Page 80 of Even Angels fall
“Milton, answer the lady’s question.”
”If the energy is sent through the tendrils, it’ll fry the end of the fail-safe tendrils,” the AI answers evenly.
“Milton, what are the fail-safe tendrils?” F asks, anticipating my next question.
Once again, it takes less than a second for Milton’s update. A dozen tendrils, over the hundred or so of them, switch from the white blue of the global simulation to a flashing red. They all look like they’re going in the same direction, to the center of the brain, and for once, it’s not me who asks the next question.
“Can you show the brain with your simulation, young girl?” the doctor asks, and even if F doesn’t seem happy with beingcalled ‘young girl’, she still asks her AI to comply with the doctor’s question.
There’s a quiet gasp when the image fully loads, and the look of complete horror on the doc’s face tells me this is not good.
He takes a huge breath before talking, and everyone braces for his diagnosis.
“It’ll erase who he is.”
“You’re correct,” the AI says. “There is an eighty-two percent chance that he’ll forget his life prior to the energy discharge. There is also a ninety-seven percent chance that all that he learned during that time will still be intact.”
I see Léandre sag on the ground again from the other side of the tendrils web, just to put his head between his hands.
“Awesome,” he mutters. “So I won’t remember my own name, but somehow, I’ll still remember fey porn.”
“I don’t think we have the same kind of books in our libraries,” Cassiopé says with fake outrage.
I don’t know if she’s doing it on purpose, but that still seems to pull Léandre from the hiding stance he took as he said that. There’s even a hint of a smile on his face.
“I’ll get you all my books one day, Little Luciole,” he answers her, his smile turning sad once again.
Because Léandre knows me, he also knows what was expected of me. And he knows that if Elhyor is still alive—wedding or not—after a week of me living here, it means Elhyor is probably not killable, or that I tried everything I could think of.
But did I?
The poison at the bottom of my backpack says otherwise. I might have jumped from the second level of the cathedral to try to kill him a few days ago, but when theLibérationhad shown up to Notre Dame’s door, threatening to kill everyone, including Elhyor if he didn’t hand me over, what did I do?
I tried to save the day.
Some assassin I am…
And yet, I didn’t have the kind of incentive my father just gave me.
Erase Elhyor from existence or erase who my best friend is.
I hate him. I hate Michaël. I hate him so much, and yet I hate myself so much more, because if I had succeeded in my mission in the first place, I wouldn’t know Elhyor. I wouldn’t know the man under the dragon facade. I wouldn’t know his kisses, and I wouldn’t crave for more.
I hate myself because there’s a tiny part inside of me that thinks I shouldn’t kill Elhyor, that he doesn’t deserve this, that he doesn’t deserve to die.
And truly, he doesn’t. Birds are petty and have egos bigger than most. That’s all this is about. My father wants Elhyor dead so he can take Notre Dame.
And this is all this farce is about, getting the biggest church of Paris, because appearances are important, and if the leaders of the religion and the people don’t have the biggest symbol of Paris, it doesn’t sit right with the archangels. Or I suspect that it just doesn’t sit well with my father, since he already managed to get rid of Gabriel and his only son.
So, this is it. I’m either losing my best friend or Elhyor, only for my father’s ego’s sake.
“We don’t have a solution,” I mumble to myself, and as much as I want to hug Léandre, because I know I will most certainly lose him very soon, I let Cassiopé do the hugging. First, because I don’t know if I can look him in the eye and tell him that I don’t know how to make this right. I don’t know how to kill Elhyor in the first place. And second, because Cassiopé is a hugger, and she’s so much better at it than I am.
And maybe, just maybe, I’m also scared I’m going to break in his arms if I get too close to him.
Instead, I look Elhyor in the eye.
“Don’t wait for me tonight.”
