The Missing of Clairdelune (The Mirror Visitor, #2)

by Christelle Dabos

“You still want my opinions and my advice, miss? Here’s my opinion: you’re in urgent need of advice. And here’s my advice: always listen to my opinion.”

“I don’t speak to children,” he snapped back, avoiding meeting Hector’s implacable gaze.

“You want to solve every problem on your own,” she continued in a choked voice, “even if it means using people like chess pieces, even if it means making yourself hated by the whole world.” “And you, do you still hate me?” “I don’t think so. Not anymore.” “Good,” Thorn grunted between his teeth. “Because I’ve never made such an effort not to be hated by someone.”

“I believe neither in luck nor in destiny,” he declared. “I trust only the science of probabilities. I have studied mathematical statistics, combinatorial analysis, mass function, and random variables, and they have never held any surprises for me. You don’t seem fully to grasp the destabilizing effect that someone like you can have on someone like me.”

“You really know what must be done?” she repeated, full of hope. When Thorn turned towards her, brows arched with satisfaction, Ophelia knew that it wasn’t a figment of her imagination: he was smiling. An almost imperceptible smile, certainly, but a smile all the same. “I just need to eliminate you from the equation,” he said to her. Ophelia got up, fired with emotion. The next moment, the ground started to shake and all went dark.

“You’re the one who hasn’t understood, Mom. Thorn isn’t the egotistical monster you think he is . . . that I once thought he was, too,” she had to admit. “I convinced myself that he wanted to read Mr. Farouk’s Book out of personal ambition, but it’s something else, there always was something else. Thorn has just given it up to protect us, we can’t let him down now.”

“So you were investigating God from the start,” she said. “And then? What were you planning to do?” Thorn shrugged his shoulders as if it were obvious. “Give the world back its dice.

Thorn swallowed against her shoulder. “Oh, and by the way, I love you.” Ophelia’s sob caught in her throat. She could no longer speak. Breathing hurt her. Thorn’s hands disappeared into her thick mass of curls. She became even shorter of breath. He clasped her body against his own, as close as was physically possible, and then pulled away from her with almost brutal briskness. He cleared his throat, suddenly hoarse. “It’s . . . it’s a little harder than I thought it would be.”