A face appeared above, looking down at her. Sebastian. "Sleep now."
"Forever?"
"No.” His fingertips caressed her forehead. “Just a while."
She felt a sob rise in her chest. No! Death is coming for me.
"No," he whispered, placing a hand gently over her eyes, closing them with a stroke. "He'll never come. Not for you."
Against her will, she sunk like a stone, sleep taking her into its waiting arms.
The steady rocking of the train pulled Lisette from her dreams. There was little light in the room, but she had no trouble seeing. She was in Sebastian's bed. He sat at her side, watching her.
"How do you feel?" he asked, cradling his chin in his hand.
"Fine." The truth of the answer surprised her. She did feel fine, better than fine in fact. “What time is it?”
“It’s eight o’clock. You’ve been asleep for almost sixteen hours.”
Maybe that explained why her head didn’t ache and her stomach didn’t roll like it usually did after one of her hard benders.
"Revenge wasn't what you expected, then?"
She looked away. "No."
"Should I have been gentler with her? After all she did, did she deserve better?"
She pinched her eyes shut. "I suppose not."
"Yet you're still afraid of me."
She huffed. "How could I not be?"
"Have I ever willfully hurt you?"
"No."
"Have I mistreated you in any way?"
"No.”
"How many other people can claim the same?"
"Few enough."
"So then?"
"What did you do to her?"
He clenched his jaw in the darkness. "I killed her, as we agreed."
"No," she said, pushing herself to a sitting position. Her locket fell between her breasts. She took a deep, steadying breath. "You whispered in her ear, and I watched her break. Then, you killed her."
He gave an impatient flick of his wrist.
"How is it you always know just what to say?" She paused, weighing her words. "Why are your hands like ice?"
"This again?" he said, sounding bored.
"What are you?"
He pushed himself up from the seat. "You wouldn't like the name. Why should it matter?"
"Because I want to know what you're going to do to me when this is all finished. I thought I knew what you were that night we met. I’ve heard about men like that,” she continued. “Every whore has. Men who kill for sport, men who enjoy it. But that’s not you.” She shook her head. “No, it’s not something you enjoy...it’s a part of you. It’s who you are.”
“You want to know? Fine!" He grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her to her feet. She found his touch surprisingly tepid for once. He brought her before the mirror.
She gasped. The face looking back at her was at least ten years younger than the evening before. Her fingers gently touched the smooth skin of her face. She turned from side to side taking in her reflection. "My God! What have you done?"
"It was the only way to save your life. You forced my hand."
Her gaze met his eye in the mirror. "What am I now, then?"
"You are you, as always. This is only a side effect; it won't last."
Her face fell. "It won't?"
A smirk crossed his face. "No. And you should probably stay inside your cabin until it wears off. We don't want any of the other passengers getting the wrong idea."
"Of course," she said, turning back to her own youthful reflection. Her skin was taut and without wrinkles, every freckle, mark, and scar was gone, leaving only a porcelain surface. It was as if years were taken off her face. As though they had never even happened.
"How long—" she started, turning back. But the room behind her was empty. Sebastian had already gone.
Chapter Four
BY THE TIME THEY REACHED her hometown, the effects from whatever he'd done to her had worn off. She was again in possession of every wrinkle, freckle, and scar she'd earned over the years. It felt as though she were aging for a second time, but at lightning speed. She saw considerably less of Sebastian in those few days. Days ago, his absence would have hurt, but now she didn't even know if she wanted to see him. That was possibly the most confusing part.
He was a man to be feared, that much was certain. However, she couldn't help but trust him. As he said, he was the only one in the world that had never done her any wrong.
Even so, a voice kept whispering in the back of her mind. What about what he will do? What will happen when it’s time to keep your end of the bargain?
That had been the deal, after all. Justice in exchange for her life. And as terrible as that justice was, it would be worth it. It had to be. It was all she had left.
The last few days on the train, Lisette had made a point of keeping the curtains drawn in her compartment, blocking out the outside world. She didn't want to see the landscape of her youth. She didn’t want to see a farmhouse she recognized or the river that ran by the town. She didn’t want to see her past approaching. It wasn't her home anymore, she knew that, yet this was where she'd grown up. She'd been a child in the streets, innocent and full of dreams.
And worse, he still lived there.
Dusk was approaching when the train stopped in the town. A knock came to the door.
"Come in," she called.
Sebastian entered. "I see you're looking like yourself again."
"Unfortunately."
"Not at all."
"Shall we go, then?"
"Once night has fallen, we will go. The conductor has assured me that they will be stopped here for an hour or more. We have time.” He sat down across from her. “Are you nervous?"
She nodded. “I haven't seen my father since—" She pinched her eyes closed, blocking out that painful memory. You are about to face much worse than a memory.
She took a deep breath, looking at her hands, old and familiar again. "I thought I was dying.” She made a fist. “You can't imagine the pain a woman goes through giving birth, it's excruciating. There was so much blood. I thought no one could go on living after losing so much. That was when he finally came in. I thought perhaps he was there to say good-bye before I died. The cruel, hard look on his face should have warned me, but I was too far gone to notice. He said he was taking it."
