“But even when they were ’tite old women who’d lived such lives, cher”—raw pride in every word—“they would act as my baby sisters when I visited.” His smile faded into poignant tenderness, the grief tempered by time. “They’d tuck themselves against my chest and complain to me of everything and nothing while I held them as I’d done since they were babies with dirty faces and a hundred kisses for their brother.
“‘Janvier,’ they would say, ‘dat Arnaud, he’s a lazy saleau. He sits on his behind all day long while his pa-pere carries and fetches. And did you hear what Colette did? She put a cunja on dat jolie jeune fille I said you should marry.’” A thickness in his voice. “It didn’t matter when I came, they always had room at their table for me, and a hundred stories to tell.”
Ashwini could almost see it: him, eternally young and strong, holding his fragile mortal sisters protectively in his embrace. Until one day, there were no more complaints, no more stories. Reaching out, she comforted him the same way he’d done her so many times, her knuckles brushing his cheek in a touch that said he wasn’t alone.
He took her hand, pressed his lips to her knuckles before releasing her.
“Do you stay in touch with any of their descendants?” she asked, his name written so deep in her heart, it would never be erased.
He laughed, and the sound was big and warm and gorgeous. “Cher, I would be hunted down and fed to a gator should I miss a single family event. Their descendants are as fierce as my sisters were, and just as glorious. I’ll take you to the next fais do-do—or I’ll say we’re coming and it’ll be the excuse they need for a party. Then you’ll see what a wild family I call mine.”
Ashwini had known some vampires kept in touch with the descendants of their original families, but she’d never met one who spoke of his family with such affection. For most, the loss of the old seemed to outweigh the delight of the new. Or they’d become too inhuman to find happiness in familial connections. “I’m up for a good fais do-do. As long as you haven’t told them tales about me.”
“Trust me, sugar, you are already a favorite. My family thinks I need someone to put me in my place.”
It was so tempting to stay here, to talk and laugh and flirt, insulated from the world and from reality, but tonight their time wasn’t their own. It belonged to a woman whose life had been stolen from her with heartless cruelty.
They stepped out without any need to discuss the point.
“Your fancy car will be safe here?” It was an artwork of a machine. “You don’t want to put it in one of the bigger lots with security?”
“Elena owns an interest in the blood café over there,” he told her, to her surprise. “She set up this lot for anyone from the Guild or the Tower who needs to use it in this part of the city—it has top-of-the-line security. Your Guild hasn’t told you?”
Ashwini winced. “Memo must be in my Guild in-box. Haven’t checked it for a while.” Words had never been her friend. “I’m dyslexic. Got help late, and while I can read fine if I put my mind to it, it’s not the relaxing thing for me that it is for others.”
Janvier locked the gate behind them and they began to walk in the direction of the clubs. “I didn’t learn to read until I was in Neha’s court.”
“It must’ve been hard.”
“Yes, but there’s a scholar in Neha’s court who is very patient.”
So many pieces of him she was seeing tonight, and she knew why. He was taking the first step, the first risk, being the brave one. Ashwini wasn’t sure she had the courage to follow him, to take the steps that would lead to a confession that, once made, would change everything. But neither did she want to belittle his trust by withholding her own. Whether it was dangerous or not, right or wrong, they were beyond that.
“My family,” she began, “is very academic.”
20
“My father was a professor of philosophy; my mother, literature, with a particular emphasis on South Asian texts,” she said, heart hurting. “You know my brother is a neurosurgeon.” No matter the pain between them, Ashwini was fiercely proud of Arvi’s achievements. He could’ve permitted the agony he’d borne to crush him—instead, he’d used it as an impetus to become the best in his field.
She just wished he’d chosen any specialty but that related to the brain. Arvi used his own skill like a razored whip with which to flagellate himself, always looking for an answer, a “fix,” and coming up empty.
“One aunt is a paralegal,” she continued, “the other a political strategist. My cousins run the gamut, from engineers to psychologists to biomedical researchers.” Shining bright, that was the unofficial Taj family motto.
Even the rebel in the group, the laughing black sheep everyone loved and Ashwini wanted to grow up to be, had been a brilliant scholar of languages. Tanu had interceded for Ashwini more than once, but her sister had been much older, with her own life. Away at college when Ashwini’s problems with the written word first became apparent, Tanu hadn’t been there to mitigate the fallout at home.
“My parents were impatient with me, thought I was lazy, not trying hard enough.” As a confused child who couldn’t understand why she was being punished—by being banned from attending the dance lessons that healed every hurt inside her—she would stay up all night trying to teach herself to read the letters that got all confused in her head.
“They were learned people.” Janvier’s scowl was heavy. “Shouldn’t they have known?”
“It’s funny how really smart people have the most unusual holes in their worldview and perception.” For Ashwini’s mother, this supremely clever woman who was around words every day, reading was such a joy, such a wonderful escape, that she’d been unable to wrap her mind around the fact it was a struggle for her daughter.
“There was pride, too.” Seeing a flashing sign that said part of the Quarter had been flooded by a burst water main, Ashwini and Janvier took a slight detour. “The idea of asking for help, of having me seen as different . . .” As an adult, she’d come to understand that the latter had been the crux of it, her entire family trying desperately to avoid looking into the blinding, eviscerating light of truth.
“Pride has often led to foolish actions.”