Page 72 of We Were Eternal Once

I could compel him. I could tell him to forget I was here, that he will let me take this oil at no charge. But how would I explain that to Zora? I cannot compel her to forget. I would have to kill her.

I hesitate for a moment, looking from Zora, to the man, to his grip on my wrist.

It would be easy to kill Zora. I can compel the man not to cause a scene and slip away into the shadows. I could promise to teach her, only to slit her throat and throw her into the dirty Seine. Or perhaps I’d leave her body in the shadows of the Palais, just another nameless corpse.

But I didn’t want to kill Zora, at least not yet. I would have to, eventually. She would come to understand what I was. But I would not help her get there.

“No, I don’t,” I say, jerking my wrist free. His eyes widen, his mouth opening to yell.

But I have already turned to flee through the crowd. I gather my skirts, the last bottle of oil still clutched in my palm as I race through the night. There are too many people, and he would have to abandon his cart to chase me.

I am laughing. Joyously, exhilaratingly.

I cannot stop laughing, even when I duck into the shadows of the arch I first met Zora at that evening. She appears several moments later, holding her side and panting.

“Are you laughing?” she asks between gasps.

“Yes,” I say, biting my lip to stop it. The laughter spills out anyway, uncaring that I try to contain it.

Zora watches me for several long moments, her brow furrowed, her hand pressed to her side. Then she is laughing too, shaking her head.

“Two items? It was greedy of you. You take one and go.”

“I don’t recall that from your long list of instructions prior to my attempt.”

Then we are laughing again. I pull out my small bottles and we pop them open, inhaling the scent.

“That is disgusting,” Zora says, coughing and sputtering. It really is—they’re both foul smells, too cloying for my nose. I gag and hold the bottles out in front of me as though it might dampen the smell.

It doesn’t. It clings to my nose and makes my head swim.

“I cannot believe you chanced arrest for that,” Zora says.

But I didn’t, I want to say back. There was no chance I would be arrested, or jailed, or anything of the sort. I could compel them to let me go, to forget about me. Out of Zora’s watchful eye, I could do that and tell her I bribed my way free.

“Neither can I,” I say, pinching my nose.

“I am unsure if we can call this a successful theft,” she says.

Then we are laughing again, and I cannot recall a time I have laughed this long with someone other than you.

Creatures of the Night

You are never there when I leave at night.

Sometimes I feel you in our home, which has grown in size because of the distance between us. I trace your path before I leave for the evening, wondering if ours will cross.

You are either gone or you’ve hidden, reclusive even from me.

I have my own grave now, in a room I no longer call ours. I can’t remember when it was made—whether it was your doing or mine. At some point you became a ghost haunting the corners of our home while I did everything I could to escape.

Zora was not a distraction. Le Sang Bleu was, one that clawed its way under my skin and festered. I went from avoidance to loathing. I explored areas of Palais and Paris I knew the others would not venture to. I didn’t catch Tomasz’s eye in a cafe, nor did I acknowledge Eloise when she waved to me.

They were creatures of my past who wanted to be part of my present, part of my future. I could not stand the way they looked at me, the questions they asked. They were invasive, a way of dissecting me like I didn’t exist. They spoke of me like I wasn’t there.

“There must be an original, the one that made us all,” Yusuf says one evening. It is the last evening I attend one of these meetings, but I have no plans to announce it. I’ll simply stop coming.

“A first, a supreme father,” he continues.