I love reviews; they are like food for the soul. Anyone who wants faster updates should send me a review, because reading them always inspires me to keep writing.I will eventually explainRemy's past in greater detail, but here's a little taste of what is to come.

I saw myself, standing in that beautiful parlor again, holding that horrible bottle in my hand. I could see my dream self's hands shaking, her face… my face, contorted and streaming with tears.

"What is this!" I/she demanded, waving it in Leon's face, as he stood there grinning that lazy, charming grin of his, completely unaffected by my anger.

"Don't be stupid, my dear Remy. You know very well what that is. That is the blessed drink that bought my financial independence, and your right to marry me."

"This is poison, you madman! What in God's name has possessed you?"

He reached his hand out, and I frantically screamed to my dream self to throw the bottle in his face and run, while she still could. Unfortunately, she seemed determined to do exactly as I had done, and continued to stand there, crying like a complete idiot. Leon removed the bottle from her/my hand and kept speaking, his calm tone defying the insanity of his words.

"You know my parents would never have let me marry you while they lived, not with your parentage so uncertain; they would have withheld my fortune from me. They were taking too long to die, so I simply encouraged the inevitable"

I backed away, shaking.

"Did you honestly think that I would marry you once I knew?"

"I wasn't planning on you finding out. It is simply an unfortunate chance that you stumbled upon it. It changes nothing."

"It changes everything! I am leaving, and I am going to the police."

Oh God, Remy, why did you have to say that?

"You aren't going anywhere!"

He roughly seized my arm, and pulled me close to him.

"Do you really think that they will believe you?" He whispered in my ear. "I could just tell them that you did it. That you were so desperate to marry me you killed my parents, knowing that they would not have allowed it. Who will they believe? The most influential noblemen in this county, or the bastard child of a gypsy dancing girl? You have no proof, just your word against mine."

I saw myself struggling to get free, away from the harshness of his voice and the strength of his grasp. I saw myself reaching for the letter opener on the desk. I saw myself strike out with it, the metal of the dull blade flashing in the bright sunlight. Then I heard him muffle a cry, as blood dripped down his cheek from the freshly opened wound. He released my arm, and I ran.

A mere two steps from where I started, he caught me again, and threw me against the wall. He held my throat in one hand, and the letter opener in the other. He laughed low in his throat, his eyes lit with insanity and rage.

"Now Remy, that was hardly civilized. How far did you think you were going to get? Where would you have gone? Every man in this town owes something to my family. The police, the courts, the church; I control everything here, and in the next town, and in the next. There is nowhere that you can go."

I tried to pull away, and sobbed when I could not.

Damn you and your weakness Remy. You could have fought harder. You could have run faster. You could have killed him with that blade. Instead, you cried like a little girl.

"Please, Leon, You know this is wrong. Let me go."

Oh, I'm sure that the man who killed his parents is going to listen to your pleading. Brilliant idea, trying to reason with the crazy man.

"Oh, don't worry Remy, I'm not going to make you marry me. Not after this. What a disgrace that would be!"

He smiled at me, then turned over his shoulder and called frantically for a servant. Then he raised the letter opener, and slashed his own arm with it, creating a new wound.

"Dear God, what has happened?" His butler demanded, eyes widening with shock as he rushed into the room.

"The woman is crazy! She came to me with this bottle, and told me that she had finally found a way for us to be married!" He cried, as I realized that I had conveniently left my fingerprints all over the bottle. "When I tried to call for the police, she went crazy and attacked me!"

"No!" I shouted, "That's not true, he's lying!"

Of course. His butler will surely believe that.

"Quick, fetch me some rope, and get someone to bring the gendarmes!"

Together, they tied my hands behind my back, as I sobbed and pleaded, trying to explain, but unable to put together a single coherent sentence. Meanwhile, Leon explained the details of my attack. When the gendarmes arrived, they pulled me to my feet and gagged me to silence me, and Leon told them his story. When he finished, he glanced at my face, and his eyes lit up as though he had been struck by a singularly brilliant idea.

"You ought to be careful, and call for a priest," he told one of the gendarmes. "She was unnaturally strong. I suspect she has been practicing witchcraft."

I screamed with rage as I watched my dream self attempt to cry out, attempt to struggle, and fail at both. I tried to fight the officers who led her away, beating at them with my fists, but the dream continued exactly as it had in real life, despite my desperate attempts to change it.

I was still screaming and fighting when I awoke, the sheets around tangling around me like the ropes I had been bound with. When I realized that I was, in fact, not tied up and not being attacked, I stopped struggling, and looked around me. Then I panicked again.

I did not recognize my surroundings, and had no idea where I was or how I had gotten there. I was lying on a soft velvet-covered bed, shaped like a swan and painted gold. Around me hung gauzy black curtains, through which I could make out the glow of candles. Through my waking haze, I could hear the strange sound of organ music.

My first thought was that I had died, and my body was lying forgotten in the cellars of an abandoned Opera house, while my soul had been transported to Heaven. The dull pain that pervaded my body when I tried to move quickly convinced me otherwise. I reached up to touch my face, and found that the grime of the previous weeks had been washed away, though my head was still tender where I had been hit.

I ignored the pain in my muscles as I struggled to sit up, and swung me legs over the side of the bed. I pushed myself to a standing position, and my vision temporarily went white with pain, then dark as the blood rushed to my head. I wobbled on my feet, and used a table to steady myself, before cautiously making my way to the curtain, and lifting it.

A gendarme is a French police officer. Just in case you were wondering.