Chapter 205: I Listened To The Pied Piper

LOUISE’S POV

I wanted to ask whether the house would have a garden, whether he would plant flowers or vegetables, whether he would spend his afternoons reading beside the window while rain fell outside.

I wanted to ask whether he thought he would ever be happy. But I did not ask those questions.

I was sixteen, and I had already learned that wanting something gave other people a place to hurt you.

So I folded my arms more tightly and looked at the dying ferns.

"What kind of underwhelming dream is that?" I mocked, shaking my head, a small, genuine smile creeping onto my face despite myself. "An ordinary life? A cup of tea and a quiet window? You sound like an old man, Adrien. That isn’t a dream. That’s just... boring."

Adrien didn’t become defensive. He didn’t get flustered or raise his voice to defend his pride.

He just chuckled softly, a quiet, warm sound that seemed to float up toward the high glass panels overhead.

"Maybe it is boring," he said softly, looking down at his dirty fingers. "But I think... I think the best things are probably simple, Louise. When everything around you is loud and painful, simple sounds pretty good."

He paused, his smile fading slightly into something quiet and reflective.

"Besides," he added, looking out at the dark trees in the garden, "I’m not really in a position where I can dream of anything more, am I? We take what we can get."

The words settled between us.

For a moment, I couldn’t think of anything to say.

He had not spoken with self-pity. That was what made it difficult. He had not looked at me for sympathy or tried to make me feel guilty about the way I treated him. He had simply stated a fact, as if he were talking about the weather.

He was sixteen years old, and he had already begun negotiating with life.

A small house instead of an estate. A dog instead of a family. A quiet morning instead of a future filled with people demanding things from him.

We take what we can get.

I had heard adults say similar things before, but they always said them after losing money or influence. They said them with the bitter dignity of people who believed they had been cheated out of something they deserved.

Adrien said it as though he had never expected anything else.

I looked at him more closely.

There was a faint crease between his eyebrows. His shirt was damp at the collar, and a strand of hair had fallen over his forehead again. He brushed it away impatiently before returning his attention to the ferns.

I wondered how many times he had sat in that corner and imagined a life beyond the manor.

I wondered how many times he had been forced to abandon the thought before it could become too real.

"Why a house near water?" I asked eventually.

He lifted his head. "What?"

"You said you wanted a house near water. Why?"

He glanced toward the garden again. "I like the sound of rain."

"Rain?"

"On the roof. On the windows. Anywhere, really."

"You can hear rain in this house."

"Not like that."

I frowned. "How can rain sound different?"

He considered his answer.

"I don’t know how to explain it. Here, even the rain feels as though it belongs to someone else. Someone decides when the windows should be closed, when the servants should come in, whether the garden needs covering. There is always somebody telling somebody else what to do."

He paused.

"I want to hear it without thinking about who might be angry because of it."

The answer made something inside my chest tighten.

I looked up at the glass ceiling. The last of the sunlight was slipping away, leaving the roof divided into dark panes. I could see the faint reflection of the garden lights beginning to come on outside.

Rain against a roof.

For a moment, I tried to imagine what it would feel like to hear it without associating the sound with an approaching storm, a delayed car, or an adult who had been inconvenienced by the weather.

I couldn’t.

I had never thought of rain as something a person could want simply because it sounded peaceful.

"You’re strange," I said.

"I know."

"You admit it very easily."

"It saves time."

I turned toward him. "Do you always answer questions like that?"

"Only when I don’t know what else to say."

"Then you must spend a great deal of time not knowing what to say."

He smiled without looking at me. "Probably."

I should have found another way to mock him.

Instead, I found myself smiling too.

It was not a large smile. I would never have allowed it to become one if I had been thinking clearly. But it was there, resting at the corners of my mouth, and for a moment I was not concerned about whether Adrien noticed it.

Perhaps he did. Perhaps he chose not to mention it.

The light continued to fade.

Somewhere in the main house, a bell rang to announce that dinner preparations had begun. I knew what would happen next.

Alice would send someone to find me. My hair would need to be fixed, my collar straightened, my expression arranged into something appropriate.

Adrien would be expected to appear downstairs at the appointed time. He would sit where he was told to sit, answer the questions he was asked, and avoid giving anyone a reason to remind him that his presence was tolerated rather than welcomed.

We would return to our roles.

The knowledge sat at the back of my mind like a stone. I wondered whether Adrien was thinking about it too.

"Do you think we’ll ever leave?" I asked.

The question came out before I had decided to ask it.

Adrien turned toward me. "Leave where?"

"This house."

He looked at me for a moment, then glanced up at the glass ceiling. "Of course."

"You sound very certain."

"We’re not going to live here forever."

"How do you know?"

He was quiet for a few seconds.

"I don’t," he admitted. "But I think we will leave eventually. Everyone leaves somewhere, don’t they?"

I almost told him that some people never escaped the places that made them. They carried those places inside themselves, turning them into habits, fears, and small cruelties they passed on to other people.

I almost told him that leaving a house was easy compared with leaving the people who had taught you how to live inside it.

But I was sixteen.

I had not yet learned how to recognize a warning when it came dressed as an ordinary thought.