He was a monster. Mary had told her that. The word echoed through Lola's brain as she charged down the corridor: monster, monster, monster. They had seen their fair share of monsters in their years at court and there was always the threat that there were more monsters to come, waiting offstage, shadowy figures ready to pounce and torment them. It was an ever-present, never changing reality for women and no one was immune. So why then did Lola feel the need to seek out this monster and risk its wrath all to say goodbye to Estelle, a young woman she barely knew?

Lola could feel the answer the moment she saw Estelle at court, the same grave expression she had while trapped in that cage: Estelle had felt hopeless, unable to continue fighting, ready to jump off the edges of the earth to find peace in death. Just as she had not hours before, finding this peace on some rocks beneath a cliff. Lola remembered how she had felt that same hopelessness inside herself over the years: after the deaths of her two brothers, when she learned that Colin, her Colin, was accused of being a rapist, and when she realized that Julian had not followed her out of the burning house. A person can only stand so much unhappiness.

She knew the monster Lord Narcisse was inside the room ahead of her due to the guards posted at the door. They tried to sway her away from the room, but she pushed through the door anyways.

Inside she found a sight she had not expected: the proud lord sitting next to Estelle's body. His arms were pressed up against the dead girl, smoothing back Estelle's soft hair with a gentleness she did not believe he had in him. He stared down at her as if he could not believe his eyes. He had been crying.

These were not the tears of a monster, but of a man who had recently buried his son and now learned that he must burry his wife too. His latest of several wives. She had been prepared to shout at him or stare him down with cold eyes. She had not expected this. She did not know what to say to this man before her, except apologize and grieve with him.

He hardly acknowledged her presence in the room before he began to speak. "I don't understand how she got away, out of the castle…a cliff in the country."

Lola suddenly felt guilty believing that if she hadn't pushed Estelle away the girl would still be here, having found a friend in Lola. She would not have jumped off that cliff. But Estelle would have jumped from a ledge or a window, any surface from which her family beckoned her from.

But this was the man Estelle feared, the whole reason why she left in the first place. "Estelle seemed troubled. Afraid," Lola told him. "Perhaps she was fleeing something." Someone like you.

He caught the meaning her tone. "You heard the rumors? These damning rumors of my treatment of my past wives?"

"Do you deny them?" Lola asked outright.

He scoffed. "Contrary to the reputation I enjoy, I am not a soulless animal."

If only he had told Mary those words. If the queen were here she would tell Lola to not feel pity for someone like Narcisse. But Lola could not help it: she felt a wave of pity for Narcisse and for Estelle. Had Lola ruined their chance at happiness? She often wondered if she was cursed to accidentally spread unhappiness everywhere she went. Maybe this was a fitting curse for a woman who could fall in love in an instant, unable to control her heart, prepared to race to the end of the earth for someone she barely knew as long as her heart felt it was right.

She thought back to Estelle's frightened face. "There didn't seem to be an excess of tenderness between the two of you." Though, to be fair, she rarely noticed an excess of tenderness between most couples at court, save for Francis and Mary, and now Kenna and Bash.

"Did Estelle tell you that her father owed me substantial debt? I wed her so she may keep her property." He must be lying, she thought immediately.

"And for yourself." Suddenly she realized how harsh she sounded. Then her logical side saw how this revelation could be true. Estelle might have omitted this due to embarrassment, or maybe she had realized upon her arrival at court that it was mistake: her family's property had nothing to do with her happiness. It could be possible…some girls are sold off to marry for less.

Narcisse had an immediate reply: "Well she was young and I need heirs. We both lost family to the plague but the difference is that she thought that hers had returned, that they were beckoning her." Lola had met her fair share of ghosts too—not physical forms that raced through the castle at night like in a story, but ghosts of memories and people, of loves and friendships that might have been. Colin. Her brothers. Julian.

Narcisse's next sentence surprised her: "They tried to take her life before." So it wasn't Lola's fault she realized since Estelle had attempted suicide before. "Oh, I kept her under close guards thinking that I could protect her." Now his earlier behavior made sense to Lola.

"And the rumors of your other wives?" she asked.

She noticed the haunted, pained look in his eyes. It was the look of someone who was helpless, ready to give up hope and jump off the edge of the world like Estelle had. "I can't stop them." Then he began to ramble, speaking mostly to himself, words he need to tell someone, anyone, even the King's mistress whom he barely knew outside of a brief exchange months ago. The words poured out because it was pointless to silence what he felt so strongly.

"I was young when I first married. A wealthy match my father made. He pushed us both relentlessly to produce an heir. There were miscarriages. And yet we kept on trying. I was fifteen, I knew nothing of women or their bodies." He recalled the shock he had felt when he saw the blood. It was at that moment in his life when he realized the strength women had, a strength he did not think he could bear. But he would need his own strength soon enough: his young wife was dead before he could do anything to save her. "A year after she died my father arranged my second." This wife had died quickly too. She had given birth to a son, a son who could not stop bleeding, just like his mother. "Hemophilia."

"Loss of blood…" Lola echoed the rumor that had scared her earlier.

"She faded away before my eyes…"

This Narcisse that sat in the room with her was not a cruel monster that caused the death of his wives: he was unfortunate and lonely just like everyone else in court, including Lola.

He took a deep breath and stood up to leave as if this is the end of the conversation. "I rarely speak of these things," he added, gently.

Lola remembered hearing another sad story from the queen mother Catherine de Medici's lips over a year before. Catherine had told Mary and her ladies—those girls—of her own imprisonment and suffering. Lola was struck by how similar the queen mother and Narcisse were in this moment. Two lonely people bruised by the loss of so many loved ones, a pain they hid behind a proud, dangerous exterior. She realized that the two were not the monsters she had once made them out to be; instead they were victims of circumstance that were damaged and worn, but refused to give up.

Like Lola.

Like so many other people she knew and loved.

"You've never been in love?" she said, speaking her thoughts aloud.

His blank expression told her: no. "That is a rare jewel I have yet to see." Lola had a child, a family, and friends. Narcisse had no one left to grieve with, no one to love, only a never-ending pile of corpses to mourn for.

It was at this moment that he looked at her, their gazes locked for a moment. In that moment she understood him and pitied him: the lonely man with nothing to fill his life and heart but wealth and power, two poor substitutes for the warm feeling of love. She pulled her eyes away from Stephan Narcisse's haunted eyes and looked down at the floor. It hurt to look at him. It was like looking at a wounded animal one had caught in the woods. She felt guilty. She felt empathy. She wanted to assure him of hopeful tomorrows and a brighter future, but those words meant nothing to her now and they certainly would sound extremely hollow to him.

She did not speak. She did not touch him or give him a sympathetic smile. Instead she left the room silently, leaving the broken man to cry alone in the privacy of his own chambers. As she strode away from the door she knew he was crying. Her ears did not hear the sound of sniffles or gasps, but she knew it just the same: she felt it.