Adamant Spirits, page 148
Anne watched him with a spreading smile. “That’s sweet. And you’ll be a part of her life, Uncle Nic. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” She set her cocoa on the side table. “But do you know what would help me most of all?”
“What’s that?”
“Seeing you happy.” When Nicolas tried to speak, she held up her free hand. “I know you were perfectly happy cavorting around New Orleans, doing as you please, and I also know those days are probably over and they didn’t really make you truly happy anyway, if you’re being honest with yourself. I want you to find your new happiness, brother. I hope it’s not premature to say that you seem a little happy now?”
Nicolas balked at that. He didn’t feel happy. He was more miserable now than he’d been in some time. “Your senses are off. Might want to get that checked.”
Anne scrutinized him with a half-squint. “No, there’s something there, definitely. You’re having a rough go at the moment, maybe, but there’s a glow about you I’ve never seen before. Maybe it’s the purpose you’ve found in helping others.”
“Lauren does most of the work.”
“You’re an idea man. You bring energy to every group you’re in. People feed off your creativity, which is just as valuable as pulling up the sleeves and doing the work. Harvesting the cane would never have happened if someone hadn’t had the brilliant thought that the ugly green stalk might be useful.”
Nicolas had never heard himself described that way. Most of the time when his creativity was mentioned, it was not in such a positive light. “Maybe so.”
“Selflessness isn’t very exciting, Nic,” Anne said, and reached forward to pat his knee. “But it’s exceptionally rewarding. Excitement is transient. Knowing you’ve done well for others lasts a lifetime.”
“That’s a hell of a lot of wisdom for a swamp rat,” he teased.
Anne drew back and laughed. “Life lessons can be found anywhere, as I’m sure you now know.”
“I’m sorry you never got to meet our father,” Nicolas blurted. He didn’t know where the words had come from. Perhaps they’d been there all along, waiting. “He wasn’t the best, but he wasn’t the worst, either.”
Anne’s face went blank. “It’s hard for me to imagine how I would have seen him when he left me to live in squalor. Sometimes I wonder… why he chose to raise his other four daughters but decided he didn’t need to know me at all.”
“He was a complicated man,” Nicolas said. “I know that doesn’t make any of it easier.”
“It’s not hard. Not anymore. It’s harder to mourn someone I never knew, especially when my life is so rich now. Jon and I have learned together how to set aside our past troubles so we can create something new and wonderful. It’s a difficult thing to accept you are a creature capable of giving love and worthy of receiving it.” Anne wrapped her fingers over her belly with a whimsical smile. “You’re worthy of love, Nicolas. I need you to know that. And to believe it.”
Tears tickled Nicolas’ eyes. He blinked them away. “Your pregnancy hormones are something else.”
Anne ambled out of her chair and over to him. She knelt at his side. “Letting myself grieve was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Because you’re not just grieving for the people and things you’ve lost, but for yourself. Your old self, who is still part of your new self, but healthier. Wiser.” She gripped his fingers in her hands. “It’s time for you to grieve, Nicolas. It’s never too late. And, until you do, you’ll never really find your way forward.”
Nicolas’ driver stopped across the street from Lauren’s building. He’d started to turn, to deposit Nicolas on the correct side of the street, but Nicolas stopped him.
Lauren and Cameron came through the gated entrance together. They laughed, and Lauren gave Cameron’s arm a light, teasing push. He ran his hand over where hers had landed and grinned.
They paused by his car. Cameron said something, and Lauren nodded, but when Lauren turned to leave, Cameron tugged her back and kissed her.
The familiar tingle, of knowing a drink awaited, tickled the back of Nicolas’ throat. He wouldn’t do it, but there were other things, other ways to turn off the pain radiating from his tight chest, all the way through to the rest of him.
Lauren extricated herself and backed away. She crossed her arms over her chest and lifted one hand as Cameron pulled away from the curb.
“Take me home,” Nicolas instructed the driver.
“Frenchmen?”
“No,” Nicolas said. That wasn’t home, it was just a place he went when he didn’t want to be home. A place that now had a recent and uncomfortable memory he didn’t need reminding of. “Vacherie. Ophélie.”
Lauren paused when her eyes caught Nicolas’ driver angling the car into the road. She stiffened. Her smile faded as full recognition appeared in her face.
Nicolas’ eyes locked with hers for the briefest of moments, but he broke the connection as soon as the car launched away from the building.
Julian
Julian’s visions stopped when Charlotte ceased her runs with Lawrence.
Their morning rendezvous had been the last of the active research on the Henry siblings, and without it, they’d effectively been relegated to tourists. But now, Julian had no doubts at all that Lawrence was a danger to Charlotte. She wasn’t so confident in that fact, but she’d quietly stopped the runs without complaint, and Julian could finally ease up on his fear and relax.
Each morning, though, she woke at five and watched Lawrence begin his run. Julian said nothing, for he’d already won the more important battle. It hurt him to see her hurting, and this was made worse by not understanding what had even happened between them to cause this.
Limbo, Julian had said to describe the past few days without work or purpose, but Charlotte cheerily corrected that to Dante’s first circle of hell.
