“Monsieur Grimod, Monsieur Tabard, and I were about to discuss what I know about the Champion, and I wanted you to be here since we are discussing your . . .” He hesitated.
“Boyfriend,” I said, filling in the blank for him, and he smiled oddly. There he went again, looking at me like there was something wrong. I combed through my hair with my fingers and, finding nothing sticking up out of it, settled for crossing my arms and fidgeting.
“Yes. Well, we were comparing the bardia’s version of the prophecy with the one my family has passed down. It is basically the same.” He closed his eyes and began reciting from memory,
In the Third Age, humankind’s atrocities will be such that brother will betray brother and numa will outnumber bardia and a preponderance of wars will darken the world of men. In this time a bardia will arise in Gaul who will be a leader amongst his kind . . .
I was listening to the strange old phrases when all of a sudden I felt another presence in the room. Kate, you’re here! The words sizzled through my mind like lightning bolts. “Stop!” I yelled. Bran’s mouth snapped shut and the three men stared at me. “It’s . . . it’s Vincent. He’s here!” I stammered in shock.
My heart thumped so hard against my rib cage that it actually hurt. “Thank God, Vincent. You got away,” I said, choking on my words.
No, my love, I didn’t. I only have a minute before Violette draws me back. Speak to the guérisseur for me.
“He wants me to talk to Bran,” I explained to the astonished men, and I began relaying his message word for word.
“Violette wants to know if you have the secret to the power transfer: the transmission of the Champion’s power to the one who defeated him.”
“I know there is something about that in my family’s records,” Bran confirmed, speaking toward a point in the air to the right of my head.
I glanced up to see what he was looking at, but the space next to me was empty. Vincent spoke again, and I translated. “Can you get that information for her?”
“I would need a few days to retrieve it,” Bran replied.
And like that, Vincent’s voice disappeared.
“What just happened?” Jean-Baptiste looked confounded.
“He said he only had a minute,” I explained. “Then Violette was going to pull him back.”
“Who was this ghost you were speaking with?” asked Bran, confused.
“That was Vincent.”
“I could see him,” Bran replied slowly.
“You could see him?” I blurted.
“I saw his aura. He was hovering right next to your shoulder,” he said, nodding to the space he had been staring at. “Amazing! I actually saw a volant spirit!”
A hushed shock settled over our little group, all of us awed by this apparent miracle, and then, all of a sudden, Vincent was back. Mon ange, I am here, his words came.
Bran’s eyes flicked back to the space next to my head. “He has returned.”
I nodded. “He says Violette will give you three days to find the solution to the power transfer. She is leaving Vincent with us to stay and watch, but will pull him back to her as often as she chooses.”
“And he is the one whose powers Violette seeks?” Bran insisted.
“Yes,” Gaspard affirmed. “As we explained, after murdering your mother, Violette killed him and burned his body in order to get the Champion’s power.”
Bran leaned back on his pillow. “Well, that explains why the power transfer didn’t work,” he said softly.
“What do you mean?” Jean-Baptiste asked.
“It’s simple. This boy is not the Champion.”
Jean-Baptiste, Gaspard, and I stared at one another, speechless. Bran continued, “As my mother and I suspected might be the case, it turns out that I am the VictorSeer. The one guérisseur from my line who has been chosen to identify the Victor . . . your Champion.”
“But how do you know?” I asked, incredulous. “Just last week you told me you weren’t certain.”
“Ah, but it only just happened,” Bran said, smiling weakly and shifting his gaze to JB. “From the moment you took my hand yesterday—the head of the revenants touching the representative of my family of guérisseurs—your auras all changed in my eyes.”
“So that’s what happened,” JB said.
Bran nodded. “I felt the power possess me, and . . .” He hesitated, choosing his words carefully, “I know quite definitively that I am the one who will identify your savior. And this volant spirit that is with us is not the chosen one. I am sure of it.”
“But how—” Gaspard began to ask, but Bran cut him off.
