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There is a man in her house who isn’t her husband.
He wears Pierre’s face, smiles at her in the way that Pierre used to. He holds their child with all of the love that a father could ever give.
But he isn’t the man who brought her honeypetals. He isn’t the man who blushed and stammered through the request to kiss her, that first time.
It leaves her disquieted. Increasingly she’s certain that he’ll notice, when they take their morning walk through the market, or when he gathers her to his chest to sleep at night (he always slept with his head on her chest. Always.)
But he doesn’t notice. He doesn’t seem to mind at all.
#
The man who is her husband but isn’t kisses her sweetly before he goes to work and leaves her with their baby.
She is increasingly unsettled by the presence of the little one. It feels more cruel, somehow, to be suspicious of him. He has done nothing wrong, can do nothing wrong.
But he doesn’t look like her.
He doesn’t look like Pierre.
Just a little like them both in the way that someone unfamiliar with the pair of them might think makes a good outcome.
And weren’t they supposed to have a daugh—.
She loves him, all the same. Cares for him and gives him everything he needs to live.
But when Pierre returns at the end of the day she’s not upset to pass him off and have a moment without worrying over the existence of a child that she so desperately wanted.
Didn’t she?
#
Sometimes, she takes herself away to the Opera House.
She feels like she’s being called there, can’t quite put her finger on what it is, not until the day she walks into the foyer to hear music from the auditorium beyond.
She takes slow, careful steps forward, like she’s somewhere she shouldn’t be. Opens the door as quietly as possible, in case someone discovers her.
Upon the stage is a beautiful grand piano. On the bench sits a man, his fingers flying confidently over the ivory keys.
He makes beautiful music, the sort that chases down your spine and fills your heart with hope. She can’t help but walk closer to him. Can’t help but bridge the gap between them.
When he notices a discordant note rings out.
“Sciel.” He breathes.
She stops. Frowns.
“Verso?”
The name crosses her lips before she can think better, moving closer with haste in her steps. He pushes back from the piano so quickly the bench screeches on the stage, hurries towards her and pulls her into his embrace when they meet, her fingers grabbing his lapels with the frantic feeling that he might just drift away from her.
He stares down at her like she’s not real. Relief paints his features and she can feel it all flooding back. The days at camp. The struggles. The connection that built between them when there was no one else who understood.
As he’s drawing her up to him for a kiss that she knows will feel more right than any she’s shared with Pierre since Maelle returned the world to rights, the door slams open behind them.
They turn sharply together, Verso’s hand gripping hers tight as Maelle rushes down the aisle towards them, her face a picture of frustration and concern.
“There you are!” She says, too bright, inauthentic.
“Alicia please.” Verso says, and Sciel’s not heard him sound quite as brokenly desperate since the woman in front of them sent his sister to her death. “Don’t do this. Not again.”
“I have to.” She says, rolling her eyes. “You know I have to.”
“You don’t.” He protests. “Please, if you’re going to keep me here you can at least let me be happy.”
Maelle doesn’t give him another look, taking Sciel’s hand and reaching up to cup her cheek. “It’s okay.” She says, soft in a way that feels wrong. “Let’s get you home.”
The air smells like roses when Sciel opens her eyes again, and finds herself standing inside her front door.
Pierre smiles at her in confusion.
“Where did you go, mon amour?”
Sciel hums.
“I don’t know…” She says, floating over to him, her love, her husband. “It doesn’t matter. I’m here now.”
#
There is a man in her house who isn’t her husband.
She doesn't know why she's so sure of it. Why it settles like poison in her veins, makes every touch, every kiss feel like it's slowly breaking her apart.
They take their child to the market. He's walking now, toddling along in front of them both and charming all the stallholders.
It's very sweet.
He is not her son.
Sciel feels eyes on her as she walks between the stalls but doesn't dare look up for the source. The weight of the gaze feels comfortable. Familiar. And that's a feeling that's easy to chase.
The next day she insists to Pierre that they take a walk to the market again - it's Sunday, there's nothing better to do after all.
Pierre doesn't even think this is odd.
(Pierre would have thought this was odd.)
The gaze is back, and this time she seeks it out. She's too anxious, too curious, dreamt last night of ice blue eyes and warm hands on her hips. She needs to see. To know.
