On a warm July night in New York City, Luc and Addie find them­selves wan­der­ing uptown, their steps tak­ing them through mem­o­ries of places once vis­it­ed together—Paris, Flo­rence, Boston, and New Orleans. Despite the ten­sion from ear­li­er, they share in the mag­ic of the city, and Luc, with his ever-mys­te­ri­ous man­ner, leads Addie to a secret bar perched atop a sky­scraper. Named THE LOW ROAD, this estab­lish­ment is accessed through an ele­va­tor embell­ished with a design mim­ic­k­ing Rodin’s Gates of Hell, and it requires a spe­cial key for entry, which Luc pos­sess­es.

Upon arriv­ing, the ambiance shifts notice­ably from the sti­fled envi­ron­ments they had pre­vi­ous­ly endured to one of open air and live­ly inter­ac­tion among the city’s elite. The crowd at THE LOW ROAD is a blend of notable fig­ures from var­i­ous sectors—politics, enter­tain­ment, literature—leading Addie to pon­der if any among them had made sim­i­lar pacts to hers or were on the verge of doing so.

As they enjoy a vin­tage bot­tle of Dom Perignon, Addie con­fronts Luc about Hen­ry Strauss, the man she has feel­ings for, and implores Luc to release him from any malev­o­lent inten­tions. Luc chal­lenges her, pre­sent­ing her with a cru­el choice: select some­one else at the bar to take Hen­ry’s place. Faced with the deci­sion, Addie real­izes the grav­i­ty of sac­ri­fic­ing anoth­er’s soul for her wish­es. Yet, when she hes­i­tant­ly makes a choice, Luc responds not with action but with amuse­ment at her attempt, sug­gest­ing that Addie has evolved more than she per­ceives.

This chap­ter mas­ter­ful­ly inter­twines the com­plex­i­ties of human emo­tions with the ethe­re­al, show­cas­ing the strug­gle between desire, moral­i­ty, and the costs of the choic­es we make. Luc’s enig­mat­ic nature and Addie’s moral dilem­ma stand in con­trast to the vibrant back­drop of New York, reflect­ing on themes of temp­ta­tion, redemp­tion, and the val­ue of human life and rela­tion­ships.

En Route to Berlin, Ger­many, on July 29, 1872, the sto­ry unfolds with Addie mar­veling at human achieve­ments while sip­ping cof­fee in a train’s din­ing car. Dis­turbed by the con­duc­tor for her tick­et, she feigns for­get­ful­ness and attempts to elude him, only to be cor­nered and saved by Luc, pos­ing as her hus­band. Their inter­ac­tion is filled with ten­sion and unspo­ken dynam­ics, indi­cat­ing a com­plex rela­tion­ship.

Addie tries to dis­tance her­self from Luc, assert­ing her inde­pen­dence, but Luc effort­less­ly trans­ports them to a dif­fer­ent real­i­ty, reveal­ing his pow­er over the dark­ness and his essence as part of it. They find them­selves in Munich, dressed for an evening at the opera to watch Wag­n­er’s “Tris­tan und Isol­de.” It’s a mag­i­cal expe­ri­ence for Addie, enrap­tured by the music, the per­for­mance, and the pal­pa­ble emo­tion. Amidst this, Luc’s pres­ence is both a com­fort and a reminder of the super­nat­ur­al pact they share.

As the night pro­gress­es, Luc and Addie engage in philo­soph­i­cal con­ver­sa­tions about art, tal­ent, and the price of glo­ry. Luc reveals his role in the deals made with artists, who sac­ri­fice longevi­ty for moments of bril­liance, aim­ing to leave a lega­cy behind despite the cost. He recounts his deal with Joan of Arc, high­light­ing his manip­u­la­tive prowess and the sub­tle word­play that defines the out­comes of these bar­gains.

Reflect­ing on the evening and Luc’s admis­sions, Addie grap­ples with the beau­ty they wit­nessed and the trag­ic fates of artists under Luc’s influ­ence. Her thoughts linger on the nature of great­ness and sac­ri­fice, con­tem­plat­ing the true cost of remem­brance and leg­end.

Their dia­logue extends the nar­ra­tive’s cen­tral themes of mem­o­ry, art’s fleet­ing beau­ty, and the eter­nal strug­gle between tran­sient human expe­ri­ences and the desire for immor­tal­i­ty. Through their Munich adven­ture, Addie con­fronts the dual­i­ty of her exis­tence, caught between awe-inspir­ing moments and the shad­ow of her com­plex rela­tion­ship with Luc.