“Don’t ask me how, my new friend. I have agreed to help you as much as I can, but there are some secrets I am bound to keep.”
There was radio silence in my mind as Vincent began talking directly to Gaspard. “Yes. I agree.” Gaspard nodded in response to something he said, and turned to Jean-Baptiste. “Vincent says that, if what the guérisseur says is true, we can’t let Violette discover her error. The more time she wastes attempting to achieve this fruitless task, the longer we stall her from bringing war to our doorstep.”
“But if we stall, won’t that put you in danger?” I asked Vincent. The more I saw her in action, the more afraid I was becoming of Violette.
Violette can’t do anything to hurt me, he responded reassuringly, but the way he said me inferred that Vincent wasn’t the only one at risk.
“If we do delay for the three-day period Violette has set, we might have a chance to find the true Champion, now that we have the man who can identify him,” JB said, nodding to Bran. “We could call together all of Paris’s revenants so that you can see if he is amongst us.”
“I will do what I can,” Bran said.
“I will tell Ambrose to arrange a meeting of Paris bardia immediately,” said Gaspard, and bustled out of the room.
“Vincent, does Violette actually hold enough power over you that she can force you to tell her what we are doing if she draws you back?” Jean-Baptiste asked. He listened for a moment and his eyes flicked to me, his expression dark. “She can’t compel him to do anything against his will,” he relayed. “However, as we suspected, she plans on using something dear to him to do the compelling for her.”
Jean-Baptiste was silent for a second, and then said, “I promise you, Vincent. For the next three days we will not let Kate out of our sight.”
TWELVE
THE DOOR SWUNG OPEN, AND JULES RUSHED INTO the room. “Just saw Gaspard,” he panted. “Is it true? Vincent’s back?” He listened for a second, and then practically threw himself on me, talking to Vincent while simultaneously squeezing my breath out. “Oh, man, am I glad we got you back.”
I squeaked, “Jules! Oxygen!”
“Sorry, Kate,” he said, releasing me. “I’m just happy to see both of you, and you’re the only one I can actually touch.”
I laughed as I smoothed my scrunched-up T-shirt. “That’s okay.”
Bran, Jean-Baptiste, and Gaspard began talking in earnest about the prophecy, the Champion, and what could be done once he was identified. Jean-Baptiste looked away for a second and said, “Of course, Vincent. But come back before long. We need to ask you more about Violette and her plans.”
“They don’t need us right now,” said Jules, his eyes sparkling like he had just won the lottery. “Vince, let’s go to my room, okay?”
Vincent must have agreed, because Jules grabbed my hand and we were off, down the hall, up the double staircase and through a door next to the one leading to the roof terrace. I stood gawking at a room I had never seen. Jules’s room was the attic. But instead of being the dark, musty kind it was suffused with sunlight streaming through a large frosted-glass window set in the ceiling.
Charcoal and pencil drawings filled the room, stacked on every surface and rolled up into tubes along the walls. A bed stood in one corner of the room with more drawings piled on it. The room had a musky, artsy smell, like cologne mixed with paper,
ink, and pencil lead.
Jules led me to a garnet-colored velveteen couch under the skylight. “So how are you?” he asked. I paused, not sure who he was talking to. But the way he sat still, listening, I knew Vincent was answering his question.
“And you, Kate?” Jules asked, taking my hand.
“Fine. Thanks for texting with the non-update this morning. The last couple of days have been hellish.” I addressed the air. “Vincent, I was so worried about you.”
And I you.
His words were like a caress. But they left me wanting more. “Are you okay? Did Violette hurt you?” I asked.
She couldn’t do much worse than destroying my body—besides keeping me away from you.
I began to speak, and then hesitated.
What? Vincent asked.
“Does it feel weird to know you’re not the Champion?” I asked carefully. “I mean, are you disappointed? Upset?”
There was a moment’s silence and then Vincent said, I couldn’t be more relieved, to tell you the truth. If that had been the role fate dealt me, I would have embraced it. Done my best. But it was just one more thing that complicated matters for us. That made our situation even more precarious. So, thinking selfishly, I’m glad to see the title go to someone else.
