A reprise of one of my favourite characters of my creation. I plan to continue this story, but I have no idea how to do so. Ideas are welcome, and criticism is always a plus.

A special thank you goes out to Shades Of Autumn, who was kind enough to beta for me!

Chapter One

Paris is a city of filth, with only the scent of noxious perfumes on rich ladies' wrists to cover up the stench of excrement that is everywhere. She is populated by flies and maggots, feeding on the shit that the horses leave for them, feeding on the horses that they ride from one point to another.

Paris is a city of vice, beds smelling of sex and smallpox. She is the money you tuck into a whore's stained lingerie, the drunkard outside the cafe, surrounded by his own vomit and accompanied only by absinthe dreams.

Paris is a city of death, hearses crumbling in the middle of the street as horses keel over from the heat. The dead are tucked away in the alleyways, and your drowned kittens are floating down the Seine, little bodies bloated to monstrous size.

"Please continue what you were saying," I murmur to the lady beside me. I have accompanied her to the gardens, sweetly scented with white roses that shine in the milky moonlight. I can hardly remember what party I have been invited to, but it's certainly opulent, even for the upper echelons of Paris society.

The girl, I think, is smitten with my outward appearance. I suppose I can understand her, to some extent. Few have achieved my extraordinary pallor, and none have hair the same shade of blonde as mine. Despite their inherent desire to be like everyone else, the people in high society apparently worship those who are different from the norm.

"I was saying will you accept this rose?" the girl says with a fierce flush. She's holding out a thorny white rose in her bare hands. She's pricked herself, but I don't think she notices the bead of blood on her fingertip.

"I will, ma cherie. Merci," I nod, and accept the rose in my gloved hand. I make a show of savouring the rose's smell for her.

"You are very kind, Monsieur Levesque," she smiles. Her skin is pale as the rose that is in my hand, which I want to crumple so badly. Blue veins stand out on her pale wrists like long thin rivers in a land of snow. Her smile falters as I scrutinize her, and she asks, "Is there something wrong, Monsieur Levesque?"

"No, there is nothing wrong. You just look so healthy," I assure humbly, remembering myself. "When I see beautiful women, I remember the health I unfortunately lack."

Her expression becomes slightly sad, a crack in her neutral mask. Of course, most people in high society know of Andre Levesque, the poor boy who must walk on eggshells wherever he goes, but nonetheless it isn't very civil for me to bring up my condition in such polite company.

"I'm sorry, I see I have made you uncomfortable," I say distantly, and stare out at the night sky, which seems to stare back at me in its vastness. "Often, I forget myself in the presence of such beautiful things."

"Am I a thing to you, Monsieur Levesque?" she says, her face now tight with barely concealed anger. She has just learned that Andre Levesque is an odd one.

"Not so much a thing to me as a thing to others, Mademoiselle," I say courteously, bowing to her in a mixture of propriety and irony. "You are carted around this city and shown off by your father, who looks on you as a bartering chip for more money. Young men look at you as a thing to be used and continue their honourable name into future generations. The rabble looks on you as something to be envied, because you have this amazing existence."

Here I smile bitterly, and look at the rose in my hands. It is already slightly wilting, its delicate white petals now veiny and yellowed.

"The only way you could possibly be someone and independent of others is if you killed yourself," I murmur, and crush the rose's delicate blossom in my hand. Its juice stains my glove with a yellowish excretion which I realize is also scenting the girl's hair. "Only then would you have control over your fate. Is it not true, ma cherie?"

She's long since fled. I smile, and look at the moon, waiting for something extraordinary to happen.

"Pray tell, Monsieur Levesque, where is your chaperone?" asks a voice from my right. I turn around coolly and see Georges, looking at me with a hint of disapproval. It's amazing how dashing he looks even with his eyebrows knitted together.

"I'm not a child, Georges," I huff, no doubt looking like a child as I blow some of my hair out of my eyes. "I don't need a chaperone to make sure I don't hurt myself."

"It's not you I worry about," Georges mutters. I smile. Georges is one of the few people who can make me smile so easily, even if he often does so unintentionally.

"You're in a grave mood tonight," I say.

"And you must be in amazingly high spirits if you are making puns," Georges counters.

"Touché," I relent easily, leaning against the balcony as the faint strains of screaming and panicking reach my ears. We barely pay the noise any notice. "But yes, I am in high spirits, ones that even you can't dampen."

"Don't be so presumptuous, Andre," he says patiently. "The night isn't through yet, you know. Something could still happen."

"And now you have spoiled my mood," I mutter to thin air. The spirit of my Georges has already disappeared, as though he has nothing better to do tonight except be a figment of my imagination. I decide to go back inside, because the once sweet evening air is now bitter.

Chaos awaits me.

Haemophilia is a most unfortunate condition to have. When one can be killed by a few bruises, or a shower of broken glass as one walks into a room that one could have sworn used to have a chandelier, a condition like haemophilia can very easily get on one's nerves.

I turn quite calmly to a bloodied nobleman, his powdered wig sparkling with shattered glass, and I ask, "What happened?"

"Mademoiselle Desmarais jumped into the chandelier," the nobleman says, and points to the corner of the ballroom, where a smoking and bloodied heap lies partially covered by a tapestry. I wrinkle my nose slightly. I don't like such messes.

"It's a miracle there wasn't a fire," I say casually, as though this was a scheduled part of the evening's festivities.

"Yes, quite," The nobleman says, looks at me oddly, and then excuses himself, presumably to clean his wig of broken glass.