Movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention, and Elsa looked up to see Leo leaning against his balcony railing, one hand wrapped around the neck of a wine bottle. His hair was mussed, his shirt rumpled, the unbuttoned cuffs hanging loose about his wrists. Though his face was shadowed and his posture gave away nothing, Elsa could feel the precise moment when his gaze fixed upon her.
If he’d meant to be alone with his wine, he didn’t seem at all put out to discover he had company—instead, quite the opposite. He vaulted over the balcony railing, picked his way down the sloped tiles of the veranda roof, and swung off the edge. Some of the wine splashed from the bottle when he landed, staining his white shirtsleeve. “Damn,” he said absently, switching the bottle to his left hand and shaking wine droplets from his right.
“Can’t sleep?” she called.
He strolled over to her, more or less in a straight line, and sat beside her on the bench. “How ever did you guess?”
Her instinct was to bristle at his sarcasm, but she managed to let it go instead. By now she could recognize his bravado for the defense mechanism it was. “Neither can I. I can’t seem to switch off all the unsolved questions.”
“Mm,” he said, then held the bottle out to her. “Would you care for some liquid off-switch?”
Elsa raised an eyebrow and declined to take the bottle. “And how’s that working for you?”
“Ask me again when it’s empty,” he said, and took a generous gulp.
Elsa stayed quiet, waiting for him to work his way around to what he really wanted to say. After a minute of silence, he spoke again.
“Don’t you agree the nightmares ought to go away, now that I know my father’s alive? But they’re still up here”—he tapped his temple—“worming away at my brain. Everyone else makes it look so easy. Such a simple matter, sleep. But not for me, never for me.”
“I’m so sorry, Leo,” Elsa said awkwardly. She found herself wishing she’d spent less of her childhood sketching sea creatures and more time learning how to be a good friend. She didn’t know what to do with this raw, exposed version of Leo. She didn’t know what to do for him.
Leo took another swig straight from the bottle. “And you? What are you doing wandering the garden at this hour?”
“Can’t get my own parent out of my head,” Elsa confessed. “I thought I was the one person Jumi trusted completely. I thought she shared everything with me, but she was hiding things from me, too. If Alek is a fool for believing he knew her, then how much more foolish am I, who lived with her every day of my life and still didn’t know?”
“Not sure it’s possible to ever really know someone else. Know their mind.” Leo was watching her with an oddly intense expression, as if the wine made it difficult to focus. Then he added, “Your hair is like shadows.”
Elsa blinked at him. “Uh … what?”
“Shadows,” he said again, as if repetition would make his point clear. He reached out for a strand of her hair and ran his fingers down its length. Elsa stiffened, but he didn’t seem to notice, too intent on the strand. “Is like you could melt into darkness, dissipate like smoke. Poof. You’re a phantom, Elsa.”
“And you’re a drunken idiot,” she said, batting away his hand.
“You’re not going to disappear on me, are you? Oh, Elsa, I don’t think I could stand losing you too.…”
Elsa flushed with a sudden awareness of how close he was, how he leaned in toward her like a plant reaching for the sun. She could smell the wine on his breath; she wondered if she would taste of it too, tannic and sweet at once, if she pressed her lips to his. For a weak moment she wanted nothing more than to kiss him, to be drowning in him the way he was drowning in the wine bottle.
Leo’s eyes narrowed at her and he leaned away, as if he somehow sensed what she was thinking. Apparently even drunk Leo had a firm sense of propriety.
Elsa could not help but smile at him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I thought all you wanted was to get your mother and go home to Veldana,” he said, the edges of his words worn ragged with pain. Even in the dark, she could see the deep-rooted fear of abandonment etched around his eyes.
Elsa whispered, “That’s not all I want. Not anymore.”
Leo focused his bleary stare upon her, as if he were trying to will himself to sober up enough to comprehend her meaning. Subtlety was wasted on the intoxicated.
Taking pity on him, Elsa stood and said, “Come along. I think you’ve had quite enough wine, and it’s time to try your bed again.”
“That’s what all the ladies say to me,” he said with a lopsided grin.
Elsa snorted. “I’m going to assume that’s the wine talking.”
“It was a joke!” Leo threw his head back dramatically, as if to plead his case to the stars. “Why must you always assume the worst of me?”
“If you always assume the worst, you can never be disappointed,” Elsa quipped. Then she reached for his hand to drag him to his feet.
Leo did not resist her, but neither was he especially cooperative as they made their way inside and up the stairs. She tried to take the wine bottle but he fought to keep it, and since there wasn’t much left at the bottom anyway, she relented.
In his bedroom, he managed to kick off his shoes with only a little difficulty, then flopped onto the bed fully dressed, wine-spotted shirt and all. He curled on his side, facing away from her, but kept ahold of her hand.
As his grip relaxed, she tried gingerly to ease her hand away, but he mumbled, “Don’t go.”
“You’re drunk,” she countered.
“Yes,” he said, with surprising lucidity, “but I am not too drunk to know I want you to stay. That I always want you to stay.…”
Elsa huffed, but she gave in and stayed. It was pointless trying not to care for him—if she was honest with herself, she’d long since lost that particular battle. As his breathing slowed and deepened into the rhythms of sleep, she brushed his soft golden hair away from his face with her other hand.
People, like clockwork, needed care and maintenance. Leo’s gears slipped and ground against one another, and his brass casing rattled, and his mainspring was always, always wound too tight. The thought filled Elsa with such righteous anger, knowing Garibaldi had broken the one thing she couldn’t fix.
Before that moment, all she’d wanted from Garibaldi was Jumi’s safe return. She’d known he was awful and she’d hated him, but not like this. Now she wanted to see Garibaldi pay for what he’d done—not just to her family, but also to his own kin. Now she craved vengeance on behalf of them both.
“For this,” Elsa whispered to the sleeping boy, “for this I will destroy him.”
16
IF YOU WOULD BE A REAL SEEKER AFTER TRUTH, IT IS NECESSARY THAT AT LEAST ONCE IN YOUR LIFE YOU DOUBT, AS FAR AS POSSIBLE, ALL THINGS.
—René Descartes
Elsa spent the morning with Porzia, arguing over the possibility of modifying the map world to detect an object—namely, the missing worldbook—instead of a person. When their discussion devolved into a shouting match, Elsa decided that perhaps a different approach was called for.