I lean in and kill him on the lips and he kills me right back. Kisses. Deeply. I taste roses. I feel the want in his hands and lips, deep as my own want, its mirror. Deep as the mystery of the first mirror.
And something else is there too, in his touch that can’t get enough. Something under its want, in its depths, I feel it creeping in. A dark, aching thing, I used to know its name. The one that empties. That consumes and is consumed. It tastes bittersweet, thorny like the roses in his kill. My sisters turn away their golden eyes.
22
I arrive in the grand hall, my red shoes panting on my feet. “Right on time,” the woman in silver says when she opens the door. When I’m announced, the applause is deafening. A full-on roar. For me? But this is so unexpected. Thanks so much, merci.
“I’m actually just here because I’m looking for someone. Have you seen—？” But my voice is drowned out in the roar. A raising of red fizzing flutes in their opera-gloved fists. The grand hall is all lit up tonight. The red curtain is drawn and the Depths are exposed. The blue-green water glows gloriously as if lit from beneath. Even the red jellyfish seem to be clapping for me. Their bells pulsate in time to the human applause, tentacles undulating wildly. Except one. A large one, very red. Its strange jelly eyes are fixed on me. Sadly? Can’t be. Oh well, never mind. I’m looking for someone, aren’t I? Mother, that’s right. Is she here? Don’t see her. The hall is crowded like never before with shimmering people trailing silks of red and black and white. Their sin looks made of actual diamonds. Skin. Not sin, why sin? All of them are smiling at me. Never too widely, of course. They have their own sins to think of. Skins. They congratulate me as I pass. They’ve mastered the art of speaking without moving their lips, quite like my sisters.
“Many félicitations on reaching the Precipice,” they say through their teeth.
“Thank you,” I say. And I think, Precipice? I’ve reached a Precipice? “I’m actually here because I’m looking for my—”
“What a big fucking night this must be for you,” a woman says as I pass. “Reaching the Precipice so quickly.” Gripping my shoulder so hard, her red nails nearly sink into my shoulder flesh. “Who did you have to fuck?”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s right, they don’t fuck. Was it extra money, then? What did you do to move through the treatments so fast? Tell me!”
Another woman won’t stop stroking my neck. “Incroyable, astounding really,” she whispers, nearly throttling me. “I envy.”
But I’m saved at last by the woman in red, who pulls me away.
“Now, friends! Mes amis! Let’s not congratulate Daughter of Noelle too much, all right? There’ll be plenty of time for more félicitations later. We don’t want to exhaust our dear Daughter. Let’s just have some bubbly for now, yes?”
I see the twins on the stair, the Lord and Lady, staring at me from behind their black veils. Raising their red fizzing flutes as if to toast me.
“Yes,” I say, and feel them smile through their veils. Can nearly feel the cold silk of their hands grazing my skin from here. So happy they are to see me. Music plays, a harpsichord-heavy opera, and a powdered man in a red ruff sings soprano on the stair. I dance with many partners, and my partner keeps changing. My shoes seem to want to dance me very close to the Depths, very close to the glass behind which the medusae drift and pulse.
“I hope you don’t mind,” I tell my partner, who stares at me, trembling. “I’m actually looking for someone.” She’s an extremely pale woman with very blond hair. Her features suggest she wasn’t always so pale, she was something else once, hard to say what or from where, but don’t I always hate when people try to guess a place from my face? Anyway, she’s Brightened. Washed away like how at night we wash off the day. She wears a long white dress, spilling diamonds from her throat. She’s looking at me with a pained expression. “My plight—pleasure to dance with Daughter on the eve of her third treatment,” she says.
“Third treatment? It’s tonight?”
“Of course it’s tonight,” she says, like it’s obvious.
“What a happy surmise that I’m here, then.”
“Such a happy surmise,” she hisses. “Very woeful. Wonderful.”
“I actually came here because I’m looking for someone. Funny, I can’t remember who just now. Drawing a bit of a blank.”