Cake Eater by Allyson Dahlin

Author:Allyson Dahlin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-05-19T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Two

June 28, 3070, 9:12 p.m.

Louis stares at the shuttered windows and scratches at his jaw. “Or maybe my brother. My older brother. Xavier. Did they tell you about him?”

Xavier was the eldest Bourbon brother, who died of the wasting disease when he was young. No one knows what causes it, whether it’s the food we eat or stuff in the air or our water. But when it strikes, especially when it strikes someone as young as Xavier, it takes hold quickly. Big tumors and sores drain the life from people. They become skin and bones, they lose their hair, their skin dries into big flaky patches. It’s only now that I’ve really thought about how terrible that might have been for Louis, like I forgot that he had this whole other life before I showed up. Stupid of me. I just nod and rest a hand on his knee. He’s still running a thumb against his jaw, eyes wide and lost.

“Yeah . . . Xavier . . . ,” he says. “Everybody loved him. He was all the things I’m not. Clever like Stan, confident like Philippe, charming like Grand-Père. So, at that time, my père was dauphin and Xavier was heir apparent after him, but now we’re stuck with me. It’s kind of a joke.”

He shakes his head, lips pursed like he swallowed something bitter.

“Louis . . .” I hate it when he talks like this. Like he’s such a bad dauphin.

He shrugs. “Well, what were the odds? That both of them would die and I’d be the one left? It was never supposed to be me. That’s why I didn’t get any of the training until I was ten, and by then I was just kind of . . .”

He gestures helplessly in the general area of his face, as if he’s some unremarkable piece of furniture. My brain finishes the sentence for him. Perfect, it says. I’ve never thought of him this way before. It’s a surprise to feel this, that “perfect” is the word my brain stuck into that sentence. I should say the word out loud, because I think he needs to hear it. But the feeling of it is so new, the connection he formed by telling me is so fragile . . . I can’t break it. Instead I ask, “You were left alone, weren’t you? They ignored you to train Xavier, and then Stan and Philippe were born and they’re kind of . . .”

“Annoying?”

“I was going to say chatterboxes, but yeah. That too.”

He smiles. Just a little.

Then he frowns, stares down at his hands. “He got so thin. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen someone with the wasting disease, but it’s like they just melt into a skeleton. To see him like that, my brother . . .”

I rub his broad back, and he keeps talking.

“My père was never the same after Xavier died. I remember him as kind of a sad guy before and after Xavier. Wore black a lot.

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