Chap­ter XIII, On a warm July night in New York City, the air thick with the hum of the city, Luc and Addie find them­selves walk­ing through the streets, their jour­ney lead­ing them toward places filled with mem­o­ries of their shared past. Their steps are heavy with the weight of what has passed—Paris, Flo­rence, Boston, and New Orleans—all cities that have held sig­nif­i­cant mean­ing for them, places where they’ve shared moments that have shaped their rela­tion­ship. Despite the unre­solved ten­sion between them, they can’t help but be drawn to the mag­ic of the city, the lights that shim­mer in the dis­tance. Luc, ever the mys­te­ri­ous fig­ure in her life, leads Addie to a hid­den bar locat­ed high above the streets, a place that feels worlds apart from the chaos of the city below. Known as THE LOW ROAD, the bar is accessed by an ele­va­tor adorned with intri­cate designs resem­bling Rodin’s Gates of Hell, a fit­ting trib­ute to the enig­mat­ic nature of the place. Entry requires a spe­cial key—one that Luc pos­sess­es, allow­ing them to pass into a space that feels both pri­vate and dan­ger­ous, the kind of place where secrets and deals are made, and lives are irrev­o­ca­bly changed.

The moment they step into THE LOW ROAD, the ambiance shifts, trans­form­ing from the dark and tense mood of their ear­li­er inter­ac­tions to a more live­ly, open atmos­phere. The bar, perched atop a sky­scraper, offers an expan­sive view of New York City, with its bustling streets far below. The crowd gath­ered here is an eclec­tic mix of the city’s elite—politicians, celebri­ties, authors—each seem­ing­ly absorbed in their own world, yet unit­ed by the pow­er and influ­ence they wield. Addie, observ­ing this crowd, can’t help but won­der if any of these influ­en­tial fig­ures have made the same kind of pact she has with Luc, or per­haps are stand­ing at the precipice of a sim­i­lar deci­sion. The idea lingers with her as she sur­veys the faces around her—each per­son, she imag­ines, pos­si­bly hid­ing secrets of their own, secrets that could rival hers. The thought that there may be oth­ers in this city, or even in this very room, who have made deals that will change the course of their lives, fills her with a sense of unease and curios­i­ty, as though she is part of some­thing much larg­er and dark­er than she ever ful­ly under­stood.

As they sit down, enjoy­ing a glass of vin­tage Dom Perignon, the con­ver­sa­tion takes a turn, and Addie seizes the oppor­tu­ni­ty to address the mat­ter that has been weigh­ing heav­i­ly on her mind. She brings up Hen­ry Strauss, the man with whom she has formed a deep emo­tion­al bond, and pleads with Luc to release him from any harm­ful influ­ence that may stem from their pact. Her words are filled with urgency, as she fears for the man’s safe­ty, know­ing the depths to which Luc can go to main­tain con­trol. Luc, how­ev­er, remains calm, his expres­sion unread­able as he presents her with a cru­el ulti­ma­tum: she must select some­one else from the crowd to replace Hen­ry. The propo­si­tion stuns Addie, forc­ing her to con­front the dev­as­tat­ing truth of what Luc’s pow­er tru­ly entails. The deci­sion isn’t just about sav­ing Hen­ry; it’s about choos­ing anoth­er soul to sac­ri­fice in his place, a hor­ri­fy­ing choice that feels like an irre­versible betray­al. For a moment, she hes­i­tates, grap­pling with the grav­i­ty of the deci­sion, the weight of the lives involved in her choic­es. Final­ly, with pal­pa­ble reluc­tance, she selects some­one, but Luc’s response is not what she expects. Instead of act­ing on her deci­sion, he sim­ply laughs, reveal­ing in his cryp­tic man­ner that she has evolved in ways she isn’t even aware of. He sug­gests that her actions, how­ev­er seem­ing­ly insignif­i­cant, reflect a deep­er change in her, a shift that she has yet to ful­ly com­pre­hend.

This chap­ter dives deep into the com­plex­i­ties of moral­i­ty, desire, and sac­ri­fice, shed­ding light on the inter­nal con­flict that Addie faces in her rela­tion­ship with Luc. The dynam­ic between them is one of manip­u­la­tion and pow­er, but also, as Luc’s cryp­tic words hint, of growth and resis­tance. Addie’s grow­ing aware­ness of her own moral compass—her abil­i­ty to chal­lenge Luc’s cru­el offers and manipulations—marks a sig­nif­i­cant turn­ing point in her jour­ney. The choic­es she faces are not just about sav­ing some­one she loves, but about grap­pling with the con­se­quences of wield­ing such pow­er. It’s a moment where love, fear, and the human desire for con­nec­tion col­lide, and Addie must con­front the cost of her past deci­sions. Luc’s pres­ence, ever dom­i­nant, forces her to ques­tion every­thing she thought she knew about her­self, love, and free­dom.

In the larg­er con­text, this chap­ter also exam­ines the fragili­ty of human exis­tence and the val­ue we place on rela­tion­ships. For Addie, her time with Luc has been defined by a con­stant strug­gle for agency, yet with Hen­ry, she finds her­self con­front­ed by a love that offers her a dif­fer­ent kind of freedom—a love not shaped by deals and dark pacts, but by gen­uine emo­tion­al con­nec­tion. Her con­fronta­tion with Luc in THE LOW ROAD serves as a turn­ing point in her sto­ry, a moment where she begins to tru­ly under­stand the depth of the choic­es she has made and the sac­ri­fices they have required. The crowd at the bar, the secrets they hold, and the choic­es that hang over Addie’s head rep­re­sent the larg­er forces at play in her life—forces that she can no longer ignore. This moment not only marks a dra­mat­ic point in the devel­op­ment of her char­ac­ter but also sets the stage for the choic­es that will define her future, a future that, for the first time, feels with­in her grasp, even as it remains uncer­tain and fraught with dan­ger.