In the bustling heart of New York City on Octo­ber 23, 2013, Rob­bie, Bea, and Hen­ry gath­er in Henry’s apart­ment for a movie night, ear­mark­ing the pre­lude to Hal­loween with a view­ing of “The Shin­ing.” Rob­bie, with his flair for the the­atri­cal, stretch­es the hol­i­day into an extend­ed cel­e­bra­tion, while Bea and Hen­ry humor his enthu­si­asm. As they set­tle in, the top­ic of Hal­loween cos­tumes comes up, reveal­ing each of their plans: Rob­bie’s trib­ute to David Bowie’s Zig­gy Star­dust, Bea’s wit­ty take on the Dread Pirate Roberts, and Henry’s unde­cid­ed choice, high­light­ing his love for the trans­for­ma­tive mag­ic of Hal­loween despite his cur­rent iden­ti­ty cri­sis.

The cozy scene shifts to a light­heart­ed debate about poten­tial cos­tumes for Hen­ry, inter­spersed with Robbie’s play­ful pho­tog­ra­phy, albeit with a cam­era lack­ing film. Bea prods Hen­ry about his aban­doned pho­tog­ra­phy tal­ent, hint­ing at a life where Hen­ry might pur­sue his capa­bil­i­ty for cap­tur­ing moments. This con­ver­sa­tion stalls as they focus back on the evening’s main event, launch­ing into the hor­ror clas­sic amidst an ambiance care­ful­ly craft­ed by Rob­bie to max­i­mize the thrill.

The ten­sion of the film mir­rors the under­ly­ing cur­rents among the friends, espe­cial­ly when the movie’s icon­ic scary moments pro­voke phys­i­cal reac­tions that break the bar­ri­ers of per­son­al space, par­tic­u­lar­ly between Rob­bie and Hen­ry. This momen­tary lapse into vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty leads to an impromp­tu and pas­sion­ate kiss between them, paused only by the rou­tine burst of pop­corn from the kitchen. Rob­bie’s con­fes­sion of wait­ing eager­ly for this moment col­lides with Hen­ry’s inter­nal strug­gle between yearn­ing for the past and con­fronting the real­i­ty of their end­ed rela­tion­ship. This chap­ter deft­ly encap­su­lates the com­plex­i­ties of friend­ship, past love, and the per­son­al growth that char­ac­ters grap­ple with, all under the guise of a seem­ing­ly mun­dane movie night turned pro­found.

In New York City on March 17, 2014, the pro­tag­o­nist strug­gles with a bur­den she’s car­ried for years, a secret so pro­found yet con­sis­tent­ly dis­missed by those she attempts to share it with. Her nar­ra­tive is not just a tale of events; it’s a con­fes­sion of an extra­or­di­nary expe­ri­ence that has defined her exis­tence. Among friends like Isabelle and Remy, and even strangers, her attempts at shar­ing this secret have always met with dis­be­lief, leav­ing her words to dis­si­pate with­out impact.

How­ev­er, Hen­ry is dif­fer­ent. As she recounts the crit­i­cal moments of her life—the wed­ding, the unan­swered prayers, the dark enti­ty in the woods, and her gravest mis­take of trad­ing her soul under a cer­tain condition—Henry doesn’t turn away. Unlike oth­ers, he doesn’t let her sto­ry evap­o­rate into dis­be­lief. Instead, he lis­tens intent­ly, absorb­ing every word. His reac­tion is unex­pect­ed, not just with his focused atten­tion but with how he process­es her tale. Despite the out­landish nature of her sto­ry, Hen­ry doesn’t dis­miss her; instead, he reveals a shock­ing par­al­lel in his own life, express­ing belief in her sto­ry with a calm, yet detached demeanor.

His ini­tial response is laugh­ter, not of mock­ery but of a man tee­ter­ing on the edge of rev­e­la­tion. This laugh­ter, man­ic and breath­less, is a pre­cur­sor to his own admission—he too made a deal, akin to her own. This moment of shared under­stand­ing is piv­otal. It rep­re­sents a turn­ing point in their rela­tion­ship, mov­ing beyond mere empa­thy to a shared expe­ri­ence that is incred­i­bly rare.

