed herself?”

“He does that to people,” Kingsley said. “You feel like you can’t live without him.”

“Is that why you joined la Légion? You can’t live without him, so you signed up to die?”

“Or I just wanted to take orders from powerful men,” he said. A joke, but not really. “Why are we talking about this?”

“I like seeing men naked. Nothing strips a man more naked than the things that cause him pain and the things that make him afraid.”

“He was both of those.”

“Marcus?” she asked.

Kingsley smiled.

“Why are you smiling?”

“Because I know something about him you don’t know,” he said.

“What is that?” she asked.

“His real name.”