When Masks Fall Off

Chapter 2.26: An Unstable Sort of Truce

Nadja tried to keep smiling as she marched determinedly down the deserted, hot streets of Granada, but it would have looked strained even to someone who had never seen the girl before. Arvell's mention of the Black Rose had ruined her day, and there was nothing to do about it.

Which was why Nadja nearly missed it when two pick-pockets stole her brooch. Fortunately, her brooch was important enough that its absence caught her attention mere moments after it was stolen.

When she saw the thieves being felled ahead of her by a strangely familiar shadow, however, and her heart leapt—that was when she knew that her day was ruined for good. She walked hesitantly around the corner, and indeed, there he stood with her brooch in hand.

"Francis," Nadja smiled, because there was no way that she was going to let her mood be killed on such a beautiful day. The black-clad Francis clone looked sharply at her. They stared each other down for a few moments, and Nadja knew that he knew that she knew exactly who he was—and that at that particular moment, she would rather die than admit it.

"Didn't I tell you before not to let go of this?" said the young man quietly, and moved to refasten the brooch for her.

"Th- thank you, Francis," Nadja stammered, quickly snatching the brooch away to fasten it herself. "I- I was just a little distracted."

"Francis" looked at her with a very un-Francis-like cocked eyebrow, and Nadja got the feeling that he was wondering if it had been a certain mysterious thief that had had her attention. She averted her eyes more out of fear that that eyebrow would shatter her wonderful illusion than anything else.

"Would you like to take a walk?" asked Francis, and Nadja wondered if she had been wrong. Maybe this really was Francis—after all, would the Black Rose have passed up the opportunity to tease her? Yes, she had to have been mistaken earlier.

"Sure," Nadja smiled, and it was less forced than any smile that had adorned her face that day—after all, she was with Francis! Her smile widened into a genuine smile. "You know, just the other day, I found the most beautiful flower..."

Fifteen minutes later, Nadja was on a well-fueled ramble.

"Do you like the siesta? I don't like the siesta. I think it's a waste to take a nap when the weather's so good, and I don't understand why people would even want to take a nap in the first place. Do you?"

"No," Francis replied. He wasn't saying very much, but maybe that was just because she was talking too much. Maybe she ought to stop soon.

"At the orphanage, there were more children younger than me, so it was my responsibility to comfort crying and upset children, so I actually never really took naps. But the nights were amazing! We girls would cuddle up and sleep together! But actually, I'm a pretty untidy sleeper. I frequently wake up to find myself upside down. Are you a tidy sleeper?"

"Relatively," replied Francis.

"Which do you like more, sunny or rainy days?"

"Sunny," he replied, and Nadja thought that was odd for a thief who operated in the dead of night. But no, she remembered, this wasn't the Black Rose. Why was she acting as though it was—as though she wanted it to be?

No, she had to stop thinking.

"Me too!" she squealed happily, directing all her concentration as far as it would get from her brain, and shoving all that concentration into moving her mouth as fast as it would go so she could think about nothing but talking and talking without stuttering. "I love sunny days. It feels so good to wake up and find the sun out all shining and warm and beautiful, doesn't it?"

"It does." Why was she asking his opinion anyway?

"But cloudy and rainy days are wonderful too. Everyday is wonderful! I love the way the clouds float smoothly through the sky! I love the rainbows that show up after the rain! I love those lightly falling raindrops that just hit the leaves during a drizzle and make them sparkle! What's your favorite season?" Curse it, she was asking his opinion again.

"Summer."

"I love summer too!" See? This couldn't be the Black Rose. They had way too much in common. And what sort of thief liked summer? They were supposed to like rainy days and dark days and nights and winters and everything that wasn't bright and sunny and happy! "The flowers bloom so beautifully in the summer. But I love winter too. I love every season! I love how the snow crunches beneath my feet. And how scenes in the distance start to fade and then vanish completely into the fog! How about-"

He was looking at her. Looking at her. With narrowed eyes, pleading eyes, as though he were asking her without saying a thing to stop hurting them both. But she wasn't hurting anyone, because he was Francis and she would never hurt Francis! Never! Francis must be trying to communicate something else.