The man she finds watching her is handsome. Formerly dark hair speckled with too much white. Bright eyes. Blue.
Ice blue.
She smiles. Verso.
Of course.
Verso.
She can't… there are memories, just beneath the surface. Out of reach, but there.
Campfires. Warm skin. Laughter.
Pierre touches her hip, murmurs something sweet in her ear but she can't look at him. She can't tear her eyes away from this man that she knows she knows. Somehow. Somewhere.
She's about to move, to go to him, when a small woman appears at his side. White hair, the same cool blue eyes.
Alicia?
Maelle.
What's she doing there?
Verso frowns down at her, even as she gently pats his chest and links their arms and draws him away. They make a slow procession around the market and Sciel watches every step, not knowing why it makes her stomach churn.
“— a daughter.” She overhears Verso say. “She told me.”
“Don't be silly.” Maelle murmurs as they disappear behind a stall. “Let’s get you back to the Manor so you can stop worrying. It's better this way.”
They don't appear again.
Sciel feels the memories drift away like seafoam on a pebble beach.
Pierre takes her hand and draws her towards the docks and the sun on the water is so beautiful that she manages to forget why the sight of it fills her with dread.
Because nothing ever happened to her in the water.
Did it?
#
There is a concert tonight at the Opera House. Maelle is so excited about it, comes to see Sciel the morning of it to play with her son, three now and ready to take on the world with Maelle at his side.
Pierre is at work.
Sciel shouldn't be grateful.
Maelle talks fondly of her brother, how talented he is, how clever. Sciel frowns, wonders why Maelle speaks so freely of a man that she's never met.
But her friend is happy, and that's all that matters.
She helps Pierre into his suit that night and he makes a little comment about how it reminds him of their wedding. Sciel smiles, and doesn’t correct him.
They had got ready separately despite her wishes.
They live close to the Opera House and run into Lune on the way there. The woman seems fine, despite the fact that her life’s work is over now with the completion of their goal. She would have expected it to be more of a struggle, but…
She’s happy. They’re both happy, aren’t they?
Sciel feels like they should visit the Opera House more often. It’s a beautiful building and she can’t resist staring in awe at the decoration as she wanders into the foyer with her hand tucked in Pierre’s elbow.
Maelle greets them at the main door of the auditorium, and her eyes linger on Sciel for a little too long. Apparently satisfied, she hurries them into the main room with a bright smile.
“Come, come.” She says. “I saved us seats in the front row. Gustave and Sophie will be here soon.”
Getting to spend more time with Gustave and Soph is one of the very best things about her life, now. She missed them both so much when they were gone.
When they were… gone?
Pierre guides her into their seats and the volume of voices around her feels so odd for a moment that she drifts on them, wondering if there can really be this many people in all of Lumière. The room is packed, but all she can focus on is the stage.
A figure appears from the wings as Gustave and Sophie sit down, applause rippling around the auditorium. She watches, frowning at the slow progress of the man, wondering why he looks so familiar.
It’s only when he sits down that she has a flash of recognition.
Maelle’s brother. Verso.
Verso.
She’s on her feet before she can think better. Rushes towards the stairs, needs to touch him, to be sure that he’s really there.
But a hand catches her wrist and pulls her up short, Maelle smiling gently at her when she whirls around in confusion.
“Don’t interrupt!” She whisper-laughs, tugging Sciel back to her chair and cupping her cheek. “He’s waited so long for this.”
Sciel doesn’t remember the rest of the performance.
When they make it home, Pierre tells her how wonderful it was.
She has no choice but to believe him.
#
“Lune…”
Her friend smiles at her, glancing up from the journal she’s working on but not closing it. “Yes?”
“Do you remember our expedition?”
Lune continues to smile at her, but she's obviously confused now. “Of course I do.”
“What about it, specifically, do you remember?” She pushes, “Esquie? Monoco?”
“Gustave.” Lune provides, with a gentle tip of her head. “I’m so glad he’s back.”
“Right, me too.” Sciel says, leaning in across the table. “But where did he go?”
“He died, Sciel. To save Maelle.” Lune puts her journal down now, looks genuinely concerned. “What’s wrong? Why don’t you remember?”