She fought back a sob. She hadn't allowed herself to think of that moment for years. "It he said. It was a little girl. I called her Rebecca, but only once. I'd only had time to say her name once before she was gone. He'd forbidden anyone of speaking of it. The servants wouldn’t even look me in the eye when I begged to know where she was. A week later, I woke to find a bag packed. It was my mother who told me where I was going. The academy. She cried, but she didn't hold me, didn't stroke my hair like she used to. He didn't even say goodbye."
Sebastian stepped up behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder. She placed her hand over his.
"Do you still think my method too harsh?"
She remembered how Prudence had wept, how her face had contorted and screwed up in some sort of agony. "He is my father."
"Of course."
"I don't know."
Lisette and Sebastian were the last to get off the train. She was grateful, for once, for his peculiar need to wait for the cover of darkness. She didn't relish the idea of stepping off the train, into the village she once thought of as home.
Once she did, however, her anxiety washed away. It was not the small, quiet, and friendly place she remembered. It was now a bustling town, the square dominated by large buildings and loud vendors. Even just after dusk, people hurried from here to there, paying no attention to anyone but themselves. It was not a place she recognized. It was nothing to her now.
She took Sebastian's arm as they strolled along the square. It was a curious thing, walking with Sebastian. For the first time in her life, she had no fear of the dark shadows that passed in the night or the men that gave her sideways looks. Sebastian
was untouchable, and therefore so was she. Out in public, it was easy for her to forget that she was also susceptible to whatever strange and alluring power he possessed.
"It hardly seems the same place."
"Because it isn't. This is not the place it was then, just as you are not the girl you were then. Everything is in a constant state of change."
"Even you?"
He considered that a moment. "In my own way, I suppose. As a child, I could never have imagined myself here with you, like this."
"You've never spoken of your childhood before."
"It's of little consequence."
"Still. I'd like to hear about it."
He took a deep breath and sighed. "One night you shall, I promise. But not tonight. We have more urgent matters."
Yes, she thought, my father awaits.
ALISTER AWOKE WITH a jerk that made his bones cry out in agony. Every movement brought a new torture. The days in which he could live painlessly and move at will were gone. He was now a broken, withered old man, confined to a bed and reliant on a dim-witted nurse who always took her time coming when he called.
He didn't know what had awoken him, but he was grateful for it. He had to empty his bladder, and it was better if he had time enough to call for the fool nurse instead of suffering the humiliation of waiting as she changed his soiled bedsheets.
He reached a shaking hand for the cord next to the bed and gave it a sharp tug. He heard a soft ringing from down the hall. When he was well, he never would have allowed a lowly servant to sleep outside of the servants' quarters, let alone next to his own bedroom, but these days, the faster she could arrive, the better for him.
He waited less than a minute before ringing again, this time with all the strength he could muster. Still, he heard no sound of her movements.
"God-damned woman!"
He reached again for the cord, but a sudden sound stopped him. It came from the corner of the room, a shuffling of some sort.
He waited for the sound to come again, peering into the darkness. "Miss Stewart?"
No response.
Keeping his sights fixed on the direction of the sound, he reached for the cord again.
"You needn't bother," came a voice, deep and as dark as the corner from which it was coming.
The pounding in his chest sped up. "Who are you?" he demanded. "What do you want with an old man? Money? There's little of it left."
The voice didn't respond.
A match sparked to life, the flame flickering and finally growing constant, illuminating the man's face as he lit a cigarette. He sat in Alister’s chair which only infuriated him more. It was too low for Alister to get out of without assistance and it had remained empty for years. The man used the same match to then light a candle on the small table next to him and Alister saw that he had two intruders. A woman stood next to him. The man, young and handsome looking and dressed in fine clothes, and the woman, older than her companion yet aged beyond the years she possessed. A dark glare pulled her eyebrows together.
"Who are you?"
The man smiled, leaning back in the chair. He waved a hand towards the woman. "You have to ask?"
Alister narrowed his gaze, taking a closer look. His stomach sank like a stone as he recognized her. His lips turned up in a sneer. "I told you never to come back here.”
"Hello to you too," she said. Her voice was rough and worn. The years had not been kind to her since she left his house. Her clothes were fine and new, but they couldn’t hide the hard years she wore on her face and hands.
Good, he thought. A small solace for the damage she'd done. "What have you done to Miss Stewart?"
"We gave her the best gift anyone in your employ could receive," his daughter responded. "A night's rest. And when she wakes, she'll have your cold corpse to greet her. That should make her day."
He sneered. "Patricide? That is your great purpose?" He laughed, bitterly. "You needn't trouble yourself, God's on his way already."
"Not quickly enough."
"Always the impatient one. Very well, get on with it."
She clenched her jaw and stepped up to the bed. "I was a child," she said, her voice shaking.