Oh! It was probably about all the talking. Now that she thought about it, she'd been talking a mile a minute, hadn't she? Oh dear, how annoying she must be! Francis would never speak with her again!

"I'm sorry, I'm annoying you, aren't I?"

"By talking? Not at all." Damn him for sounding so sincere.

"I am, I know I am."

"What makes you think so? I think that being talkative is much better than the ladies that sit around in stiff silence." A silence, and Nadja nodded to herself. See? He was talking about nobility. It had to be Francis. "My mother always dreamed of seeing the world outside, but in the end, she died without ever taking a single step out. You're not like that, are you?"

That wasn't what Francis had told her before! "That's not what-"

"Francis told you? Of course it isn't."

Nadja leveled a glare at him. "Francis" looked back at her calmly. "You'll have to face it eventually, Nadja."

"Face what?" said Nadja, and she could almost see "Francis's" heart twisting and wished she could damn him for pretending to have human emotions. "Oh, I'm sorry, have I been acting strange? I just had a nightmare a few weeks ago, and it's still haunting me."

Francis looked at her speculatively for a moment before he took her by the hand. Nadja nearly flinched away before she reminded herself that this was Francis—Francis—and she had no reason whatsoever to run away.

"Would you like to talk about-"

"No!" There was a brief silence in which Nadja wondered if she should be worried that she didn't regret snapping at Francis.

"You know," said Francis, and the gentleness in his voice reassured her somewhat, "There's a beautiful courtyard this way."

Courtyard? Nadja almost asked, but then she looked around—they were in the ruins of a beautiful palace. Nadja's jaw dropped in awe. It was so beautiful and she'd been to busy being preoccupied by nothing to even notice its existence?



The courtyard, true to Keith's word (no! It was Francis's word, Francis's—wherever had she gotten the name 'Keith' from?), was exquisitely beautiful.

"Francis, it's beautiful," Nadja gasped, turning to look at him. "Franc-"



And then his fingers wove through the hair at the nape of her neck, and with a gentle tug familiar lips were covering hers and—maybe it was the stress—everything else in her mind evaporated. She knew these lips, and they were so wonderful—this man was wonderful—and she couldn't do a thing but wrap her arms about his neck and pull him closer.

She'd never been kissed like that before—she'd never known it was possible to kiss like that—and she simply thought she would die if he stopped. There was no one else in the world, nothing that mattered more than her and Keith being togeth-

Keith.



Nadja shoved him away. "How dare you!"



Much to her displeasure, Keith's—the Black Rose's—composure was entirely unruffled. But his hair looked like a crow had just tried to nest in it, and she realized with mortification that that was what her fingers had been doing so delightedly.

"How dare I what?" asked the Black Rose, his voice as light as his expression. "Kiss a perfectly consenting, willing individual?"



"How dare you kiss me! Again! When you don't even mean it! And you're just mocking me! And I don't even know why I kissed you back, but I know that you're going to hold it above my head and taunt me to within an inch of my-"



When he cupped her face and kissed her again, she was too busy debating what to do to actually get around to doing anything. He had kissed her twice before: once she had slapped him and once she had responded. What was she supposed to do now?



But he pulled away before she had the chance to actually get around to doing anything, and looked down at her with serious eyes. Nadja wished they were mocking her—at least then she could just hate him and not bother with the fact that she liked him kissing her, because it would have been just plain wrong if he were evil.



But he wasn't. He was nice. He was human. He had—horror of horrors—a reason that could actually have a point behind his stealing. He was a better kisser than Francis was, by far. And damn her to hell and back, but she actually thought she might like him more today than she'd ever liked Francis.



"I- I have to go," Nadja whispered, and turned to begin running away before the Black Rose—Keith—saw that she was on the verge of tears.



