The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

by V.E. Schwab

Addie pulls away. From his words, his touch. “This is cruel, Luc. Even for you.” “No,” he snarls. “Cruelty would be ten years instead of one. Cruelty would be to let you have a lifetime with him, and have to suffer more for losing.” “I would choose it anyway!” She shakes her head. “You never intended to let him live, did you?” Luc inclines his head. “A deal is a deal, Adeline. And deals are binding.” “That you would do all this to torment me—” “No,” he snaps. “I did it to show you. To make you understand. You put them on such a pedestal, but humans are brief and pale and so is their love. It is shallow,...

“What a hard lesson it must be for you,” she says. “That you can’t have everything you want.” “Want?” he sneers. “Want is for children. If this were want, I would be rid of you by now. I would have forgotten you centuries ago,” he says, a bitter loathing in his voice. “This is need. And need is painful but patient. Do you hear me, Adeline? I need you. As you need me. I love you, as you love me.”

“Does he mean so much to you?” he asks, voice flat and hard as river stones. “Then go. Spend time with your human love. Bury him, and mourn him, and plant a tree over his grave.” His edges begin to blur into the dark. “I will still be here,” he says. “And so will you.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, over and over, and Henry doesn’t shout, doesn’t rage, doesn’t even say I told you so. He simply holds her tight, and says, “Enough,” says, “Promise me,” says, “Stay.” And none of them are questions, but she knows he is asking, pleading with her to let it go, to stop fighting, stop trying to change their fates, and just be with him until the end. And Addie cannot bear the thought of giving up, of giving in, of going down without a fight. But Henry is breaking, and it is her fault, and so, in the end, she agrees.

These are the happiest days of Henry’s life. It is an odd thing to say, he knows. But there is a strange freedom to it, a peculiar comfort in the knowing. The end is rushing up to meet him, and yet, he does not feel like he is falling toward it. He knows he should be scared. Every day he braces for the restless terror, waits for the storm clouds to roll in, expects the inevitable panic to climb inside his chest, pry him apart. But for the first time in months, in years, in as long as he can remember, he is not afraid. He is worried about his friends, of course, about the bookstore, and the cat. But beyond the low hum of concern is only a strange calm, a steadiness, and the incredible relief that he found Addie, that he got to know her, to love her, to have her here beside him. He is happy. He is ready. He is not afraid. That is what he tells himself. He is not afraid.

It has been a hard and lonely life, she says, and a wonderful one, too. She has lived through wars, and fought in them, witnessed revolution and rebirth. She has left her mark on a thousand works of art, like a thumbprint in the bottom of a drying bowl. She has seen marvels, and gone mad, has danced in snowbanks and frozen to death along the Seine. She fell in love with the darkness many times, fell in love with a human once. And she is tired. Unspeakably tired. But there is no question she has lived.