Page 17 of Vanish

He gasped. “In my—but we’re not married.”

Heat prickled where my cheeks might be at the implication that I hadn’t considered. Horrified, I shook my head, drifting back a few paces. “Nothing can possibly happen with me in such a state,” I hastened to remind him. “Even if I had a body…I trust you.” The realization settled over me as gentle as morning dew.

Awe widened his eyes before he hastily lowered his gaze. “I’m not sure I deserve such faith.”

I longed to ask him what he meant, but this new emotion was too precious to risk fracturing the fragile bond we’d managed to forge; my trust further deepened with his continued insistences of protecting my honor that kept him from returning with me to his room.

Despite agreeing that he needed rest, Lucien remained at the library for another half hour before he finally succumbed to his exhaustion and fell asleep at the desk where he’d been reading. Though I feared he wouldn’t rest well in such an uncomfortable position, I didn’t have the heart to wake him. I hovered over him for a moment, yearning for the ability to prop a cushion under his cheek or draw a blanket over him.

Since I couldn’t wander far from Lucien’s side nor do much investigating without direction or a tangible body, I had little way to pass the endless night stretching before me. Several books lay open around Lucien, though his sleeping face covered the one we’d most recently been studying. Determined to do something useful, I pored over every word on the open pages until I’d nearly memorized them. Perhaps reading them several times would offer new insight, though in the end I came away with no new suggestions. I scanned Lucien’s scribbled notes in hopes of discovering something we’d missed, some new connection or insight from all our study.

I puzzled over all our accumulate information until the discouragement brought by our lack of progress caused a seemingly impossible ache to form against my temples. Despite the intensity of our efforts, we were no closer to uncovering the answers to the mysteries that eluded us than before.

I heaved a restless sigh. Judging by the clock, Lucien had slept for just over an hour, and doubtless needed much more. Though I didn’t begrudge him the necessary sleep, I struggled with the frustration of having nothing to do, anxiety heightened as the ticking clock continuously reminded me of just how limited we were in finding a solution before Lucien was forced to accept another engagement. I hated standing helplessly on the sidelines rather than using this precious time to find a way to break the curse, even as I feared drifting too far from the man anchoring me.

Despite my relief that he’d finally managed to claim some sleep, without Lucien’s company I found myself bored and restless—a state I was accustomed to, but which felt unsettling after having spent a day filling that usual emptiness with meaning. Other than the guards and servants who attended me back home, had I ever spent so long in anyone’s company, or had my time ever been filled with useful labor like our research rather than the practiced but meaningless conversation of court or the useless accomplishments of well-bred ladies?

I meant to simply pass the night near him, unable to do much after exhausting the resources open on the desk. Instead I found myself watching him sleep. I hadn’t realized how much tension had hardened his expression until seeing his features so relaxed, no hint of the rigid mask I’d grown accustomed to.

The shyness that usually held me captive seemed to slip into oblivion alongside him, allowing nothing to hold back my impulse to touch him. Unconsciously I reached out a tentative finger to lightly trace his features, seeming as familiar to me as the outdoors would when peering through a splattered windowpane, remembering just enough to fill in the blanks created by my blurry memory.

Though I couldn’t feel his skin beneath my caressing fingertip, he stirred in response to my airy touch, as if a subconscious part of him remained attuned to me even when I was trapped in the state of in-between. I idly wondered if our past courtship had progressed this far to grant me such a liberty, but all I could find midst my muddled memories were longings to stroke the serious lines marring his brow in hopes of smoothing them out…ones I was certain I’d never acted upon.

I gave my head a rigid shake to dispel the intrusive memories and pulled my hand away. I tried to distract myself by turning back to the research piled around me so that I might pass the remainder of the night in a more useful pursuit by going over the information yet again, but the effort proved futile when he repeatedly drew my gaze, as if whatever unseen force connected us prevented me from looking away for long.