Having heard my half of the conversation, Jules jumped in. “I never thought I’d say this, man, but I, for one, am glad you turned out to be just like the rest of us. Otherwise Violette would already be stomping around Paris like some kind of crossbreed numa Hulk. Although the present situation isn’t exactly optimal.”
We were all quiet for a moment, and then I heard Vincent’s words. I would give anything to hold you right now.
“Me too,” I whispered. Sadness crushed me as, once more, I realized that touching Vincent was something that would never happen again. I wrapped my arms protectively around myself.
Would it be okay . . . Vincent paused. Could I use Jules to hold you?
His words electrified me, striking me with conflicting emotions. I didn’t want Jules. I wanted Vincent. But my need for him was so great that I was willing to compromise at this point. It just complicated things that Jules’s flirting seemed like more than just lighthearted teasing at times. The thought of being physically close to him—like I wanted to be with Vincent—sounded a warning bell in my mind. What if he took things the wrong way?
If I were completely honest, I knew he had feelings for me. Then again, I suspected that he had similar feelings for half the female population of Paris.
Seeing the sudden curve of Jules’s lips, I knew that Vincent had asked him the same thing. “So, Kate,” he said, raising an eyebrow and suppressing a full-on grin. “Will you accept me as surrogate hugger?” But his smile disappeared when he noticed my expression, and I knew his joking covered the same loss and pain I felt for his friend.
“Will I ever have you back again?” I asked the air.
You have me back, mon ange.
That wasn’t what I had meant, and he knew it. I felt my eyes sting with tears. We have a lot to think about, came Vincent’s words, but for now let me hold you.
I nodded my assent, and Jules’s body shuddered as if he had caught a sudden chill. And then it was as if two boys were staring out at me. The eyes of my loyal friend and the eyes of my true love both peered from behind Jules’s boyish face. Unable to bear it, I looked away and leaned forward into his arms.
It felt like Vincent. The way he squeezed me tightly against himself. I knew his touch; it was Vincent. The exact pressure he used as he kneaded my back with his fingers—I knew those movements and they were Vincent’s.
And it was my boyfriend’s words speaking in his friend’s voice as we held each other. “I was so afraid, Kate. I thought I would never see you again. That I would be bound for eternity to Violette and never be able to come back to you. That we would always be separated by a distance I couldn’t cross.”
My words were like a river, flowing through my lips before wholly forming in my mind. “I missed you. I needed you. I was afraid you were gone.” I shifted my hands from the small of his back to his head, lacing my fingers through his hair and drawing him toward me. Pressing my lips to his, I kissed him while tears tripped down my cheeks and onto our mouths. I tasted salt as our kiss deepened.
It was the kiss I hadn’t dared to dream of the past few nights. The kiss of finding each other again. Starting soft and growing more passionate, flooding my senses with the body of my love. His soft lips and warm mouth searching, exploring, finding me once again. His hands in my hair and his chest pressed hard against mine. The sound of his staggered breathing as his need for me became tangible through every inch of our touching skin. It felt like we were on the verge of consuming each other, body and spirit. That if we kept pushing toward each other we would actually mesh. Melt into one person.
Then I felt him flinch and I opened my eyes.
And though it was still Vincent looking out at me through the soft brown eyes, Jules was there too. I pulled back against my will, fighting my urge to ignore the facts and drown myself in the fiction. Running my fingers through his hair one last time, I disentangled myself from him and watched as a tremor shook Jules’s body. Suddenly there was only one boy looking at me. And it wasn’t affection in his eyes. It was pain.
I grabbed his hands and blurted, “I’m so sorry, Jules. I didn’t mean to . . . I forgot who you . . .”
Jules pulled his hands from mine, and pressed his palms hard against his eyes. Breathing deeply, he leaned toward me, folding his arms across his chest. “Stop while you’re still ahead, Kate, and I can take it as a compliment.” He attempted to rearrange his face into a carefree smile.
