“I feel disorientated,” she said, with complete candor. “The closer I get to Eulalia Gonde’s past, the more I feel as if I know her, and yet several centuries separate us from each other. The family power you passed on to me shouldn’t allow for such a thing, should it?”
“She was punished.” Thorn had stated this after taking a careful sip from his glass.
“Punished?” Ophelia repeated. “I don’t understand.”
“Me neither. I told you once that I myself carried Farouk’s recollections, passed on from generation to generation, and from memory to memory, by my mother’s clan. Fragmented recollections that are highly subjective. In one of them, it appeared to me that God . . . Gonde,” he instantly corrected, “was punished. I still don’t know by whom, why, or how.”
“The Necromancers’ cool box-cabinet guarantees perfectly preserved comestibles all year round!” the radio presenter raved. “Sturdy but not bulky, it’s the ultimate in practical storage! In practical storage!”
Ophelia looked, pensively, at the radio that had produced an echo.
“Maybe her transformation into Milliface wasn’t by choice? Maybe it’s a curse? Maybe it is actually linked to the Other?”
“That,” Thorn said, “will be for us to find out. If, of course, you are still happy for us to investigate together.” He had spoken stiffly, looking deep into his glass.
Ophelia pushed her glasses back up her nose. “You doubt that?”
“For as long as you remain in Babel, however strong the temptation and however great your loneliness, you must have no contact with your family.”
“I know that.”
“The closer you will get to the truth, the more you will put yourself in danger.”
“I know that.”
“If you get into difficulty, you may not be able to count on me. My hands and feet are tied by the Genealogists.”
“I know that, too,” Ophelia said, gently. “Is that what you wanted us to talk about yesterday?”
Thorn finally turned his eyes, from the glass of water, directly at her. His pale pupils glowed probingly through the shadowy light. “Do you recall what I said to you the other evening, in front of the Memorial entrance? That I wanted none of your finer feelings?”
Ophelia nodded with her chin.
“I meant it,” he continued, sternly. “I want none of them.” He grimaced, as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. He juggled his glass from one hand to the other, before deciding to put it down. “At least, not them alone.”
Ophelia moistened her lips. Only Thorn could make her go from chilled one moment to inflamed the next. “You don’t . . . ”
“No half-measures,” he interrupted her. “I’m not and do not wish to be your friend.”
“Try the automatic sugar tongs and you’ll love them! Love them! Their spring-loaded pincers work at the press of a finger! Of a finger!”
Ophelia promptly lowered the volume of the radio.
“I refuse to live forever feeling that I make you uncomfortable,” Thorn continued, brusquely. “If it’s my claws that put you off . . . I’m aware that I’m hardly attractive . . . this leg won’t stop me from . . . ” Exasperated, he swept his brow with his hand, as if enduring a severe verbal challenge.
All Ophelia’s nervousness instantly disappeared. She removed her gloves, as though shedding an old skin. Hard knocks had damaged Thorn, and the harm was greater within than without. She promised herself to protect him from all those who could further flay him, starting with herself.
She approached, ensuring that she was well within his field of vision. It was good that he was seated—it put them on the same level. He shuddered when she pressed her bare hands on either side of his face. He was an angular being, both in body and character, with never a friendly phrase, or gallant gesture, or humorous quip, preferring the company of numbers to that of people. One had to have a good reason for looking Thorn straight in the face.
Ophelia had one. She kissed his scars, first the one cutting through his eyebrow, then the one cutting into his cheek, and finally the one cutting across his temple. With each contact, Thorn’s eyes widened. His muscles, conversely, tightened.
“Fifty-six.” He cleared his throat to make his voice less hoarse. Ophelia had never seen him so intimidated, despite his efforts not to show it.
“That’s the number of my scars.”
She closed and then reopened her eyes. She felt it again, even more violently, this urgent call from deep inside her. “Show them to me.”
The world instantly ceased to be a word and became skin. The gentle shadows of the mosquito nets, the lapping of the rain, the distant sounds of the gardens and the city, none of all that existed anymore for Ophelia. All that she was acutely aware of was Thorn and herself, their hands unfastening, one by one, every restraint, every apprehension, every fear.
Ophelia had spent these last three years feeling empty. She was, at last, replete.
On the pedestal table close to the window, the radio’s volume was down to the merest murmur. Neither Ophelia nor Thorn heard when the report on the Home Improvements Exhibition was suddenly interrupted:
“Citizens of Babel, this is a message of utmost urgency. Major land changes were observed twenty minutes ago in the northwest of the city. Pollux’s botanical gardens and the large spice market have . . . are no longer attached to the ark. If you are in the vicinity of the unstable zone, move away and evacuate residential buildings. We ask the entire population to remain calm, we will keep you regularly informed as the situation evolves. Quoi? We have just been told that several neighboring minor arks have also seemingly disappeared. Above all, do not panic. I repeat: Citizens of Babel, this is a message of the utmost urgency . . . ”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Thibaut, my adviser, my reader, my inspirer, my love.
To my family in France and Belgium, who take the woolliest care of me.
To my brother Romain and to Jason Piffeteau, whose feedback was so precious to me.
To Stéphanie Barbaras, Célia Rodmacq, Alice Colin, Svetlana Kirilina: you taught me so much.
To my silver quills and my golden friends who support me across all the arks.
To Laurent Gapaillard, who was able to turn each of my books into a work of art.
To the entire team at Gallimard Jeunesse, thanks to whom Ophelia was able to emerge from her mirror.
To you, finally, dearest reader, who came especially to meet me on the other side.
May the scarf be with you all!
TO FOLLOW, THE FOURTH BOOK
OF THE MIRROR VISITOR:
The world has been turned upside down. The disintegration of the arks has well and truly begun. Just one way to stop it: find whoever is responsible. Find the Other. But how to do so without even knowing what he or she looks like? Ophelia and Thorn embark on the trail of the echoes, those strange phenomena that seem to be the key to all the mysteries. They will have to delve more deeply into Babel’s corridors of power, and into their own memories. And meanwhile, in LandmArk, God may well obtain the power he so covets. Between him and the Other, who poses the gravest threat?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christelle Dabos was born on the Côte d’Azur in 1980 and grew up in a home filled with classical music and historical games. She now lives in Belgium. A Winter’s Promise, her debut series, won the Gallimard Jeunesse-RTL-Télérama First Novel Competition in France, and was named a Best Book of the Year by critics and publications in the US, including Entertainment Weekly, Bustle, Publishers Weekly, Chicago Review of Books. A Winter’s Promise was also named the #1 Sci-Fi/Fantasy title of the year by Amazon Book Review.
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