7: Avoidance

Honesty. Her greatest strength.

Grandmère suggested that honesty might be the enemy’s greatest weakness.
Alexa hated lying and she hated being expected or asked to - or even needing to think about the piles of lies so high she was afraid she would drown in them.

The enemy’s greatest weakness
Fucking superbe.
If only someone could point out to her who the enemy was.
Because as far as she could tell, everyone had lied to her. Everyone was a potential enemy.

Grandmère had a “contract”.

So whatever she’d done - or not done - had resulted in the need for a contract. A need to tell a child lies for eighteen years. A requirement to bleed for honesty.

Her greatest strength.

Alexandrie knocked back two more shots rather than choke on the furious bitter sob that held Grandmère directly responsible for the threats Genofeva levelled at her and the others. The city. Everyone.
Unless she gave herself to Genofeva. And while Alexandrie knew the woman had lied about some of what she said, she knew Genofeva only really wanted Chevalier and Alexa - both of whom had sprung from Grandmère’s actions in one way or another.

All of this - everything - was the result of Grandmère not doing what La Chanson wanted and La Chanson’s sick sense of humour giving the same task to a child fattened for slaughter on the stories of the former.

She choked on a shot and it burned her throat - made her eyes water. Good.

She’d walk the journey laid out, simply walk to the mountain - a road bathed in the blood of the unworthy, cut down by claws in the dark.
Or so everyone seemed to think.

At least Genofeva was clear she just wanted Alexa. La Chanson pulled everyone into place like puppets on strings, cutting strings when they crossed, rather than stopping to tease them apart.
Her eyes closed and she felt the prickle of tears, sharper, more potent than any alcohol.

Eyes still pressed closed, she put the cold glass to her lips. She didn’t want to say she hated Grandmère - it wasn’t strictly accurate, though the emotion was just as strong.
She resented Grandmère - and she resented Mysel.
Grandmère for failing to be the person Alexa had thought her to be - for failing so completely.
Mysel for humanising someone who was not supposed to be human and trying to bring reason to something so deeply emotional.

She didn’t want to talk to a miserable human.
She didn’t want to talk to someone afraid of her.
She didn’t want to talk to a liar - whatever the reason might have been.

She wanted to talk to Grandmère.
She wanted to talk to a hero.
But Ellinora had been right - that person didn’t exist.

Grandmère was a fraud.
She’d refused to do what it wanted - but agreed to a contract that compromised who she was.
Who Alexandrie had been raised to believe she was.
But how could Alexandrie blame Grandmère for such a contract?
She was as much a child of Progress as Alexa herself, after all.

Progress had given her status and La Chanson had taken Alexandrie as payment.

She hoped the price was worth it.
She’d idolised the great Alaina Donadieu.

Her eyes opened, distant. She knocked back the contents of the glass.

She didn’t know if Mysel was watching. She didn’t care. The twelve year old said she would want solutions. Of course she would want solutions.
Now was not the time for solutions.
Now was the time to forget everything existed.
She’d failed the night before. She wouldn’t fail this time.

A demon worshipper wanted to slit her throat - and that was the most honest anyone had been with her.

And Spider had gone before she had a chance to ask him what Genofeva meant about keeping things from Alexa…she seemed to know why Alexandrie was being called to the mountain. She didn’t say why, either.
So who was the enemy?

Only one of them had told her what they wanted her for.
Only one of them had been clear.
Only one had said her friends were unnecessary if she simply agreed to go quietly.
Only one of the women seemed to have the ability to follow through on their word.

Grandmère…Alexa didn’t hate her, but she didn’t know if she could trust her, either. And she hated feeling that way about family.

Alexa had killed. It was all still so recent. Dreams of screams woke her on occasion. Grandmère had likely done worse.
Likely.

Was she truly better than Genofeva or did they all just want her to be?
Alexandrie only had one question for Alaina Donadieu, and she was not ready to ask it. She didn’t know if she ever would be.

If she knew then what she knew now…would she have done what La Chanson asked?