“No, really, Vince. You can use me as your sex puppet anytime, as long as it’s with Kate,” he joked. My cheeks burned red with shame. I felt like crying but was too horrified to do anything but sit and watch Jules rise from the couch. He thrust his hands into his pockets and turned away from me hiding his distress. “Seriously, man . . . stop apologizing,” he said to the air. Crossing the room, he leaned on the windowsill and stared out through the glass.
I felt like I had parachuted out of a burning plane into an alien landscape: I had no points of reference—not even a clue which direction to walk in order to reach civilization.
After a few silent moments, Jules turned, and his face looked normal again. He walked up to me and ran a finger along my jawline from my ear to my chin, making me shudder. “I need to go,” he said softly. “But I don’t want you to worry about this. As far as I’m concerned, it’s forgotten. I’m glad I was here to help you two reconnect. You both mean everything to me.”
But as he left, his voice became gruff. “Where do you think I’m going?” he answered Vincent. “If it’s not Guiliana, it’ll be Francesca. Or Brooke. What do you care? You just stay here and make sure she’s okay.” And then the door shut and Jules was gone.
THIRTEEN
“VINCENT?” I CALLED, UNSURE IF HE HAD FOLLOWED Jules down the stairs.
I’m here, Kate, came his words.
I put my head in my hands. “Okay, that was awful.”
Was it?
“I mean not awful in the oh-my-God-it-was-amazing-to-feel-like-I-was-touching-you way, but I . . . I couldn’t help taking it further. It seemed like it was you.”
It was me. It was also unfortunately Jules.
“I didn’t mean to kiss him.” I curled up into a ball on the couch, wrapping my arms around my knees. I wished I could rewind time by fifteen minutes and do a retake of the whole possessed kissing scene.
You meant to kiss me.
“Yes. You, not Jules. Oh my God, I practically mauled him.”
He didn’t seem to mind much. And there is the fact that it stopped when it did.
I held my fingers to my burning cheeks to cool them down.
“I am not doing that again.”
I think that’s probably a good decision.
“But then how can we . . .??
?
Don’t worry, mon ange. Even though that wasn’t a huge success . . .
“‘Total fail’ is more like it.”
There are other ways that we can connect.
“Without actually connecting of course.” I paused, my blush flaring to sunburn intensity. “I mean . . . ,” I stammered, “I didn’t mean in the anatomical sense. Although, yeah, I guess I kind of did.” I shook my head. “This is one of the most awkward conversations we’ve ever had.”
That’s because it shouldn’t have to be a conversation. Not a problem we have to solve. When we have to think practically about things like . . . how a ghost can make you feel like a flesh-and-blood boy could, it kind of strips away the seductive side of things.
I grinned, his words bringing some very interesting images to mind. “And just how does this ghost plan on making me feel like a flesh-and-blood boy could?” I was actually able to get the words out without wanting to bury myself in the couch cushions, probably because I was genuinely intrigued by what he thought was possible.
Well, since we blew my plan A sky high, you need to give me some more time to come up with a plan B. But, Kate . . .
“Yes, Vincent?” I said hesitantly. There was something about his “but” that made me nervous.
Plan A. Plan B. These are only temporary solutions. You and I can’t really—Vincent’s pause stretched miles—we can’t be together like this, mon amour. You can’t put up with having a spirit as a boyfriend for long. You need more. You deserve more.
“I don’t want more, Vincent. I want you,” I said.
I can’t touch you. Can’t hold you in my arms. Bring you flowers. Row you down the Seine in a rowboat.
“I don’t need that,” I insisted.
Kate, you’re not listening to me. All I can do is talk to you. He paused. Can you feel this? Or this?
I felt nothing.
That was me touching your face and your hair. Don’t you see, Kate? I can’t be yours in any kind of real way. But what I can promise you is that I will always be here for you, watching out for you, making sure you are safe. And happy.