"Nadja," he said, and his voice sounded as choked as hers would have sounded if she'd tried to say anything more just then, and she cursed him for choosing then to show emotion of all times, because tears were already leaking out of her eyes and that was the last straw. A choked sob escaped her lips even as she tried to hold it in, and anyone else might have mistaken it for a cough, but Keith knew her better than that.



"Nadja," he whispered again, and she found herself in his arms. "I'm sorry. I know I'm confusing you. I know I'm hurting you, and I'm so sorry. I just- I was being selfish. I'm sorry."



Yes, he had been. And Nadja could have hated him for it if he hadn't chosen to apologize for it or choose then of all times to be selfless. She fisted her hands in his jacket, buried her face in his chest, and muffled a sob.



He was warm. She could feel his heartbeat. He was real, and he had been all along.



"Why did you have to look alike?" she murmured into his chest, more to herself than to him.



"I've been asking myself the same question for weeks," Keith whispered back, and she felt a wet droplet on her hair and the truth struck her.

Keith had admitted to spending the day being selfish, and hurting her in doing so. Nadja had known that full well. But now she realized that she'd been doing the exact same thing. Refusing to acknowledge that he could be anyone but his brother, knowing the truth yet insisting on pretending that she didn't just because it spared her some pain... Keith had been hurting her, but she had been no better.



"I'm sorry," she whispered brokenly. "I was so busy being angry that you were hurting me—I didn't notice that I was...I..."



Keith's hands left her shoulders and for a moment she thought he would push her away. But then a hand wrapped around her back to pull her into a simple embrace, and his other hand stroked her hair soothingly. "We're both sorry. It's all right now."



"No it isn't," said Nadja, pulling away and laughing through her tears despite herself. "Francis still doesn't know anything. We'll be going through this again when Francis finds out."



Keith scowled: not a good look with tear stains on his cheek, Nadja noted with dim amusement. "Ah yes. And he will not be hugging you or kissing you."



Nadja scowled up at him. "He has more right to hug and kiss me than you do."



"Really? I knew you first."



"I didn't know that."



"You do now, and that makes all the difference."



"So? Just because you insist on forcing yourself on me every time we meet-"



"I thought we'd been over the exaggeration issue."



"I'm not exaggerating."



"Really? Because I don't remember doing anything more than kissing a consenting individual."

"Not the first time you didn't!"

"I'll keep in mind that you yourself just acknowledged that you weren't opposed to two of the three kisses we've shared. And that first one was entirely your fault. As was the second, though I'll claim responsibility for the third."



"What? I had nothing to do with those two!"



"You mentioned Francis."



"Then go kiss him." Keith took the wise way out and chose to ignore this twisted logic.



"You refused to acknowledge me in the face of Francis, like he's some god and I pale to insignificance beside him. Not that it matters. It's the pauper thief or the prince. Any right-minded girl would choose him. Good-bye, Nadja."

Something twisted in Nadja as she watched him retreat silently. But she couldn't deny what he'd said. Any right-minded girl would choose Francis over Keith. After all, what did Keith have to offer? So what if she felt something akin to a spark every time she and Keith touched? She could keep her head on straight around Francis. Francis didn't drive her up the wall and across the ceiling. She and Francis had never fought, while she and Keith had fought every time they'd met—except that first time. Keith did nothing but steal from the rich and give to the poor, while Francis had the decency to collect donations. She and Francis had almost everything in common, while it surprised her every time she found that she and Keith had something in common (though it wasn't quite as uncommon an occurrence as she would have liked, Nadja had to admit).

Really, why would she choose Keith?



She stomped determinedly in the other direction.



"Nadja?" She stopped, closing her eyes tightly. Did he have to come back? She'd been fine parting with him on bad terms. Maybe whatever weird connection they had would have disappeared and they never would have seen each other again.

"For you. Have a nice life with Francis." He dropped a tomato into her hand and left again. Nadja stared after him. If the tomato was supposed to be some sort of peace offering, Keith had failed miserably because she was feeling even more frustrated than before.

Sighing, Nadja plopped down on a nearby bench to munch desolately on the tomato.

It was delicious, she noted with displeasure.