“I do.” Sciel protests. “I do remember. But I remember something… else. Someone else.”
Lune hums, reaching for her water. Her gaze is slightly far away as she sips it, as if she’s trying to remember.
“Someone else.” She echoes, softly. “Who, Sciel?”
Sciel takes a deep breath, watches Pierre play with the boy who is apparently her son at the edge of the water. He’s five now. Looks less like either of them every day.
“There was someone else with us, after Gustave.” She murmurs. “Wasn’t there?”
Lune pauses. Frowns. Then all of a sudden, realisation strikes. “Verso.”
Sciel doesn’t know if she should laugh or cry.
“Yes!” She exclaims, grabbing Lune’s hand even though her friend has never been a tactile person. “Verso.”
She’s so incredibly familiar with what it is to watch Lune’s brain work, to watch her thoughts track through to an eventual conclusion that Sciel knows will bring clarity to a situation she can’t find her way out of.
“Verso was with us. He’s Maelle’s… Alicia’s brother.” She says softly. “He helped us take down the Paintress and Renoir.”
Sciel nods. “He did. Where is he?”
“I…” Lune pauses. “I saw him. We saw him. At the performance the other month.”
It feels like a shock of cold water over the top of her head. She remembers being there at the Opera House. She remembers coming home. But the performance itself is a blur.
And… surely. Surely it was years ago. Wasn’t it?
Her son was three. Wasn’t he?
Lune looks at her with mounting horror and Sciel squeezes her hand even tighter, the only person here who even slightly understands what she’s going through.
“Sorry I’m late!”
They look up together to find Maelle rushing towards them, dropping a bag on the table. She kisses both their cheeks, ignores the obvious tension in the air as she reaches out to hold both their faces.
“You look worried.” She says, and her face is a little strained as she does her best to smile. “Don’t be worried. There’s nothing wrong.”
Sciel has a lovely lunch with Maelle and Lune, and walks home with her husband, her son on her hip. Life is good.
Life is good.
#
It’s dark out.
The man who is not her husband and the child who is not her son are still asleep.
She doesn’t realise where she’s heading until the Opera House comes into view, at which point she has to force herself not to run. She remembers this. Remembers that something happened here last time. She feels like she needs to hurry.
Keeping quiet, she slips into the building and looks around, finding it completely abandoned. No music. No people. No light save for the moon.
The door to the auditorium opens and she turns around sharply to find a man rushing towards her.
A man.
Verso.
Verso.
She embraces him as he pulls her to his chest. Feels more right than she has in weeks. Months? Years. She melts into the strength of his hold, feels the warmth of his skin, his familiar scent.
Remembers.
Remembers.
“Sciel.” He breathes. “Are you… do you…”
“Verso, what’s happening?” She asks, holding his face in both of her hands. “You got old. How did you get old?”
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop her. I couldn’t stop this.” He says, his face creased with pain. “I wanted to.”
“I thought… I thought she was going to fix things.” Sciel says. “But everything’s wrong. Apart from Lune, no one’s right.”
He nods, hugs her again. “She tried. She did, I’ll give her that. But she… there’s only so much you can recreate from the work of a Master when you are merely an apprentice.”
His familiarity is so intoxicating that she doesn’t think she can let him go now. Everything has come flooding back with force enough to make her dizzy. She kisses him, remembers the way he touches her, loves her, so different from the man that she knows now is not her husband.
“What does she… why do I keep forgetting?” She asks when they part.
“To keep everything in place, to stop it from falling apart.” He shrugs, helpless. “I don’t understand it myself. But the three of us… I think she knows that if we noticed all of the cracks the whole world would collapse.”
“You always know me.” She says. “How?”
He smiles, soft and pleased. “You always know me.”
It’s not an answer. But she senses that might just be because he simply doesn’t know rather than any continued attempt at obfuscation.
“She lets me keep more autonomy.” He says, taking her hands away from his face to hold them gently. “I think she thinks it’s a gift. She brought back Julie for me, but… I don’t have your patience, Sciel. I knew she wasn’t right. Wasn’t real. I dealt with it, and Alicia’s kept a tight leash on me ever since.”
Sciel sighs. “She must be tired.”
