Page 69 of We Were Eternal Once

Petty Theft

Ihad not planned on meeting Zora, even after that…that. It was not a fight—fights involve more than one person.

(“A temper tantrum.”)

It is easy for you to be dismissive. You thought you were in the right, you always did. Even now, you think of me a toddler, someone that needs discipline instead of affection. You will always justify your cruelty as something that is good for me.

My face is wet and I swipe at it. Rain—I don’t cry, I don’t think we have the ability to do so. Just as my heart stopped beating and I no longer can eat human food, I cannot produce tears. That does not mean I cannot sob, nor does it mean I cannot rage as I pass through our sleepy neighborhood into the raucousness of Palais.

I stop at the threshold, looking toward the salon. Inside are the sycophants, ready for another day of incessant drivel about human affairs. They will cry about the hunters they claim are all over Paris, determine ways to shift the political landscape as if they do not sit atop it.

I resist the urge to go there and knock over their tower of delusion. It would not sate me. It would be temporary, a strip of shade against the endless sun.

Smashing the vases wasn’t enough. I need something else to destroy.

“Ah, there you are,” Zora says, stepping from the shadows of the arch we agreed to meet under. “I was beginning to think you did not want this back.” My bracelet is woven through her fingers, flashed under the lamplight before it disappears once more.

My curiosity and anger war each other.

“Must I play your game to get it back? I should just yell for the police,” I say.

Zora smiles knowingly. “I don’t suspect they’ll take an unaccompanied woman at night in the Palais seriously. Speaking of—do you not fear the night?”

“No,” I say. I haven’t feared anything other than your wrath and your distance in quite some time.

“Brave,” Zora teases. “Is it the night that should fear you?” Her knowing smile only grows as I frown at her.

“What are you implying?”

“Oh, just that you’re a more dangerous type of criminal than I. If I am caught, I will be arrested, and likely worse. They cannot catch you, because you make your theft seem like your victim’s idea.”

Except for Zora. Her immunity to coercion haunted me, your words mingling with hers. I should have told you I found a human with such a gift, but the ending is inevitable. Even had you known and we packed up and left, Zora…

But I am getting ahead of myself. This was how it began—and beginnings matter, if only to understand what followed. I see your disbelief. You will understand soon.

“Victim,” I scoff. I hate that word—it harkens to Alexandria and simpering Theon and his beloved humans. “And had I paid for his other trinkets, I would be a victim of his deception.”

“His deception?” Zora is curious now.

“Glass,” I say. “He did not have gems, he had painted glass.”

“So this is useless?” Zora asks, frowning at her hand. My bracelet has reappeared, woven between her fingers.

“No, it was his one authentic piece.”

“And you could tell this? On sight?”

“And feel,” I add. The intensity of her gaze itches, but not the way the attention of Le Sang Bleu did. Their reverence was worship of who they wanted me to be, not who I was. Zora…she is impressed.

“Teach me,” she says.

“Why? So you know what item to steal?”

“Yes, exactly. You will show me how to determine what is valuable and how to talk them out of it, and I will show you sleight of hand.”

“Some skills cannot be learned,” I say.

“I am a quick study.” I’d heard those words before, in Alexandria, and my skin itches with the memory.