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Dominique de Sade had not seen her brother Louis in years. She had not seen him since she believed he was her older brother and not her twin; she had not seen him since Mina’s death and all it entailed; she had not seen him since Veronica had sat her down and told her about the game Father was playing with Grandfather.
The de Sade family had no need for twins. The de Sade family had no need for two children born of the same mother. Originally, either Domi or Louis would have been killed at birth, but Grandfather had had a much more fun idea: he would raise the extraneous one, and Father would raise the chosen one, and when both children came of age it would be decided which one was worthy of the de Sade family name, and the other would be cast out with nothing but the clothes on their back, cut off from the family forever.
We did think that Grandfather might have decided to shape an heir to be exactly what he wanted, Veronica had laughed, but we never expected that the one we had would be such a disappointment. Oh well! You can’t win them all. I wonder, though…at this rate, in ten years, will I have a little brother or a little sister?
And that had been that. Ten years hadn’t yet passed; Domi was unsure, actually, if Veronica knew how old the twins were. But now, in her final year of boarding school, she had been informed that the contest would be ending soon, that the week before graduation everything would be decided, that she and Louis would be reunited for the first time in years and at the end of that reunion one of them would be walking away a de Sade and the other would be walking away a penniless nobody. It would happen in the month of May; Domi was given the news on the first day of the new year. She had just over five months to prepare, five months to give her last shot at obtaining a place in the family de Sade.
“God. This blows,” said professional problem solver, creator, and haver, Vanitas, from where he was seated in the windowsill in Domi’s dorm room after she finished recounting her situation to the room’s occupants. Vanitas was the most annoying person in the world, from sharp grin to obviously fake medical degree, but he was attached to the hip of Domi’s closest friend from childhood, Noé Archiviste, so she had to put up with him here, when she was trying to inform Noé and their other friend, Jeanne, of her upcoming change in position.
“Who asked you?” Domi shot back. “You’re here as a courtesy for Jeanne and Noé, this isn’t any of your business.”
“It absolutely is my business,” said Vanitas. “You getting kicked out of the de Sade family cuts off a lucrative stream of revenue for me and for Dante, I’ll have you know. And maybe even for Noé as well, if he gets kicked out with you?”
“I’m not a family member,” said Noé.
“Grandfather took Noé in years after they decided on the competition between Louis and me,” said Domi. “I don’t think that this will change his standing with the family that deeply…whatever the outcome is.”
“And if his best friend is no longer a de Sade?” said Vanitas.
Domi and Noé met eyes and exchanged smiles, Dominique’s grim, Noé’s deeply sad.
“That’s impossible,” Domi said calmly. “Regardless of whether the winner is myself or my brother, Noé’s best friend will remain a scion of de Sade. That’s part of the competition, after all, though I’m sure that Grandfather is the only family member aware of that dimension.”
“Oh, good,” said Jeanne. “The way you described the competition sounded like you had almost given up on winning! I’m glad you’re so confident, Lady Dominique!”
Domi’s smile twisted, grew grimmer. “Oh no,” she said. “Noé has two best friends. We’re twins, after all, and one of us is going to be the heir. I didn’t realize it when I was younger, but Grandfather made sure that our childhoods were exact mirrors of each other— right down to the amount of time that we had Noé to ourselves. We’re the same and opposite, and then when we hit puberty we were sent to similar schools to receive similar educations in similar degrees of isolation. I’m sure that before Grandfather sent you out to go follow Vanitas around you were allowed to visit Louis the exact amount of times you could visit me, right, Noé?”
“Yeah,” said Noé, looking down. “Every other weekend, for both of you.”
“And you’re still best friends?”
“We are. …He didn’t tell me about this competition, though.”
Domi frowned. “He should have been told…I mean, from what Veronica said it sounded like we were given the same amount of time to prepare…”
“No, no, I’m sure he does know!” said Noé. “It’s just…well, you know Louis. You know what he’s like when he’s worrying about something.”
“Well, yes, but…this is important. He hasn’t hinted anything about it in the slightest? Anything about…about how he feels about all of this, perhaps…?”
Noé shook his head. “Nothing,” he said.
“Wait,” said Vanitas. “Wait, wait, wait. Noé, when did you even meet with this guy? We’ve lived together for over a year now, how the hell have you hidden this from me?”
Noé tilted his head. “But I haven’t hidden anything,” he said. “I haven’t seen Louis in person for a year. We just write letters to each other. Unlike Domi, he hasn’t been involved with any cursebearer incidents recently, so…”
Vanitas muttered something that sounded like a collection of foul curses; Jeanne blushed at him; Noé did not have the sense to look ashamed.
