The world was never quiet

Lie 17: I don't need you

It's been a week since the last time I touched this manuscript. A week spent with Lemony trying to trace the Baudelaire's journey, hoping to find them. I won't write anything about it. I don't want anything to fall into their enemies' hands – no one needs to know if they're still alive and, if they are, where they are. We… We owe them that much. We helpless guardians, pathetic liars and manipulators. We'll stop our researches when we know where they are and if they are safe. We promised it. I know what you're thinking: what can our promises mean?

Nothing, indeed. Of all the promises I made (I can't even remember them all, actually), I only kept half of them. Lemony almost never made any, but always kept them. I know only two of them, aside from the one we just made. The one he made to himself to always love Beatrice Baudelaire, and the one he made me a few days after what happened in Mortmain Mountains.

I wasn't planning on writing it. I thought it belonged to us, only us, and that for once, the world didn't need to know everything. He told me I had to write it. That the tale wouldn't be complete without this promise. That no one would be able to understand who I am, who we really are if I didn't write about it. So here I am doing it, because he's a better writer than I am – and because I need to listen to him, every now and then.

The reunion in Hotel Denouement was supposed to take place two days after and we had stopped in a motel about ten minutes away from the said hotel. We could see its figure through our window. Lemony spent most of his time there, next to this window, writing in his notebook and compiling everything we knew about what would happen there. Spoiler: barely anything. All we knew is that VFD would be there… Whatever the side of the Schism. Well, that's what happens when everyone use the same codes and the same hideouts. You get to invite people you absolutely didn't want to invite. We also knew that, following my sauce boat throw, rumours had it that the sugar bowl was within VFD's eagles' claws (I swear they trained some) and were supposed to drop it, I'll give you three guesses, in the Hotel.

You probably wonder what all of this has to do with the promise I promised you – haha, that makes a lot of promises for someone like me. It all happens after… Now, in fact. After a day spent in a deafening silence at piling in our notebooks all the clues and evidence we had (me more than him, actually, since I had a full bag of them). It was the evening and I'd just gotten out of the shower when Lemony came with two chock-full bags. I was wrapped in a towel, my hair was soaked up and I absolutely wasn't expecting him. Not that I was modest – he had already seen me naked quite a few times anyway. But still. I wasn't expecting him.

"We're going to a ball," he declared with a weirdly confident voice. "Tonight.

- Tonight? B-But why?

- Because it takes place in Hotel Denouement and we need to do a bit of reconnaissance there." He threw me one of his bag. "Slip this on, it should fit."

I had never been formally invited to a ball – this kind of things were for actual members of VFD, not those who never formed part of the organization and had a nasty habit of burning everything they got close to. But I already went to a few of them more or less officially and this time was an example. I'm not going to detail you my preparation, but I must say that Lemony had an eye for women's measurements. The dress he'd brought me fit almost perfectly – a bit too long, perhaps, and the shoes suited me. The only thing that surprised me was the mask I found under everything, at the bottom of the bag. It was some sort of venetian mask, made of porcelain, the kind that didn't show anything of the identity of the one wearing it.

Lemony was already done when I got out. He was wearing his own mask, quite similar to mine although his only hid his eyes. He gestured me to wear mine. He didn't comment on my clothes and I didn't comment on his even if I have to admit smoking suits him perfectly. This night a bit more than the few other times I've seen him wear one.

It was bit of luck, actually, that it was a masked ball since half of the surviving members of VFD were already at the Hotel and at the said ball. And yes, it doesn't take a great deal of perceptiveness to recognize someone behind a mask – again, we were lucky most of them were idiots. Lemony and I didn't make our entrance together, partly because I had to do some reconnaissance while he took care of the linen room, the kitchens and the staff rooms. I suspect he wanted to keep me out of his way, because there wasn't anything to spot except for the Denouement twins. At least I could listen to some conversations about me that made me smile. I was both a tragic heroin who saved the sugar bowl (if they'd only knew…) and a monster who burnt the HQ. And let's be clear, I didn't do it.

I was listening to Mr Remora and Nero talking nonsense about the sugar bowl when a mask came closer. Lemony, of course.

"Interesting party?

- Did you know the sugar bowl actually held the location of a field of banana trees? Remora just told Nero.

- He always has interesting theories," he smiled. "Are you dancing?

- Am I… What?

- It's a ball. You'll look suspicious if you don't dance."

Blessed be the mask I was wearing for having concealed my look of sheer stupefaction and my vacant look when he pulled me to the dancing floor where some couples already moved. Let's be honest, I don't know how to dance. I never learnt to, it wasn't part of my father's education. Lemony, on the other hand, knew how to move and I followed him. I had no idea why I was dancing with him, nor why he would do such a thing since everyone was now staring at us.