Julian struggled to share her discontent. They were in Paris! How could anyone be unhappy in the most beautiful city on earth?
In considering this, Julian realized he’d been viewing this whole trip through the lens of his own life, which was exceptionally limited… a fact that launched him into volunteering to begin with. Charlotte’s had been anything but, and he never stopped to ask himself why she would set aside law school, a coveted internship, and all her volunteer work to go on not one, but two, family assignments. Truly, he never made the connection, until now, about why she’d even come home to New Orleans from New Haven. The answer wasn’t difficult, and he didn’t have to dig far. He saw it amidst his shame at not interpreting the need in his confident cousin, when he could have done something about it.
Charlotte and Annette were close growing up. Not close like typical sisters, with tempers and chaos, but as best friends and confidantes. Charlotte took the lead, with her bouncy blond curls and tiny stature, deciding what they would wear, play, do. Annette dutifully and happily followed her everywhere, hiding behind her mousy brown hair and easy smiles. Charlotte’s bossiness came with a fierce dose of protectiveness, and the only trouble Julian ever heard about with Charlotte growing up was when she tussled with someone teasing her sister. And when Annette decided not to attend college, Charlotte shielded her from the family’s disappointment, positioning herself squarely in front of every word or pointed look.
Julian overheard his mother talking to Aunt Sophie, a couple months before Annette passed. Aunt Sophie said Annette was moving to New Haven to stay with her sister. Sophie took this news as hopeful, that perhaps Charlotte might be able to persuade Annette to attend school, after all. Julia Fontenot, for once, had it right when she said to her sister-in-law, You know she’s just leaving so you’ll stop harping on her, right?
Annette never made it to New Haven. Charlotte never went back.
Cardiomegaly, Julian’s mother said, the day they got the call. Her heart was just too big. She’d said this with her hand clutched to her own chest, and Julian had never wanted to smack her as much as he did in the moment where she turned his dead cousin into an idiom.
When Charlotte first returned, she was the same Charlotte as always. You knew the moment she’d entered a room, because she was already in charge. She took the reins on arranging the funeral service, set up the charity in Annette’s name, and had transferred her studies to Loyola in the first week. By the second, she was clocking her spare time at the ACLU. If she slept, Julian didn’t know when.
It never occurred to Julian until now that Charlotte’s abandoning of these obligations was nothing more or less than the adrenaline finally wearing off.
Charlotte was a good sport the day they made their joint confessions. She accompanied him on his tour of Paris sights, even letting him take the lead for the first time in their relationship. She lagged a few steps behind, sometimes stopping a little longer at a sight with a faraway look. He didn’t ask, because he knew she wouldn’t have told him, anyway. Charlotte had always worn the brightest parts of herself on the outside, and the darkest within.
The unspoken feeling that their days in Paris were waning hung over them. They blew over the chilled breeze as they stood at the metal railing on their cruise of the Seine. It lived in the delicate architecture of the Notre Dame Cathedral, and the musicians and artists occupying the square in front. All updates from Lauren had been dutiful, reminding them they were still researching and to ‘hang tight.’ Julian never knew how much he hated that expression, until he heard it repeated in lieu of something useful.
On the third day, Charlotte made her first and only suggestion for something to do. She wanted to visit the Montmartre neighborhood, where artists like Hemingway and Toulouse-Lautrec had once haunted coffee shops and dance halls.
Charlotte attacked the winding, zigzag hills of the literary neighborhood like an intrepid explorer, never stopping at any of the coffee shops or dance halls she had seemed so interested in when she made the suggestion. She pressed on, higher and steeper, toward the summit and the towering white spires of the Sacre Coeur, and it was not until they reached the top that Julian realized that had been her goal from the start.
She didn’t stop until they reached the top of the steps overlooking all of Paris. She looped her hands over her head and watched the city in silence, with Julian doubled over and panting at her side.
“They’re going to send us home, Jules.”
“I know,” he managed between gasping breaths.
“There’s more to this story. I know there is.” She reached forward and touched her toes in a stretch, and then lowered herself to sit on the top step. “Gabrielle and Lawrence caught the eye of the Collective because of Gabrielle’s behavior. Assess, make contact. That was the direction. But we saw quickly it wasn’t that simple.”
Julian settled in beside her. “You know it’s because it isn’t that simple that we’re on hiatus, though, right?”
“Of course I know that. But if we leave, then whatever Gabrielle has over Lawrence stays over his head. It holds him in power. It’s by chance we started with one mission and stumbled on the potential of another. But by choice, we could continue.”
“Charlotte…”
“I know you think he’s dangerous. I’m not so sure, Jules, but I stopped, didn’t I? I backed down. Annette always said I didn’t know when to stop, but I’ve just always had a different boundary line. I don’t feel good about… this.” Her hand swept over the skyline. “About running around Paris without a purpose while something nefarious happens. While we allow it to happen, because we don’t want to get our hands dirty.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“No? When is anything ever simple when inaction is more tempting?”
Julian fell back on his hands. He struggled to find his breath. “I don’t know what you’re suggesting.”
“I don’t know, either.” She wrapped a knot of her hair around her hand. “Never mind.”
“Never mind, because I don’t get it, or because never mind?”
Charlotte chewed on her bottom lip. She kept her eyes on the vista of the city they’d called home for a couple weeks. “Does it matter?”
The call came in that night.
“We have flights booked for you both on Friday. That’s three days from now.” Lauren’s pause was heavy with apology. “We might send you both back, when we know more, but until then this project is dead in the water. I’m so sorry, guys.”
Charlotte sat on the vanity chair, facing the window. She said nothing.
“We understand,” Julian said to the speakerphone.
“It’s risky, now that they know who you both are, and the longer you stay, the more that sticks out,” Lauren went on. Her explanation turned to rambling, as people did when they felt bad. “I don’t know if we’ll ever match the pictures, and our telepath’s second meeting with Henry keeps getting pushed. Outside of those two things, we’ve got nothing except a lot of warning signs. We’ve always said we extricate when danger presents itself.”
“It’s fine,” Julian said, despite the knot in his chest. Charlotte’s disappointment cut through the air between them. “Really. We get it.”
“But, hey, we gave you both a few extra days to enjoy the city before you return. You’ve earned it.” Lauren’s voice brightened. “There will be other missions. We have some almost ready now, and I promise, the two of you are top of the list, and we’ll give you first pick.”
“That’s great, Lauren, thank you.”
Julian pressed the mute button. “Now is the time to tell her if you think we should pursue the Lawrence stuff.”
Charlotte waved a dismissive hand, as if to say, what would be the point?
“Charlotte? You still there, too?” Lauren’s voice sounded again from the phone.
Charlotte spun on the soft seat. Her face was devoid of anything readable. An automaton. “Yes. Direction understood.”
Lauren
Nicolas was already in the office at The Gardens when she arrived. From the two empty coffee cups and papers scattered all over the desk, Lauren guessed he’d been there awhile already.
He said hello without looking up. It wasn’t enough to read his state of mind, nor did she particularly want to, so she stepped carefully around the situation hanging between them and jumped straight into business.
“I recalled Charlotte and Julian.”
Nicolas tapped his pen, paused, and kept on with his notes. “Good. I support that.”
“I don’t think we’re going to crack the picture mystery, and I’m not convinced even if we get our telepath back into Henry’s office that there’s anything useful there.”
“I said I support the decision.”
Lauren gripped the back of the chair beside his. “Okay, then. Good.”
Nicolas pointed to the other side of the table, eyes still lowered on his work. “I pulled our open missions. We’ve been too focused on Paris and haven’t checked in on Hungary or Fez in over a week. I have some thoughts on both.”
Lauren had planned to do this very thing today and was ashamed to be behind the curve. “I don’t think there have been many developments from the reports coming in, but I agree, it’s always a good idea to be ahead of things.” She pulled the chair out, moving it a couple feet farther in the opposite direction, and sat. “I know we’re aligned on the decision to pull Julian and Charlotte back, but there’s something that’s not in the report. I left it out intentionally, for Charlotte’s sake.”
Nicolas set the pen aside with his gaze fixed straight ahead. “Let’s hear it.”
“Charlotte called me a bit ago to tell me she’d gone against orders and had been running with Lawrence Henry.”
“Running with him? Is that some new slang for sex the kids are using these days?”
Lauren flinched. “No, it’s not slang for anything. They’re both runners. Charlotte determined Lawrence was running alone and took it upon herself to run with him to further her research. She thinks Lawrence is there under duress. That Gabrielle is the cause.”
“Does she have any proof? Anything more definitive than an impression?”
“No, and that’s exactly what I asked when she told me. I think there’s more to it, as well. Some feelings between them, perhaps, but Charlotte wasn’t as forthright about that.”
“All the more reason to pull them out,” Nicolas said. He tapped his pen. “So, the files?”
Lauren started to reach for them, but paused midway. “This is weird. Things are weird between us. If you’re upset with me—”
“I’m not upset with you—”
“So, let’s go, let’s get it all out so we can get back to work and the way things were. I know I overreacted, and I’m sorry for that. I am. I know you were trying to help—”
“I’m not upset, Lauren. But the only thing I want to talk about right now is how Tristan and Lucia are doing with the Magyar witches, and whether Charles and Remy should consider moving on to Rabat.”
Lauren pulled her shoulders back. It had been nearly a week since the incident with Adrien… since they’d sat down together, done work together, done anything together. If this was how he wanted to play it, she had little choice.
“All right. Where do you want to start?”
They spent the next hour reviewing the latest updates from the field on Hungary and Morocco. Tristan and Lucia’s research was slow-going, and they were weeks, maybe months, from making safe contact with the ancient Magyar tribe. Tristan and Lucia were happy staying as long as needed and had become deeply invested in the assignment, so there was no need to rush. Lauren and Nicolas agreed to have them stay the course.
Charles and Remy had been trailing a group of elementalists across Morocco, whose specialty was conjuring storms where they didn’t belong. They stirred up markets, weddings, even religious ceremonies. The prevailing belief was that they were mischief stirrers, not criminals. They’d moved on from Fez to Rabat. Charles and Remy awaited the green light to follow, and Lauren and Nicolas agreed to give it.
