Author's Note: Okay. So there was a slightly . . . prolonged period between chapters on this one. I never wanted to give it up, though, simply because it's such an enjoyable writing experience. And by golly, I didn't!

I rather like how this chapter turned out, even though I'm not sure it has quite the same rhythm as the others, due to the aforementioned slightly prolonged period. I hope you all enjoy it – thank you for waiting!

IV.

In January, my grave was showered with rose petals. Christian brought white ones and scattered them carefully, with a furrowed brow and utmost precision. He kissed one of them and pressed it against my name for a moment before letting it fall.

Nini showed up with a single red rose and a scowl on her face. "Now, listen," she told the air, "I don't want to be here, mind. I'm just payin' my respects. Polite, s'all."

And then she saw what Christian had left, and noiselessly plucked the petals from the rose. The wind caught them right away.

Katie brought a bouquet of pink ones.

She fixed her gaze on my name as she spoke. "I know you always liked the pink ones," she said, laughing a little. "They were in your dressing room, next to the birds. Desdemona and Othello." She laughed again. "Those were really awful names for birds. Always an actress, weren't you?"

She set the roses down.

"God, he misses you. Sometimes I'm so afraid, Satine. I think he's killing himself with this. Just . . ." She was crying now; her kohl streaked and swam right along with her words. "Just . . . watch him, will you? Please? Keep him alive somehow."

I wondered for the first time if perhaps she was in love with him.

It was something I had never even begun to consider before; that anyone else could have possibly loved Christian. The Duke had loved me, yes, but I'd known that, taken that knowledge easily.

That someone could have secretly pined for the man I loved, for the one person in the world I belonged to . . .

I began to realize how selfish I had been, in life.

It's strange, an endless grey – the lessons that only death can teach.

Tarot began to decay.

Syphilis, the doctor said. She had a few months at best. Harold kept her in an abandoned room in the back; the others didn't like looking at her. She faded into nothingness, even as she could still breathe. Tattoo went to see her once, and placed tentative kisses in her hair.

She never went back. Once was enough, she reasoned.

Dying is a funny thing. You can't possibly understand it, unless it's happened to you, and if it has, afterward you're in no position to comfort anyone else who suffers the same affliction. It is the one pure loneliness I ever encountered.

I knew that Christian would have tried, though, if he'd known. He would have sat next to my bedside, combing my hair and singing me dear little melodies. Writing nonsense fairytales, about enchanted sleep and beautiful maidens and princes and happily ever afters. His fingers would always be laced with mine, no matter how cold and dry my hands became.

It was a horrifying prospect, to die without having ever been loved, but a real one. A true one.

Three days after the only visit, Tarot slit her throat.

They found her carefully curled up, as though in sleep, blooded rain drops staining her white nightdress.

The Narcoleptic Argentinean downed a bottle of whisky and asked Nini to marry him.

"What's wrong with you, eh?" she demanded, and slapped him across the face. "Are you completely daft?"

He watched her go, and still felt her hand, sharp, against his face.

The Duke went back to the Moulin Rouge in the middle of that month. He was received with glares and muttered curses, and it shocked him, a little. He had gotten used to the feigned respect that people regarded him with, and suddenly he was torn away from the polite little lies that had made up his entire world.

He didn't know much about the truth, and didn't care to make the transition.

During Sunday's twilight, while Marie prayed alone and the others watched Nini and the Argentinean dance, he went to the Red Room. He walked slowly, quiet, careful steps, and saw me in every shadow.

"You haunt me," he told the room, the shrine to his darling, his diamond, the embodiment of everything she'd ever been, at least in his eyes.

Fallen elegance, scented slightly of vanilla perfume; talcum powder; cigarette smoke; roses; sin. Sin, sin, sin, every blanket, every scarf, the ivory piano keys. They all positively screamed dirty little words, naughty echoes of everything that had ever happened in this place.

He noticed something black, nondescript, crumpled into a corner on the bed. Carefully, he lifted it; it was a shawl, my favourite, he remembered the way it had curved gently over my shoulders.

Jerkily, he pressed it against his face, inhaling it, breathing me in after I was nothing more than a slowly rotting corpse. Inhaling me, the essence of me, deep into his lungs, so I was the air he breathed, and he was truly bound to me. Beyond life and death, innocence and sin, Satan and seraphs.

"You haunt me," he whispered again, into the carefully woven silk. He closed his eyes and in his mind – so hopelessly awry – I stood beside him.

"Don't stop."

"The Duke wants us out by April," Harold told Marie that night.

She set her rosary on the dresser and turned to face him. "Well, then. It's set."

"Yes," Harold agreed.

The air was heavy with the scent of gardenias and remnants of whispered prayers.

"You praying for us, then?" Harold asked, and nodded toward the rosary.

Marie shook her head, and reached for the skirt she'd been mending. They didn't need mending anymore, of course, but habit was something one could never easily escape.

"Why the ruddy hell not? We're going to need it," Harold said, slamming a fist down onto his desk. His eyes caught a photograph of me, smiling demurely back at him. His heart ached, for a moment. He didn't speak of it much, but he missed me. "Who do you pray for, then?" he asked, more calmly.

"Her," Marie said simply. "And him."

He didn't look away from the picture. "Did I kill her?"

Marie stood up and set her sewing aside. She kissed his cheek. "Don't be ridiculous, love. What's done is done."

He nodded distractedly and listened to the soft clicking of the door as she left. He reached for the picture frame and held it gingerly, searching. Flawless, porcelain skin. Blood red lips. Intricately styled curls. Coquettish smile.

And eyes, he noted, that weren't quite alive.

"God, I'm a fool," he muttered to himself, and wondered how he'd managed to ignore that she'd been dying even before the coughing started.

Doomed even before he'd started to find the bloody handkerchiefs.

Christian bought a bouquet of red roses at midnight and burned them, placing each one gently into the fireplace, watching the flaming scarlet curl up and wither into dust. They let go without a fight; shone for an instant before nothingness.

Diamonds burn far less easily - they are indulgent creatures, taking time to savor the flame.