“Your and Vanitas’s business isn’t only with cursebearers, though,” said Domi. “Right? You market yourselves as professional problem solvers, havers, and creators—”
“That’s really more of a joke, though—”
“What if someone were to hire you to make problems around Louis?”
Noé jolted; Vanitas grinned. “Sure, I’d take you up on it,” he said. “You want to secure your place in your family, right?”
“No,” said Domi. “I want to know what Louis thinks about all of this, and I want to know what result he wants. Of course, if he desires to be freed from our family, then I will of course do all that is possible to ‘win’ our competition. But…if he somehow doesn’t…if, for some reason, the de Sade family is not his prison but rather his salvation, then…then in that case, I will leave him be, and take on this competition according to my own desires.”
Noé’s head shot up. “Domi,” he said, his voice strangely constricted, “you don’t want…?”
“I don’t want to be bound by the de Sade family name, if I don’t have to be,” she said. “But above all I don’t want to compete with Louis for any position.”
“I don’t think he wants to compete with you, either, Domi,” said Noé.
She thought back to some of the last conversations she’d had with her brother, how he had called her lucky and loved, how he had been so kind to her even though she was the reason he had been raised isolated and manipulated and unwanted.
“I don’t know,” she said. “You know, Noé, I…I almost want him to want to compete with me here, and to want to win against me. Is that strange?”
“You said that you don’t want to win this competition, so I don’t think so,” said Noé. “Because if he wants to win it, then he has to win against you. You want him to want the same outcome as you, right? You don’t want him to be unhappy. I don’t want either of you to be unhappy too, so I think it makes sense.”
Except that wasn’t it, not at all. On some level, Domi wanted Louis to want to hurt her. They had been born together and kept apart ever since, and Dominique had been given everything and Louis had been given nothing. On some level, the girl she had been who loved fairytales wanted Louis to complete his Cinderella story and defeat her for good; on another level, she just wanted some reason for the pain that crept along her ribcage, the bone-deep assuredness that her life was the biggest impediment to Louis’s happiness. On some level, she wanted a justification for her desire to die; she wanted Louis to agree with her, and she wanted to hear it from his own mouth.
Vanitas was looking at her like he understood her thoughts a little too well, and Domi looked away.
“So will you be hiring Vanitas and Noé to find out about your brother, then?” asked Jeanne. “Or—I could see if Luca and I could find an excuse to drop by his school and ask personally…”
Domi considered. “No. I don’t want Louis to trace this back to me. He might lie and say whatever it is he thinks I want to hear, after all…so Jeanne, Noé, both of you interfering is out of the question. But—Vanitas, if I might pay you to cause a little problem for me…”
Vanitas’s grin was like a predator, stalking its prey through the night. “Yeah?”
“Could you find out what ending Louis wants for our competition?” Domi said. “And if he wants to win, then can I hire you to enable his victory through whatever means necessary?”
The predator pounced. “Deal,” he said. “We’ll head out in the morning.”
“We?” said Domi.
“Me and Noé, duh,” said Vanitas. “Who else?”
“Noé can’t go,” Domi said immediately. “If Louis catches on—”
“I won’t tell him,” said Noé.
“Noé, darling, you can’t lie. And Louis can usually see through anyone’s lies, anyway. It’s too dangerous.”
“I just won’t tell Louis that Vanitas and I are together, then,” said Noé. “Or, I don’t know, we could see if there was a cursebearer in the vicinity and go after them and ask Louis for help.”
“He wouldn’t, though.”
“But we can still ask, and then there’s no reason to look for any ulterior motive or anything,” Noé pointed out. “And Vanitas can start causing problems after that. He’ll have his foot in the door, at any rate.”
Vanitas grinned. “Great plan, Noé,” he said. “Sounds like it just might work. I’ll contact Dante tonight and see what he can find in the area. You’ve got no complaints, right, de Sade?”
Domi sighed. “As long as Louis doesn’t see through it,” she said.
“Would you ever in a million years suspect Noé of betraying you?” said Vanitas. “Even if you thought he was acting off, you wouldn’t be suspicious. You’d think it was an accident. Friendly fire, right? So if what you two are saying about your twin is right, he’ll think the same. Who would expect Noé to betray them?”
“This isn’t a betrayal,” said Noé. “We’re just seeing if Domi and Louis want the same thing without realizing it.”
“See?” said Vanitas. “My point exactly.”
“Ugh, fine. Fine!” said Domi. “Do whatever you want. Fuck up Louis’s life. Chain him to the de Sade family forever. But just…just let me know what he really wants.”
Vanitas smirked. “Gladly.”