"For a dead man," I whispered low enough for the music to drown my voice. "You go out often. With a wanted woman in the middle of a ball, no less.

- We're masked. And believe me, the best place to hide is under everyone's eyes.

- You could have come without me. Why did you bring me?

- We're looking for the same thing."

He didn't let me enough time to reply and swivelled me under the crowd's smiles and approving whispers. I felt as if I was in the middle of a turntable, as if the room was spinning around without ever stopping, faster and faster. It sounds silly, it sounds like I was living through my first date, but it wasn't anything like silly or romantic. It was closer to nausea and anguish than to romanticism. But anyway.

When he finally decided to put me back where I was supposed to be – which meant in his arms, I struggled to compose myself. Lemony, you can pride yourself on having me speechless for a few seconds. I don't think anyone can do the same. No one alive, at least.

"And what am I searching for?" I finally asked. "You seem to know better than I do.

- Always the wrong question. You should have asked…

- What you're searching for? I already know." I smiled, even if he couldn't know. "You try to protect Beatrice's children because you couldn't protect her. As well as what remains of your conscience, since she probably rejected you because it was shaky. I don't think I'm doing the same.

- You're just trying to save orphans because you couldn't save Jacques. As well as what remains of your conscience, since he rejected you because it was shaky."

Ouch. I had it coming, to be honest: I was stepping on sensitive areas, he stepped on sensitive areas. I didn't say anything when the music stopped. We stared at each other, even though I could barely see his eyes and he could barely see mine. A second of wavering and he took my waist and I his shoulders for another dance. My head was still spinning, but I'm not certain it was because of the dance. Since the bathroom episode, and even if I'd have much preferred it wasn't the case, there was something strange between Lemony and I. This thing I won't stop describing as a gleam in his eyes which always reminded me of what I felt without knowing why. And I felt like I finally had my finger on it. Rather, that he just put my finger on it. I think he knew all that since the beginning and was now telling me with every delicacy he could. As for me, my brain probably refused to face the fact and understand that he was my reflection, hardly altered, and that it was for this exact reason he was still there – because I was his reflection, hardly altered.

"I am like you," I admitted. "And it's enough for you to trust me with this?

- Don't be too kind with me. Doesn't it cross your mind that I could willingly keep you with me?

- What could I bring you, apart from blowing your cover?

- You kill my loneliness," he replied, strangely calm. "And you take my mind off things."

I let out a pitiful chuckle. I wasn't really surprised he considered me as a stupid girl, barely able to distract him from his run. After all, wasn't I following him for the exact same reason? He was an accommodating guy and he distracted me from my run. It must sounds uselessly mushy, but I still hadn't understood why we were the same, nor why we were still stuck together after the successive events of the bathroom and the HQ, let alone why he had spent all this time trying to get me on my feet. Because I wasn't more eager than today to accept what existed between us, I tilted my head and tried to lighten the conversation.

"Are you trying to say that you like me?

- I think you know as well as I do that it's not about liking." Poor try, really. "If I hadn't found you in the hinterlands, you would be dead.

- Don't try to make me believe I saved your life," I retorted, out of despair more than anything. "You've lived alone for fourteen years.

- Why would I have come to you if I didn't need anyone?"

For the first time in weeks, I felt my heart jumping. My head spun again, more than it was already spinning, and I clung onto him. The song that followed was a slow dance that justified my desperate move.

Desperate – that's what I was. It felt like living over again what I lived with Jacques, except he wasn't Jacques. His voice wasn't as soft, his arms weren't so delicate, his eyes weren't so kind. It wasn't him and in any case, I wasn't really myself anymore. Not really Cassandre. My heart screamed for me to accept what he was offering, at least a part of my heart. The one that survived Jacques and was thirsting for what he brought me back then. This incredible comfort you feel in the arm of a man (or a woman, for that matter), the formidable feeling to know you're loved, the almost too simple joy to know that, no matter what you'll do, someone will forgive you. Which in my case was only half-true. But the one that died, the one that withered back in the Village of Fowl Devotees, couldn't even accept the idea. Jacques was dead, and the woman he loved was dead too. The woman I was, the woman I still am, didn't have the right to love, let alone be loved.

I gulped with difficulties, like a teen who wouldn't know how to respond to advances. It wasn't even advances, it was a mere observation and we both know how true it was. I couldn't deny it more than he could. But he accepted it. I didn't.

