The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

by V.E. Schwab

What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind? She has learned to step between the thorny weeds, but there are some cuts that cannot be avoided—a memory, a photograph, a name.

“The old gods may be great, but they are neither kind nor merciful. They are fickle, unsteady as moonlight on water, or shadows in a storm. If you insist on calling them, take heed: be careful what you ask for, be willing to pay the price.” She leans over Adeline, casting her in shadow. “And no matter how desperate or dire, never pray to the gods that answer after dark.”

Adeline is sixteen now, and everyone speaks of her as if she is a summer bloom, something to be plucked, and propped within a vase, intended only to flower and then to rot. Like Isabelle, who dreams of family instead of freedom, and seems content to briefly blossom and then wither. No, Adeline has decided she would rather be a tree, like Estele. If she must grow roots, she would rather be left to flourish wild instead of pruned, would rather stand alone, allowed to grow beneath the open sky. Better that than firewood, cut down just to burn in someone else’s hearth.

She lies awake and imagines him beside her, his long fingers tracing absent patterns on her skin. As he does, he tells her stories. Not the kind her father used to tell, of knights and kingdoms, princesses and thieves. Not fairy tales and warnings of venturing outside the lines, but stories that feel like truths, renditions of the road, cities that sparkle, of the world beyond Villon. And even though the words she puts in his mouth are surely full of errors and lies, her stranger’s conjured voice makes them sound so wonderful, so real.

But a life without art, without wonder, without beautiful things—she would go mad.

Stories are a way to preserve one’s self. To be remembered. And to forget. Stories come in so many forms: in charcoal, and in song, in paintings, poems, films. And books. Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.

The darkness whispers in her ear, arms wrapped like a scarf around her throat. I am always with you.

Once upon a time, she loved this kind of story. When she was still a child, and the world was small, and she dreamed of open doors. But Addie knows too well now, knows that these stories are full of foolish humans doing foolish things, warning tales of gods and monsters and greedy mortals who want too much, and then fail to understand what they’ve lost. Until the price is paid, and it’s too late to claim it back.

Never pray to the gods who answer after dark.

There is nothing wrong with Roger. But there is nothing right, either.

They used to dream together, but she has aged ten years in two, it seems. She is always tired, and there are hollows in her face where once her cheeks were red from laughter.

the church stands waiting, pale and stiff as a tombstone, and she knows that if she walks in, she will not come out.

I am stronger than your god and older than your devil. I am the darkness between stars, and the roots beneath the earth. I am promise, and potential, and when it comes to playing games, I divine the rules, I set the pieces, and I choose when to play.

A smile—just like the smile in her drawings, askance, and full of secrets—crosses his mouth. And then he pulls her to him. A lover’s embrace. He is smoke and skin, air and bone, and when his mouth presses against hers, the first thing she tastes is the turning of the seasons, the moment when dusk gives way to night. And then his kiss deepens. His teeth skim her bottom lip, and there is pain in the pleasure, followed by the copper taste of blood on her tongue.

The rise isn’t worth the fall.

there will be nights when her need will smother caution, and she will scream and curse and dare him to come out and face her.

How do you walk to the end of the world?

One step at a time.

Being forgotten, she thinks, is a bit like going mad. You begin to wonder what is real, if you are real. After all, how can a thing be real if it cannot be remembered? It’s like that Zen koan, the one about the tree falling in the woods. If no one heard it, did it happen? If a person cannot leave a mark, do they exist?

Dreamer is too soft a word. It conjures thoughts of silken sleep, of lazy days in fields of tall grass, of charcoal smudges on soft parchment.

“I saw an elephant,” says Addie, and the words are like cold water on coals. The darkness stills beside her, and she continues, gaze fixed on the ramshackle house, and the broken roof, and the open sky above. “Two, in fact. They were in the palace grounds, as part of some display. I didn’t know animals could be so large. And there was a fiddler in the square the other day,” she presses on, her voice steady, “and his music made me cry. It was the prettiest song I’d ever heard. I had Champagne, drank it straight from the bottle, and watched the sun set over the Seine while the bells rang out from Notre-Dame, and none of it would have happened back in Villon.” She turns to look at him. “It has only been two years,” she says. “Think of all the time I have, and all the things I’ll see.”

“Unbelievable,” he says. “You simply left?” “I had to,” she says, and it is not a lie. “Admit it, you think me mad.” “Indeed,” says Remy with a playful grin. “The maddest. And the most incredible. What courage!” “It did not feel like courage,” Addie says, plucking at the rind of bread. “It felt as if I had no choice. As if…” The words lodge in her throat, but she isn’t sure if it’s the curse, or simply the memory. “It felt as if I’d die there.” Remy nods thoughtfully. “Small places make for small lives. And some people are fine with that. They like knowing where to put their feet. But if you only walk in other people’s steps, you cannot make your own way. You cannot leave a mark.”

“Do you think a life has any value if one doesn’t leave some mark upon the world?”

“I think there are many ways to matter.” He plucks the book from his pocket. “These are the words of a man—Voltaire. But they are also the hands that set the type. The ink that made it readable, the tree that made the paper. All of them matter, though credit goes only to the name on the cover.”

suddenly, immeasurably sad. “You can’t make people love you, Hen. If it’s not a choice, it isn’t real.”

the devil is simply a new word for a very old idea. And as for God, well, if all it takes is a flair for drama and a bit of golden trim…” He flicks his fingers, and suddenly the buttons on his coat, the buckles on his shoes, the stitching on his waistcoat are no longer black, but gilded. Burnished stars against a moonless night. He smiles, then brushes the filigree away like dust. She watches it fall, looks up again to find him there, inches from her face. “But this is the difference between us, Adeline,” he whispers, fingers grazing her chin. “I will always answer.”

“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.

humans are brief and pale and so is their love. It is shallow, it does not last. You long for human love, but you are not human, Adeline. You haven’t been for centuries. You have no place with them. You belong with me.” Addie recoils, anger hardening to ice inside her. “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.”

That time always ends a second before you’re ready. That life is the minutes you want minus one.

“Stay with me,” she says, and he answers, “I’m here.” His fingers tighten on hers. He doesn’t have to ask, she doesn’t have to answer. There is an unspoken agreement that she will be there, with him, until the very end. That this time, he won’t be alone. And he is okay. It is okay. It will be okay.