I eventually managed to summon enough discipline to tear my attention away from him to focus on the pages before me, yet as I couldn’t turn them and discovered nothing new curing my re-read, they couldn’t distract me for long. I passed the night searching the stillness, broken only by Lucien’s soft breaths of sleep.

I didn’t immediately notice anything out of the ordinary, but eventually I sensed a disturbance in the air around me, like a silent ripple stretching across a previously still pond. Nothing appeared amiss at first glance, yet I sensed a presence, similar to an unseen breeze that could only be discerned through how it interacted with its surroundings.

I turned my back to Lucien to eliminate this distraction pulling on my thoughts and concentrated. I gradually began to make some sense of the surrounding nothingness—something seemed to linger just on the other side of an invisible curtain; all I needed to do was reach out and pull it aside.

I remained still, apprehensive about what I would discover. Yet with the curse’s constant threat to swallow up the unknown number of hours I had remaining before I disappeared completely, the time for hesitation had long since passed. I brushed aside the unseen barrier blocking me from the force crowding the library.

As if I’d opened a door to another room, a rush of sound suddenly penetrated the thick silence—soft whispers that seemed to float unseen through the chamber as if carried by the wind, creating the impression that the room was filled with ghosts.

The onslaught was so overwhelming that I immediately tried to block it out, but paused when a nearly indiscernible sound rose above the rest—a familiar voice that I couldn’t immediately pinpoint before realizing it sounded very much like the handmaiden who had accompanied me to Brimoire before she’d disappeared.

My heart lurched and I frantically looked around, but despite this disturbance to the quiet that had previously cloaked the night no one appeared to be there…even as I got the impression that I wasn’t alone. I’d no sooner seized hold upon this thought when once again my handmaiden’s familiar voice rose above the others. I thought I sensed her nearby and tried to follow the nearly indiscernible sound, but her presence was impossible to locate considering she’d vanished alongside the rest of my entourage.

But had they truly disappeared? After all, I was supposed to have vanished as well. Did the others who had been tainted by the curse perhaps also linger? They both seemed nearby and far away, as if I viewed them from a vast distance without being able to fully discern more than a faint outline.

With a wavering breath I tentatively called my handmaiden’s name. “Aira? Are you there?”

No response, at least none that I could hear—even as I sensed several wordless conversations beyond the reach of my comprehension. I called for Aira again, straining every sense, and this time I finally heard a soft answer.

“Princess Lisette?”

I startled at the response. It took me a moment to realize it had been given not by my missing handmaiden but Lucien’s bleary voice as he stirred awake and slowly sat up. I wanted to apologize for unintentionally waking him but couldn’t form the words.

Torn between my avid curiosity over the presences I’d sensed and my growing desire to remain near Lucien and enjoy as much interaction with him as possible, I hesitated before drawing close.

Concern dispelled his lingering drowsiness as he took in my expression faintly illuminated by the nearly extinguished candlelight and noticed the tension tightening my features. “Are you alright?”

I yearned to tell him about what had just transpired, even as I feared doing so would make me appear as if I’d lost my wits in addition to my body. Had our past relationship progressed enough for us to help one another shoulder the burdens we bore? I stared at him in silent debate. Muddled as my memories were, I possessed enough knowledge of my own instincts to know that I struggled with openness, even towards people I trusted.

My new form had given me some freedom from this old weight, but still I hesitated. As much as I wished it had, the act of sharing my thoughts felt too disconcerting for me to believe we’d confided in one another often. Even so, I felt closer to him after having spent the day in pursuit of a common goal and the night beside him while he slept.

I took a wavering breath, searching for the words to describe my strange encounter. The whole sensation had been so odd and otherworldly that I couldn’t be completely sure it hadn’t been my imagination, or worse—that the curse itself was mocking me, teasing me with false hope. If I shared my findings with Lucien and they turned out to be merely a cruel trick, the disappointment would be even sharper for him. Myriads of his subjects had disappeared; for him to believe they might be just out of reach only to discover that they were in fact truly gone would be devastating.

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