A small smile touched the edge of his mouth. “No. You will look as if you are talking to yourself. Fortunately, that is not an unusual occurrence in the Shadow Market.”
“Have you been here before?”
“No. I’ve seen pictures, but the reality is far more interesting. As always, Lucie, following after you has opened up my world.”
She kicked at a bit of snow, wondering if she should mention her conversation with Malcolm. “I thought you were angry at me.”
“I’m not angry. I’m sorry about what I said outside the Ruelle. I know you are doing what you are because you care about me. It is only that—I am fading faster, I think. I forget, sometimes, where I have just been. I know Grace will have come to talk to me, but I will not recall it. I find myself in the city, and its roads seem like foreign passages.”
Panic jangled her nerves. “But I am getting so close—to finding someone who can help us. To finding out what happened to you, what enchantments were put on you, so they can be reversed, undone—”
Jesse closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, all pretense of smiling or lightness was gone; he looked unguarded and vulnerable. “You have already done so much. If it were not for you, I would have faded a long time ago. I knew something was keeping me anchored here, when by all rights I should have vanished. For these past months, I have been able to see the moonlight reflected on the river, feel the wind and rain against my skin. I remember what it is to be hot or cold. To want things. To need things.” He looked into her eyes in wonderment. “All those things are real for me again, as nothing else has been real to me since I died—except for you.”
There was a hot ache in Lucie’s throat. “Those feelings are the proof that you belong here, with the living.”
He inclined his head toward her. “Command me to kiss you,” he whispered urgently. “Tell me to do it. Please.”
She looked up at him, her hands clasped, shivering. “Kiss me.”
He dipped his head. A cascade of sparks danced across her skin: he feathered kisses across her cheek before seeking her mouth. Lucie inhaled sharply as he captured her lips, his arms drawing her against him.
Despite everything, she drowned in the delight of it.
I didn’t know. She had not considered the softness of his mouth contrasted with faint roughness, the nip of his teeth, his tongue stroking along hers. She had not realized she would feel his kisses all through her, a delicious tension she had never imagined. His hands were in her hair, cradling the back of her head, his mouth learning hers, leisurely, carefully.…
She whimpered low in her throat, her hands on his shoulders, steadying herself. Jesse, Jesse, Jesse.
A train roared over the viaduct overhead, its lights illuminating the darkness, turning night to sunrise. Jesse let her go, his dark hair unruly, his eyes sleepy and stunned with desire.
“If I must fade,” he said, “I would like to fade remembering this as my last waking dream.”
“Don’t go,” she whispered. “Hold on, for me. We are so close.”
He touched her cheek. “Only promise me one thing,” he said. “If I do go, give us a happy ending, will you? In your book?”
“I don’t believe in endings,” she said, but he only smiled at her, and faded slowly from view.
19 THINE OWN PALACE
And seeing the snail which everywhere doth roam,
Carrying his own house still, still is at home,
Follow （for he is easy paced） this snail,
Be thine own palace, or the world’s thy jail.
—John Donne, “To Sir Henry Wotton”
Thomas had no idea what time it was. There were no windows in the Sanctuary, for the comfort of vampire guests. The tapers in the candelabras burned on, their level never seeming to drop.
Charlotte hadn’t been untruthful when she’d said Thomas and Alastair would have whatever they needed. Warm bedding had been provided, and a stack of books （chosen by Eugenia）， not to mention food. Thomas could tell that Bridget felt sorry for him, because she had brought some of his favorite things: besides a platter of cold chicken, there was bread still warm from the oven, a wedge of yellow sheep’s-milk cheese, sliced apples, and a salad with absolutely not one speck of celery. Thomas hated celery.
Bridget had set the tray down without a word, scowled at Alastair, and left.
Alastair had seemed unmoved. He hadn’t said a single word to Thomas since the door had closed and locked behind the Consul for the last time. He’d wandered over to one of the “beds” provided—a mattress with a pile of blankets and pillows, sat down with a book （Machiavelli’s The Prince, which he must have produced from a coat pocket—did he carry it around everywhere with him?）， and stuck his nose in it. And there he still was, hours later, not even looking up when Thomas accidentally knocked over a candelabra while pacing the room.