“They took me,” I say. “They took both of us.”
I can see him fighting to stay awake. There’s a dark bruise forming on his cheek; his mouth is chapped and bleeding; he’s shaking so hard, I can feel it without touching him.
I wrap the blanket around him more snugly, trying to imitate the cocooning technique Cecily swaddled the baby with on a cold night. It was one of the few times she looked sure of what she was doing. “Rest,” I whisper. “I’ll be right here.”
He watches me for a long time, his eyes darting up and down the length of my face. I think he’s going to speak. I hope he will, even if it’s just to say this is all my fault, that he told me the world was dangerous. I don’t care. I just want him here with me. I want to hear his voice. But all he does is close his eyes, and then he’s gone again.
I manage a fitful sleep beside him, shivering, covered with only a damp towel so Gabriel can have all the covers. I dream of crisp bed linens; of sparkling gold champagne that warms my throat and stomach as it goes down; of category-three winds rattling the edges, revealing bits of darkness behind a shiny perfect world.
I’m ripped from sleep by a gurgling, retching sound that at first makes me think I’m at my oldest sister wife’s deathbed. But when I open my eyes, I see Gabriel doubled over in a far corner of our tent. The smell of vomit is not quite as overwhelming as all the smoke and perfume that keeps this place in a perpetual smog.
I hurry to his side, all earnest, heart pounding. And now that I’m close to him, I can smell and see the coppery blood coming from a gash between his shoulder blades; the skin tears as he tenses his muscles. I don’t remember there being any knives in the struggle, but we were ambushed so fast.
“Gabriel?” I touch his shoulder but can’t bring myself to look at the stuff he’s coughing up. When he’s finished, I offer him a rag, and he takes it, slumping back on his heels.
It seems stupid to ask if he’s all right, so I’m trying to get a good look at his eyes. Shades of purple are tiered under them, from dark to light. The cold is making clouds of his breath.
In the light of the swinging lantern, his own shadows dance behind his still form.
He says, “Where is this place?”
“We’re in a scarlet district along the coastline. They gave you something; I think it’s called angel’s blood.”
“It’s a sedative,” he says; his voice is slurred. He crawls back for the blanket and collapses facedown. “Housemaster Vaughn kept it in stock. Hospitals used to carry it, but they stopped because of the side effects.” He doesn’t resist as I position him onto his side and draw the blanket over him. He’s shivering. “Side effects?” I say.
“Hallucinations. Nightmares.”
I think of the warmth that spread through my veins after the hurricane, think of being unable to move; Vaughn only kept me conscious long enough to threaten me. And though I don’t remember it, Linden claimed I muttered horrible things while I dreamt.
“Can I do anything?” I say, tucking the blankets around his shoulders. “Are you thirsty?”
He reaches for me, and I let him draw me to his side. “I dreamt you’d drowned,” he says. “Our boat was burning and there was no shore.”
“Not possible,” I say. His lips are chapped and bloody against my forehead. “I’m an excellent swimmer.”
“It was dark,” he says. “All I could see was your hair, going under. I dove after you and realized I was chasing a jellyfish. You were nowhere.”
“I’ve been here,” I say. “You’re the one who’s been nowhere. I couldn’t wake you up.”
He raises the blanket like a wing, wrapping me inside with him. It’s warmer than I thought it would be, and I realize at once how much I’ve missed him while he’s been under. I close my eyes, breathe deep. But the smell of the ocean is gone from his skin. He smells like blood and Madame’s perfume, which lingers in the white soapy film that floats in all the water basins.
“Don’t leave me again,” I whisper. He doesn’t answer. I reposition myself in his arms and draw back to look at his face. His eyes are closed. “Gabriel?” I say.
“You’re dead,” he mumbles sleepily. “I watched you die”—his voice hitches with a yawn—“watched you die all those horrible deaths.”
“Wake up,” I tell him, and sit up, and pull the blankets away, hoping the sudden cold will shock him awake.
He opens his eyes, glossy like Jenna’s when she was dying. “They were cutting your throat,” he says. “You tried to scream, but you had no voice.”
“It’s not real,” I say. My heart is pounding with fear. My blood is cold. “You’re delirious. Look; I’m right here.” My fingers brush his neck, which is flush and warm. I remember when we kissed, Linden’s atlas between us; I remember the warm air of his little breaths on my tongue and chin and neck, the sudden draftiness when he drew back. Everything dissolved from around us in that moment, and I’d never felt so safe.
Now I worry that we’ll never be safe again. If we ever were.
The rest of the night is miserable. Gabriel succumbs to an unreachable sleep, and I fight to stay awake so I can keep watch against the dangers that lurk beyond our green tent.
When I sleep, I dream of smoke. Curling, twisting, weaving paths that lead nowhere.
“—up!” someone is saying. “Rise and shine, little love-bird! Réveille-toi!”
An arm tightens around me. I snap to attention. Madame is speaking in that phony accent again, her consonants flourishing like the smoke from her lips.
Daylight is a blinding force behind her, filling the silk outline of her scarves like rainbow lizard crests, making her face a shadow. And the whole tent is full of green, reflecting on my skin.
Sometime in the night Gabriel pulled me back into the blanket with him, and his arm is encircling my ribs. He buries his face in my hair, and I can feel the clamminess of his forehead. When I sit up, the movement doesn’t rouse him. He doesn’t regain consciousness at all.
The syringe. The syringe is no longer where Lilac left it.
Madame takes my hands and pulls me to my feet. She cups my face in her papery hands and smiles. “Even lovelier in the daylight, my Goldenrod.”
I’m not her Goldenrod. I’m not her anything. But she seems to have claimed me as one of her possessions, her antiques, her plastic gems.
I will Gabriel not to mutter my name again. I don’t want Madame to have it, rolling it off her tongue the way she fondled the flowers of my wedding band.
She pouts. “You do not want to wear the beautiful dress I laid out for you?” It hangs over her arm now like a deflated corpse, like the bloodless body of the girl who wore it last.
“Your sweater is so beautiful. How can you stand to wear it while it’s filthy?” she says sadly. I think her frown could melt right off her face. “One of the little ones will wash it for you.” Her accent has morphed to something else now. All of her THs come out like Zs, and her Ws like Vs. One of ze little ones vill vash it for you.
She thrusts the dress at me, and unwinds a fur stole from her shoulders and drapes it around my neck. “Change. I’ll wait for you outside. It’s a beautiful day!”
I’ll vait for you.
When she’s gone, I change quickly, figuring it’s my only way out of this tent. And I admit that the silk feels nice against my skin, and the stole, despite the choking must, is so warm I could get lost in it. Wearing these things may be the only way Madame lets me out of the tent, but what about Gabriel? Gabriel, who is still trapped in a haze. I kneel beside him and touch his