THE QUICKSILVER REVERB OF CHROMA THRUMS TO LIFE, flickering across her form, stirring within the bottomless fount of her reserves. once, twice, before it’s leashed again, tucked neatly inside a crawlspace hidden from view. she doesn’t reach out. doesn’t change him into an anomalous shape, anoint him with the touch of her hand until he’s reduced to smears of colour drizzled with paint thinner, drip-drip-dripping onto the ground. A PORTRAIT MADE NIGHTMARE, hacked apart and hollowed of pulp. bending to her designs just like her namesake did. but there would be no point to such a display. after all, his taunts hardly warrant the effort.
❝ what’s happening? ❞ she repeats incredulously, a combative note to her words. ❝ nothing of consequence, only a nationwide clash between factions. quite the diverting pastime, i must say. ❞ the laugh she ekes out is a dry, unfeeling sound, distinctively bereft of lustre, as though snagging on a grain of shrapnel lodged in her throat. ❝ rest assured, i have it under control. like i always do. ❞ and she does. she has to. an unwilling bellwether, RESOLUTE IN SEEING THIS TO THE VERY END, no matter the cost. even with the figurative lunette digging into her skin and the shadow of a blade dangling overhead as it descends, little by little, ready to be set loose at any given moment.
❝ think whatever you will, but i’ve been spending every damned second of my days trying to ensure their safety. ❞ too defensive. she hears it as soon as it leaves her tongue. tastes the high-strung vulnerability at the back of her teeth. for one uncomfortable reason or another ── neither of which she cares to investigate ── clea finds that she doesn’t much relish the thought of verso’s copy becoming privy to the inner workings of her schemes in paris. ugly though they may be, her actions are necessary. as is the extent of the fervour with which she seeks out retribution. no, vengeance. still, she doesn’t want him to know, to see. to look at her with her dead brother’s eyes full of judgement and a face that screams how could you? THE SIGHT ALONE MIGHT JUST UNMAKE HER. cleave her heart in two. the kind of agony that hurts like a gangrenous malaise calcifying her insides. maybe she deserves it. because verso is gone. buried. he’s gone and she never even had the chance to be his mourner, so she’ll be his warmonger instead. he’s gone and she’s here, left to pick up the pieces. she could kill him. wring his neck bare-handed. that foolish, stupid martyr.
now, she swallows it all down the best she can. an absent-minded pass of her fingers over the divot in her brow, the heel of a palm pressing into her temple. a tangent, a lifeline, she needs to stir this conversation toward safer waters. ❝ that reminds me ── i told you to keep an eye on alicia, did i not? ❞ this is familiar. the wintry flagellation she directs at the entity before her, who’s done nothing useful but run rampant through the broken amphitheatre of her childhood. LIKE A GHOST, A POLTERGEIST THAT REFUSES TO RELENT. when she closes the distance to elbow past him, nearer to the edge of the cliff, the disdain she harbours for him is palpable. ❝ she’s still off playing ruffian with aline’s pets. i all but dragged her out of there myself. ❞ a lie. she’d seen her from afar. a shock of red hair across some filthy corner of lumiére. younger. brighter. clea couldn’t bring herself to do a thing, hypocrite that she is. ❝ i can’t afford fretting about what she gets up to on her own. so do better. ❞