Interlude [h.s]

eighty-one

The wardrobe of what once was her bedroom is empty. Alouette sits on the dusty ground, sorting through the clothes before her in search of the ones that look best. She has to look the part when she goes back to the Palace, or else she won't be able to take back what was once hers.

She doesn't dare to think any further than that. She's spent months making plans, but now her mind is a blank slate—a meaningless desert of wandering thoughts. It's been days since she's last talked to Elijah, but she hasn't stopped thinking about it, not even for a moment. Over the past four days, she's found herself watching Harry closely, silently wondering if, maybe, he could be at fault for her father's death. But, even though she knows he very well could be, something in her mind tells her that she's got the wrong person.

But he knows her father is dead, and there's a folder bearing the name Daniel Ivenhart in the archive of the Palace. She wishes she could ask him—she's often tried to over the past few days, but the words tangled up in her throat each time. The thought that shut her up was the same every time.

Do I trust him enough to show him where to plunge his blade if he ever decides to destroy me?

And every time, she couldn't come up with an answer. The same unpredictable soul that makes him so irresistible also makes him unreliable. He's so naturally cold that she can't tell how deeply she's sunk into his heart, and though she wants to trust him with all she has and hand him the blade, a fleeting sense of self-preservation tells her to tread carefully.

But she desperately needs a friend, and he's the only one that has always accepted her for who she truly is. He's accepted her as a secretary, as a lover, as a murderer, he's even accepted her when she pointed a gun at him or threatened him with a blade to his throat. Sometimes she wonders if a thing such as sinking too deep exists when she's with him. Where will he draw the line, if there's a line to be drawn at all?

He's the only alliance she has no intention of breaking, and not even her doubts are strong enough to make it waver. She chooses to believe he has nothing to do with it—she chooses to believe he wouldn't have hidden it from her for so long, when he still didn't even know who she is.

At last she finds the shirt and puts it into her bag. With one last gaze to the room, she walks out in the corridor and closes the door behind herself. She hasn't slept in there for six months, but it feels definitive, now. She's leaving the safety of her past behind to weave her way in life, and it's both scary and elating. She imagines that, at some point in the past, her father made the same decision—but while he created the Revolution to stop the Styles family, she's allying with Harry. Their end goals are the same, but it feels like half a betrayal nonetheless. After all, she doesn't know where her choices will lead her—for all she knows, Harry could be planning to get rid of her within the year. Oddly enough, it wouldn't surprise her.

"I see you're planning on leaving for good."

Alouette raises her eyes from the floor and meets Elijah's gaze. Something inside her stings at the sight of him, even though his only fault was keeping his secret from her for years. Is it even a secret, or a truth? She can't tell, and it makes everything worse.

"Aren't you going to pack your things as well?" she asks him in return, hiding her bag behind her legs. "You haven't made the last meetings, but Ezra has put you on the team as well."

Elijah makes a face. "I'm not going."

"Why?"

"Ask your Harry that." He walks past her and leaves.