Her ques­tion, “Why?” opens the flood­gates of curios­i­ty and des­per­a­tion for a deep­er con­nec­tion and under­stand­ing. Henry’s reply not only serves as a cli­max to this chap­ter but also as a bridge to a shared his­to­ry and pos­si­bly, a shared des­tiny. His acknowl­edg­ment of his own deal under­lines a com­mon thread of des­per­a­tion, choic­es, and con­se­quences that link them beyond mere acquain­tance.

Thus, the chap­ter delves into themes of belief, iso­la­tion, and the human desire to be under­stood and remem­bered. It jux­ta­pos­es the protagonist’s expe­ri­ence of being per­pet­u­al­ly for­got­ten with Henry’s unequiv­o­cal accep­tance and belief in her sto­ry, intro­duc­ing a com­plex lay­er of shared fate and mutu­al recog­ni­tion.

In Paris, France, on July 29, 1720, Addie pre­pares a mod­est yet heart­felt din­ner in a reclaimed attic space she proud­ly calls her own. After endur­ing strug­gles and employ­ing no mag­ic save for a curse, she has scrounged up a sim­ple meal of warm bread, cheese, pork ter­rine, and wine to enjoy. The room, locat­ed atop a dilap­i­dat­ed build­ing, serves as a sanc­tu­ary from her nomadic and cursed exis­tence, boast­ing a bed, a chest of stolen clothes, and trin­kets col­lect­ed over time. This set­up is not just for her but as a defi­ant ges­ture towards Luc, a dark enti­ty she has a com­pli­cat­ed rela­tion­ship with. She drapes her­self in rus­set silk and rehears­es sharp retorts for their antic­i­pat­ed encounter, mark­ing an anniver­sary of their ongo­ing bat­tle of wits and wills.

Addie waits through the night, her antic­i­pa­tion turn­ing into real­iza­tion that Luc will not come. The sig­nif­i­cance of their anniversary—a mark­er of anoth­er year under the curse with­out his visit—hits her hard. His absence shat­ters her expec­ta­tions and the lit­tle hope she har­bored, high­light­ing her lone­li­ness and the cru­el real­i­ty of her sit­u­a­tion. The room, once a site of resis­tance and per­son­al agency, sud­den­ly embod­ies her despair and iso­la­tion.

In a fit of anger and dis­ap­point­ment, Addie destroys the din­ner set­up, rip­ping apart her silk dress and smash­ing the wine bot­tle against the wall. How­ev­er, her super­nat­ur­al inabil­i­ty to leave last­ing marks of her distress—her cuts heal instant­ly, and the shat­tered glass reassembles—underscores her pow­er­less­ness. Her out­burst turns into a scream of frus­tra­tion at Luc, her­self, and her curse—the sting of immor­tal­i­ty and the pain of eter­nal lone­li­ness.

The chap­ter con­cludes with Addie on the floor among the rem­nants of her cel­e­bra­tion, con­tem­plat­ing the years to come filled with soli­tude. The men­tion of the sea and Luc’s haunt­ing words about the ero­sion of rocks serves as a metaphor for her erod­ing hope and the relent­less pas­sage of time she is doomed to endure under the curse.

Vil­lon-sur-Sarthe, July 30, 1714, sows the seeds of a twist­ed nar­ra­tive with Ade­line wak­ing up to a new harsh reality—she has been for­got­ten, utter­ly erased from the mem­o­ries of those she holds dear. Dis­ori­ent­ed and engulfed by the rem­nants of a night tra­versed through bram­bles of fear and des­per­a­tion, she finds her­self unrec­og­nized by Isabelle, a fig­ure emblem­at­ic of a past inter­twined with warmth and cama­raderie. Isabelle’s puz­zle­ment at Ade­line’s pres­ence, despite her claims of belong­ing to Vil­lon all her life, weaves a tapes­try of con­fu­sion and loss, mark­ing the begin­ning of a haunt­ing jour­ney of redis­cov­ery.

Amidst mutu­al bewil­der­ment, Isabelle extends a hand of wary kind­ness, dress­ing wounds unseen and offer­ing suc­cor to a soul marred by an inex­plic­a­ble curse—a name swal­lowed by silence, an iden­ti­ty ren­dered invis­i­ble. This curse’s gen­e­sis trails back to a clan­des­tine pact, its terms lost to Ade­line her­self, leav­ing behind a shell wan­der­ing in search of a place to belong. Every attempt to anchor her­self through the recount­ing of her own sto­ry fails, slip­ping through the cracks of real­i­ty like water, leav­ing no rip­ple behind.

