The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

by V.E. Schwab

“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.”

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.

Stories are a way to preserve one’s self. To be remembered. And to forget.

Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.

A secret kept. A record made. The first mark she left upon the world, long before she knew the truth, that ideas are so much wilder than memories, that they long and look for ways of taking root.

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?

“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.”

Listens as she tells him of living forever, and being forgotten, and giving up. When she finishes, she holds her breath, expecting Henry to blink away the fog, to ask what she was about to say. Instead, his eyes narrow with such peculiar focus, and she realizes, heart racing, that he has heard every word. “You made a deal?” he says. There is a detachment in his voice, an unnerving calm.

And then, out of nowhere, Henry laughs. He sags against a bike rack, head in his hand, and laughs, and she thinks he’s gone mad, thinks she’s broken something in him, thinks, even, that he is mocking her. But it is not the kind of laughter that follows a joke. It is too manic, too breathless. “You made a deal,” he says again.

She swallows. “Look, I know how it sounds but—” “I believe you.” She blinks, suddenly confused. “What?” “I believe you,” he says again. Three small words, as rare as I remember you, and it should be enough—but it’s not. Nothing makes sense, not Henry, not this; it hasn’t since the start and she’s been too afraid to ask, to know, as if knowing would bring the whole dream crashing down, but she can see the cracks in his shoulders, can feel them in her chest. Who are you? she wants to ask. Why are you different? How do you remember when no one else can? Why do you believe I made a deal? In the end, she says only one thing. “Why?” And Henry’s hands fall away from his face and he looks up at her, his green eyes fever bright, and says— “Because I made one, too.”

And she looks up at him, eyes shining, not with some spell, but tears, and he does not know at first if she is heartbroken or happy. “I couldn’t understand,” she says. “No one has ever remembered. I thought it was an accident. I thought it was a trap. But you’re not an accident, Henry. You’re not a trap. You remember me because you made a deal.” She shakes her head. “Three hundred years spent trying to break this curse, and Luc did the one thing I never expected.” She wipes the tears away, and breaks into a smile. “He made a mistake.” There is such triumph in her eyes. But Henry doesn’t understand. “So our deals cancel out? Is that why we’re immune to them?” Addie shakes her head. “I’m not immune, Henry.” He cringes back, as if struck. “But my deal doesn’t work on you.” Addie softens, takes his hand. “Of course it does. Your deal and mine, they nest like Russian dolls together in a shell. I look at you, and I see exactly what I want. It’s just that what I want has nothing to do with looks, or charm, or success. It would sound awful, in another life, but what I want most—what I need—has nothing to do with you at all. What I want, what I’ve always truly wanted, is for someone to remember me. That’s why you can say my name. That’s why you can go away, and come back, and still know who I am. And that’s why I can look at you, and see you as you are. And it is enough. It will always be enough.” Enough. The word unravels between them, opening at his throat. It lets in so much air...

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