SHE WOKE WITH A STARTand discovered he was gone. She thought to weep, but there was no time for that, there was no time at all. She needed to find him. Now that it was morning, now that the day of the duel had arrived, she could not possibly allow him to walk onto that field.
Nina dressed as quickly as she could and did not even bother looking in the mirror, running down the stairs and onto the street. She found a carriage to take her to Clocktower Hill.
The tower rose, bone-white against the sky: a pale portent of disaster in the early-morning light. The Lawn could be accessed by foot only. She paid the man and rushed up the hill, the dew wetting her skirt.
It was not yet six. It wasn’t. She dashed toward the Lawn, and she saw them there, the witnesses and the duelists. Hector and Luc were already in their positions, their pistols in hand.
“You must stop! Stop it, Gaetan!” she yelled, stumbling as she approached her cousin.
“Nina,” he said. “Nina, I—”
“You must stop it!”
“It’s a duel, dear child. He can’t stop it,” Valérie said.
Nina turned to look at the woman. For a moment she thought she could not possibly be real, that she had to be an apparition, but Valériewas there, solid, calmly glancing at the duelists as if it were another day at the park.
“Valérie, you must speak to my cousin. You must help me stop this,” she pleaded.
“Must I?”
“Nina, for God’s sake, shield your eyes,” Gaetan said, taking hold of her and pulling her back.
She pushed Gaetan away, her hands slapping his chest for a second.
The clock struck the hour. The men raised their arms and fired their pistols.
She wanted to scream but could utter no sound, and her fingers curled against the palms of her hands, the nails digging into her skin.
She saw the shining pistols and she thought,I love you.
There was no time to say it, no time to utter a single syllable, but the word broke through and echoed in the space around them anyway, because her love was will.
And her will was an arrow, slamming both men with its strength and knocking them down; it made the grass waver in its path, the blades bending under an invisible wind for a second.
And her will was wind, but it was also iron. It clutched in its grip the bullets that had been destined one for the shoulder and one for the heart. The bullets stood in midair, as if they had been painted upon the landscape and had not been cutting through the air at an incredible speed a fraction of a second before.
She thoughtno.
The birds in the trees took flight, frightened by the noise.
Smoke rose in the air.
She opened her hands.
The bullets slid down onto the ground, rolling on the grass.
Nina ran toward Hector, who was lying on his back. She knelt at his side and touched his face. His eyes were closed.
“Hector,” she said.
“What have you done?” Valérie yelled.
Nina looked at the woman, who was stomping toward her. Nina, her fingers shaking, did not bother answering. God, she hoped she had not hurt Hector.
Hector stirred and opened his eyes, wincing. Slowly he lifted his head and looked her full in the face. “Nina,” he mumbled. “You are here.”
“I couldn’t let you do it,” she said.