"We've come to it then, have we?" he responded, annoyed. "A child yes. A stupid, selfish, spoilt girl. You had one responsibility, that was all. All your fine breeding and schooling and you still couldn't keep your god-damned legs together long enough to get married."
"We were going to get married," she snarled. "If you hadn't—"
"If I hadn't what? Interjected?” He gave a cold laugh. “You clearly haven't given any thought to this. Why would I want to stop Richard from making an honest woman out of my whore of a daughter? No, no, I wanted to marry you off as quickly as possible, but the truth is, he wouldn't have you."
"Liar!"
"What reason do I have to lie now? It's the truth, and you know it. You might not want to face it, but you know it. He didn't want a ruined woman for a wife, same as any other man in this God-forsaken town. Can't say I blame them either."
Tears welled in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks, but her face remained hard and unmoving. "Mother wanted me to go to—"
"Don't you dare to speak to me about your mother! What you did killed her, same as if you shot her with a gun."
"No, it was you and what you did."
"I—" he started. He felt something in the back of his throat and couldn't stop coughing. "You—" An intense coughing fit had taken hold of him. He forced out a few more words, but nothing intelligible. It infuriated him, showing his weakness before her, having her see him at the end, like this. She used to cower before him. Now he was the one shaking, ableit with age and a coughing fit.
She took a glass from the nightstand and handed it to him.
The scratch in his throat, as deeply embedded as it was, eased with the cool water. After a moment, he'd recovered himself and could go on. If she thought that her small, ineffectual kindness would soften his calloused heart towards her, she was wrong. "I worked my entire life building a fortune, providing for my family. And you, a stupid, little whore, ruined everything. You destroyed this family. You want to kill me?" He gasped out another laugh. "Get on with it then. At least dead, I'll never have to think about the greatest disappointment of my life again."
Lisette had been a fool to expect or even hope for remorse from him. And now, looking at him, at the hate in his eyes, she found she didn’t even want it. He was no longer the terrifying man that controlled her and made her shake with fear at his booming voice. The fear was gone and now all that was left was hate.
Lifting her skirts, she pulled out the knife she’d kept at her side. The one she’d spent so much time sharpening. Its razor sharp edge glinted in the candlelight.
“This is the only thing that has protected me all these years,” she said, handing the blade to Sebastian. “It was there for me when my own father wasn’t. It was my guard where you failed. It’s only fitting that it should be used to take him out of this world.”
“As you wish.”
"Do you remember what I said? About using a gentler method?"
"Yes."
"Don't. He doesn't deserve it."
"Of course, Lisette."
He left her side, approaching the bed. A flicker of fear flashed through Alister’s eyes. She walked from the room, not sparing another look back.
Lisette stood in the doorway of what used to be her bedroom. It was all there still, exactly as she remembered it: her bed, her armoire, her vanity mirror. She stepped inside, feeling a chill run down her spine. Her fingers ran over the vanity, the wood smooth and clean. She hadn't had anything smooth or clean since she left this house. Everything in her life after that day had been dirty and damaged, used, or broken. Until Sebastian had come for her.
Her eyes took in the room, so familiar yet so far from anything she’d known for many years. She crossed the room, staring at the bed. Her stomach sank as she approached. Standing to the side, she could
almost see a dark, black stain spreading out from the center. The pit in her stomach grew heavier. Though the house was quiet, screams rang in her ears, her own cries of pain and fear. She'd been alone, with only the midwife’s rough hands and rougher words. Her mother had been kept on the other side of the door by her father's orders. Mother and daughter's cries had melded into one horrific chorus that still sometimes managed to pull Lisette from sleep in a cold sweat.
She pinched her eyes shut, squeezing the few tears she had left from her eyes. That's it, she thought, wiping them away. Those are the last I will allow for this house. With her father, the last of her family was dead and she needn't think of him ever again. She'd think of her mother still, but never that day.
"It's done," Sebastian's voice came from the doorway.
Lisette nodded. "Good."
"Is this your room?"
"Not anymore."
He stepped up behind her and rested a hand on her shoulder. "Are you sorry?" He handed the blade back to her, spotless.
A calm came over her. "No." She slipped the knife back into place. It was as though a burden had been lifted. She was as alone in the world as she'd always been, but now with no one left to disappoint or fear. "We're not finished yet." Once Richard was gone, there would be no one left from her first life. She would be alone. She would have nothing.
She would be free.
His other hand went to her hip. Heat poured from Sebastian's body like a rolling river. He wasn’t cold like he usually was. She didn't pull away from him. She sank back into him. Her eyes closed as she tilted her head back against him. It felt so natural, she didn’t even consider the intimacy of the action. She was, after all, practically an old woman, and he was both her saviour and a monster. Now that her head was cradled between his neck and shoulder, she found none of that mattered. What did she have left to lose?
"Lisette," he whispered, letting his hand stretch up to her neck. His breath was hot and moist, kissing her skin.
She sighed, knowing that she was as much under his spell as any of the other people she'd seen him work his magic on, but she didn't care. She didn't care who or what he was, only that he was here with her when no one else was.
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