“Equals,” the butterfly man says again, softer, yearning. “You rule the world in secret. I wander a dungeon, alone. You keep me fettered in a gilded wasteland, at every turn a mirror to remind of who I am and what you made me. No,” the butterfly man says. “If we were equal, you would not have done this to me.”
The disturbance around him flares. Havriel goes slamming against one of the tanks. He slides down it, coughing.
“I have had enough of this arrangement,” the butterfly man says, and the longing’s gone from his voice. It’s gone sharp, malicious. “Enough of Father, and enough of your whispers, and enough of this palace and the world above it in all its vile, hopeless cruelty. You know, there is only one cure for pining after something you cannot possess. That is to destroy it entirely.”
Will and I are moving now, squashing over limbs, tripping over helmets. Lilly’s reached Jules. She’s trying to shake him awake.
I feel something brush the back of my neck, an awareness, like a million tiny needles prickling over my skin––
I freeze. The butterfly man: he’s looking straight at me.
I stay perfectly still, trying not to breathe. Will’s so heavy. My muscles are burning, aching.
“Bonjour,” the butterfly man says, and I close my eyes, because I know he’s stepping toward me. I can feel the air sharpening, becoming dense and charged. My back feels like it’s being picked at, like my skin is releasing in particles and dissolving into the air.
Will stirs, his eyes flickering open. “Will,” I whisper. “Will, wake up!”
I move, start dragging us desperately away. I’m hunched double, and my entire chest cavity hurts, and my arm is digging into Will’s shoulder blades painfully. I raise my head. The butterfly man is right in front of me, stock-still, obsidian eyes boring into me.
“You are indeed Aurélie’s descendant,” he says. “Her own mother would not know the difference.”
“We’re not part of this,” I whisper. “None of us are, just leave us alone—”
He’s too close. The buzzing noise is back and it’s deafening, and that shudder in the air hurts. My lips are cracking. I can’t hold Will up anymore. He slumps out of my grasp. I’m falling, too, dropping to the cavern floor.
“You are a part of this,” the butterfly man says. “You are my long-lost comrades. Forsaken children of the wicked, greedy family. You are my allies. I have waited long for one of you to come so far. For you to slip their nets and fight with me.”
I look up at him. He is standing over me, but all I can see is a blurry oval, two black holes where his eyes should be.
“We have much to do,” the butterfly man says. “We will return to the surface, you and Lilly and Jules and William. Together we shall end this once and for all.”
What is he talking about? I push myself up onto my knees, gasping. It feels like the air has turned to iron, a thousand pounds of pressure bearing down on me, pounding me into the ground.
“End what?” I whisper. “What are you saying?”
“The cycle. The Bessancourts. This empire of suffering and pain. There is no end to it. There cannot be. When we are poor we wish to be rich, when we are rich we wish to be loved, when we are loved we wish for freedom from pain and endless life and unchanging happiness. It is a great, unstoppable conundrum. There is some sickness deep in our minds, a darkness that causes all ills. It cannot be helped. It can only be eradicated.”
Eradicate. I remember Rabbit Gallery, the stolen artwork, the massive warheads, the weapons used in all the wars of the last two centuries.
“You did that?” I say. My voice takes forever to reach my ears. “You were using them. You invented the weapons, and Havriel and the marquis got rich and took the credit, but you wanted it, you wanted them to kill people.”
“You speak as though you do not approve,” the butterfly man says. “But what reason have you to love the world when it has treated you so harshly? Do you not crave revenge? Do you not crave justice?”
Uh-oh. No-no-no.
The butterfly spreads his hands over my eyes. I feel the scream ripping out of me, but I can’t hear it––
And everything’s gone.
I see a billion people crowding a busy street, dirty faces, ragged clothing, an endless swarm under neon signs. I see troops trudging off to a war, mothers sending off their sons with flowers in their plumed helmets, boots shined, faces grim. I see smoke rising from roofs and spires. Streaks of flame raining down on low wooden houses and walled gardens, the sky between the power lines staining hot, ugly red. I see bombs tumbling like heavy birds onto a city, and I see the little mark on their rivets, a butterfly with human eyes in its wings. Péronne—the Bessancourts’ own town—blown to smithereens, bodies lying along the roadside.