The golden chandeliers are all ablaze, and the unseen orchestra plays an irresistible tune, the music filling the cavernous white hall as if it were wafting down from the angels. Rose is swaying to the music even as we arrive, setting me on a little side table by the door. She takes up her skirts in one hand and begins to whirl herself around the room. She’s a comical little figure in frosty blue, swirling around and around in the vast, empty room. Beast follows us in, his eyes on Rose, and gives a single wordless nod.
Panel after panel of gold-veined mirrors suddenly appear on the white wall behind him, racing to cover its entire length. When they reach the corner, more panels appear to cover the side wall, and still more proceed along the distant wall at the opposite end of the hall and back up the other side. Rose is too absorbed in her dancing to see it happen. She only knows that as she whirls around, she’s suddenly facing her own image in the gilt glass, her hair and gown shimmering in the light, her cheeks aglow. It surprises a laugh of pleasure out of her to see her reflection, all of her reflections, as she dances around the room to beautiful, unearthly music.
As she comes rotating back toward Beast, he takes a step forward into her orbit, one paw aloft, the other fisted at his waist. He makes an extravagant bow, and while her first instinct is to swirl a bit farther away, she turns back and smiles and nods. He enters into the rhythm of her dance, stepping his hooves with care. For a moment, her free hand lights upon his outstretched paw, and they swirl around together — until she catches sight of the two of them reflected in the glass, his hulking frame towering above her, his horns glinting in the light, her delicate fingers touching his huge, furry paw.
She jumps away from him with a gasp, shaking her hand as if her fingers have been burned. Beast staggers back as if from a blow, stunned, humiliated yet again. The music coughs and sputters to an uneasy halt, and Rose continues to back away from Beast, wringing her hands. She’s sensible of the wound she’s given him, perhaps shamed by it, but she can’t take back what she’s done.
“Sir Beast . . . I . . .” she begins. “I — I’m sorry, I didn’t mean —” But there’s nothing more to say. Unable to repair the damage, she turns and flees out of the room. The sconces outside obligingly light her to her chamber.
Beast is left standing in his blazing hall of mirrors, his own image reflected back at him in every panel, slumped and dejected, horrible in his finery. There’s something far beyond rage or sadness in his eyes now: a desolation so profound, it would crack my heart if I still had one. What would she do if she saw it? Would she even notice?
He turns back toward me on the table near the door where she has forgotten me for once. “I’ve seen enough,” he murmurs. The chandeliers dim behind him, throwing the mirrored ballroom into shadows, and he takes me out into the passage again and back to the dining salon. The wine decanter, ever full, still sits on the table, and he grasps it in his other paw and carries us both upstairs. I cannot bear to nag him in this moment about sending the girl home. Even he must realize it by now.
It’s gloomy in the library at this hour. Beast sets me and the wine bottle on the writing table next to the empty vase with its dry rose stalk, then seats himself on the chair. He gazes at the vase for a moment, leans forward, and with one deep, melancholy breath, he blows the dry, dead petals to the floor. I see resignation in his eyes, eerie in my flickering light, as he reaches for the wine.
“Men often find comfort here,” he rumbles, regarding the glass decanter, its facets glinting red in my light. “Or oblivion. Let’s see if the charm works for me.”
Beast withdraws the frosted glass stopper, but when he tries to lift the fluted bottleneck to his mouth, his muzzle intervenes. Unable to reach his own lips, he throws back his head, but his attempts to pour the wine down his throat only result in a red sodden shirtfront. He sets the decanter down again, claws open his shirt, and shrugs out of his cloak, peering around the room. Several spent candles are placed about the bookshelves. Beast shambles over to one, tosses aside the candle, and blows the dust out of the dish that contained it, wider and deeper than a saucer, which he brings back to the table. He pours a measure of wine into the dish, lowers his head, and begins lapping it up, turning his muzzle first to one side, then the other, his tongue filling the dish with every lap. The dish is empty in seconds, and Beast lifts his head and smacks his tongue in his mouth, tasting the last of it.
“I didn’t know it would be so bitter,” he says. Then he pours himself another dishful and laps that up as well.
There’s no moon tonight to shine through the colored glass. My light alone illuminates Beast’s face as he broods over his wine. He laps up another dishful — I’ve lost count how many he’s had — sighs again, and props his tufted chin on his paws. I wish I could think how to comfort him, to let him know it’s all for the best.
She is only a child, Beast. She doesn’t know enough to appreciate you, I tell him. It doesn’t matter what she thinks.
He shakes his shaggy head. “I will always be a beast in her world. The human world.”
He pours himself another dish, but he makes only a few idle laps at it before lifting his muzzle and cocking his head again at me. “But I am not even a natural beast,” he says with a snort of derision. “A true wolf can enjoy his wolfishness; a lion may revel in his feline majesty. A true stag may look to the leadership of his herd. But I am a thing of mismatched parts, a patchwork, a nightmare. I can’t even seek comfort from others of my kind; there are no others of my kind. There is nothing else in nature like myself.” He lifts the decanter in a shaky salute. “I am unique.” He lowers his head and laps at the dish with grim resolve.
You have a human heart, Beast. That is what sets you apart.
“That is my curse,” he agrees.
True enough. A beast in nature does not consider such things. The lowliest dung beetle does not know he is ugly or ill-formed or outcast. He goes about his business as nature directs and is perfectly content. He has no capacity to be haunted by what he is.
“And yours as well, Lucie,” he adds quietly. “Why should you be cursed to share this fate?”
Cursed? It’s dangerous to consider myself in such terms — not as a strong, impervious vessel of enchantment, but as a mere thing. I was once vibrant and alive; I had blood in my veins, a beating heart. Now I am reduced to this: a cold, dead instrument of revenge.
The specter of Jean-Loup hangs over us both. We are two grotesques, Beast and I, because of him.
But I forfeited my own humanity readily enough, and never have I better understood the reason until this moment. I must retain my vigilance and see Rose gone from here, once and for all. We have thought her on the brink of departure before, and yet she always finds the nerve to stay. And Beast allows it, out of kindness, out of his hopeless craving to make a friend of her. But I’ll no longer stand by and let Beast be hurt and humiliated again and again by that girl. This can’t go on. He must know the truth.
It’s not a curse, I tell Beast. It is my mission. Remember when I told you it was my choice to witness Jean-Loup’s downfall?
Beast nods.
I am also here to see that he never returns.
“But — Jean-Loup is gone,” he whispers.
I pray that is so. Unless . . .
“Unless what?”
Unless . . . a woman should marry you.
“Me?” Beast sits as still as death. “Why? How?”
A spell was cast on the chevalier, and you appeared. I wish I had a voice to soften, eyes to convey sympathy, but there is nothing to do but plunge ahead. If a woman agrees to marry you as you are, the spell would be broken. Jean-Loup could come back.
“What?” Beast’s eyes fill with horror. “Back from where?”
From . . . wherever he went. When you . . . appeared in his place.
Beast’s voice is low and stark. “You mean there is still some part of Jean-Loup alive?” His expression darkens. “In me? I knew that he was gone, and I was here. But I never thought . . .” He shakes his head slowly, as if to shake off a dream; then his gaze rises again to me, bright and intense. “How could you not tell me, Lucie?”