The return of Isabelle’s hus­band, George, casts a shad­ow of dread over a fleet­ing refuge, prompt­ing a hasty retreat from an ephemer­al haven. Ade­line flees, only to be drawn inex­orably back to the famil­iar yet unclaimable embrace of her child­hood home. This endeav­or to reclaim a sem­blance of her past self through eso­teric symbols—shoes, a dress, and a stick—proves futile as well, echo­ing her curse’s per­sis­tence. Her inter­ac­tion with Isabelle’s son, Hen­ri, and the sub­se­quent denial of their shared his­to­ry high­lights the cycli­cal cru­el­ty of her fate, where begin­nings per­pet­u­al­ly fold into dis­traught end­ings.

Con­front­ed by the unyield­ing pas­sage of time and the era­sure of her very essence, Ade­line resolves to relin­quish the anchors tying her to a sem­blance of nor­mal­cy. She elects soli­tude over the Sisyphean tor­ment of for­lorn hopes for recog­ni­tion or remem­brance. The sto­ry of Ade­line, thus, trans­forms into a soul-chill­ing expe­di­tion through the annals of a life con­demned to the ephemer­al, wrestling with the exis­ten­tial quandary of an indi­vid­ual exist­ing mere­ly as an echo, devoid of attach­ment, iden­ti­ty, or lega­cy. Her final, futile attempt to com­mu­ni­cate with her father through a let­ter that would nev­er bear her words sym­bol­izes the ulti­mate sev­er­ance from human­i­ty, leav­ing her adrift in the vast expanse of for­got­ten realms.

In Chap­ter XIII of “The Com­ing Race,” the nar­ra­tor describes the unique aspects of the reli­gious beliefs and prac­tices of the advanced under­ground civ­i­liza­tion he has dis­cov­ered, the Vril-ya. Cen­tral to their faith is the uni­ver­sal wor­ship of a divine Cre­ator and Sus­tain­er of the uni­verse, which is deeply inter­twined with their under­stand­ing and use of the mys­te­ri­ous ener­gy called vril. The Vril-ya stand out for two pri­ma­ry rea­sons: their unan­i­mous belief and con­sis­tent prac­tice of their reli­gion’s teach­ings. Unlike many oth­er reli­gious soci­eties, the Vril-ya unan­i­mous­ly believe in their creed and dili­gent­ly adhere to its pre­cepts, sig­ni­fy­ing a har­mo­nious con­cord between faith and prac­tice.

One of the dis­tinc­tive beliefs of the Vril-ya is that the all-per­me­at­ing force of vril con­veys every con­ceiv­able thought direct­ly to the divine essence, reflect­ing a pro­found con­nec­tion between the indi­vid­ual and the divine. They hold that the capac­i­ty to con­ceive of a deity and the ensu­ing spir­i­tu­al con­tem­pla­tion is a unique priv­i­lege grant­ed to human­i­ty. This leads them to con­clude that prayer and grat­i­tude are both nat­ur­al and nec­es­sary acts of wor­ship, ben­e­fi­cial for human devel­op­ment. Their reli­gious obser­vances, car­ried out both pri­vate­ly and in com­mu­nal set­tings, are delib­er­ate­ly sim­ple and brief, aimed at pre­vent­ing fanati­cism or hypocrisy, acknowl­edg­ing the human mind’s lim­i­ta­tions in sus­tain­ing pro­longed peri­ods of intense devo­tion.

Fur­ther­more, the Vril-ya cri­tique ancient prac­tices of writ­ing exten­sive­ly on the nature of the deity, argu­ing that such endeav­ors often led to divi­sive­ness and the­o­log­i­cal dis­cord. Attempt­ing to define the divine, they sur­mise, only mires the dis­course in human frail­ties and lim­i­ta­tions, poten­tial­ly under­min­ing the very notion of divin­i­ty itself. Through the voice of his host, the nar­ra­tor con­veys the Vril-ya’s wis­dom: the endeav­or to encap­su­late the infi­nite with­in finite terms invari­ably fails, either by obscur­ing the divine essence or by dis­tort­ing it with human imper­fec­tions. Through this expo­si­tion, the chap­ter reflects on the pro­found rela­tion­ship between belief, prac­tice, and the nature of divin­i­ty in the world­view of the Vril-ya, offer­ing a cri­tique of the­o­log­i­cal spec­u­la­tion and an advo­ca­cy for sim­plic­i­ty and uni­ty in reli­gious prac­tice.