“Hardly ever, huh?” Tana said. “I bet garnets look good on you.”
He smiled distractedly, seeming to think of another time. Whatever it was, it made his features smooth out and his whole face look softer and very young. “She had it on in Paris when she met Lucien and Elisabet. We pretended to drink Champagne with her at a mezzo-soprano’s salon in Montparnasse. I imagine Lucien remembers that necklace because he stared at my sister’s throat the entire evening.”
The casual way he said it, with genuine fondness, made her believe that Lucien—and probably Elisabet—had truly been his friend then. Tana thought about how much fun it must have been, once upon a time, to be vampires and have forever stretching out in front of you—an endless carnival of nights. They must have felt as almighty as angels, looking down on the world from their windows, choosing to spare each passerby.
She liked thinking of it, even as her body felt heavy with exhaustion.
“I heard all that stuff Lucien told you,” Tana said, forcing her mind back to the present. “You can’t really believe him, can you? I mean, you’ve got to be somewhat skeptical, right?”
“Are you asking if I’ve guessed that Lucien killed Elisabet because he didn’t want her to tell me something? In fact, I have.” He stood and came closer, brushed her hair back from her face. “But Lucien and I will sort out our own grudges after the Spider’s arrival. And I will tell you all my stories soon; no more deceptions. But now night is coming for you. We have tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.”
Tana scrambled to sit up, the restraint on her wrist holding her to the headboard. “No! Later I won’t be myself.”
“Oh, you will be,” he told her softly, walking to the door. “We labor under so many illusions about ourselves until we’re stripped bare. Being infected, being a vampire, it’s always you. Maybe it’s more you than ever before. You, distilled. You, boiled down like a sauce. But it’s you as you always were, deep down inside.”
She stopped struggling, horrified by the memory of Midnight’s face transformed by rage and those teeth sinking into her throat. Horrified by the memory of her mother’s voice in the dark. Horrified by the thought that she might be the same or worse and that it would be her, truly her doing those things. But Gavriel must know; he’d been human, he’d been infected, he’d been turned.
Besides, she’d killed Midnight. She’d already done those things, already learned she could.
“Before you go, just tell me one thing,” Tana said. “Tell me why you’ve been so nice to me. I know you’re the reason Lucien let me live. He wasn’t planning on giving me any saline drip or putting me in some fancy bed before I said your name. And I’m not anybody special. I’m not saying that I’m not smart or a perfectly nice person or anything, but I’m not—”
He’d been halfway across the room when she started speaking and he’d frozen, his face turned away from her. Then he moved to the footboard of the bed, his hands gripping the brass railing, his face a mask. Finally, he cut her off. “Tana. In all my long life, though there were many times I prayed for it, no one has ever saved me. No one but you.”
He was watching her with an expression so intense that she had to look away from it. She could think of no reply. She felt a little bit stupid that she’d asked and a little bit embarrassed by his answer. Maybe it would be better if he left and came back; maybe if she was less sick and less tired, she would feel less vulnerable.
Gavriel walked toward the bed. Tana flinched at his approach, suddenly nervous. He seemed like a stranger again. His eyes looked black instead of red in the dim light of the room, and she thought of what he must have been like under gas lamps in a city across the sea.
He took her free hand and lifted it to his mouth, kissing the back as though he were that courtly gentleman again.
“Sleep, Tana,” he said, placing her hand back on her stomach, his fingers only a little cooler now than hers. “Sleep while you can.”
He looked as though he wanted to say something else but then rose. He walked to the door and this time she didn’t stop him. She heard a lock turn on the other side of the wall.
Great, she thought. Perfect. Shackled to a bed in a locked room. But at least a locked door might keep out everything else in Lucien Moreau’s house. And at least if she was shut in here, no matter how bad the infection got, she wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone.