The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

by V.E. Schwab

Live long enough, and people open up like books. Robbie is a romance novel. A tale of broken hearts. He is so clearly lovesick.

Henry is an impossible thing, her strange and beautiful oasis. But he is also human, and humans have friends, have families, have a thousand strands tying them to other people. Unlike her, he has never been untethered, never existed in a void. So it was inevitable. But she still isn’t ready.

His heart has a draft. It lets in light. It lets in storms. It lets in everything.

Blink and you’re twenty-eight, and everyone else is now a mile down the road, and you’re still trying to find it, and the irony is hardly lost on you that in wanting to live, to learn, to find yourself, you’ve gotten lost.

“but I don’t know; history is something you look back on, not something you really feel at the time. In the moment, you’re just … living. I didn’t want to live forever. I just wanted to live

Henry shakes his head. “I thought you couldn’t leave a mark.” “I can’t,” she says, looking up. “I can’t hold a pen. I can’t tell a story. I can’t wield a weapon, or make someone remember. But art,” she says with a quieter smile, “art is about ideas. And ideas are wilder than memories. They’re like weeds, always finding their way up.”

And even though he’s safe, both feet firmly on the ground, Henry feels himself begin to fall.

His father follows him out to the car, and when Henry holds out his hand, his father pulls him in for a hug, and says, “I’m proud of you, son.” And part of him wants to ask why, to bait, to test the limits of this spell, to press his father into faltering, but he can’t bring himself to do it. He knows it’s not real, not in the strictest sense, but he doesn’t care. It still feels good.

You are whoever they want you to be. You are more than enough, because you are not real. You are perfect, because you don’t exist. (Not you.) (Never you.) They look at you and see whatever they want … Because they don’t see you at all.

Perhaps he meant to cast her into chaos. Perhaps he thought she was getting too comfortable, growing too stubborn. Perhaps he wanted her to call for him again. To beg him to come back. Perhaps perhaps perhaps—but she will never know.

If Matteo keeps the picture, he will forget the source, but not the sketch itself. Perhaps he will turn to it when she is gone, and wonder at the woman sprawled across his sheets, and even if he thinks it the product of some drunken revel, some fever dream, her image will still be there, charcoal on parchment, a palimpsest beneath a finished work. It will be real, and so will she.

Memories are stiff, but thoughts are freer things. They throw out roots, they spread and tangle, and come untethered from their source. They are clever, and stubborn, and perhaps—perhaps—they are in reach.

“I can’t believe you remember it all,” he says as a new singer climbs the steps. “It’s like living with déjà vu,” she says, “only you know exactly where you’ve seen or heard or felt a thing before. You know every time, and place, and they sit stacked on top of each other like pages in a very long and complicated book.” Henry shakes his head. “I would have lost my mind.” “Oh, I did,” she says blithely. “But when you live long enough, even madness ends.”

Here is a new kind of silence, rarer than the rest. The easy quiet of familiar spaces, of places that fill simply because you are not alone within them.

They’ve been lucky, so lucky, but the trouble with luck is that it always ends. And perhaps it is just the nervous tapping of Henry’s fingers on the journal. And perhaps it is just the moonless sky. And perhaps it is just that happiness is frightening. The next band takes the stage. But as the music rings out across the lawn, she can’t take her eyes from the dark.

“You said it yourself, Luc. Ideas are wilder than memories. And I can be wild. I can be stubborn as the weeds, and you will not root me out. And I think you are glad of it. I think that’s why you’ve come, because you are lonely, too.” Luc’s eyes flash a sickly, stormy green. “Don’t be absurd,” he sneers. “Gods are known to everyone.” “But remembered by so few,” she counters. “How many mortals have met you more than twice—once to make a deal and once to pay the price? How many have been a part of your life as long as I have?” Addie flashes a triumphant smile. “Perhaps that’s why you cursed me as you did. So you would have some company. So someone would remember you

It is the last thing he says, before Luc unfolds. That is the only way to think of it. The black hair rises from his face, climbing through the air like weeds, and his skin ripples and splits, and what spills out is not a man. It is a monster. It is a god. It is the night itself, and something else, something she has never seen, something she cannot bear to look at. Something older than the dark.

Here is a life in still frames. Moments like Polaroids. Like paintings. Like flowers pressed between the pages of a book. Perfectly preserved. The three of them, napping in the sun. Addie, stroking Henry’s hair while she tells him stories, and he writes, and writes, and writes. Henry, pressing her down into the bed, their fingers tangled, their breath quick, her name an echo in her hair. Here they are, together in his galley kitchen, his arms threaded through hers, her hands over his as they stir béchamel, as they knead bread dough. When it is in the oven, he cups her face with floury hands, leaves trails everywhere he touches. They make a mess, as the room fills with the scent of freshly baking bread. And in the morning it looks like ghosts have danced across the kitchen, and they pretend there were two instead of one.

Everything changes, foolish girl. It is the nature of the world. Nothing stays the same. Except for me, she thinks, but Estele answers, dry as kindling. Not even you

And she wants to be honest, to say that of course she does. She never gets closure, never gets to say good-bye—no periods, or exclamations, just a lifetime of ellipses. Everyone else starts over, they get a blank page, but hers are full of text. People talk about carrying torches for old flames, and it’s not a full fire, but Addie’s hands are full of candles. How is she supposed to set them down, or put them out? She has long run out of air.

Humans are capable of such wondrous things. Of cruelty, and war, but also art and invention. She will think this again and again over the years, when bombs are dropped, and buildings felled, when terror consumes whole countries. But also when the first images are impressed on film, when planes rise into the air, when movies go from black-and-white to color. She is amazed. She will always be amazed.

“Why would anyone trade a lifetime of talent for a few years of glory?” Luc’s smile darkens. “Because time is cruel to all, and crueler still to artists. Because vision weakens, and voices wither, and talent fades.” He leans close, twists a lock of her hair around one finger. “Because happiness is brief, and history is lasting, and in the end,” he says, “everyone wants to be remembered.”

Greatness requires sacrifice. Who you sacrifice to matters less than what you sacrifice for

So she knows that Henry is lying to her now. Or at least, he’s not telling her the truth. And maybe it is just one of his storms, she thinks. Maybe it is the summer heat. It is not, of course, and later, she will know the truth, and she will wish she’d asked, wish she’d pressed, wish she’d known. Later—but tonight, he pulls her close. Tonight, he kisses her, deeply, hungrily, as if he can make her forget what she saw. And Addie lets him try.

everyone will talk of the old century and the new one, as if there is a line in the sand between present and past. As if it does not all exist together. History is a thing designed in retrospect.

Grief, deep as a well, opens inside her. What is the point in planting seeds? Why tend them? Why help them grow? Everything crumbles in the end. Everything dies.

“You told me once that we were alike,” he says, almost to himself. “Both of us … lonely. I loathed you for saying it. But I suppose in some ways you were right. I suppose,” he goes on slowly, “there is something to the idea of company.” It is the closest he has ever come to sounding human

And then he whispers three words into her hair. “I love you,” he says, and Addie wonders if this is love, this gentle thing. If it is meant to be this soft, this kind. The difference between heat, and warmth. Passion, and contentment. “I love you too,” she says. She wants it to be true.

“You move among them like a ghost,” he says, his forehead bowing against hers, “because you are not one of them. You cannot live like them. You cannot love like them. You cannot belong with them.” His mouth hovers over her own, his voice dropping to nothing but a breeze. “You belong to me.” There is a sound like thunder in the back of his throat. “With me.” And when she looks up into his eyes, she sees a new shade of green, and knows exactly what it is. The color of a man off-balance. His chest rises and falls as if it were a human thing. Here is a place to put the knife. “I would rather be a ghost.” And for the first time, the darkness flinches. Draws back like shadows in the face of light. His eyes go pale with anger, and there is the god she knows, the monster she has learned to face.

Henry pulls her against him, and the bed is cool, and he is warm, and if it is not love, it is enough.

Luc’s smile drops away. “Please. You embarrass us both.” He carves a slow circle around them, a tiger rounding on its prey. “As if I don’t keep track of all my deals. Henry Strauss, so desperate to be wanted. Sell your soul just to be loved. What a fine pair you two must make.” “Then let us have it.” A dark brow rises. “You think I mean to pull you apart? Not at all. Time will do that soon enough.”

“Humans live such short lives, don’t they? Some far shorter than others. Savor the time you have left. And know, it was his choice.”

It is just a storm, he tells himself, but he is tired of looking for shelter. It is just a storm, but there is always another waiting in its wake. It is just a storm, just a storm—but tonight it is too much, and he is not enough, and so he crosses the roof, doesn’t slow until he can see over the side, doesn’t stop until the tips of his shoes graze empty air. And that is where the stranger finds him. That is where the darkness makes an offer. Not for a lifetime—for a single year. It will be easy to look back and wonder how he could have done it, how he could have given away so much for so little. But in the moment, shoes already skimming night, the simple truth is that he would have sold his soul for less, would have traded an entire life of this for just a day—an hour, a minute, a moment—of peace. Just to numb the pain inside his chest. Just to quiet the storm inside his head. He is so tired of hurting, so tired of being hurt. And that is why, when the stranger holds out his hand, and offers to pull Henry back from the edge, there is no hesitation. He simply says yes.

Now it all makes sense. He makes sense. This boy, who could never sit still, never waste time, never put off a single thing. This boy, who writes down every word she says, so she’ll have something when he’s gone, who doesn’t want to lose even a single day, because he doesn’t have that many more. This boy she’s falling in love with. This boy, who will soon be gone.

Henry is quiet for a moment, and then he says, “How do you walk to the end of the world?” He looks up at her. “I wanted to hold on to every step.”

“At least he keeps me company.” Those emerald eyes trail over her skin. “So would I,” he says, “if you wanted it.”

His voice slides through her hair. “Even if everyone you met remembered,” Luc says, “I would still know you best.” She searches his face. “Do I know you?” He bows his head over hers. “You are the only one who does.”

His voice, molded to the hollow places in her as he says, “I want you.” And then, again, “I have always wanted you.” Luc looks down at her, those green eyes dark with pleasure, and Addie fights to hold her ground. “You want me as a prize,” she says. “You want me as a meal, or a glass of wine. Just another thing to be consumed.” He dips his head, presses his lips to her collarbone. “Is that so wrong?” She fights back a shiver as he kisses her throat. “Is it such a bad thing…” His mouth trails along her jaw. “… to be savored?” His breath brushes her ear. “To be relished?”

All she knows is that she is tired, and he is the place she wants to rest. And that, somehow, she is happy. But it is not love. Whenever Addie feels herself forgetting, she presses her ear to his bare chest and listens for the drum of life, the drawing of breath, and hears only the woods at night, the quiet hush of summer. A reminder that he is a lie, that his face and his flesh are simply a disguise. That he is not human, and this is not love.

“The wonder in your eyes, at the sight of something new. I knew then I’d never win.”

“Tell me, Adeline,” he says. “Have you missed me?” Of course she has missed him. She can tell herself, as she has told him, that she only missed being seen, or missed the force of his attention, the intoxication of his presence—but it is more than that. She missed him the way someone might miss the sun in winter, though they still dread its heat. She missed the sound of his voice, the knowing in his touch, the flint-on-stone friction of their conversations, the way they fit together. He is gravity. He is three hundred years of history. He is the only constant in her life, the only one who will always, always remember.

Luc is the man she dreamed of when she was young, and then the one she hated most, and the one she loved, and Addie missed him every night that he was gone from her, and he deserved none of her pain because it was his fault, it was his fault no one else remembered, it was his fault that she lost and lost and lost, and she does not say any of that because it will change nothing, and because there is still one thing she hasn’t lost. One piece of her story that she can save. Henry. So Addie makes her gambit. She reaches across the table and takes Luc’s hand, tells him the truth. “I missed you.”

“How many times did you almost put it on?” he asks. “How often did you think of me?” And she assumes he is baiting her—until his voice softens to a whisper, the faintest roll of thunder in the air between them. “Because I thought of you. Always.”

“I understand you, Adeline. I know you, better than anyone in this world.” “Because you let me have no one else.”

“You see only flaws and faults, weaknesses to be exploited. But humans are messy, Luc. That is the wonder of them. They live and love and make mistakes, and they feel so much. And maybe—maybe I am no longer one of them.” The words tear through her as she says them, because she knows this much is true. For better or worse.

And that is the worst part. She has finally forgotten something. Only it is the wrong thing. It is the one thing she was supposed to remember. That the man in the bed is not a man. That the life is not a life. That there are games, and battles, but in the end, it is all a kind of war.

“Don’t you dare say my name.” She is on her feet now, singing with rage. “I knew you were a monster, Luc. I saw it often enough. And yet, I still thought—somehow I thought—after all this time—but of course, it wasn’t love, was it? It wasn’t even kindness. It was just another game.”

The dancing stops. The music fades. A tear slides down her cheek. “All you had to do was set me free.” Luc sighs, and lifts her chin. “I could not.” “Because of the deal.” “Because you are mine.”

mistake. “You must have thought yourselves so clever,” he is saying now. “Star-crossed lovers, brought together by chance. What are the odds that you would meet, that you would both be bound to me, both have sold your souls for something only the other could provide? When the truth is so much easier than that—I put Henry in your path. I gave him to you, wrapped and ribboned like a gift.”

“Why?” she asks, throat closing around the word. “Why would you do that?” “Because it’s what you wanted. You were so set upon your need for love, you could not see beyond it. I gave you this, I gave you him, so you could see that love was not worth the space you held for it. The space you kept from me.” “But it was worth it. It is.” He reaches out to brush her cheek. “It won’t be, when he’s gone.”