Verso smiles, though it’s so very sad. “I don’t really care.”
He loops one arm around her waist and pulls her closer with his free hand to kiss her once again. She melts into it easily, hungry for something that feels real in this world that is just slightly out of step. She settles back into herself, ever more memories of stolen nights at camp filling her with each soft brush of his lips, each probe of his tongue.
“Come.” He says, not moving away from her. “I have a spot here, somewhere she doesn’t know about. Come. Before she realises something’s wrong.”
Sciel nods, lets him pull her into the auditorium and up into the wings of the stage. They disappear deep into the bowels of the building, down into the cellar where Verso has made a little bolthole for himself, so different from the Manor that she knows he used to call home. That he’s been reduced to this, just to hide from the unsteady hand of his sister’s avoidance tactics…
“Don’t lie.” He says, when she opens her mouth to say something nice. “It’s a dump. But! It is mine.”
“And that makes all the difference.” She says, as earnestly as she can.
The mattress shoved in the corner is ratty and stained but she doesn’t care as he pushes her down onto it, the pair of them chasing something that doesn’t feel like it’s about to be stolen away from them. She’s sore but satisfied by the time he falls asleep, cuddled up behind her in the way he always used to at camp.
It strikes her now why it felt so odd when Pierre tried to do the same.
#
By the time they both stir the next morning she realises she doesn’t know what time it is, in the oppressive dark of the cellar of the Opera House. Verso kisses her throat, her jaw, trails lazily to her mouth. She melts into him, shudders apart with his fingers between her legs and tries not to think about what will have to come next.
Surely they won’t be able to keep this.
They both know it but don’t put voice to the fact, hiding away as long as they can before her stomach starts to rumble and her guilt flares at being away from her… family.
“Maybe if we talk—.”
“It’s a sweet thought.” He says, before she can get too far with her hopeful ideas. “But if I haven’t managed it, what makes you think you will?”
Sciel sighs, lets her head fall against his chest. “There must be something.”
“The best we can hope for is that our… her family comes and claims her.” He says. “And then maybe they’ll finally destroy this canvas and we can all rest.”
“I don’t want…” She trails off with a huff, punches him right in the stomach with no particular intention of strength. “I thought she said we’d be happy.”
He shrugs, and he’s clearly trying to put on a brave face for her. “Unless Aline comes and fixes all of the mistakes… we’re never going to get life back to the way it was before the Fracture.”
“And you’d want that?”
“I suppose…” He smiles, and there’s so much sadness in his eyes that it guts her. “All being well, I’d be ignorant of it ever happening in the first place.”
She’s about to question how that’s better when there is the sound of doors opening and footsteps above them.
Verso sighs, pulls her along with him out of the little room that he’s stolen away to and up onto the stage. He puts his finger to his lips when they make it to the wings and Sciel nods, keeping out of sight when he walks out onto the stage.
Trusting him, like she always does, even though it’s never been a good idea before.
“Verso!” Maelle cries, sounding so relieved that Sciel has to force down the instinctive desire to comfort her friend. “There you are. Have you seen Sciel?”
He shakes his head, as easy with this lie as every other. “Afraid not.”
“She’s not at home and Lune hasn’t seen her either.” Maelle sighs, collapsing down onto the piano bench. “I don’t know what to do. I’m worried about her.”
“If you were so worried about her you might have done a better job with her husband.”
Maelle flinches, ducks her chin. Verso’s face immediately shows a guilt that Sciel is all too familiar with after all this time and he crouches beside her with a heavy sigh.
“Look. This isn't working. You know it isn’t working and it’s draining you quicker than it should.” He says, as kindly as he can. “Go home. Destroy this canvas. Make a new one, where you don’t have to paint over someone else’s work. You can make friends whose brains don’t break when they remember something they shouldn’t.”
“But Verso…”
“Is dead.” He says. “As I should be. As Sciel should be, and Lune too. Gustave, most of all. Don’t undermine the sacrifice he made for you.”
Before she can speak, before all of the bubbling ire that Sciel can see is building within her gets to find its way out in another explosive Dessendre sibling argument there’s a great shout of:
Alicia!
And a fully realised figure of the woman Sciel knows to be Clea appears on the stage beside them.
