Chapter 206: And I Began To Dance

LOUISE’S POV

So I tilted my head and asked, "And what if we don’t?"

"Then we will have to find somewhere quiet inside it."

"That sounds impossible."

"Perhaps." He looked down at the weeds beside his shoe. "But we can try."

I stared at him.

There was something infuriating about his ability to make even the most hopeless situation sound as though it contained a small, manageable task.

A place to sit. A door to close. A fern to save. A quiet corner in a house that had never been built for peace.

I wanted to tell him that trying was pointless. I wanted to explain that Alice did not permit people to build private worlds inside the one she controlled.

She would find the quiet corner, enter it with a pleasant smile, and turn it into another place where we had to be careful.

Instead, I asked, "Do you really think you can be happy somewhere else?"

Adrien lifted his gaze.

For the first time that afternoon, he did not smile immediately. "I hope so."

The answer was so simple that I found it difficult to look at him.

He did not say he would become rich enough to buy his freedom. He did not promise to make the family regret the way they had treated him.

He did not speak about revenge or justice or the day he would finally have enough power to make everyone listen.

He said he hoped he could be happy.

And somehow, that seemed like a much larger dream than anything I had ever wanted.

I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t.

The small, mocking words died in my throat. I looked at his profile, illuminated by the last thin strip of twilight bleeding through the glass, and for the very first time, I saw him clearly.

He wasn’t an obstacle.

He wasn’t a rival standing between my mother and the future she wanted for us. He was just a boy who was tired of bleeding.

The realization did not arrive with a grand revelation or a sudden rush of affection. It was quieter than that. It settled into me slowly, almost reluctantly, like a truth that had been waiting for me to become too tired to ignore it.

I had spent so long thinking of Adrien as a problem that I had never considered what it meant to be him.

I knew where he was permitted to sit at dinner. I knew which relatives disliked him, which servants spoke kindly to him when they thought no one was watching, and which subjects made him lower his eyes.

I knew the details of his humiliation.

I had never bothered to ask what he wanted when no one was humiliating him. And when I finally asked, he wanted something so ordinary that I laughed.

The thought embarrassed me.

I looked away, pretending to examine a cracked flowerpot near my feet.

"What about you?" Adrien asked.

I glanced at him. "What about me?"

"You haven’t answered my question."

"I never agreed to answer it."

"You asked me about my dream."

"And you answered."

"So I thought you might answer too."

I narrowed my eyes. "You are becoming demanding."

"Sorry."

He said it automatically, and I caught the faint movement of his shoulders, as though he had prepared himself for a reprimand before I had even decided whether to give one.

The sight made my stomach twist.

I hated that he had learned to apologize so quickly. I hated that I had helped teach him.

For a moment, I considered telling him the truth.

I could have said that I wanted to leave the manor and never return. I could have admitted that I wanted to wake up one morning without hearing Alice’s voice in my head, without wondering which parts of myself I had to conceal to remain worthy of her approval.

I could have told him that sometimes I wanted to be a person no one recognized.

Someone without a family name. Someone who could enter a room without calculating how she would be judged.

Someone who could make a mistake without wondering whether it would be used against her.

But I could not imagine what such a life would look like.

I had spent so long learning how to become the person Alice wanted that I could no longer distinguish between the things I wanted and the things she had placed inside me.

So I gave Adrien the only answer I could manage. "I want to be powerful."

He nodded. "All right."

I frowned. "All right? That’s all you’re going to say?"

"Yes."

"You’re not going to ask what sort of power?"

"Do you want me to?"

I stared at him. "You’re supposed to ask."

"Why?"

"Because I gave you an answer."

He considered this. "What sort of power do you want?"

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

Adrien waited.

He did not fill the silence for me. He did not offer suggestions or tell me that my answer was wrong. He simply sat there with his dirty hands resting on his knees, giving me the time to discover that I did not know what I meant.

Finally, I looked away.

"The sort that makes people leave me alone," I muttered.

He was quiet for a moment.

Then he said, "That sounds reasonable."

I turned back to him. "You think so?"

"Yes."

"You don’t think it’s selfish?"

"No."

"Or cruel?"

"Not necessarily."

I studied his face, searching for mockery. There was none. "Why not?"

He shrugged slightly. "Because sometimes people don’t leave you alone unless you make them."

The words were not an accusation. He said them without bitterness, without even looking particularly sad.

That somehow made them worse.

I looked at the glass roof again.

The first stars were beginning to appear beyond the fading light, faint points of white above the dark outline of the garden trees.

"I don’t want to be like my mother," I said before I could stop myself.

The admission hung between us.

Adrien did not react immediately. His expression remained calm, but his fingers stopped moving against his trousers.

For a moment, I feared he would tell me that I already was. Perhaps I deserved to hear it.

Instead, he asked, "What is it about her that you don’t want to be?"

I almost laughed. "You ask very strange questions."

"You said you didn’t want to be like her."

"I know what I said."

"Then I’m asking what you mean."

I pressed my lips together.

I could have listed her faults. Her ambition. Her patience when she was planning something unpleasant. The way she could make a person feel grateful for an insult if she delivered it with enough warmth.

But the answer that came to mind was much smaller. "I don’t want to need people to be afraid of me."