The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

by V.E. Schwab

It hurts too much, watching them forget her. Her mother slips back inside the house, and Adeline abandons the shelter of the tree

and the village of Villon, and the life that is no longer hers, and begins to walk.

“I’m granting you free access to the books.” “Almost like a library!” “Not a library!” he shouts back, and Addie

Blink and half your life is gone. I do not want to die as I’ve lived.

Born and buried in the same ten-meter plot.

“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?”

“But I do,” he protests. “You may disguise yourself as a man, but I know the truth, and so honor will not let me leave you. The darkness is no place to be alone.”

I made a deal with the devil and now whenever anyone looks at me, they see only what they want. He shakes his head. “Nothing. Never mind.”

“Esoteric.”

It’s a long-running sore point between them, the fact that Henry isn’t gay, that he’s attracted to a person first and their gender second. Robbie cringes, but doesn’t apologize.

It was real. They were real. But like everything in Henry’s life, it ended. Failed.

And despite it all, he falters. Because he believes her. Or at least, he believes that she believes herself, and that is worse, because it still doesn’t make it real.

There’s no way to un-know the fact that someone is dying. It eats away all the normal, and leaves

something wrong and rotten in its place. I’m sorry, Addie. I didn’t want you to look at me that way.”

“You are not capable of love.”

“Because I am not human? Because I do not wither and die?”

“You are not capable of love because you cannot understand what it is to care for someone else more than yourself. If you loved m...

“What nonsense,” he says. “It is because I love you that I won’t. Love is hu...

“You are thinking of po...

“People are not things,”

“And you will never understand them.”

“Because you let me have no one else.”

know you won’t spare me, Luc, and perhaps you are right, we do belong together. So if you love me, spare Henry Strauss. If you love me, let him go.”

Am I the devil or the darkness? he asked her once. Am I a monster or a god?

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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“A deal is a deal, Adeline. And deals are binding.”

“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, 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.”

You are not human, Adeline. You thought you found each other? You must have thought yourselves so clever. Spend time with your love. I will still be here. And so will you.

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

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.

and even Brooklyn has quieted to a murmur as she walks the two blocks to the Merchant bar. It is an hour until closing, the crowd thinned to a few determined drinkers.

“I am glad it was only a year.”

“I’m not asking for your mercy, and I know you have no charity. So I’m offering a trade. Let Henry go. Let him live. Let him remember me, and—”

“But I won’t lose you. And you won’t lose me.

So yes.” She looks straight into his eyes. “Do this, and I will be yours, as long as you want me by your side.”

“Why would you do it?”

“Think of it as a thank-you,” she says, “for seeing me. For showing me what it’s like to be seen. To be loved. Now you get a second chance. But you have to let them see you as you are. You have to find people who see you.”

“Life can feel very long sometimes, but in the end, it goes so fast.” Her

“You better live a good life, Henry Strauss.”

“You’ve given me so much, Henry. But I need you to do one more thing.” Her forehead presses against his. “I need you to remember.”

But he is not capable of love, and she will prove it. She will ruin him. Ruin his idea of them. She will break his heart, and he will come to hate her once again. She will drive him mad, drive him away. And then, he will cast her off. And she will finally be free.

But if he’s taught her anything, it’s patience. So Addie says nothing of the new game, the new rules, the new battle that’s begun. She only smiles, and sets the book back on its shelf. And follows him out into the dark.