During the last evening Gepetto had pressed to know more of the curse that had taken his niece's life. Yuri for his part remained elusive on the subject. She had traded her life for his, and he had failed to find the counter for it in time. The end result was her death, and there was nothing else of significance. He never told how the curse had come on him in the first place, or when the trade had been made, or why she'd done itthough this Gepetto could guess from the letters in his trunk. Alice had written to him constantly and Yuri had often been mentioned, usually in passing comments about little things he'd done that had either pleased or upset her. Gepetto had the impression she would have written more if she hadn't been worried about boring him.
'He's a lively person; Zhuzhen often groans he can't be shut up for anything, but at least there's always something to talk about. If he's quiet for more than a few minutes we know something's bothering him.'
Well then, something was bothering him and it was obvious what. For the past hour he'd done nothing more than sit hunched in his trench coat, which he'd taken back after the shivers had started, and toyed with the silver cross around his neck. Gepetto had just opened his mouth to ask how he was feeling when Yuri suddenly laughed.
There was a brief pause. "What?" Gepetto asked.
Yuri shook his head. "Just thinking how hard Halley would sock me if he could see me." He thought for a minute. "Did Alice tell you about him?"
"Er...I think so. You helped him find his mother, I think?"
"Yeah, 'cause she was splitting my head apart. Telepathy doesn't work well with me," he explained when the puppeteer frowned.
"Telepathy?"
"Yeah. What, Alice didn't tell you about that? We only met 'cause the damned voice screamed at me to get on the train."
Gepetto shook his head, more confused than ever. Alice had not been able to write while in China, so the details he knew were quite sketchy. "She said you rescued her from some thugs is all I heard."
With his lips twitching the young man looked like he would burst out laughing any second. "Ah, man, Albert would be spitting mad if you called him a thug. Alice didn't tell you the half of it." And with that he launched into the full story of what had happened. It started relatively calm, just going to find a girl, but then a warlock boarded the train and killed all the Japanese soldiers with his minion which had severed Yuri's arm but then Yuri had crushed it and popped his arm back on and then the warlock had sent him flying through half the train and tried to make off with Alice but Yuri had followed him and BAM-
"Lively was an understatement," Gepetto muttered as Yuri leapt up to demonstrate how exactly he'd punched Albert Simon. It was a welcome distraction though, and the puppeteer listened as Yuri regaled him with stories about cannibal villages, crumbling sewers and haunted temples. Though Gepetto had some experience with magic, having studied it after Alice's ability piqued his curiosity, he determined that some parts of Yuri's story had to be just thatstory. The accounts of the warlock reanimating a corpse and of another summong a god that had ravaged Shanghai were simply too wild to believe.
From Shanghai Yuri went to Prague and what seemed months later without any explanation about what had happened between. Gepetto noticed he also glossed events in Rouen, seeming uncomfortable with the subject. But then, that was where Alice's father had died, and she must have been upset returning there.
At the mention of London he became animated again as he told about a ragtag group of snot-nosed brats and their close shave with an orphanage whose owner used children for his experiments. With the help of their young leader Yuri had rescued the children and, when Halley had lost control of his power, learned the identity of the mysterious voice that had brought him and Alice together: Halley's mother, Koudelka.
"And that's why Alice and me met," he ended, plopping back down in his seat.
"Eh? What kind of way to end a story is that?" Gepetto demanded. "What happened with Albert Simon?" He knew most of it, if not all of it, was a tall tale, but the lad couldn't end the story with such a large issue unresolved.
"Oh. Well, he kidnapped Koudelka and raised the Float, we rescued her, killed him, then offed another god." Yuri shrugged, a frown growing. "She kept saying she was fine, but she got tired easily...ah-" Both hands flew up as a rapid string of sneezes was set off. It was no surprise to Gepetto that the young man was sick after wandering in the rain yesterday. "Shit."
Cornelia deftly proffered a handkerchief. Yuri did not immediately accept it, examining the doll before grabbing the handkerchief.
"That doll," he said after wiping his nose, "her name's Cornelia, right? What's up with her?"
"Will you tell me more about the curse?" He hadn't mentioned it at all in his story, not until his comment about Alice's health, which Gepetto assumed to have been caused by the curse. Though the puppeteer had thought the color of Yuri's eyes already impossible, he saw them darken a shade further. Yuri opened his mouth, rising out of his seat. Then he grunted and fell back down.
"I already told you, no."
Gepetto was disappointed but unsurprised. It was clear Yuri was close to losing his temper, so he stopped pressing the subject. "Cornelia is my daughter. Alice's cousin. She died years ago."
"Oh...that makes sense."
"Hmm?"
"Her eyes. They're the exact same color as Alice's."
Gepetto smiled, remembering when the girls had made the same observation and how pleased they had been. "Yes, they are."
Yuri patted Cornelia on the head. "Her hair's too yellow though."
"Well, they were cousins, not twins."
The young man glanced up at him, his hand still on Cornelia's curls. "I guess." He let go of her head, thrusting his arms about himself as more shivers came.
"You should rest. You've caught an awful cold."
"Don't tell me what to do," Yuri muttered, already laying down on the chair. His eyes were dull with a sudden exhaustion and they soon closed. Slowly his body relaxed, his hard-pressed lips forming a sad frown.
Gepetto snorted, tensing the strings to bring Cornelia back to his lap. "You picked an interesting one, Alice."