"You still love Jacques," he said. There wasn't any disappointment in his voice: this also was an observation, a simple, undeniable observation. "I'm not speaking of love. Neither I nor you would know how to do it.

- Then what? " My voice sounded terrified, like a girl woken up from nightmares. "Why are you telling me this?

- Because I have a promise to make. As long as I need you, I won't abandon you. Not like Jacques.

- Not like Beatrice," I whispered. "And when you won't need me anymore?

- Then you won't need me anymore either."

That was his promise. To never let me down – since it's what he meant, though he didn't dare or want to say it. He was trying to pose as the selfish villain who would toss aside his distraction as soon as he got tired of it. Much like I did, really. A shame that his acting and his mask didn't managed to hide how untrue it was. I didn't reply at first. I didn't know what to say. What could be said, anyway?

So I lied. That's what I do, isn't it? When I don't know what to say, I lied an promise at the same time. Something I must be the only one able to do. And he saw the truth in the lie, something he must be the only able to do.

"I don't need you," I repeated, as confident as can be. "Though I admit it's… Nice not to be alone and I don't intent to…

- I hope you'll keep your promise.

- I didn't promise anything, Lemony.

- Of course you didn't." He smiled. Music stopped and he bowed. "Thank you for the dances.

- Le…"

He slept away and vanished in the crowd, leaving me rooted on the spot in the middle of the dance floor, as if I were a poor girl ditched by her date. I felt terribly stupid, horribly annoyed, extremely ashamed, excessively distressed, atrociously guilty at once… And, for the first time since I let Jacques Snicket go, incredibly good. What I didn't feel, on the other hand, would be summed-up easily: alone. Despite everything I feel today, it's something I don't have anymore. I know I'm not alone anymore. I just need to call Lemony for him to come, and vice-versa.

And, with this absolute certainty in mind, I danced with people that would have thrown me in a pyre – and still would, probably. I assured them of my Very Firm Devotion to the cause, that I would be at the reunion and that the sugar bowl was my priority, of course. I hope you didn't miss the irony of the situation.

I was trying to avoid another dance with Charles – you know, Sir's partner, when Lemony reappeared. Charles was tangled in his explanations of how Lucky Smells Lumbermill worked when he authoritatively grabbed my arm, claiming he missed my presence with a stupidly fawning voice. Thank god my mask hid again the incredulous look I had. Charles bowed, still caught up in his speech and assuring he didn't want to cause any problems as Lemony dragged me in the corridor, away from the crowd.

"One of the twins has seen us," he bluntly said. "I don't know which one.

- Funny how twins are indistinguishable…

- Keep your sarcasms for when we're sure our cover's not blown.

- What makes you think it is ?

- I heard Frank or Ernest saying he spotted two associates ferreting around the corridors. It's enou…"

He got quite when someone appeared at the other end of the corridor. Two people whispering to each other, away from the party absolutely didn't look suspicious, did it? Especially as the someone was Frank or Ernest Denouement – in other words, the one who figured out what we were doing.

Looking back, my first kiss with Jacques was awfully romantic, worthy of one of those sappy movies where the heroin must face danger under her man's teary eyes. Well, given that my whole relationship with him was awfully melodramatic, I suppose it is only adequate that it began like this. No use of me telling you that it is not the case of Lemony and I, righ? One of the Denouement twins had spotted associates – the only way to make sure we weren't going to confirm his doubts or create new ones, if he wasn't the suspicious one, was not to look like associates. So I looked at the man, lifted my mask and quite literally lunged at poor Lemony who would have been less surprised by the sky falling on his head.

This said, you're not a good actor if you don't know how to improvise, are you? It didn't take more than a few seconds for him to play his part and run his arms around my waist. He even managed to hide my now-exposed face. Ernest or Frank walked past us silently, as this kiss looked less and less like a movie kiss – or a theatre one. And even when Lemony backed away as soon as the twin got out of view, the moment of hesitation we shared only reinforced the feeling.

"That's was… Original," he let out, putting my mask back on my face. "It drew his attention more than anything, though.

- Someone told me that the best place is hide is under everyone's eyes."

He didn't roll his eyes – or perhaps he did, I couldn't see his eyes after all… He just turned round and went to the door. And I followed, of course. We reached the taxi and left the Hotel, leaving the party and its guests. We could still hear the music echoing in the hall and vaguely recognisable figures wandering behind the curtains.

If I were asked to choose the best evening of my life, I would choose this one, though at this point I was more troubled, embarrassed and annoyed than anything. It shines in my memories like the evening that marked the beginning of the end of all the horrors I'd lived through for months. Not that my life is better now – but it's always better when someone can understand you. Isn't it?