“Peu importe,” she said, making a motion like she was swatting a ball backward over her shoulder. “I think the ones who die younger take it harder. My grandmother told me that one of their Spanish kindred did the same thing. He was fifteen too. He asked the numa to destroy him, like Charles did. But that time the poor thing succeeded.”
Jeanne noticed me shudder at this mention of the revenants’ ancient enemies, and though no one else was in the kitchen, she lowered her voice. “I say it’s better than the other extreme. Some—very few, mind you—get so jaded by their role in human life and death that their rescues become only a means of survival. They don’t care about the humans they save, only about relieving their compulsion. I would prefer that Charles be overly sensitive than coldhearted.”
“That’s why I think that getting away will be good for him,” I reassured her. “It will give him some distance from Paris, and the people he has saved.” Or not saved, I remembered, thinking of the fatal boat accident that had set off Charles’s downward spiral. After failing to save a little girl’s life, he had begun acting strangely. He ended up trying to commit revenant suicide, unwittingly allowing an attack on his kindred. “Jean-Baptiste said they could visit. I’m sure we’ll see them soon.”
Jeanne nodded, hesitantly acknowledging my words.
“It’s a beautiful cake,” I said, changing the subject. I scraped a bit of icing off the platter and popped it into my mouth. “Mmm, and yummy, too!”
Jeanne batted me away with her spatula, grateful to reassume her mother-hen role. “And you’re going to ruin it if you keep taking scoops out of the side,” she laughed. “Now go see if Charlotte needs some help.”
“This isn’t a funeral, people. It’s New Year’s Eve. And the twins’ moving party. So let’s celebrate!” Ambrose’s baritone voice reverberated through the pearl gray wood-paneled ballroom, drawing amused chuckles from the crowd of elegantly dressed revelers. A hundred candles glistened off the chandeliers’ crystal prisms, casting flecks of reflected light around the room better than any disco ball could.
Tables along the edges of the room were heaped with delicacies, tiny chocolate-and coffee-flavored éclairs, melt-on-your-tongue macarons in a half-dozen pastel colors, mountains of chocolate truffles. After the enormous feast that we had just devoured, I didn’t have an inch of space inside for these masterpieces of French pastry. Which sucked. Because if I had known these were still to come, I would have skimped on the bread and skipped the cheese course.
Across the room from me, Ambrose tapped an iPod nestled inside a large speaker system. I grinned as Jazz Age music trumpeted from the sound system. Though the native Mississippian listened to contemporary music on his headphones, he had a soft spot for the music of his youth. As the gravelly voice of Louis Armstrong electrified the dancers, Ambrose grabbed Charlotte and began shimmying her around the room, her creamy complexion and short blond hair the mirror opposite of his brown skin and cropped black hair.
They made a striking couple. If only they were a couple. Which—Charlotte had recently confided in me—was something that she longed for. And which Ambrose for some reason unbeknownst to me (and maybe to himself) did not. But his brotherly affection for her was as obvious as the doting smile on his face as he swung her around and dipped her low.
“Looks like fun. Let’s have a go,” whispered a voice inches from my ear. I turned to see Jules standing behind me. “How’s your dance card look?”
“Double-check your century, Jules,” I reminded him. “No dance cards.”
Jules shrugged and gave me his most flirtatious smile.
“But if there were, shouldn’t my boyfriend have the first dance?” I teased him.
“Not if I fought him for the honor,” he joked, throwing a glance across the room at Vincent, who was watching us with a half smile. He winked at me and returned to his conversation with Geneviève, a strikingly beautiful revenant who I had once been jealous of before finding out that she was happily married.
Counting her, there were a few dozen revenants attending tonight’s party who were not members of La Maison. (No one referred to it by its official name, the H?tel Grimod de la Reynière, h?tel in this case meaning ridiculously huge, extravagant mansion.) Jean-Baptiste’s residence was home to our venerable host, Gaspard, Jules, Ambrose, Vincent, and, until tomorrow, Charles and Charlotte. After their move to Jean-Baptiste’s house near Cannes, two newcomers would arrive to take their place.
“Okay. To avoid World War Three, I guess I can give the first dance to you. But if Vincent tries to cut in, you better be ready to draw your sword.”