Page 80 of Our Vicious Descent
But deep down she knew, as she watched Laure writhe between them, her flesh turning black and falling to bits around her skeleton, that it was too late. The young reaper rotted into foul-smelling chunks of ruined flesh and blood before their eyes. Pieces of Laure fell through Celie’s fingers, and the reaper could only look on in pure shock. The scent of poison and rotting flesh turned Layla’s stomach, though neither worked as powerfully as the sight of defeat on Celie’s pale face.
Dr. Gray shook her head slowly. She closed her hand over Celie’s trembling shoulder before moving closer to Laure. Sorrow shadowed her eyes, and she reached forward with a shaking hand to tucka piece of Laure’s hair behind her ear as the remaining bulk of her body finally went still. “After they’re dosed with the ancient reaper’s blood, the sun becomes ruinous the moment it touches a reaper’s flesh. There is no hope if there is no darkness to use as a shield.” Though the doctor spoke of a reaper who had been a stranger to her, Layla watched a flicker of recognition in Elise’s eyes and all the loss and devastation that filled it. She knew then that the Saint thought of her older sister dying at the hands of a different poison, her heart unable to start again even with Dr. Gray’s cure filling her veins.
40
So many automobiles and people surrounded the old Saint estate, Elise almost believed she had been thrown back in time to the empire’s golden days. She shut the curtain of her father’s study and turned to face him, her heart already racing at the thought of being spoken about by the Saint patriarch once again. It was as if they had gone back to their old ways—Tobias presenting her as his perfect heir and expecting perfect behavior from her and unmatched results from the audience.
Tobias wore a nice black suit and had smoothed his curls down for the press conference. This tailored version of him was the most done up and prepared Elise had seen him since the fall of the Saint empire. While her father had once appeared grand in his suits and worn confidence like a shield, that part of him was almost nowhere to be seen now. He fiddled with his watch band, his fingers twisting the metal first, then moving to adjust his cuff links. It reminded Eliseso much of her mother’s flighty nerves—the way she used to adjust her hairpieces and tuck invisible loose stands away. Elise found herself doing the same now, fussing with her hair even though not a piece of it had moved out of place. Her hands did not shake as much as they used to; standing so close to her father, a man who had refused to see her for so many years, who now appeared as nervous and broken as Elise had been for so long, she felt more at peace.
“How many people did you invite?” Elise asked.
Tobias ran a hand over his hair, sighing. “Everyone I have ever done business with. Could be hundreds. Could be thousands.”
Sterling and Layla appeared in the doorway to the study. Layla leaned against the doorframe, her hands in her pockets, while Sterling stood with his arms crossed. Both were dressed in all black, though it looked odd seeing Sterling without his Saint badge proudly on display, pinned to his chest, despite how long it had been since he’d discarded it
“We have cleared the area, posted some guards and reapers on the perimeter. No one should be able to sneak in. Mayor Arendale is already ready outside, addressing the crowd,” Sterling said.
“Dr. Gray and Josephine are ready?” Tobias asked.
“Yes. They’d love to see you if you are…willing,” Sterling said.
Tobias shook his head. “No. It’s probably best we remain separate. This is a situation I never thought I would find myself in. My daughters…safe with reapers.” He glanced at Elise. “You look unwell.”
Elise pursed her lips. The memory of exchanging blood withJosi earlier weighed heavily on her mind. “I gave my blood to Josi to hopefully counteract her bond with Sena. In case anything happens.”
“Thinking like a reaper…” Tobias muttered.
“Father—”
He held his hand up, effectively quieting Elise. She looked away and clenched her jaw even as he spoke again. “You do not have to tell me that things have changed. I knew it the moment I found your letter denouncing your admission to the Paris Conservatory. I saw myself in you then, Elise. Willing to do whatever was necessary to protect your sister.”
Something sharp twisted in Elise’s chest. Her lips parted, and her throat went dry as she met her father’s devastated gaze. “I would never be as reckless as you. I understand fearing loss and loving us hard enough to change the world, but what you did to me—that was never love.”
After years of his unrelenting passion, Elise finally understood him now. It did not matter that after tearing the soul from her, he gazed upon her with affection. He had a heart that felt too much even for himself. The constant, consuming hunger for safety had only further terrified him and chased away every good thing. All perfection he had created had been fitted with exquisite cruelty that he might not ever acknowledge. Elise had borne the burden of his faulty expectations for far too long. But her battered heart no longer wanted the guilt and distress. She wanted to let it all go. A bittersweet truth sworn in blood and false promises. A starving love she would no longer carry with her.
Even in her own defense, Elise felt a crushing guilt. She had never been able to stop feeling; the hyper-perception could be her own undoing one day. For now, she could only look at her father and tell herself for assurance that though he had fostered her personal hell for years, he had other companions. The devil was never alone in his desolation.
Tobias’s gaze slid to Layla, whose expression had turned more murderous the longer he stood before Elise. “I suppose what she gives you is love?” He glanced back at Elise. “Are you with her now? Officially?”
Elise’s teeth dug into her lower lip before she answered, “Always.”
A muscle ticked in her father’s jaw, and he dropped his hands to his sides. “Pray you go together. Burying the love of your life is the worst punishment imaginable.” Tobias brushed past all of them as he left the room.
Elise twisted the ring around her finger, the tension working her system up waning with his departure. Through it all, she could think only of how her father had looked a few weeks ago, blood covering his shirtfront as he held her mother for the last time. On his knees and bent over her body like he was making a sacrifice. But Elise knew the violence that had brought him to this moment. It was strange, how in moments of intense grief and suffering, all previous revelations nearly vanished. Elise had not been far from her father’s position then. She might have done the same with her mother’s corpse if her father had not gotten to her faster. Now he walked out again like a ghost.
For all the things Elise faulted him for, accepting her truth was never one of them. Part of her wondered if he had always known she loved Layla as more than a friend. He never participated when her mother asked her about what she wanted her future wedding to a man to look like. While Elise was uncomfortable, she only countered with wanting to wear a matching dress with her bride. Analia’s eyes lit up with surprise then, and Tobias’s expression softened.Just make sure she asks for my blessingwas all Tobias said. After that, her parents only ever addressed her as she was—a young woman who loved other women. Or one woman in particular. That was where Tobias had found his greatest strategy. To use Elise’s heart against Layla.
She grabbed Elise’s hand as they began to follow Tobias out of the estate. “I’m glad I never asked that man for his blessing,” Layla hissed.
A small smile stretched across Elise’s face. “How scandalous of you, Miss Quinn. You are sure to make us Quinns the talk of the town if you keep up this behavior.”
Layla’s cheeks filled with a dark red blush that Elise knew all too well. “I dare them to talk about my wife.”
Elise could only squeeze her hand before pulling away and moving to stand by her father at the podium outside. For the first time in ages, hope burned as brilliantly within her as love.
***
Watching Tobias speak in the Saint estate courtyard before hundreds of onlookers, all desperate for a tragedy to turn into a beautiful story,felt like watching a ghost lingering by an open grave. While the house still stood rather proudly with its untouched white columns and massive exterior, what had once represented an empire predicted to change the world for better eternities, now resembled a gutted corpse. Fallen leaves that no one had bothered to sweep up littered the courtyard and crunched under the crowd’s restless feet. Some of the house’s windows held large cracks, and though many of their curtains had been pulled back, they revealed a deeper darkness within. Inside, dust covered the furniture and beautiful marble floors. Some of the family portraits had been slashed, and blood even stained a few of the ornate rugs and painted new scenes on various walls.