“Ah, good.” She says, when she spots the two of them. “That makes life easy. Come on, home with you.”
She touches Maelle’s shoulder and the young woman immediately starts to melt away in a shower of golden petals and ash. Sciel gasps, rushing forward as if there’s anything she thinks she can do to stop the cold cruelty of the intimately familiar act after so long without seeing it.
Verso catches her around the waist and they can do nothing but watch in mute horror as the stage becomes littered with the remains of someone that once meant so very much to them.
At least with the Gommage they always had years to prepare—.
“Right.” Clea says, mostly to herself. Then, with a sharp turn of her head, she looks at them both. “Now that that’s done. What do you want to happen?”
“You’re…” Verso frowns, trails off. “You’re asking us? You care?”
“You’re Aline’s creations.” She says, as if it’s obvious. “It’s not up to me to make decisions for you without her consent and she’s too busy convalescing from her idiocy.”
“What’s going to happen to the canvas?” Sciel asks. “What are you going to do?”
“I should erase it.” Clea hums. “After all the trouble it’s caused. My family is no longer here, and it will always be a temptation.”
“So do that.” Verso huffs. “Please. It’s what I would have done if she hadn’t struck first.”
Clea looks at her, then, just at her. Peers at her like there’s a truth to be divined just from staring into her eyes. Maybe there is. Sciel doesn’t know what skills a Paintress has, after all.
“And you?” She asks, a little haughty. “It doesn’t look like you want that.”
“All I want is my husband back.” She says, Verso flinching beside her. She sighs, leans into his support. “But it doesn’t feel like that’s actually going to happen now.”
“Maybe.” Clea shrugs. “In time. But you’d have to live here while Aline improves and even then, I don’t know that I can trust her to return.” She sighs, rubbing a weary hand over her forehead. “I can give you some time. The freedom of this canvas, without any of Alicia’s shoddy workmanship to taint it. A chance to live, for a while, with each other, until one day, likely without warning… it ends.”
“And how can we trust you?” Verso demands. “How?”
“Oh, you can’t.” She says, like it’s nothing. “And isn’t that the true horror of creating sentient life? If only Aline had listened to her peers.”
Sciel decides not to mention the Nevrons. She reaches for Verso’s hand instead, pulls him to face her.
“What do you think?” She asks. “It won’t ever be what it was. It will end when we’re not ready for it to.” With a gentle smile, she ventures, “Is that not what life is, in a way?”
“You can’t want this.” Verso scoffs, but he doesn’t let go of her hand. “I’m not your husband.”
“No.” She says. “You’re not. But he’s dead, Verso, and apparently that means something again. If the only way for me to join him is to die myself, I can’t deny this would be a more pleasant way to make that happen than to drown myself.”
“This is madness.” He says. “You realise that? What, we’re supposed to play house until the Dessendres get their act together and do what should have been done years ago?”
“Or we let Clea erase us and we all die today, hurt, broken, piled high with regrets.” She says. “The end point is the same. But this way… tomorrow comes.”
He laughs, like she’d hoped he might. “I hate you.”
Sciel smiles, the spark of hope in her gut enough to make her feel slightly giddy. “No you don’t.”
Clea clears her throat as Verso moves in towards Sciel and they pause halfway to an embrace.
“I will erase Alicia’s creations. Everything else will be as it was when my mother finally left the canvas, which I believe is the point at which Alicia was able to take control of this strange world. You cannot tell anyone that remains the truth - if you do I will not hesitate to end this sorry place sooner rather than later.”
“Except Lune.”
“And Monoco.” Verso adds. “And Esquie.”
“Yes, fine.” Clea snaps, clearly utterly done with them and this world. “Make the most of the time you have left. And be grateful you don’t have to suffer through another war.”
A burst of energy flies out of her, over them and through the open doors of the Opera House. When Sciel looks back the woman is gone, leaving her and Verso alone on the stage.
She looks at him with a helpless smile. “What shall we do next?”
He chuckles, looking lost as he squeezes her hand, grounding himself. “I have no idea.”
“Me either.” She says. “Any day could be our last. Death is a breath or a heartbeat away.” She squeezes his hand right back. “Exciting, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” He says, conceding the point with more grace than she really expected. “Yes. I suppose it is.”