Tristan smirked. “Is that why you spend all your free time in taverns and gambling rings? To soothe your exhaustion?”
Gabriel leaned back in his seat. “No. I do those things to distract me from the emptiness.” And the guilt.
Nathaniel let himself into Tristan’s house as well. “Good day! What are you two talking about?”
Tristan answered, “Well, Gabriel was just complaining about love—again—and I was wondering why I even bother having a door.”
“Ah, yes. The never-ending search for true love. Ooh! Food.” Nathaniel snatched a chunk of bread off a plate on Tristan’s desk and began eating.
“You do not know what it’s like,” Gabriel said. “I have not felt anything for a woman in decades. Decades. Not since—“
Tristan looked up as Gabriel swallowed Scarlet’s name. Even though a century had passed, Scarlet was still an uncomfortable subject between them.
Gabriel pulled at his ear. “It’s just been a long time since a woman has loved me and I miss it.”
Hoping for Scarlet to come back to life was a cruel game, and Gabriel had quit playing long ago. Tristan, however, lived for the cruelty.
Scarlet might not be alive, but her presence was; her memory was. And that was enough to keep Tristan hoping. God help his poor soul.
“It is a rotten curse.” Nathaniel nodded. “And also quite stubborn in its structure.”
Nathaniel had tried many counter hexes—all of which failed miserably and left sticky, smelly messes in their wake.
He wasn’t a very skilled wizard. Entertaining and knowledgeable, yes. But magical? Not so much.
Gabriel groaned. “Is this what my eternity will be? Empty of love and companionship, and filled with greedy damsels?”
“It could be worse,” Tristan said. “It could be filled with those who enter your house without knocking and eat your food.”
Nathaniel shoved a very deliberate piece of bread into his mouth and looked at Gabriel. “You have me as a companion. What more could you want from eternity?” He chewed with his mouth open.
“Something prettier,” Gabriel said, “and less disgusting.”
Nathaniel swallowed. “If it helps, I’ve never been in love either. I’m beginning to think true love might not exist.”
Tristan turned his eyes back to his dagger with an amused expression.
Gabriel sighed. “I am doomed.”
“No,” Nathaniel said. “You are cursed.”
“Are they not the same thing?”
“Not at all. Doomed means there is no hope. Cursed means you will have to struggle to find hope, then struggle to keep it, then struggle to undo said curse with the hope that you have kept.”
Gabriel blinked. “Being doomed sounds less taxing.”
“Indeed.” Nathaniel smiled.
“Relax, Gabriel,” Tristan said. “Do not be impatient for companionship.”
“This coming from the man who breaks hearts he’s never even met before. Women flock to you and beg for your attention, and you ignore them all.” Gabriel hung his head.
While Gabriel spent his days drinking and gambling, Tristan devoted most of his time to helping townsfolk. Providing food to the orphans, giving money to the churches, letting whoever and whatever find shelter in his large home for indefinite periods of time. It was truly impossible living alongside a brother with such a bleeding heart. And that bleeding heart was like a beacon for women everywhere, drawing them to his presence only to be sent away.
“It’s truly sickening, brother,” Gabriel said. “You, at the very least, should marry one of the poor girls.”
“Why, so I can lose my horses?” Tristan smiled.
“Yes! Then you could join me in my misery,” Gabriel said.
Tristan went back to his knife. “I have my own misery to bear.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes.
Poor soul, indeed.
CHAPTER 7
London 1684
Immortality, Tristan decided, was only magnificent for those who had a reason to breathe and, for him, that reason was lost somewhere in-between worlds. Until Scarlet returned, his every breath was just a laborious means to an end.
So he existed. But he did not live.
Waiting on love will do that to a man; keep his heart suspended in a state of thin hope—just bright enough to want to live and heavy enough to envy death.
Music played into the large, ornate room where he and Gabriel stood among dozens of other well-dressed Londoners.
Laughter, merriment, movement.
Life, breath, hope.
Mortality.
Tristan was envious of it all.
He stretched his neck, trying to ignore the mysterious pain in his limbs.
“Remind me again,” Gabriel leaned into Tristan to be heard above the music. “Why are we at the Trevena Ball?”
“Because we were invited,” Tristan said.
Gabriel took a deep swig from the goblet in his hand. “Yes, but why did we come?”
“Because we are young, wealthy gentlemen and that’s what young, wealthy gentlemen do.” A woman across the room batted her lashes at Tristan and he stifled a sigh, his lungs pulling uncomfortably tight.
“I feel that is a poor reason.” Gabriel took another drink.
A group of ladies by the back doors stared at them in between their whispers and giggles.
Tristan exhaled. “I think us standing side-by-side is drawing too much attention. People do not know what to do with twins. They see us as a circus show.”
“They do not,” said Gabriel. “Now, maybe if we both had tails, we’d be a sideshow. But we do not have tails. We have strong bodies and godlike faces. If we’re a show of any kind, we’re a show of beauty.”
Tristan shook his head. “Your confidence is disgusting.”
“A hundred and fifty years of female affirmation has made me this way.” Gabriel’s smile faltered for the briefest of moments and Tristan felt heavy, knowing who Gabriel was and who he wanted to be were warring enemies.
His brother’s behavior had not changed much in the last century: drinking, gambling, breaking rules, breaking hearts. He embraced his immortality as an opportunity to exploit life as a whole and Tristan acted as his peacemaker and babysitter, trying to keep the wild Gabriel from causing more damage than could be undone in a lifetime.
Tristan had considered leaving London and moving someplace far from his brother, but his conscience never allowed him to leave. Gabriel was a reckless star, casting about wherever he may, exploding into whoever made him feel alive, and burning casualties in his wake.
Lord only knows what that star would burst into next if Tristan were not there to remind Gabriel of those annoying bits of humanity called morals.