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It takes Maelle--Alicia, she reminds herself--more than an hour to decide to leave Verso's Esquie toy on his grave. It is his toy, after all. But the weather feels portentously like rain. Or maybe that's just projection, wishing the sky would cry along with her.
After returning to her room, she looks out of the window to see droplets starting to land. She runs to fetch Esquie. He's too precious to leave moldering out there like that. She'll just have to take him to visit Verso, instead.
Her indecision means she is a few minutes late to the table.
She isn't hungry. She doubts any of them are. But Papa was quite insistent that they dine together this evening as a family. No exceptions.
Papa doesn't scold her for being late. He barely spares her a glance.
"You will not leave this estate, Clea," he says, and he's not quite clutching the knife like it's a weapon, but it's a near thing. "I will lose no more of my family."
Clea spears one of the asperges on her plate, ignoring him.
"I mean it," Papa insists. "No more of this pointless war."
That provokes a snort from Clea. "It isn't pointless, and it isn't a war."
"No?"
Clea looks up, her eyes dark and faraway. "No, Papa. It's an extermination."
Alicia looks to Maman, but Maman is frowning at her plate as if struggling to remember how to use cutlery. Perhaps she's forgotten, after so long in the Canvas.
And Papa? Papa's lips are curling, as if he's trying to repress a smile.
"I see," he says. "And the Writers are... vermin. Hm."
He nods, sits up straighter, and cuts into his andouillette, eyes warm.
"Clea," Alicia begins, "I would rather you did not--"
"And I would rather I did." Clea tosses her hair back, and takes a bite of her asperge. "Vermin must not be tolerated," she adds, despite her mouth being full.
Alicia looks at Papa, and then at Maman, and then again at Clea.
Papa isn't going to stop Clea.
Papa is pleased by Clea.
Alicia slips from the table, without apology, and goes upstairs. She has no Canvas and she isn't enough of a painter to create one by herself. But she knows how blood feuds work. One day, she thinks, with Clea set on this route, she'll have no family left. Which means nobody to stay in the real world for, and nobody to stop her.
Verso's room still has all his old things in it. He learned how to make a Canvas when he was younger than she is, even if he did throw art over for music. She'll start there.
Verso would hate for her to want this, she thinks, and the thought makes her hesitate, one hand on the door. He'd remind her that she'll die if she spends too long in a Canvas, and even if she leaves once in a while, she'll grow old fast, or go mad like Maman was.
But that's a trade she'll make gladly.
And why not? Out here the loneliness will kill her slowly anyway.
She opens Verso's door, and closes it quietly behind her.
Now. Where exactly would he have hidden his old paint set?